Scientists figured out why you still feel 25 (even though you're definitely not).

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I am 42 this year, and yet, I feel my mental age is 28. I thought it was just me. But then I found out I was not alone in my age confusion and discovered that actually it has nothing to do with denial.

I discovered the concept of 'subjective age' — the age you feel inside versus your chronological age. And what I've come to realise is, it goes deeper than vanity or wishful thinking.

So why do so many of us have an immediate, intuitive grasp of this highly abstract concept?

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The science behind feeling younger.

Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience David Rubin found that there's something called an "attractor age" — a psychological sweet spot our minds gravitate toward.

His research revealed the observation that "'an attractor age' is somewhere in early adulthood, a period that has the highest density of normative transition events, is important to identity and its effects on cognition, and has the most available autobiographical memories."

The magic number for most? Around 25 years old.

It got me thinking. What was I doing when I was actually 28? It was right before I had my first child. How interesting that a period before transitioning to becoming a mother is where I last anchored myself to me.

The office experiment.

I asked my colleagues in the Mamamia office if they also shared this same 'attractor age' phenomenon:

"I feel 23, but am actually 42 and think 40-year-olds are adults," - *Gemma.

"My mental age is 38, but I am 51. I find it very hard to align the perception of 'over 50s' with the age I feel inside, which is more like 38."

"Of course I am older and wiser in some ways but don't feel my attitude, curiosity, opinions, social life, sense of humour, and employability have changed all that much." - *Priya.

"I am 46 and I feel I have almost always been 26. I know more now than I did then, obviously, but my brain doesn't feel any different than it did at 26. I think that's the age when my politics, my style, my taste in men, lots of things kind of cemented and stuck. It's not that I'm incapable of growth and change, but I have a 26-year-old me baseline I'm working from," - *Cara.

"I will always be 26." - *Maya.

"I've just left school, so I'm 18. Constantly surprised that I'm 'marginally' older than that." - *Rachael. (We should note for the record *Rachael is in her fifties — physiologically, not spiritually.)

It's not about denial.

The research challenges our assumptions about why we feel younger. Rubin's study found: "The discrepancy between subjective age and chronological age does not simply increase across the lifespan, but rather younger respondents feel older and older respondents feel younger."

This completely flips the script on what we thought we knew. As Rubin explains: "In contrast to age denial, we found that people of all ages tend to have a subjective age that is closer to an attractor age of 25 years and that the further they are from this attractor age the greater their proportional discrepancy is up to a maximum of 20%."

In other words, it's not age denial — it's our minds naturally gravitating toward a psychologically optimal period of life when we experienced peak identity formation and major life transitions.

Mind over matter.

Therapist Jacqui Manning told Mamamia: "Your subjective age could come down to considering elements such as your personality and how you perceive yourself and can be affected by the level of positivity in life."

"Do you look for opportunities for joy, and how keenly do you accept society's judgement of ageing? It's important to focus on how you feel in your everyday life and not get weighed down by a number. And if that means you feel subjectively a fraction of your age, enjoy it!" she said.

Why this matters.

Rubin's study findings aligned with Manning's sentiments, suggesting that feeling younger means "you envision many generative years ahead of you, that you will not be written off, that your future is not one long, dreary corridor of locked doors," he said.

This insight reframes subjective youthfulness as an adaptive psychological mechanism — a sign of resilience and optimism rather than delusion.

The bottom line.

So, if you feel mentally a lot younger than you actually are, you're not in denial or being vain. You just have a really positive sense of well-being, shaped by optimism, adaptability, and a sense of ongoing possibility.

Your mind is simply doing what minds do — anchoring to a time when you felt most like yourself, most capable of growth, and most open to life's possibilities. And honestly? That's pretty wonderful.

*Names have been changed for privacy reasons.

You can hear more from 'The Friendly Psychologist' Jacqui Manning on Instagram or reach out on her website.

Feature image: Suddenly 30 c/o Colombia Pictures.