Why does religiousness pull a mid-life U-turn?

Having recently planned a service where participants were asked to reflect on Simeon and Anna and then on what kind of older person they themselves would like to become as an aid to deciding what Lenten disciplines we should engage in, this article on a longditudinal study of religiousness and aging wsa interesting: "There are several ways of aging well, and religiousness provides one mechanism toward the carving of an engaged and meaningful older adulthood."

Of course the difficulty with such a longditudinal study is filtering out the cultural specificities; so is the mid-life dip bio-psychological and to do with aging itself or is a a cultural phenomenon? My suspicion is that it is something of both [I'm constitutionally drawn to 'both-and' options I think!]: I think that the mid-life crisis has some drivers that are not simply cultural to do with reflecting on one's changing physical abilities and looks and a realisation of where one is in terms of life [fuller intimations of mortality and all that -speaking personally]. I also think that this is likely to have ramifications for ones spirituality and relationship with institutional religion.

The thing also to note is that, although there is a return to religion in later life in this studied-cohort, it was a return and not a first-time discovery for most. In other words, if we don't make contact to help people respond positiviely to the gospel by the time their thirty, it's unlikely to happen [on the basis of this study] later in life.
Science & Theology News - Books: Authors ask: Why does religiousness pull a mid-life U-turn?: