Talk Back with Ellen Wood

Can you control how you age?

Think about that. If you believe you cannot control how you age, then what is controlling it?

Let’s put these questions on hold for a moment and allow for the possibility that you might have control over how you age. Perhaps this new information I’m going to share with you can shed light on the subject and influence your beliefs. It’s about a study conducted by Ellen Langer, a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University.

Just so you know how credible she is, let me point out that Langer has received many distinguished awards for her research over the past 30 years and is highly regarded in her field.

The research that’s of particular interest on this topic is one she’s dubbed her “counterclockwise” study. Langer designed this study to find out if turning back the clock psychologically could also turn it back physically. In other words, if we mentally become younger will our bodies also become younger?

To explore this provocative question, Langer enrolled a group of men in their 70s and 80s to participate. The men were divided into two groups and each group was taken by bus to live for a week in a secluded location about two hours north of Boston. The year was 1979.

The first group arrived and stepped into a virtual time-warp – back into the 1950s. They were instructed to live as though they were actually in that time – with Life and Saturday Evening Post magazines from that era, a black-and-white TV and old movies that were new then. They listened to radio news from the ‘50s and discussed “current” events such as the launch of the first U.S. satellite, Castro’s victory ride into Havana, Nikita Khrushchev and the need for bomb shelters.

They also found themselves in a place that wasn’t adapted to their infirmities – no ramps or hand rails and they weren’t assisted with anything. Langer wanted them to be totally self-reliant during their stay. She insisted they carry their own suitcases, even if it meant scooting it along an inch at a time.

During that week, Langer and her team observed many changes in the participants. They were standing more erect, walking faster and some even decided they didn’t need their walking sticks.

After a week, they returned home and the second group of men arrived. These men, given a slightly different set of instructions, were told to simply spend the week remembering their experiences of the ‘50s and reminiscing.

During each week, on one evening the men sat by the radio, listening as Royal Orbit won the 1959 Preakness. For the second group it brought back a flood of memories; for the first group, it was a race being run for the first time.

None of the participants was told they were part of a study about aging. Before and after the experiment, both groups took a battery of cognitive and physical tests, and after just one week, the test results had changed significantly – for the better.

Langer points out in one of her published accounts of the counterclockwise study, “any positive results would be meaningful…old age is taken to be a one-way street to incapacitation.” However, she and her team were amazed by the changes evidenced in the tests. Both groups were stronger and more flexible. Height, weight, gait, posture, hearing, vision – even their performance on intelligence tests had improved. Their joints were more flexible, their shoulders wider, their fingers not only more agile, but longer and less gnarled by arthritis.

Perhaps the most remarkable finding was that the men in the first group – those who acted as if they were actually back in the ‘50s showed significantly more improvement. After spending a week pretending to be younger, they seemed to have bodies that actually were younger.

The physiological results provided evidence for a simple but invaluable fact: the aging process is indeed less fixed than most people think. In her words, the study showed conclusively “that opening our minds to what’s possible, instead of clinging to accepted notions about what’s not, can lead to better health at any age,” Langer concluded.

And to satisfy that part of your mind that still may be muttering some doubts, I’ll just share with you a part of what the American Psychological Association said in their citation to Dr. Langer when she received their Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest. The award reads, in part, “…her pioneering work revealed the profound effects of increasing mindful behavior…and offers new hope to millions whose problems were previously seen as unalterable and inevitable. Ellen Langer has demonstrated repeatedly how our limits are of our own making.”

I’ll ask again, do you believe you can control how you age? It’s certainly worth considering.

Joy and Blessings,
Ellen
P.S. The tremendous outpouring of love and blessings in emails after the death of my dog was immeasurably heartwarming. Thank you.

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