Think Counterclockwise

Some contend that age is a terrible price to pay for wisdom, but it needn't be, if we are mindful about our approach to aging. Surprising research reveals that opening our minds to what's possible, instead of presuming impossibility, can lead to a longer life, better health, and a stronger brain.

Since most of us were raised with the faulty notions that the brain deteriorates with age, that learning is easier when we are younger, and that memory loss is inevitable, we severely underestimate the power of a positive attitude. We also tend to overlook the hidden effects of cultural influences on our attitudes and beliefs about aging, influences that can drain mental and physical vitality from our lives.

Death may be nature's way of telling you to slow down. And some of our parts do wear out as we use them, but, fortunately, the brain isn't one of them.

Social psychologist Ellen J. Langer, PhD, has revolutionized our understanding of the relationship between attitude and aging. Langer's remarkable "counterclockwise" study demonstrates the astonishing power of a positive mind-set regarding our mental and physical health.

In 1979, Langer and her graduate students arranged for two groups of elderly men, who were in the care of relatives, to go on weeklong retreats at a secluded monastery in New Hampshire. Before attending their respective retreats, the men underwent a battery of tests measuring everything from intelligence to visual memory, dexterity, hearing, and vision.

The first group of men was invited to reminisce about life twenty years earlier, in 1959. At the end of the week, the group who reminisced reported that they had a pleasant week, and they showed some improvements in their mental and physical functioning when they were retested.

The second group was instructed to return as completely as possible in their minds to 1959. Every conversation was to be held in the present tense, and the men were instructed not to discuss anything that happened after September 1959. The experiment was meticulously staged with props and decor from the 1950s. At meals, the men engaged in heated debates on issues of the day such as the threat of communism, the need for bomb shelters, and Castro's advance into Havana. They shared thoughts on "recent" books such as Ian Flemings's Goldfinger and Philip Roth's Goodbye, Columbus. And they watched "newly released" movies such as Ben-Hur and Some Like It Hot. In the evenings, they enjoyed Ed Sullivan, Sgt. Bilko, and Gunsmoke on a black-and-white television set. Perry Como, Rosemary Clooney, and Nat King Cole sang on the phonograph. They listened to the radio as Royal Orbit won the Preakness, and they watched the Baltimore Colts defeat the New York Giants, 23–17, in the NFL championship game.

What happened? All the participants became more active. They started serving their own meals and cleaning up afterward, and they took the initiative to arrange their own social activities, such as card games and book discussion groups. Langer observed, "Despite their obvious and extreme dependence on relatives who initially drove them to Harvard's psychology department ... they were all functioning independently almost immediately upon arrival at the retreat."

Follow-up tests at the end of the week revealed that participants showed dramatic improvements in memory, flexibility, vision, hearing, appetite, and general well-being. The most striking result from Langer's study is that, after the men lived as though they were younger for only one week, their shriveled, arthritic fingers actually lengthened and released as the men embraced a more youthful attitude.

How powerful is attitude? According to Langer, "Simply having a positive attitude made far more difference than any to be gained from lowering blood pressure or reducing cholesterol." She concludes, "While exercise and eating well are important for health, our attitudes about what it means to be healthy or to be old may be even more important."

When Langer's subjects returned in their minds to a time when they were younger and healthier, their brains underwent a radical change and literally grew younger. Langer suggests that if a group of elderly adults can produce such dramatic changes, perhaps the rest of us can make changes, too. "I have come to believe less and less that biology is destiny," she says. "It is not primarily our physical selves that limit us, but rather our mindset about our physical limits."

Your brain is plastic, adaptable, and capable of development throughout your life. Biology doesn't fully determine your destiny, and your limits are more self-imposed than inherited. Knowing that you can improve your brain is the beginning of improving it, because your attitude serves as a powerful self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Power of Expectations

How strong is the effect of mind-set on longevity? Langer's associate, Becca Levy, PhD, was determined to find out. Beginning in 1975, she surveyed 650 people about their expectations regarding the aging process. Subjects responded to statements such as "Things keep getting worse as I get older" or "I am as happy now as I was when I was younger."

Dr. Levy and her colleagues used the survey to categorize respondents as either negative or positive in their attitude toward aging. More than twenty years later, she discovered that the group with more positive, optimistic expectations about aging had outlived the more negative, pessimistic group by an average of more than seven years.

Commenting on Levy's research, neuroscientist Valerie Gremillion, PhD, says, "So this doesn't seem like magic, let's point out these effects can occur through a number of known mechanisms, from decreasing depression and increasing motivation, to psychoneuroendocrine effects on the immune system, and through active engagement with the world and an associated decrease in feelings of loneliness and helplessness."

Consider this groundbreaking fact: by increasing awareness of the way you form attitudes and expectations about aging, you can influence the quality and duration of your life. With this in mind, let's begin cultivating the most adaptive attitudes for healthy aging.

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