What ever your age, turn your ageing in to positive ageing…

What ever your age, turn your ageing in to positive ageing…

via Inc.com by Benjamin P Hardy

In 1978, Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychologist, conducted an important study. She gave houseplants to two groups of nursing-home residents. One group was told they were responsible for keeping their plant alive, and that they had autonomy in their daily schedule. The other group was told that staff would care for their plant, and they were not given choices regarding their daily schedule.

After 18 months, twice as many people in the group given responsibility for their plant and schedule were still alive as in the other group. Langer took this as evidence that the current biomedical model, which views the mind and body as separate, was wrong.

In response, she conducted a study to examine further the mind’s impact on the body.

Counterclockwise

In 1981, Langer and a group of graduate students designed the interior of a building to reflect the styles and conditions of the year 1959. Scattered about were a black-and-white TV, old furniture, and magazines and books from the 1950s.

This structure would be home to a group of eight men, all over 70 years of age, for five days. When these men arrived at the building, they were told they should not merely discuss this past era while living there, but act is if they actually were their younger selves, 22 years earlier. “We have good reason to believe if you are successful at this, you will feel as you did in 1959,” Langer told them.

From that moment on, the study subjects were treated as if they were in their 50s rather than their 70s. Despite several being stooped and needing canes to walk, they were not aided in taking their belongings up the building’s stairs. “Take them up one shirt at a time if you have to,” the men were told.

Their days were spent listening to radio shows, watching movies, and discussing sports and other “current events” from the period. They could not bring up any events that had occurred after 1959, and referred to themselves, their families, and their careers as they were in 1959.

The goal of this study was not to get these men to live in the past; rather, it was to trigger their bodies mentally to exhibit the energy and biological responses of much younger persons.

By the end of the five days, these men demonstrated noticeable improvement in hearing, eyesight, memory, dexterity, and appetite. Those who had arrived using canes, and dependent on the help of their children, left the building under their own power, carrying their own suitcases.

By expecting these men to function independently, and by engaging with them as individuals rather than “old people,” Langer and her students gave these men “an opportunity to see themselves differently,” which affected them biologically…

…maximise your health and happiness as the years go by! Keep reading the full & original article HERE