Slowing the Ticking Aging Clock

The Power of Imagination

Slowing the Ticking Aging Clock

This story bears repetition for the possibilities it offers in slowing the aging process significantly enough to add many years to a lifespan. It isn’t the only way to live healthier and longer by any means, though it speaks to the power of thought and imagination unambiguously. Longevity can be fun, if joy is the touchstone.

Ellen J Langer, PhD, a member of the psychology department at Harvard University, along with colleague Judith Rodin, conducted this remarkable study in 1979. The research report was titled “Counterclockwise” as it was done in order to determine what effect turning back the clock psychologically would have on people. The review involved somewhat physically dependent men in their late seventies or early eighties.

The research tea

m first recreated a world of twenty years earlier by “retrofitting” an old monastery to replicate 1959. The participants were asked to live in the monastery for one week and to refrain from bringing anything that would remind them of any year later than 1959. They would speak or hold discussions in the present tense as if it were 1959, throughout the entire week.

Their schedule included discussion groups about movies and politics of 1959, and videotapes of news programs from 1959. Prior to their week together, the participants “were asked to write a brief autobiography as though it were 1959 and send photos of their younger selves” to each of the other participants.

The control group in the study for which the setting and activities were also focused on 1959, but these participants wrote their bios in the past tense and sent each other current photos of their current age. Once at the retreat, they reminisced on the past, but they kept their minds focused on the fact that it was 1979, not 1959.

Prior to the study, the researchers measured participants’ weight, dexterity, and flexibility. They also tested vision, quickness, accuracy, and memory. Photographs were taken of each man just before and just after the experiment in order to evaluate changes in physical appearance.

The 1959 focus group was told to return as completely as possible to that year as if it were the present and to avoid discussing anything that had happened since September 1959. They were told to just let themselves be who they were in 1959, and a further setup was that the team suggested, if the men succeeded in doing so, the researchers had “good reason to believe that…you will feel as well as you did in 1959.”

During the first days of the study, these family-dependent older men became actively involved in serving meals and cleaning up afterward. During the course of the week, the men met daily to discuss events such as the launch “last year” of the 1958 satellite Explorer 1; the importance of bomb shelters; and Castro’s advance into Cuba. Langer reports that talks on communism and the Baltimore Colts’ 31-16 defeat of the New York Giants became very heated. The participants watched Ed Sullivan, Jack Benny, Jackie Gleason, Perry Como, and Sgt Bilko episodes on black-and-white television, and discussed “current” books such as Exodus and Goodbye, Columbus.

At the end of the study, the researchers retested all participants. Both the test and control groups had hearing and memory improvement. They each gained an average of three pounds per person, and the “strength of their grip increased significantly.” The 1959 focus group, however, “showed greater improvement on joint flexibility, finger length (their arthritis diminished, and they were able to lengthen their fingers more) and manual dexterity.” Also, 63 percent of this group improved their intelligence test scores, “compared to only 44 percent of the control group. There were also improvements in height, weight, gait, and posture.”

The team asked people unaware of the study’s objectives to examine the before and after photos of the participants. They stated that all members of the 1959 focus group “looked noticeably younger at the end of the study.”

Langer, writes, “Now I accept none of the medical wisdom regarding the courses our diseases must take as necessarily true.” She asserts, “If a group of elderly adults could produce such dramatic changes in their lives, so too can the rest of us…. We must ask if any of the limits we perceive as real do exist.”

Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility, Langer’s book, is a treasure trove of knowledge for anyone who wants to experiment with the possibilities of reversing aging or extending life beyond conventionally accepted limits. Reaffirming that looking at an existing condition of the world as fixed keeps us stuck in the condition, Langer writes, “Too many of us believe the world is to be discovered, rather than a product of our own construction and thus to be invented. We often respond as if we and/or the world around us are fixed, even when we agree in theory that we are not.”

The psychologist adds, “We imagine the stability of our mindsets to be the stability of the underlying phenomena, and so we don’t think to consider the alternatives” as often as we could. However, she observes, we open to possibility when we envision new ways of being: “We hold things still in our minds, despite the fact that all the while they are changing. If we open up our minds, a world of possibility presents itself.”

Knowing that beliefs profoundly affect our well-being begs us to “choose to believe that we have control over our health.” Even if we are not always successful, “we will find other rewards from the search itself. The greater loss, however, is if we choose not to believe. In that case, we have lost at least the rewards of having tried and more likely the opportunity to exercise meaningful control over our health.”

Regarding the search for professional help when we might face an illness, Langer counsels: “Given that we know ourselves far better than our medical practitioner will ever be able to, …we are the ones who will know which treatment options might be best suited to us.”

Langer’s ninety-year-old friend stated: “I’m not afraid of dying, but living sure can be more fun.” Life is too serious to be taken seriously. []

*Counterclockwise, by Ellen J Langer, PhD, Ballantine Books, New York, 2009.