Think yourself young girrrrrrl

I am about to pump you up with some information. Like you’re about to love the control you get from knowing this and the power it can give you haha!

Okay so there’s a study showing if you think yourself young, your physical body will become younger.

Check it outtttttt. This is called the Counterclockwise study.

So it’s 1979 and Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer takes 16 men in their late 70s, early 80s (ish) and she splits them into TWO groups. 

Both groups spent a full week at this resort REMINISCING about their lives 20 years ago.

Their ENTIRE environment was set up to mimic 1959. Magazines strewn about, technology, music— everything around them screamed 1959 and they were to ACT and TALK about life as if they were 20 years younger. Like they really were back in 1959.

The other group was exposed to a “1959 environment” as well but they were told to live as it was present day. They weren’t instructed to talk as though they were younger. Like sure, 1959 is still around you but it’s 1979 and you are your actual age.

After just one week, the group that fully embodied being younger showed measurable improvements in hearing, memory, dexterity, and posture. HEARING. MEMORY. DEXTERITY. AND POSTURE!!

This is also cool: When outside observers looked at their photos, they consistently rated them as visibly younger at the end of the week.

***I should mention there is a separate study of 660 people found that those with positive feelings about aging lived on average seven years longer than those who didn't. Those they tested were ages 50 and up.

DEVILS ADVOCATE: the study was small, only 16 men, and it was never formally published in a peer-reviewed journal. So we can't call this settled science. But the pattern keeps showing up across other research.

Your beliefs about your body can make you younger or older.

The power right? The control (healthy control) that should give you!!

Thank you to the amazing Ellen Langer. I’m currently really enjoying her body of work, not just the Counterclockwise study although it is my favorite :)

What are you going to do with this info? Curious.