Change your mindset and change your physical being.
One of the latest and greatest websites is how-old.net. It analyzes a photograph and based on loads of data points, it reveals how old it thinks you are in the photo. Now, I feel pretty young and many people in my life tell me I look younger than I am, but one recent photo I entered on the site has me at 45. I’ll turn 45 in October. Not bad, I guess, but I was expecting lower. Then I put in the same photo with a sepia tone filter and the website said 40 years old. So, my longevity advice for you is to live… in sepia tone!
Seriously though, I had a discussion with a friend who is 50 and when she added her photo to the site it gave her the spry young age of 40. Not bad for her, but a 20% correction for the website. Another friend who is 50 was told he was anywhere from 40 – 64 years old. A huge margin of error, so obviously we’re taking this all with a grain of salt. But what if we could choose our birth date? What if we could change our birth certificate to 10 years later or 20 for that matter? How would your mindset change? Think about it for a second. If you’re in your 30’s you’d be in your 20’s again. You may want to skip that decade, but in your 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and higher, I’m sure an extra 10-20 years would be welcomed.
Dr. Ellen Langer did just that with 2 groups of men in their 70’s and 80’s. Her study, commonly referred to as the monastery study, only because the two groups went to a monastery in New Hampshire in 1981. She split up the men in 2 groups. One group would talk about their lives and their experiences from 1959, about 20 years earlier. They would reminisce about what they did, the good times they had, etc. There would be current (1981) television on and current newspapers and magazines around the retreat center. The other group was told to act as if they were living 20 years ago. They were given name tags with photos of themselves from 20 years earlier. Life Magazine from 1959 and other newspapers from the era. There was a radio broadcast of Royal Orbit winning the Preakness in 1959 and screening of movies such as Anatomy of a Murder with Jimmy Stuart (released July 1, 1959).
Her evidence was incredible. Before and after the study, both groups of men took multiple cognitive and physical tests. After just one week there were many changes. Both groups were stronger and more flexible. Height, weight, gait, posture, hearing, vision and even intelligence results had improved. It pays to reminisce!
But the men in the group who were living as if they were 20 years younger improved much more significantly. They were shown to have bodies that actually were younger! The physiological results showed that the aging process is less fixed than people think. The following 30+ years of research that Langer has done show us that “wherever you put the mind, the body will follow.” Her books, Mindfulness from 1989 and Counter Clockwise from 2009 explain how you can think better to feel better.
But back to you. How would think if you thought about yourself as if you were 20 years younger? Would you move better? Would you be more alert? Would you be happier? If that’s the case, then why not do it? It’s our thinking and your perception that holds us back. This morning I was tired and when my alarm went off at 5:30am I didn’t feel like getting up and going for my run, but thankfully I saved myself. “You don’t have to go fast, but you do have to go!” That’s what I told myself and I’m so grateful I did. My day is way better because I moved my body and set my mind right!
Photo Credit: flickr.com/MikeBitzenhofer