Pause Ageing

How powerful are our attitudes toward ageing and growing older? Harvard professor Ellen Langer, Ph.D., in her classic book Mindfulness (Addison-Wesley, 1989), recounts how she conducted a famous study of men in their 70s and 80s.

She had one group live as though it were the 1950s when they were in their prime: watching television shows from that era, looking at pictures of themselves in their prime on the walls, reading magazines from that time period, and so on.

A control group lived away from their daily routine, but without any reminders of what life was like in their youth. Before the study began, the men underwent tests for hearing, blood pressure, eyesight, and pulmonary function. They also had their pictures taken.

After two weeks, the tests were repeated. The men who had just lived as if in the era of their prime looked, on average, ten years younger. Their hearing, vision, lung function, and other functions and measures had also improved dramatically. They had a greater sense of well-being. And when they left the venue where they had been living, they all carried their own luggage—like the healthy vibrant men they remembered they could be.

The control group showed no changes.

Here’s another example of research that supports an ageless mind-set. The famous University of Minnesota longitudinal study of nuns, which began in 1986 and continues today, looked at women who entered the cloistered life in their early 20s to determine what distinguished the women who developed Alzheimer’s in their 80s from those who maintained healthy brain function.

Each nun had written an autobiographical essay upon entering the monastic life in her early 20s. Only 10 percent of those whose essays were rich with linguistic flourishes, energetic descriptions, and complex language structures went on to develop Alzheimer’s disease, whereas 80 percent of those who wrote plain essays did develop it.

This study suggests that being vivacious and fully engaged by our experiences and enjoying our creativity protects our brain health. It’s marvellous that we have so much control over our health and well-being!

Now for some really unexpected news out of that study: autopsies showed that the nuns who relished life and showed no signs of dementia had just as many plaques in their brains as the less vivacious nuns whose dementia was apparent before they died.

Please reread that last sentence. It is proof that a healthy mind and spirit can exist in a body that is less than perfect. That is the power of an ageless attitude.