You can turn back time
Scientific studies show that aging is as much a state of mind as any other aspect of health. That means you’re only as old as you think you should be.
A fascinating study was done in 1979 by some Harvard researchers. A group of men 75 and older was taken on a weeklong retreat to a setting made to reflect life twenty years earlier. Newspaper and magazines of the earlier time were in their living area. The men wore tags with picture of themselves at the earlier time in their lives. They were to talk with each other as though they were living in 1959, speaking of their families as they had been twenty years earlier and of their careers as though they were still working. All discussions of politics, government, economics, and interests were conducted as though they were in 1959. A similar control group went on a retreat to the same resort, but were not "sent back in time."
After only a week of living in the past, the men of 1959 showed signs of becoming more youthful in measurements of biological markers and memory tests. Their posture, flexibility, strength, vision, hearing, and manual dexterity improved. They behaved more independently and were more active. Photos of their faces judged by impartial observers appeared an average of three years younger. Their intelligence actually increased, while those in the control group showed a decrease in intelligence after a week of relaxation.
Let me repeat the findings: after only a week in this little fountain of youth, the men started showing signs of getting younger.
What does this mean for you?
It means you age according to your beliefs about what it means to be the age you are. Turning back the clock on your mental perception of how old you think you are turns back the clock on how old you become. Perhaps someday someone will come up with anti-aging vacations that allow you and your cronies to spend several weeks in the past just as the men did in the study. In the meantime, try these exercises.
- Keep a journal of recollections from your prime in as much detail as you can conjure, projecting yourself imaginatively into these scenes and times, seeing and feeling your youthful energy, enthusiasm, and the life full of possibilities yet to be explored.
- Get magazines and newspapers from the years of your prime and read them to trigger memories of yourself during those times. Listen to music from these earlier times, and sing and dance to it as you did then.
- Think about interests, plans, dreams, hobbies, or areas of study from earlier in your life that you never pursued or have abandoned but still find interesting. Take some of them up again.
- Use self-hypnosis for a daily dose of anti-aging time travel by making a tape to listen to daily. Use it to evoke vivid experiences yourself during your prime--mentally wander the places you used to live and work. Imagine interacting with friends and family from that period.
- Get photos of yourself in your prime, have them enlarged, and hang them where you can look at them frequently. Feel yourself embodying that younger you.
- Reflect on how your life would be different now if you were 20 (or more) years younger. Make a list of these differences. Would you go out more? Stay up later? Try more things? Stand differently? Climb trees? Implement some of these actions, postures, attitudes, and activities and notice how this changes how you feel.