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The Power of PossibilityNovember 29, 2010 By marc Leave a Comment

I’m declaring Growing Bolder a landmark study in social psychology. And I’m declaring our slogan — It’s Not About Age, It’s About Attitude™ the most powerful combination of 

words ever strung together. Sure, both are exaggerations but only partly.

We’ve been telling the stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things for more than four years. We feature people who somehow seem immune to the subtle messages

that our society bombards us with about aging. These are the people who have managed to ignore the stereotypes of the elderly as feeble, immobile, mindless, helpless and

passionless. And as a result, they are none of the above.

 As interesting and inspirational as our large library of anecdotal evidence is, I wondered if there exists actual scientific evidence that it’s not about age, it’s about attitude? Can it

actually be proven that your attitude can turn back the hands of time? It didn’t take long to discover the research of Harvard professor Dr. Ellen Langer.

Dr. Langer is one of the world’s top social psychologists and has designed one fascinating research study after another 

that reaffirm what we have been saying for years — believe and you will become. Or as she put it, “Where the mind leads, the body will follow.”

In the early ’80s, she took two groups of men in their 70s and 80s on a weeklong retreat in which she created a realistic living environment from the 1950s. The men were totally

immersed in the culture of their youth. They watched 1950s shows and movies on black and white TVs and listened to music, prize fights, horse races and news reports from

the era. The first group was told to pretend they had actually traveled back in time and were young men again — living, acting and talking like they did in the 1950s. The second

group was told to stay in the present but reminisce about the past.

When the week was over, both groups had significantly improved their overall health but the change in the group who actually pretended to be younger was astonishing. Not

only did they change psychologically — they changed physically. Their gait, posture, hearing, vision, grip strength and manual dexterity improved. Their joints were more

flexible, their shoulders wider and their fingers were not only more agile, but longer and less gnarled by arthritis. Impersonating younger men for only one week resulted in

bodies that actually were younger.“It is not our physical state that limits us,” Langer explains, “it is our mindset about our own limits. Men who changed their perspective changed their bodies.”

In 2007, Dr. Langer took 84 female hotel workers who didn’t have the time or money to join a health club. One group was told that research had proven that the work they do

(vacuuming, bending to pick up towels, pushing carts, scrubbing tubs, making beds and emptying trash) is legitimate exercise that duplicates many of the exercises performed

in gyms. The control group was told nothing.

Four weeks later, Langer returned to take measurements and discovered that the control group hadn’t changed physically, but the test group had lost weight, lowered their 

blood pressure, reduced their body fat and decreased their waist-to-hip ratio. They reported feeling better and their loved ones thought they looked better.

Nothing changed except their perception of what they were doing. What was mindless was now mindful. As soon as they began to view their daily routine as exercise beneficial

to their health and fitness, it was. Where the mind led, the body followed.

Langer has made a career out of proving the mind-body connection that scientists have suspected for years. She points to the use of placebos in medicine. “A third of people

with virtually all disorders self-heal using placebos,” she said.

But it’s not the placebo that affects recovery. “You’re making yourself better.” For that reason, she believes that doctors should rarely, if ever, deliver a terminal diagnosis. “A

terminal diagnosis becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Where the mind leads, the body follows.

The same can said for the aging process. Our fixed ideas, internalized in childhood and reinforced throughout our life by the media, our families and friends, affect the way we

age. We have literally been brainwashed into believing that when our hair turns gray or begins to fall out or when we begin to get wrinkles, that a rapid physical decline is

inevitable.

 At Growing Bolder, we’ve documented one person after another who disproves that notion. We’ve learned that when you hang out with younger people, you not only act

younger — you feel younger and you look younger. We’ve learned that it’s never too late to turn back the clock. We’ve observed repeatedly what Dr. Langer is proving — that

mindset determines outcome, that a change in self-perception is ultimately a change in reality. That it’s not about age. It’s about attitude.

Dr. Langer’s research demonstrates clearly that if your mind accepts the negative stereotypes of aging, so will your body. Opening our minds to what’s possible instead of 

clinging to notions about what’s not can dramatically improve our health at any age.

Here’s the take-away — the aging process is not fixed. It’s not based solely or even mostly on your genes. It’s based largely upon your mind. Where your mind leads, your body

will follow.

Note:

If you’ve not heard much about Dr. Langer, you will. Dreamworks Studios has optioned the film rights to “Counterclockwise,”her book about the men who turned back the clock

by returning to the 1950s. Jennifer Anniston has signed on to produce the film and will play the 34-year-old Langer.

In addition, the BBC has recreated the study in a reality show called “The Young Ones.” The show features six well-loved British celebrities in their 70s and 80s who move into

a house to try to turn back the clock by returning to 1975. For one week, they live, work and eat in the 1970s to see if they can regain their youth.

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New Year, New You

DECEMBER 13, 2010 

 As we are about to enter the

second decade of the 21

st

century (where did the FIRST onego????), it is good to get a little perspective on things. For example, will radio DJs continue to exhort us to listen to thehits of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and now the “00s?” Howwill they say it? The “Zeroes?” These are the kinds of thingsI wonder about.

In the 70s, there was a famous

“Counterclockwise” study done by social-psychologist EllenLanger. In this study, Langer and her team created ahistorically accurate physical environment typical of the year 1959, and then got a group of elderly men to live exactly asif it was 1959. For a whole week, they cooked, ate, slept,

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and lived in 1959, listening to the music and discussing theissues of the day.There was also a control group that spent a week together 

 just reminiscing about 1959 but not acting as if it really wasthat time.

The control group had a very lovely time together, but thatwas about it.

But—and this is truly amazing —the group of guys who put themselves into a 1959 state of mindexperienced profound changes. Their memory, physicalflexibility, dexterity, vision, hearing, and general well-being allimproved dramatically.Most important, after just one week of living as if they were

younger, Langer’s old fellasshowed improvements in finger length! Yes!!! “Shriveled arthritic fingers got LONGER—as they

released and embraced a younger, 1959 perspective.”(Michael Gelb)

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By the way, this story about LANGER’S LONGERFINGERS is soon to be a major motion picture starringJennifer Aniston. (This is not a joke).

 And if arthritis can be un-bent, this “living as-if” techniqueholds tremendous—albeit complicated—promise for wrinklesin 2011.

Most everyone (in the Western world, at least) has surelyheard by now that to live our best life, we should BE HERENOW, be in the POWER OF NOW, try to LIVE IN THE NOW,and not worry about the past or the future. It just makessense, if you think about it.

The thing is, there really is no NOW.

I can prove it. Right now, take a moment to try to measure

the RIGHT- NOW-THIS-VERY-SECOND moment you are currently experiencing. Theinstant you try to capture it—let’s say by looking at your watch—that moment has already vanished into the past. No matter how hard you try to catch the Now—breaking it down intosmaller and smaller increments all the way down to

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nanoseconds—it has already passed by the time you try tograb it.So I think we might need to have a serious conversation with

Eckhart Tolle.

Because there really is no present, onlythe past and the future merging. There is only trying toremember the kind of September when life was slow and ohso mellow—or worrying about whether I will see you inSeptember or lose you to a summer love. Just smaller andsmaller moments of future-then-past, future-then-past, future-then-past. And even those don’t really exist.Even though it seems like time is moving, what we’re really

experiencing is one thing vanishing and another appearing.Our genius brains effortlessly connect these vanishing andappearing acts together, giving us the illusion of time passing.

But it’s just a trick.

Most of us have experienced the distinct feeling that time haspassed either too quickly or too slowly. When I sit down towrite, I struggle for awhile, but once the words begin to flow, I

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lose all sense of time. Hours can go by, andit can seem like minutes.On the other hand, time goes waaaaayyyy too slowly when

I’m at the Dentist’s Office.

Human language is the main source of our feeling that time ismoving forward in a linear way. You’ve probably heard that inthis modern world, we are mostly Human Doings instead of Human Beings. We say, “Yesterday I did this, tomorrow I’ll dothat.” With our language, we’ve created the dreaded 40- (or 80-) hour work week, the stingy 2-week vacation, therambunctious 5-minute speed date, the 60-second microwavePop-Tart, and the “When I’m 64” Pop-Song. As we’veevolved, we have abandoned our own inner sense of time,

and replaced it with clock and calendar time.

The indigenous Aborigines in Australia, on the other hand,still experience time based on the natural rhythms of theseasons and the lunar and solar cycles. Their time is notlinear but more circular. Their days are marked in “sleeps”.One hour might be measured by how long it takes to roast

a Witchety Grub in the hot sand—a big,

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plump, yummy morsel that I happen to have personallysampled. (I call it the “Witchetying Hour.” Of course, most of the time they don’t roast the Witchety Grub, but just pop it—still wiggling—into their mouths. At that point, it’s a witchetyswallow in a Witchety Second.)In other words, the Aborigines have retained their essentialsense of how time feels.But linear clock time doesn’t really exist any more than

subjective feeling time does. Because actually, we live inEternity.

We live in a river of time inwhich the source of the river (our past) and its final destination

ahead of us (our future) exist simultaneously. Events thathave already passed must still be around. And events in thefuture must exist like new scenes just around the river bend.Physicist Fred Alan Wolf puts it beautifully: “When we saytime passes, we mean that we pass. Time is an experience initself that is, paradoxically, timeless.”Or another way of putting it: “Diamonds are forever.”

Everybody knows what that means.The river of eternity can flow both ways. Most of us assume

that everything we can remember has already happened. And if asked why we don’t remember scenes from our future,we’d probably answer: “Duh, because they haven’t happenedyet.” But what if memory, like the river, goes both ways—and

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you can remember the future just as well as you can recall the

past? Animals, by the way, probably have no experience of timepassing. They don’t have language, and think exclusivelywith images. They just Are.

They are Animals Being.

In her study, Langer’s Finger-Growers were Time Travelers. And they didn’t really have to GO anywhere to get somewhereelse.

Probably the biggest thing that limits all of us in our own time-

travelin g access to the future and the pastis our illusion that we are each a separate, singular entity, an

ego, or an “I,” living in a world of time and space. A Human Doing.

Our Doing-ness pins our mind in time rather thantimelessness.

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By the way, I think the Beatles were on to something timelessand quantum-y (and maybe something drug-y) when they

wrote on e of my favorite songs fromchildhood:“Eight days a week , I lo-o-o-o-ove you (ba-dup), Eight days aweek , it’s not enough to show I care.” (Human Being)

Then of course there was Prince, who famously sang, “ Act your age, not your shoe size, mama.” (Human Doing.Definitely).So, Mr. Dee-Jay and the rest of us, as we enter the “10s” or the “Teens(?),” here’s my suggestion: Don’t put Time in aBottle.

Instead, pull a Long-Finger.

 Ask yourself, “What if we didn’t know how old we are?” Keep reminding yourself that you’re not a Doing but a Being,and that you’re connected with everything, living intimelessness.

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And try acting the age you feel, not the age you are. Since you really, truly aren’t that age anyway.

It will probably do more to keep the spring in your step, thesong in your heart, and the length in your toes than any other single thing you ever do.

Young is the new old! Get Ignited!

Tagged as: aging, arthritis, brain, consciousness, Ellen Langer , Fred

 Alan Wolf , genius, humor , power of now, quantum physics, time travel