Did you know that you can turn back the clock and regain the vigor of your youth by putting yourself in a “time capsule” for a few days? Sounds crazy, but it’s actually fun, festive and easy to do. And it’s based on ongoing research from Ellen Langer, PhD, a professor of psychology at Harvard University and head of the Langer Mindfulness Institute. Learning more about this unique exercise and four more mind-bending tricks from Dr. Langer’s research will prove to you that mind over matter is for real when it comes to staying healthy and fit.

THE MIND-BODY CONNECTION

“Our culture operates on the assumption that the mind and body are separate,” said Dr. Langer. “What we’re learning is that you can’t separate them…the mind and body are one.” And prioritizing the mind-body connection is fast becoming the best approach to not only physical health, but all-around well-being.

Take, for instance, that time-machine study on ageless aging—a program you can easily do with a group of friends in your age bracket. The study involved a group of 80-year-olds who were basically put in a time machine for a week. Yes—a time machine. They were first tested on vision and hearing, grip strength, memory and dexterity before being taken to a monastery that was decorated to replicate life in 1959. The décor included photos of their younger selves. The participants wore 1950s fashions during their stay, and entertainment consisted of TV shows, movies, books, newspapers and music of the 1950s. The participants also were instructed to discuss sports and events that occurred during that era in the present tense. Most importantly, the participants were told to not reminisce about the old days, but, instead, to think of themselves as actually being younger.

Five days later, the participants did, in fact, look younger and their scores on grip strength, dexterity, memory and even eyesight had improved. Dr. Langer showed that thinking you’re in your prime (even if you are way past it) can trigger the body to become healthier. Britain, South Korea and The Netherlands have since created TV shows based on Dr. Langer’s study—and have gotten similar results.

THINK YOURSELF WELL

Here’s more on how you can be inspired by Dr. Langer’s provocative research for a healthier and younger you.

• Believe you’re in control of your health. But you really have to believe. Real-life results from Dr. Langer: A group of college students hoping to enter the military were divided into two subgroups. All participants had 20/20 vision or better. One group was given flight suits to wear and told to think of themselves as Air Force pilots doing flight simulation exercises while they used flight simulators. The other group was just seated at the flight simulators and told that the simulator was broken and that they should just pretend to fly the plane. After the exercise, the participants’ were given vision tests. The eyesight of the group members who believed they were actually enacting a flight simulation—a skill that requires precise vision—was 40% better than those in the group that was just pretending.

• Transform the mundane into a vital health routine. For example, recognize that any kind of physical activity—not just sweating through a Zumba workout—can be a calorie-burning exercise. Be like a group of maids who were told that cleaning is good exercise. They lost weight and had improved body mass indices and hip-to-waist ratios compared with maids who weren’t told this. When questioned, those other maids said that they didn’t think of housecleaning as exercise. They didn’t lose any weight at all.

• Describe your health in the most positive terms possible. Although doing so won’t necessarily miraculously cure you of whatever you’ve got, it can make living with a chronic disease or health risk a lot easier by relieving pain and stress. For example, don’t be like a group of breast-cancer survivors who said they were “in remission.” They were less functional, in more pain and in poorer health than another group who thought of themselves as “cured.”

• Act how you want to feel. Surely, you have had experiences when you’ve “thought yourself well”—or “made yourself sick.” Dr. Langer proved how easy it is to do. This “don’t try this at home” experiment makes a strong point: Healthy volunteers were given tissues and asked to act as if they had a cold while watching a film of people coughing and sneezing. Forty percent of the volunteers reported cold symptoms afterward, and blood tests taken at that time showed that all of those reporting symptoms had high levels of IgA antibody, which means that their bodies were launching an immune response against a cold they were imagining that they had!

Practice thinking of yourself as healthy, vibrant, young and resilient, and engage your imagination to cause change in accordance with will.

 

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