Thank you to Sarah Marinos of body+soul at the Courier-Mail, for writing an article recently on the health benefits of thinking and acting younger – “Why being young at heart works“. Amongst the myriad of ads by the pharmaceutical companies, this article was unexpectedly thought-provoking and brought to my attention the work of Dr Ellen Langer, Harvard University psychologist and scientific investigator who conducted a landmark experiment 30 years ago where she had seniors live in a secluded monastery as though it were 1959. The results were surprising. After a week of living as though they were younger men, the pensioners were more flexible, had better hearing and memory and felt stronger. And they also looked younger.
This experiment was the forerunner of the British ABC’s TV program, the Young Ones that I recommended in a previous blog post, “Could it be that we all have the power to think ourselves young again?”
Langer has studied the way our mind influences our body and appearance and is the person who coined the word ‘mindfulness’. “When people are taught to be mindful in a fashion very different from meditation, they become more creative, healthier, and happier”, she wrote.
In Langer’s book, counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility, she reminds readers that many definitive-sounding medical diagnoses are in fact best guesses. In a sense, this is a book about the limits of empirical knowledge. But as Langer sees it, the ambiguity that inevitably accompanies medical research can be profoundly liberating. If we can’t be sure that a diagnosis — or a widely accepted truism such as “memory loss is inevitable with age” — is true, we’re less likely to apply a self-limiting label to ourselves.
So what does this mean for you and me? Are these experiments miracles or is there a law in place?
I put the question another way. What if society’s current standards and expectations were the aberration and health and eternal life the reality?
The consistent findings from these experiments point to a law or science in place. I understand it to be a divine Science. Towards the end of the 19th Century the author of the first and complete book about the laws of reality, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Because of human ignorance of the divine Principle, Love, the Father of all is represented as a corporeal creator; hence men recognize themselves as merely physical, and are ignorant of man as God’s image or reflection and of man’s eternal incorporeal existence.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures)
Christian Science makes it clear that mankind’s misunderstanding of the reality of being, of what God is and of what man really is, handicaps our life experience thus far.
This article by Kay Stroud was orginially published on her blog site. Kay is a health writer focussing on the leading edge of consciousness, spirituality and health. Contact her to learn more about it, including Christian Science, via www.health4thinkers.com.
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Staying active and well at every stage of life is a goal most of us hope to attain. One way to accomplish healthy longevity, is to beat the clock and fears of an aging mind and body. It’s doable, and what’s more, it’s good for your health.
Time isn’t toxic
There’s no reason for our wellbeing to decline after a certain number of sunrises and sunsets. Nor should our thinking capacity wind-down with each tick of the clock. Researchers believe “aging is unnatural… there may be no immutable biological law that decrees human beings have to get old and sick and die…By design, the body should go on forever.” Also, meditative practices can actually aid longevity.
This is certainly encouraging news that can change our outlook and raise our expectations for living a long and healthy life .
TIP:
● Resist noting the passage of time and fearing what it might mean for your health and life-style.
● Don’t limit the good things you can accomplish down the track.
● Look forward to maintaining your “vigor, freshness and promise” at every stage. (Science and Health p. 246)
● Quit thinking that you grow old because of the number of birthdays you’ve clocked up.
● Plan now to join the growing number of supercentenarians – those who’ve reached 110 years or more.
Encouraging role models
Maybe you’ve heard more about mature people declining in later years, than those who’ve remained active and useful. Yet mental faculties, energy, and wellness can remain intact throughout life despite the number of times the earth revolves around the sun.
Clara Barton who founded the American Red Cross, never let the age clock beat her into submission. She lived a long, useful life, working tirelessly into her nineties. Interviewed by journalist Viola Rogers for the New York American, Barton expressed this opinion about aging.
“Most troubles are exaggerated by the mental attitude, if not entirely caused by them. The mind” she maintained, “is so constructed that we have become firmly convinced that after a certain length of time we cease to be useful, and when our birthday calendar indicates that we have reached or are nearing that time, we become lax in our work and finally cease to accomplish; not because we feel in reality that we are no longer useful, but because we are supposed by all laws and dictums to have finished the span of life allotted to work.”
Barton’s advice to beat the time clock and remain alert and healthy is simple. “Let your life be counted by the mile-stones of achievement and not by the timepiece of years.” As a consequence, she believed that we’d “all be younger and would live to be much older”.
TIP:
● Be heartened by individuals who’ve beaten the mental and physical limitations often associated with old age.
● Refuse to say that you used to be able to do this or that, and now you can’t because you’re older.
● Accept as true this ancient wisdom. You can “flourish like the palm tree: …bring forth fruit in old age…and be healthy and flourishing.” (Psalm 92)
● Beat the stop clock by expecting to retain a fit mind and body as the norm into the future.
● Look forward to leading a long, active, productive life.
This article by Beverly Goldsmith was originally published on her blog site Spirituality and Health Connect. Beverly is a Melbourne-based health writer who provides a diversity of health content on how spirituality and thought affect health.
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Thank you to Sarah Marinos of body+soul at the Courier-Mail, for writing an article recently on the health benefits of thinking and acting younger – “Why being young at heart works“. Amongst the myriad of ads by the pharmaceutical companies, this article was unexpectedly thought-provoking and brought to my attention the work of Dr Ellen Langer, Harvard University psychologist and scientific investigator who conducted a landmark experiment 30 years ago where she had seniors live in a secluded monastery as though it were 1959. The results were surprising. After a week of living as though they were younger men, the pensioners were more flexible, had better hearing and memory and felt stronger. And they also looked younger.
Christian Science Canberra 