The experiment Professor Langer describes turned back the clock psychologically for a group of elderly people, to see if this could also turn back the clock physically. What causes Obesity – the test of time?Įllen Langer is a Harvard Psychology Professor, whose ground breaking anti ageing experiment in the late 1970’s was successfully replicated by the BBC in its 2010 series, ‘The Young Ones.’.What happens to our brains as we get older?.Resilience – is it important for your health?.Are active brains more resistant to dementia?.Healthy Foods - Cruciferous Vegetables, Pulses.Alcohol and disease – the bad news and the good!.How long can we expect to live in good health?.Cold exposure – a tool for healthy ageing?.Healthy ageing - a life course approach.Adult Education - is it good for our health?.Langer has published in scientific journals, but she is not otherwise acting like a scientist."Ĭoyne takes issue not only with the unpublished counterclockwise experiment, but also with some of Langer's other work - especially her plans to test her theories in an upcoming study of cancer patients, who will be told to live as if it is 2003, before they had any signs of illness.Īs Grierson writes, "positive psychology doesn't have a great track record as a way to fight cancer. She makes references to unpublished studies, even those that have remained so for many years. "She does not consistently submit her work to peer review. Yet, she assumes none of the responsibility that goes with being a scientist," he argues in a critical response to Grierson's article on the blog Science-Based Medicine. "Ellen Langer’s identification as an eminent, well-published Harvard psychologist is an important part of her branding and the promotion of herself. James Coyne, a longtime University of Pennsylvania psychologist and an indefatigable skeptic, goes even further: "Remember, old people are only supposed to get worse." "These findings are in some ways astounding," Langer said in a 2010 BBC documentary. Still, Langer seemed to take the "counterclockwise" results as further confirmation of her theories about the power of the mind over the body, even as fuel for her argument that - as she wrote in 1981 - "many of the consequences of old age may be environmentally determined and thereby potentially reversed through manipulations of the environment." As a rule, placebos appear to affect symptoms rather than underlying diseases." No simulation could set a broken arm, of course, or clear a blocked artery. And expectations of the declining cognitive and physical abilities that come with age are pervasive.īut as Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow noted in The Boston Globe Ideas section, in a story about the power of placebos, "there are limits to even the strongest placebo effect. Your own expectations, and the expectations of others, are powerful. "Nothing - no mirrors, no modern-day clothing, no photos except portraits of their much younger selves - spoiled the illusion that they had shaken off 22 years," Grierson wrote.Ī week later, both the control group and the experimental group showed improvements in "physical strength, manual dexterity, gait, posture, perception, memory, cognition, taste sensitivity, hearing, and vision," Langer wrote in " Counterclockwise." They discussed historical events as if they were current news, and no provisions were made that acknowledged the men's weakened physical state no one carried their bags or helped them up the stairs or treated them like they were old. They were instructed to behave as if it were actually 1959, while the control group lived in a similar environment but didn't act as if it were decades ago. The men didn't just reminisce about what things were like at that time (a control group did that). Everything inside - including the books on the shelves and the magazines lying around - were designed to conjure 1959. Ed Sullivan welcomed guests on a black-and-white TV. Then they passed through the door and entered a time warp. They shuffled forward, a few of them arthritically stooped, a couple with canes. It often indicates a user profile.Įight men in their 70s stepped out of a van in front of a converted monastery in New Hampshire. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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