Green Dress

 

In 1981, Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer placed eight men in their late 70’s in a monastery in New Hampshire. The whole place was decked out – furniture, décor, music, movies, etc. – so the men would feel like they’d traveled back in time to 1959. There were no mirrors, only photos of the men from their 20’s. The men were told to imagine themselves back into the skin of their younger selves. After a week, the men reported feeling younger. They were more supple. They sat taller. Their manual dexterity and even their eyesight improved. With such a small sample size, Dr. Langer decided not to publish her results. But 30 years later, the BBC approached her, asking her to repeat her “counterclockwise” experiment for television with six aging former celebrities as guinea pigs. The stars emerged after a week as apparently rejuvenated as the subjects in New Hampshire. So, maybe you really are as young as you feel.