How old you feel is simply a state if mind.
Yesterday my family got together for my nephew's birthday celebration and held a pumpkin carving contest. It was the first time in close to 20 years that I've carved a pumpkin and it made feel like a kid again. I felt those youthful sparks of creativity, joy and hope that I remember from my childhood. It was a friendly reminder that age is just a number, and you're only as old as you think and act.
Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychologist, ran a study that reinforced this idea. In 1979 she took eight 75-year old men and immersed them in a world that turned back the clock to 1959. Music, tv, newspapers, and everything else in the setting was taken straight from 1959. The idea was to see if the aging process could be effected by mental state and environment.
One group of participants were asked to act as if they were 20 years younger and living in 1959, rather than just living in the altered environment.
Before and after the study the participants were tested on physical strength, manual dexterity, gait, posture, perception, memory, cognition, taste, sensitivity, hearing and vision. The participants in the group who were instructed to act like they did 20 years prior improved more than the group who simply lived in the environment, though both groups made solid improvements to their health and vitality measurements.
The study sheds light on the mind body connection, and how the way we feel and act can effect how old we feel. That's why it's so important to live and act youthfully.
Stop thinking about the age that you are, and start thinking about and acting the age you want to be.
Do things that make you feel young.
Engage in activities that you enjoyed as a kid.
Listen to music from your youth.
These simple acts can help you look and feel much younger, bring energy and vitality back into your life, and give you a healthy boost of energy that you can undoubtedly use.