Aging, Counterclockwise!

In the late 1970s, Dr. Ellen Langer hypothesized that physical markers of aging could be affected by psychosomatic means.

Note: psychosomatic does not mean “it’s all in your head”.

Psychosomatic means “your body does what your brain tells it to do, for better or for worse”

She set about testing that, in what has been referred to since as…

The Counterclockwise Study

A small (n=16) sample of men in their late 70s and early 80s were recruited in what they were told was a study about reminiscing.

Back in the 1970s, it was still standard practice in the field of psychology to outright lie to participants (who in those days were called “subjects”), so this slight obfuscation was a much smaller ethical aberration than in some famous studies of the same era and earlier (cough cough Zimbardo cough Milgram cough).

Anyway, the participants were treated to a week in a 1950s-themed retreat, specifically 1959, a date twenty years prior to the experiment’s date in 1979. The environment was decorated and furnished authentically to the date, down to the food and the available magazines and TV/radio shows; period-typical clothing was also provided, and so forth.

• The control group were told to spend the time reminiscing about 1959
• The experimental group were told to pretend (and maintain the pretense, for the duration) that it really was 1959

The results? On many measures of aging, the experimental group participants became quantifiably younger:

❝The experimental group showed greater improvement in joint flexibility, finger length (their arthritis diminished and they were able to straighten their fingers more), and manual dexterity.

On intelligence tests, 63 percent of the experimental group improved their scores, compared with only 44 percent of the control group. There were also improvements in height, weight, gait, and posture.

Finally, we asked people unaware of the study’s purpose to compare photos taken of the participants at the end of the week with those submitted at the beginning of the study. These objective observers judged that all of the experimental participants looked noticeably younger at the end of the study.❞

~ Dr. Ellen Langer

Remember, this was after one week.

Her famous study was completed in 1979, and/but not published until eleven years later in 1990, with the innocuous title:

Higher stages of human development: Perspectives on adult growth

You can read about it much more accessibly, and in much more detail, in her book:

Counterclockwise: A Proven Way to Think Yourself Younger and Healthier – by Dr. Ellen Langer

We haven’t reviewed that particular book yet, so here’s Linda Graham’s review, that noted:

❝Langer cites other research that has made similar findings.

In one study, for instance, 650 people were surveyed about their attitudes on aging. Twenty years later, those with a positive attitude with regard to aging had lived seven years longer on average than those with a negative attitude to aging.

(By comparison, researchers estimate that we extend our lives by four years if we lower our blood pressure and reduce our cholesterol.)

In another study, participants read a list of negative words about aging; within 15 minutes, they were walking more slowly than they had before.❞

~ Linda Graham

Read the review in full:

Aging in Reverse: A Review of Counterclockwise

The Counterclockwise study has been repeated since, and/but we are still waiting for the latest (exciting, much larger sample, 90 participants this time) study to be published. The research proposal describes the method in great detail, and you can read that with one click over on PubMed:

PubMed | Ageing as a mindset: a study protocol to rejuvenate older adults with a counterclockwise psychological intervention

It was approved, and has now been completed (as of 2020), but the results have not been published yet; you can see the timeline of how that’s progressing over on ClinicalTrials.gov:

Clinical Trials | Ageing as a Mindset: A Counterclockwise Experiment to Rejuvenate Older Adults

Hopefully it’ll take less time than the eleven years it took for the original study, but in the meantime, there seems to be nothing to lose in doing a little “Citizen Science” for ourselves.

Maybe a week in a 20 years-ago themed resort (writer’s note: wow, that would only be 2004; that doesn’t feel right; it should surely be at least the 90s!) isn’t a viable option for you, but we’re willing to bet it’s possible to “microdose” on this method. Given that the original study lasted only a week, even just a themed date-night on a regular recurring basis seems like a great option to explore (if you’re not partnered then well, indulge yourself how best you see fit, in accord with the same premise; a date-night can be with yourself too!).

Just remember the most important take-away though:

Don’t accidentally put yourself in your own control group!

In other words, it’s critically important that for the duration of the exercise, you act and even think as though it is the appropriate date.

If you instead spend your time thinking “wow, I miss the [decade that does it for you]”, you will dodge the benefits, and potentially even make yourself feel (and thus, potentially, if the inverse hypothesis holds true, become) older.

This latter is not just our hypothesis by the way, there is an established potential for nocebo effect.

For example, the following study looked at how instructions given in clinical tests can be worded in a way that make people feel differently about their age, and impact the results of the mental and/or physical tests then administered:

❝Our results seem to suggest how manipulations by instructions appeared to be more largely used and capable of producing more clear performance variations on cognitive, memory, and physical tasks.

Age-related stereotypes showed potentially stronger effects when they are negative, implicit, and temporally closer to the test of performance. ❞

~ Dr. Francesco Pagnini

Read more: Age-based stereotype threat: a scoping review of stereotype priming techniques and their effects on the aging process

(and yes, that’s the same Dr. Francesco Pagnini whose name you saw atop the other study we cited above, with the 90 participants recreating the Counterclockwise study)

Want to know more about [the hard science of] psychosomatic health?

Check out Dr. Langer’s other book, which we reviewed recently:

The Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health – by Dr. Ellen Langer

Enjoy!

Practise Self-Compassion In Your Relationship (But Watch Out!)

Let’s make clear up-front: this is not about “…but not too much”.

With that in mind…

Now let’s set the scene: you, a happily-partnered person, have inadvertently erred and upset your partner. They may or may not have already forgiven you, but you are still angry at yourself.

Likely next steps include all or any of:

• continuing to apologise and try to explain
• self-deprecatory diatribes
• self-flagellation, probably not literally but in the sense of “I don’t deserve…” and acting on that feeling
• self-removal, because you don’t want to further inflict your bad self on your partner

As you might guess, these are quite varied in their degree of healthiness:

• apologising is good, as even is explaining, but once it’s done, it’s done; let it go
• self-deprecation is pretty much never useful, let alone healthy
• self-flagellation likewise; it is not only inherently self-destructive, but will likely create an additional problem for your partner too
• self-removal can be good or bad depending on the manner of that removal: there’s a difference between just going cold and distant on your partner, and saying “I’m sorry; this is my fault not yours, I don’t want to take it out on you, so please give me half an hour by myself to regain my composure, and I will come back with love then if that’s ok with you”

About that last: mentioning the specific timeframe e.g. “half an hour” is critical, by the way—don’t leave your partner hanging! And then do also follow through on that; come back with love after the half-hour elapses. We suggest mindfulness meditation in the interim (here’s our guide to how), if you’re not sure what to do to get you there.

To Err Is Human; To Forgive, Healthy (Here’s How To Do It) ← this goes for when the forgiveness in question is for yourself, too—and we do write about that there (and how)!

This is important, by the way; not forgiving yourself can cause more serious issues down the line:

Self-blame-selective hyper-connectivity between anterior temporal and subgenual cortices predicts prognosis in major depressive disorder

If, by the way, you’re hand-wringing over “but was my apology good enough really, or should I…” then here is how to do it. Basically, do this, and then draw a line under it and consider it done:

The Apology Checklist ← you’ll want to keep a copy of this, perhaps in the notes app on your phone, or a screenshot if you prefer

(the checklist is at the bottom of that page)

The catch

It’s you, you’re the catch 👈👈😎

Ok, that being said, there is actually a catch in the less cheery sense of the word, and it is:

“It is important to be compassionate about one’s occasional failings in a relationship” does not mean “It is healthy to be neglectful of one’s partner’s emotional needs; that’s self-care, looking after #1; let them take care of themself too”

…because that’s simply not being a couple at all.

Think about it this way: the famous airline advice,

“Put on your own oxygen mask before helping others with theirs”

…does not mean “Put on your own oxygen mask and then watch those kids suffocate; it’s everyone for themself”

So, the same goes in relationships too. And, as ever, we have science for this. There was a recent (2024) study, involving hundreds of heterosexual couples aged 18–73, which looked at two things, each measured with a scaled questionnaire:

• Subjective levels of self-compassion
• Subjective levels of relationship satisfaction

For example, questions included asking participants to rate, from 1–5 depending on how much they felt the statements described them, e.g:

In my relationship with my partner, I:

• treat myself kindly when I experience sorrow and suffering.
• accept my faults and weaknesses.
• try to see my mistakes as part of human nature.
• see difficulties as part of every relationship that everyone goes through once.
• try to get a balanced view of the situation when something unpleasant happens.
• try to keep my feelings in balance when something upsets me.

Note: that’s not multiple choice! It’s asking participants to rate each response as applicable or not to them, on a scale of 1–5.

And…

❝Women’s self-compassion was also positively linked with men’s total relationship satisfaction. Thus, men seem to experience overall satisfaction with the relationship when their female partner is self-kind and self-caring in difficult situations.

Unexpectedly, however, we found that men’s relationship-specific self-compassion was negatively associated with women’s fulfillment.

Baker and McNulty (2011) reported that, only for men, a Self-Compassion x Conscientiousness interaction explained whether the positive effects of self-compassion on the relationship emerged, but such an interaction was not found for women.

Highly self-compassionate men who were low in conscientiousness were less motivated than others to remedy interpersonal mistakes in their romantic relationships, and this tendency was in turn related to lower relationship satisfaction❞

~ Dr. Astrid Schütz et al. (2024)

Read in full: Is caring for oneself relevant to happy relationship functioning? Exploring associations between self-compassion and romantic relationship satisfaction in actors and partners

And if you’d like to read the cited older paper from 2011, here it is:

Read in full: Self-compassion and relationship maintenance: the moderating roles of conscientiousness and gender

The take-away here is not: “men should not practice self-compassion”

(rather, they absolutely should)

The take-away is: we must each take responsibility for managing our own mood as best we are able; practice self-forgiveness where applicable and forgive our partner where applicable (and communicate that!)…. And then go consciously back to the mutual care on which the relationship is hopefully founded.

Which doesn’t just mean love-bombing, by the way, it also means listening:

The Problem With Active Listening (And How To Do Better)

To close… We say this often, but we mean it every time: take care!