Holding negative beliefs about aging can affect your aging experience. According to The Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, if you believe your memory will decline as you get older, it will.
You can read about it here.
This study shows that the adverse influence of negative self-stereotypes on cognitive performance is not limited to a short-term laboratory effect. Rather, the findings demonstrate, for the first time, that stereotypes also predict memory performance over an extended period in the community.
In countries that do not have negative beliefs about aging, such as India and China, the elderly do not age related memory decline. Watch your thoughts and believe you will get better as you get older. It’s up to you!
Tag Archives: imagery
Reverse Aging With Your Mind
Ellen Langer’s Counterclockwise book and study have been making the news recently. She is a Harvard psychology professor and an highly acclaimed award winning social scientist. She’s famous for a lot of things, however the counterclockwise study is really interesting because it shows we can reverse aging with our minds.
According to http://greatergood.berkeley.edu, Langer draws on her 30 years of pioneering mind-body research, including her 1979 “Counterclockwise” study in which eight elderly men lived in a residential retreat that recreated the social-physical environment of 1959. After one week sequestered in this virtual 20-year journey back in time, all eight participants showed marked improvements in their hearing, memory, dexterity, appetite, and general well-being. They even looked younger to outside observers who saw photos of them before and after the experiment.
Here’s youtube clip you may like:
“Notice new things,” she says and you will become engaged and enjoy many benefits in health and happiness.
If you like these ideas, you’ll like this ebook:
Your Stressful Job Is Aging You
It’s official, your stressful job is aging you prematurely. Evidence shows that those in stressful jobs are exhibiting shortened telomeres.
You can read about it here:Job Stress Linked With Shorter Telomeres, Which Could Speed Up Aging
Shortened telomeres are linked with aging and disease.
One way to counteract stress and shortened telomeres? Meditation!
You can find the below study here.
Understanding the malleable determinants of cellular aging is critical to understanding human longevity. Telomeres may provide a pathway for exploring this question. Telomeres are the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes. The length of telomeres offers insight into mitotic cell and possibly organismal longevity. Telomere length has now been linked to chronic stress exposure and depression. This raises the question of mechanism: How might cellular aging be modulated by psychological functioning? We consider two psychological processes or states that are in opposition to one another-threat cognition and mindfulness-and their effects on cellular aging. Psychological stress cognitions, particularly appraisals of threat and ruminative thoughts, can lead to prolonged states of reactivity. In contrast, mindfulness meditation techniques appear to shift cognitive appraisals from threat to challenge, decrease ruminative thought, and reduce stress arousal. Mindfulness may also directly increase positive arousal states. We review data linking telomere length to cognitive stress and stress arousal and present new data linking cognitive appraisal to telomere length. Given the pattern of associations revealed so far, we propose that some forms of meditation may have salutary effects on telomere length by reducing cognitive stress and stress arousal and increasing positive states of mind and hormonal factors that may promote telomere maintenance. Aspects of this model are currently being tested in ongoing trials of mindfulness meditation.
Accelerate Manifesting and Visualization with Lucid Dreaming
There’s one surefire way to accelerate your results with visualization, manifesting or intention training. In your sleep!
You’ve probably heard of lucid dreaming. You may not know that you can have this experience yourself. Imagine an alternate reality in which you control everything. Words can not really do this idea justice. For example, you may have an idea in your imagination of what that means, but until you have the experience you will not truly understand. The best I can say is that there is no difference between a lucid dream and a real life experience!
The most common way to experience this is to wake up around 3-4 am and stay up for a short while. Then go back to sleep with the intention to realize you’re dreaming while you are dreaming. It may take a few tries, but you’ll get it soon enough.
Carlos Castaneda made it popular in the 70s through his books. He recommended looking for your hands in the dream as a signal you are dreaming. Several times a day look at your hands and ask yourself, “Am I dreaming?” Do this enough and you’ll do it while you’re really dreaming.
While in this state, practice any of the techniques you practice in your waking life to change your reality. It will work like a charm with fast results in the dream world.
The Dan Plan — Be Anything You Want
The theory? Practice any skill for 10,000 hours to master it. One person took this to heart and is putting it to the test. You can read about him here.
Dan’s goal is to work on his golf skill for 10,000 hours and show how you can master anything. Don’t be limited by age, circumstances or ideas. You can be anything you want if you simply try.
Patanjali–The Secret, Old School
Many people have never heard of Patanjali, an indian sage who is credited with authoring the yoga sutras. The yoga sutras are a string of pithy statements that were committed to memory by aspirants and basically outlined the entire path to enlightenment step by step in a methodical way. Many call it the ‘science of yoga’.
Patanjali’s aphorisms are divided into 4 sections. The third section describes many powers that one develops along the path to enlightenment. In the Vibhuti Pada, Patanjali describes exactly how to acquire the strength of an elephant using your concentration. You can basically know or become anything by applying direct concentration in a specific way.
Patanjali was describing “the secret” many many centuries ago!
Self Directed vs Random Human
Are you a random human or are you self directed? It’s an important question because many people believe they are in control of their lives and choices. Many people in successful positions believe they got there because of their smart choices or shrewd decisions. By the same token, many people in unfortunate positions believe they did something wrong or failed in life. However, do you realize that seemingly innocuous qualities about you such as your name, your birth order and your height probably have more to do with your lot in life than anything else?
Google ‘Height and Success’ and you’ll find tons of evidence that show tall people earn more than short people and all except a few of our past presidents have been above average height. One article you’ll find is this one which states tall men who were short in high school earn less than tall men who were tall in high school. The verdict? Self esteem learned in those early formative years have a great effect on a person’s chance of success. What does this mean for you?
I believe if you are unaware of the effect randomness has in your life, you will travel through life thinking you have more control than you really do. A great book that drives this point home is “Fooled By Randomness” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
However, I also believe you can stack the odds in your favor. If tall men, who were tall in high school, earn more money than everyone else because of better self esteem, you can wipe out this random advantage through the use of affirmations, positive thinking, NLP or whatever method you feel attracted to.
You can be what I’m calling a “Self Directed Human” rather than a random human. Do better looking people have more opportunity? Make yourself more attractive through mental imagery, visualization and positive thinking.
Do first borns become managers? Wipe out the advantage through mental training. Are children who were older and bigger in elementary and high school because of “cut off” years better athletes than their younger classmates? Mental rehearsing of physical skills can help you overcome the advantages of people born in the wrong months.
Beautiful Thinking can undo the edge random humans have in life. By being aware of the real effect randomness has on our lives you can use your intention in more focused ways to help you achieve your goals.
Ten Years Younger By Meditating?
There are many scientific studies that show meditation increases circulating levels of the youth hormone DHEAS and lowers the stress hormone Cortisol.
I found one study on pub med that showed this effect and indicated it was independent of diet and exercise habits. You can find the study here.
Too much Cortisol ages your physical body and DHEAS keeps you young. Take time to meditate or visualize your intentions.
Beautiful Thinking E-Book Available!
This ebook outlines a simple program you can follow to activate your mind’s ability to influence your body chemistry to create a state of lasting health, youth and beauty. It’s a simple idea leveraging things we already know about the power of the mind to regulate our hormone levels, muscle performance and immune system. Everyone knows about Norman Cousins and the power of laughter. Everyone knows about the use of mental imagery by elite athletes. Did you know that practicing a skill and mentally lifting weights will make your muscles stronger? Did you know you can secrete more testosterone by certain visualizations? This book gives you simple ideas you can use everyday for a week to align your mind with your body. Try it!
Available on Amazon.