Aging: It's All In the Mind

"She took some very ancient people, who were pretty impaired in terms of their strength, their mobility, and believed about themselves that they pretty much needed assistance to do every thing. She took them on this brilliantly designed study. She actually took them to a cabin and set everything up as if it were 1950. There were no newspapers, nothing that related to the present. The music was the 1950’s, the discussion were things that were going on in the 1950’s, so she actually took them back to a place in which they – to a decade in which they were very much more able.

Within a week, not only did their blood lipids improve, their posture improved, their strength improved, their test of memory improved. They actually had a different self-concept about their chronological age and they behaved differently. And the things you could measure, like blood lipids and strength and mobility had actually improved." via