You don’t have to turn on the TV or open a paper, these days, to know that the news is dreadful. And if you’re anything like me, you’d welcome even a scrap of good news.
That is why I am delighted to be able to write, this week, about a social scientist whose work I truly admire, and who is — drumroll — still alive and kicking!
She is Ellen Langer, a Ph.D. in psychology at Harvard, and I just heard an interview with her on NPR today. (It was taped in 2014 but she’s still around.)
It turns out that I have been a fan of her work for years.
It was many years ago — probably in a psychology class in college — that I heard of a study that showed on the positive effects on nursing home residents of being in charge of some aspect of their lives.
All were given plants.
Some were told the staff would take care of it; others were told the plant was their own responsibility.
After 18 months, significantly more of the plant-care-takers were still alive. It was almost enough to make me invest in some potted plants; all that stopped me was a selfless concern for the plants’ well-being.
“Who would even think of such an experiment?” I remember wondering. “This Ellen Langer is no ordinary college academic.”
Years later, I heard of another fascinating study — this time, concerning the health of hotel cleaning staff, otherwise known as chambermaids.
All it takes is a minute of thought to realize that a chambermaid’s day is nearly all exertion: lifting mattresses; scrubbing toilets; dusting; vacuuming; and finding whatever fools like me left under the bed.
It might be a better job than coal mining (though there are lots of men who wouldn’t think so); but in any case, not one you’d call “healthy.”
Langer and her associates told half of the 84 women in their study to think of their strenuous work as being “exercise” instead of “work”…and health follow-ups found that only those women managed to lose weight and improve their body-mass-indexes.
But my favorite experiment is the one Langer wrote up in a book entitled “Counter Clockwise.”
She took men in their 70s and brought them to a retreat where every feature had been scrupulously “scrubbed” of any trace of the present.
Mirrors were removed, and the decor, the menus, and the news were all from 22 years before. For five days, the men lived, talked, ate, and even moved as if they were 20 years younger.
At the end of that week, impartial medical evaluations showed that the men had all improved on measures of dexterity, grip strength, hearing, vision, memory and cognition. They even sat up straighter than before the week began.
To be honest, I’d sign up for Camp Turnback Time, myself, if I could. Who wouldn’t? Even if they charged a million dollars for every decade erased, I bet there’d be plenty of takers!
Judging from Langer’s work, it really seems to be true, that “You’re as young as you feel!” Or, as Shakespeare had Hamlet put it, “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
Now in her 70’s herself, Langer has compiled an impressive career’s-worth of fascinating, unconventional, even quirky work. (She was 34 before Harvard’s Psychology Department had to admit she was deserving of tenure.) But one theme recurs throughout: the demonstrable effect of our thoughts on our health and happiness.
Langer writes a great deal about the importance of this kind of “mindfulness.” But interestingly, she does not borrow any of her concept from Buddhism or other Eastern religions.
“Mindfulness, to me, is a very scientific process of actively noticing new things,” she says. No higher power is necessary; no meditation; no Zen.
This approach seemed a disappointment to the interviewer, Krista Tippett. (Tippett’s show, after all, is titled “On Being.”)
But for me, it’s the best news of all!
You mean, I can do “mindfulness” without a scrap of yoga? That’s the mindfulness for me!
In truth, the closest I’ll probably ever come to being “in the moment” is when I turn off my phone at the movies. But If I can count that as being healthy — or even just a first step on such a road — I’m ahead of the game!
So thank you, Dr. Langer, for the decades of fascinating work. I wish you many mindful years — and findings — to come.
