
What If Age Is Nothing but a Mind-Set? - adriand
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/magazine/what-if-age-is-nothing-but-a-mind-set.html
======
teekert
The study, which is planned for the spring, is designed to include three
groups of 24 women with Stage 4 breast cancer who are in stable condition and
undergoing hormonal therapy. Two groups will gather at resorts in San Miguel
de Allende, Mexico, under the supervision of Langer and her staff. The
experimental group will live for a week in surroundings that evoke 2003, a
date when all the women were healthy and hopeful, living without a mortal
threat hanging over them. They will be told to try to inhabit their former
selves. Few clues of the present day will be visible inside the resorts or,
for that matter, outside them. In the living areas, turn-of-the-millennium
magazines will be lying around, as will DVDs of films like “Titanic” and “The
Big Lebowski.” San Miguel de Allende, which has historically been a place
known for its nearby healing mineral springs, is a Unesco World Heritage Site,
and many of its buildings look as they did a few hundred years ago. “The whole
town is a time capsule,” Langer says. (The other group at San Miguel will have
the support of fellow cancer patients but will not live in the past; a third
group will not experience any research intervention.)

WTF. And what happens when you had cancer in 2003 but got cured, would it come
back? Better avoid The Big Lebowski in that case.

~~~
fhnjh
If this is a real effect, it does not necessarily involve magic. I find it
quite easy to imagine an organism evolving to subtly alter it's physical state
according to the function of it's nervous system. Why is it so hard to believe
that the mind controls the body at a cellular level? Even if this is a magical
effect, it can still be codified and brought within the bounds of scientific
discourse.

~~~
phkahler
>> Why is it so hard to believe that the mind controls the body at a cellular
level?

Because modern medicine (and science) does not like to believe anything that
it has no explanation for. You can show not only correlations, but causative
action and a lot of people will reject the finding if it is unintuitive and
has no known mechanism. IMHO this has become a problem.

Even though we claim science starts with observation, people still don't
believe what is in front of them unless they have something conceptual to hang
it on.

~~~
darkmighty
An important remark, but let me remind you that scientists are used to the 90%
of the times where the current models are correct but observations/experiments
are erroneous, specially when things deviate so much from known models. Of
course, the 10% of times the models can't explain the observation are indeed
crucial to science.

------
api
As I age, I've found that I have to expend constant effort to repel the
"wisdom" of my cohort as they become cynical, loveless, self-limiting, and as
they give up on their dreams. I do think it's a mindset -- a mindset called
"aging" which gives us a sense that it is somehow an inevitable byproduct of
the biological process that goes by the same name.

Barring something amazing out of SENS research, I can't do anything about the
biological process. But I can do something about that.

I've found little things that help. I occasionally do an experiment where I
restrict my music collection to nothing more than five years old. I'll
sometimes admit older things only if I was _not_ listening to them when I was
a teenager or early-20-something... if they are new to me. It's curiously
effective, since central to the ideology of aging is that everything is
getting worse than it was "back in my day." If you try this and find your
collection sparse, go and find more. Music is a very condensed form of human
expression. It carries a lot with it.

Other things that work include avoiding excessive and routine alcohol
consumption, changing your setting, getting rid of old things, and learning
pretty much anything new.

~~~
bsder
> As I age, I've found that I have to expend constant effort to repel the
> "wisdom" of my cohort as they become cynical, loveless, self-limiting, and
> as they give up on their dreams.

I actually consider it a function of "lack of positive reinforcement for adult
learning."

Learning _anything_ as a child gets a continuous stream of "oh, isn't that
wonderful" no matter how bad the child sucks.

As an adult, try learning a foreign language or a musical instrument. You have
to be damn near native fluency or rock star proficiency before you will get a
positive word from other adults.

When learning something new as an adult, you have to have an amazing amount of
fortitude to continue plowing through a new task.

~~~
api
Ignoring "stop energy" is a skill you have to master.

------
draugadrotten
Age is a mindset in the same way suffocating is. You may feel as if you're
suffocating when you are not, but if you are suffocating, you are suffocating
even if you don't realize it.

~~~
jonifico
The way you put it is the closest I've found to my opinion. I mean, it's
definitely not just a mindset when you realize you can't run as you did when
you were 20 and played football, but maybe you haven't even noticed cause you
haven't played football since your 20s. If it is a mindset, it's one that
heavily depends on the moment.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I'm 52. I still play football. But now I cover the slowest opposing player,
not the fastest.

My approach has been that I'll keep doing things until my body proves to me
that I can't. It has started doing so. You can ignore age longer than many
people think, but not forever...

~~~
jonifico
If my body responds like yours, I still have a good three decades of activity.
I can live with that. But yeah, as long as you keep a strong mind I suppose
you can get over the limitations, that's until your body collapses.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> If my body responds like yours...

 _Keep using it._ You can't just wake up in three decades and decide that you
should still be able to be active. You have to keep using it week after week,
year after year.

Find something you like to do. Do it regularly. You can keep getting better
(more skilled even if not faster) for a long time.

Sometimes you'll get an injury. Rehab it, and get back to doing whatever it
was that you enjoyed. It may take a year to get back to where you were. It may
hurt. Do it anyway. Do what you don't want to have to do for a year (if it
takes that long), so that you can do what you want for several decades.

That all said, know your limits. If you try to crash through them, bad things
happen. (I still remember the lecture from that one physical therapist...)

------
madaxe_again
There's probably something to this. I've been a miserable old man since the
age of about 19, and I'm now 31, with arthritis, gall stones and kidney
stones.

I think it was Seneca who said something along the lines of "When I think as
an old man, I have become an old man.". This isn't new knowledge, but
something that we seem to have to keep reminding ourselves of.

Also, placebos.

~~~
otakucode
Or, perhaps more apt to your point, nocebos.

------
grecy
I believe it for sure.

When I was 27 I took a white water guide course up here in the Yukon. The
instructor was doing backflips out of the raft in class 3 rapids, swimming for
fun in water that was a few degrees above freezing, hauling more than his
share of the raft, flipping it and righting it again in the middle of the
river, etc. etc.

The instructor was 68 years old, and he's one of many people up here more than
twice my age that can out-do me, and I'm no slouch.

~~~
pedalpete
This topic has come up a few times in the last few days with friends. I'm 41,
but most people think I'm in my early 30s. I'm from Whistler, BC, where most
people look and act significantly younger than city-folk of the same age.

I'd like to see a study like this one where rather than having people
reminisce and pretend time hasn't passed, they spend more time around a
younger crowd. I suspect that has an equal effect.

~~~
grecy
Yup, 100%. I just found out my current boss is 47, I would have said he was
late 30s.

------
cafard
A few winters ago, I took a 20-year-old car into a shop. The guy who ran it
diagnosed and fixed a problem the dealership had missed. I asked him about the
status of the car. Well, he said, cars are like people. You can be in good
shape for your age at 70, but that's not like being in good shape for your age
at 30.

~~~
nkozyra
The noteworthy distinction is we can rebuild a car from scratch - a great many
human "parts" are irreplaceable.

I hope we're really considering the effect of widespread longer life might
have instead of barreling toward longevity - people living 10 years longer on
average could have a pretty devastating effect on a lot of things. And I'm not
saying we shouldn't do it, but we should be really thinking about how we'd
mitigate that impact.

~~~
RankingMember
Maybe we could stop freaking out about keeping birth rates high? "Devastating"
carries a negative connotation. If the quality of life for that additional 10
years is good, I'd call it a positive. If it's 10 years hooked up to machines
where your brain's working at half capacity, then yeah, that's a negative.

~~~
nkozyra
I'm speaking more about devastating to infrastructure. Social systems (social
security, employment rates), healthcare availability, etc.

~~~
PeterisP
Well, if it turns out to be such a big problem, then we can just kill everyone
at a specific age.

That's sarcasm, of course, but IMHO saying that we shouldn't prolong life
because of possible consequence X is morally exactly equal to saying that we
should kill old people to avoid that consequence X.

For every X, either X really is so bad that it's worth killing people for it;
or X shouldn't be considered as a valid argument against longevity.

~~~
nkozyra
I didn't say we shouldn't prolong life, I'm saying we should be proactive
about the unintended consequences of longer lives in aggregate.

~~~
synkarius
Could you give an example of how to be proactive as such? I agree that being
prepared is good, but I don't personally know enough about old-age care /
geriatrics / Social Security to really be in favor of or against any
particular policy changes.

------
gilrain
If it's a mindset you can't change willfully, then it's not usefully a
mindset. This is also what makes depression a disease, not simply a mindset.

~~~
VLM
For a related tangential idea to "mindset you can't change willfully", think
of a continuum along two axis, one of addiction/habit vs mere temporal
coincidence and the other axis of fix it yourself vs professional
intervention. Maybe a third axis of success rate! And a fourth axis of success
of introspection/interpretation something like (reality) - (the victims
observation).

Another fun related tangent is the article examples were very pedestrian and
conventional, I wonder what the article readers would think about old dudes at
a SCA event or a civil war re-enactor event. Or a star trek convention. Or a
Renaissance Faire.

------
thunderbong
The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. \- Oscar
Wilde

------
tunap
When I was young, 'all' of what I learned was unique. As I aged, the newness
waned as I recognized patterns and deemed repackaged ideas as innovative
applications. Now well into my 40's, I can still find 'new' when I leave the
daily repetitive habit of life and deliberately search outside my comfort
zone, but most events now seem stale & tired. The accumulation of knowledge
and experience has changed the aspect in which I see and participate within my
immediate environment. That is not to say I am or I feel old, it is only that
my perspective of life has changed, my aspirations beyond my abilities have
been quashed and I am no longer gullible enough to believe the ungrounded,
optimistic concepts public education, media marketing and sociopath
bosses/users/scammers try to feed me every day. Frankly, despite chronic aches
from accumulated injuries and evolving sensations of fatigue, I only feel
young when young people remind me I'm not young. YMMV.

Edit: Didn't read the mc-article who's sole purpose is to sell
advertising...another 'old' thing I've picked up over the years.

------
gojomo
When online ad networks know your age, they show you 'age-appropriate'
advertising (that can be quite depressing). So be sure to tell advertisers and
online sites only the age you want subconsciously-reinforced!

------
jmount
Then you can drink all the soda you want? (
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8488714](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8488714)
)

------
tempodox
Of course age, especially old age, is nothing but a mindset. As we all know
from StarTrek, we're only getting old and die because the cells in our bodies
get irredeemably bored (hinting to the possibility that some cells have better
tastes than the individual they're forming). And the situation isn't improved
by the nocebo effect of incessant rumours about human mortality. So, don't
believe anything you hear...

~~~
soylentcola
"we're only getting old and die because the cells in our bodies get
irredeemably bored (hinting to the possibility that some cells have better
tastes than the individual they're forming)."

Very Douglas Adams.

------
jcagalawan
That bit about half-speed and double speed clocks is intriguing. For those
that don't play Starcraft, all games run at ~1.4 times normal time.[1] A lot
of players usually have the in-game clock, which is running fast, showing
during gameplay. I wonder what effect that has had.

------
kuni-toko-tachi
As corny as "The Secret" is, this is exactly the same principle at work.
Establishing the correct mindset is the fertile ground for achieving any
purpose.

------
ad80
"We hope you’ve enjoyed your 10 free articles this month."

~~~
kator
Open in an incognito window.. :)

------
exratione
It's amazing the stuff that gets funded in the research community in place of,
you know, actually addressing the physical, biochemical causes of aging.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
This isn't "in place of" any research: This is different and honestly, it is
hard to tell if this will wind up being important or not. This is research
that is testing how to make people feel better as they age. I mean, if someone
could feel just a little better and that little bit of feeling and performing
better means they are able to move more and be healthier and stuff? Besides,
this is looking at the mind-body connection in aging. Maybe this leads to
research on different ways neurotransmitters react and the result of aging on
the chemicals - and on and on. Maybe this research will inspire others.
Research can lead to more research, when allowed.

------
cLeEOGPw
So as we know the older brain gets, the more things it learns. The more things
it learns, the less "space" there is left to learn new things. The less
"space" there is left, the more difficult it is to absorb new information and
learn new concepts. In order to overcome that, brain must unlearn old things.
Unlearning is not easy process and requires much more energy than simple
learning in young age.

So in a way it is mindset, but not in a meaningful way.

~~~
wtetzner
I wasn't aware this was the case. Where can I read more about how the brain
runs out of "space" as we learn more things?

~~~
cLeEOGPw
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/science/older-brain-is-
wil...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/science/older-brain-is-willing-but-
too-full-for-new-memories.html?_r=0) also
[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-
news/10584927/Bra...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-
news/10584927/Brains-of-elderly-slow-because-they-know-so-much.html)

Nice to see many self righteous people downvoting without even trying to
discuss.

