During the last week I wrote about the three traps of diagnosis, or decision making, and about the accompanying examples. Today I want to talk about how affirmations can make you live longer and age more gracefully. This post was inspired by a segment in one of the chapters in the book Sway.
This will be that last post relating to material from Sway. To remind you, the book was written by Ori and Rom Brafman. You can check out their website, www.swaybook.com. It’s a fascinating read, so if you found last week’s posts at all interesting, check out Sway: The Irresistible Pull Of Irrational Behavior. Rest assured, I do not get a commission from you purchasing the book. Maybe if I made an arrangement with the publisher…
On to staying younger and living longer.
A team of researchers from Yale University performed an interesting experiment with a bunch of people living in a retirement community. The researchers administered a simple hearing test and recorded people’s scores.
Then they asked each person to say the first five words/phrases that came to mind when they thought of an old person. The researchers classified people’s responses into four categories: positive, negative, internal (ie. experienced), and external (ie. wrinkly).
Three years later the researchers came back and administered another hearing test. They found that people who mainly described an ‘old person’ with the words falling into the ‘negative’ and ‘external’ categories experienced much greater hearing loss than people whose descriptions fell in the ‘positive’ and ‘internal’ categories. How much of a difference does this self-talk make? Well, after all the factors have been accounted for, people’s hearing deteriorated by approximately eight years worth during those three years when they described ‘old age’ with the help of words falling into ‘negative’ and ‘external’ categories.
In fact, having negative associations to aging cause you to age faster and live an average of 7.5 years less. So the solution, then, is to start seeing ‘getting older’ in a good light. Create some positive affirmations and some inspiring intentions about aging (I prefer just saying ‘acquiring experience’). And put Affirmation Triggers to good use!
Stay Younger. Live Longer.
Until next time,
V