Take Me Back

Over a coffee this morning with a builder during a break in construction, he told me a story about his grandfather and his grandfather’s mates. He said they were sitting around having a cup of tea one day when they started reminiscing about Harley Davidsons. All of these guys at one point in their lives had owned a Harley. His comment was, “As they started talking about their Harleys, their trips, their adventures and the bikes themselves, I could see the years stripping away. They just seemed younger.”

In this week’s Mojo Radio Show we interview comedian Ella James. Ella talks about how she found some old journals containing love notes from her first ever boyfriend some years back. She talks about how wonderful it felt to read these letters. Well now there is scientific evidence to demonstrate that age could be more of a mindset than anything else. Ellen Langer who is the longest serving professor of psychology at Harvard, reportedly conducted an experiment where she took a group of 75 year old men away for a week, immersing them in an environment of their youth, surrounding them with music, magazines, tv shows, food, wall art, and sport that had them reminiscing about the good old days. Results showed that every measurement such as dexterity, grip strengh, hearing, vision, flexibility, memory and cognition improved during those 5 days away, when these old men were immersed into a fairly intense psychological intervention, taking them back to a time when they were youthful.
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There’s a lot of science to back up the fact that age has a lot to do with our mindset. This post is just to encourage you to pull out your vinyl records, take a moment to go back through your photo albums, read your old diaries and journals, ring an old friend or if you can handle it, head to a school reunion. Take time to reflect, reconnect and immerse yourself in a time 10, 15, 20 or 30 years ago. It’s good for the soul, your creative spirit, your relationships and your health.