Super Ager. Elise Marie Collins
role in our evolution and survival. Vigilance and seeing things through a negative lens helped us survive at one point. Those who were fearful and vigilant survived more often than those who may have been more carefree. When humans anticipated a threat or attack and that was a correct assessment, negative thinking helped people to survive. As humans, we are always growing, learning, and watching out for danger. Our brains are wired to look for things to fear. But this is not the only way of looking at things. A positive outlook, even in the face of not so positive life circumstances, seems to be a personality trait that may be associated with longevity. And to survive eighty years and beyond, a certain kind of resilience and reframing will be necessary.
In 2017, Sardinians age 90–101 were interviewed about their life histories and beliefs. Younger relatives of this group of nano and octogenarians were also queried on their long-lived family members’ personalities. Researchers found that these older adults exhibited better mental health than younger people. Despite a decline in physical vigor, older adults of Sardinia had a mostly positive outlook. They were filled with hope and optimism, despite what life had dealt them. It seems that to live to be 100, one either becomes more positive or perhaps optimism helps one survive past a certain age. In Ayurveda, the last part of life, is influenced by the air element which is expressed through a positive attitude and inspirational point of view.
Back to School
As one of the oldest undergraduates at UC–Berkeley, Delores Orr, age seventy, is part of a trend of older adults going back to college after age twenty-five. However, at her age, she is more of an exception at highly selective schools such as Berkeley. As Delores’ own granddaughter struggled in elementary school, she told her grandma she believed she could not succeed in school. Delores Orr’s pursuit of higher education arose from a deep desire to inspire her granddaughter. When her granddaughter continued to doubt that she could succeed in school, Delores told her, “but you can: I’ll show you.” She was accepted to Cal, yet when she arrived on the Berkeley campus, her confidence wavered. She found herself surrounded by students who looked and acted very different than her. They rode skateboards and stared at their smartphones. Orr felt her fear and then did something about it. She sat across from the office of the registrar at Sproul Hall, repeating positive affirmations over and over: “I am worthy, I am worthy, I am worthy.” Her mindset leads her to her success. She will graduate in Spring of 2018.
The Power of Positive Thinking
Do optimists live longer than pessimists? Recent research suggests optimism strongly affects cardiovascular health. A 2015 University of Illinois study analyzed data from an ongoing survey, called the Multi Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, finding that those who exhibited the highest levels of optimism had almost double the odds of having ideal cardiovascular health, in comparison to their more pessimistic counterparts. The study’s author, Rosalba Hernandez, Professor of Social Work at University of Illinois, emphasized that the significance of a hopeful attitude was clear. “This association remains significant, even after adjusting for socio-demographic characteristics and poor mental health,” she said. In a similar study at Harvard University, researchers found links between optimism, hope, life satisfaction, and a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, as well as strokes.
But can it be that easy? Believe it or not it can be, kind of. Affirmations can help redirect our neurons to create pathways that help override old and long-ingrained patterns. Breaking habitual patterns of negativity can be surprisingly easy and, well, hard. Why is that? Because the mind creates patterns, and breaking these patterns feels very, very uncomfortable. You are changing the neural pathways that direct the mind to fear. It is important to realize that this is very different than suppressing, overriding, or bypassing pain or reality. In the highest sense, when you feel the fear, name the fear, listen to the fear, express the fear, and give it compassion, you create space. Once you create this space, there is a potential to choose a new thought, a new goal, a new path, and this is the “positive” mindset that healthy aging both requires and (I believe) teaches. When we age in a healthy way, we become more resilient and we also become great teachers. There is potential in aging to learn deep lessons of resilience, and this imparts great wisdom on the person who is aging. This is the gift of Super Agers.
In Ayurveda, speaking, thinking, and acting in a way that is positive, kind, and truthful restores the spirit and the mind and helps increase feelings of wellbeing. A 2012 study revealed similar traits in centenarians. The study, titled “Positive attitude towards life and emotional expression as personality phenotypes for centenarians,” included participants with an average age was 97.5 and found that “qualities of positivity,” including being optimistic or easygoing, were more prevalent in the 243 centenarians studied than the average population in the US. Laughter was valued by these Super Agers, and most were part of a larger social network. Most were emotionally expressive, less neurotic, and expressed a higher-than-average level of conscientiousness. Similar studies of centenarians have evoked surprisingly likeminded data, indicating that perhaps the mental attitude of Super Agers contributes greatly to their ability to live so much longer than average.
The results of the Heidelberg Centenarian study challenged the belief that older adults have maxed out on feeling positive, given the adversities common in advanced age, such as losing a life partner or continual physical decline. Regardless of “accumulating negative conditions,” the centenarians reported high levels of happiness and optimistic feelings on par with those of adults half of their age.
The Outside-the-Box Research of Elaine Langer
In 1981, Harvard psychology professor Elaine Langer brought a group of men in their seventies to a location that was staged to give them the illusion that it was actually 1959. Everything was made to look like as though it was that year. Mirrors were removed, so the men could not see themselves. The vintage radio played Perry Como; on TV, the men watched the Ed Sullivan Show. They were told not to reminisce, but to act is if it was 1959. A control group was also brought to the same location, but those men were given no special treatment. Langer also made sure the men were treated as though they were twenty years younger. Before being told that they were in charge of bringing their suitcases upstairs, the men were tested on grip strength, physical dexterity, and flexibility, as well as hearing, vision, memory, and cognition. After a weekend time-warp get away, the men were stronger, more flexible, and taller. Even their vision had slightly improved. And those that witnessed the men leaving the retreat reported that they somehow appeared younger. Elaine Langer never published her research because she believed her unconventional study would have been rejected by journals, especially in 1981. “You have to appreciate, people weren’t talking about mind-body medicine,” she said. Yet her work has now become legendary. She has led many fascinating and groundbreaking studies in mindset, including one that compared adults in nursing homes. One group was given a houseplant to take care of, and told they would be in charge of their own schedule. The control group was told that staff would be taking care of their plants, and that they had no say in their daily schedules. A year and a half later, twice as many people in the plant caring group were alive. In 2010. A BBC TV show called The Young Ones did a remake on Langer’s 1981 experiment with six aging British celebrities. She consulted on the project. Set in 1975, this group time-traveled to see shag carpets and kitschy art. The show aired in four episodes, and concluded with the six celebrities appearing remarkably revitalized. One even got rid of a wheelchair and swapped it for a cane. The show won a British Emmy. Jeffrey Redigar, MD, a professor at Harvard Medical School, said of Langer: “She’s one of the people at Harvard who really gets it. That health and illness are much more rooted in our minds and hearts and how we experience ourselves in the world than our model even begins to understand.”
The Telomere Effect
Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, and Elissa Epel, PhD, led a groundbreaking study on women, stress, and aging. Their study examined mothers who were caregivers to children with serious chronic health issues. The results painted a vivid picture of the connection between chronic stress and the length of their telomeres (a known marker of aging). The longer the moms had been caregiving, and therefore chronically stressed, the shorter their telomeres. In addition, if subjects perceived a greater level of stress, regardless of the actual stressor, the mothers’ perception was related to the length of their telomeres. This deeply humanizing research carried out by Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD, and Elissa Epel,