When we reach middle age, we not only fear decline in our minds and bodies, we expect it. We wait for our knees to hurt, for our running to slow down, and for our memory to fail us. While some of these things actually happen because of our age, can some do so because we expect it? Do our expectations about ageing play a role in the way we age? Can we age better if we expect better?

Image courtesy of Pexels, Alena Darmel

“I just couldn’t remember that person’s name last week,” we say in horror, and we blame it on age. The event can be age-related, but it can also be stress-related. “My knees are creaking, it must be my age,” we say. But we’ve been sitting at our desk for too long. And so, the moment has come. We have reached that dreaded time in life. We are old. From now on we expect a natural decline in our body and mind, as researchers have been telling us for years. Our personal assumptions about how we age, sometimes called ‘expectations regarding ageing (ERA)‘ are not very positive. We don’t expect to age well as we get older and we succumb to it. You could even say that some of the consequences of growing older have become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ageing starts early!

It doesn’t help that we have such negative stereotypes in general about other older people. We see them as frail, vulnerable and comical. Because to make matters worse, experts have discovered something else. That out negative view of older generations negatively affects our own health as we get older! This is also called stereotype embodiment. This scientific view suggests that already at a young age, we assimilate these stereotypes about the elderly. A seed of how we view elderly people gets planted at an early age. And that this view on ageing, embodied in ourselves, will ultimately influence our own functioning and health. “Society will benefit from this ageing population if we all age more healthily,” said Alana Officer, World Health Organisation (WHO) Coordinator of Ageing and Life Course. “But to do that,” she added, “we must stamp out ageist prejudices.” All in all, authorities say that ageism and healthy life expectancy are related.

“Society will benefit from this ageing population if we all age more healthily. But to do that we must stamp out ageist prejudices.”

Turning things around

It is said we each have our own unique ‘subjective age’. That we feel younger or older than our real age. So, if we think ourselves younger, and expect to age well, can the body follow suit? It was the famous Counterclockwise study by social psychologist Dr. Ellen Langer from the 1950s that showed us that it can. The people in the experiment lived for a while in house built to mimic an earlier time.

Turned out, this imagined life had a positive effect on their health! They knew on a conscious level it was not real, but somehow it worked. They were thinking themselves young, researchers have said since. Harvard Magazine reported that the participants had improved in height, weight, gait, posture, hearing, vision and even on intelligence. Their joints were reportedly more flexible, their shoulders wider, and their fingers more agile and less gnarled by arthritis. No mean feat for someone who is ageing?

When the BBC in 2010 did something similar, it had comparable results. Its participants had their ‘memory, mood, flexibility, stamina and eyesight improved in almost all of them.’ The creator of the programme, Michael Mosley, wrote afterwards: “It made a compelling case for Ellen Langer’s argument that opening our minds to what’s possible can lead to better health, whatever our age.” 

“It made a compelling case for Ellen Langer’s argument that opening our minds to what’s possible can lead to better health, whatever our age.” 

A different societal view on ageing

Our negative expectations about the way we age are very persistent. But, there are other perspectives out there. Take Random House Books, which argues that we should learn from the counterclockwork study. That all we need to age better, are subtle shifts in our thinking, our language, our expectations. And that we can change the ingrained behaviours that take toll on our health, optimism, and vitality. And even, that the limits we assume and impose on ourselves are not real.

Then there is the international learning community The Taos Institute from the US. It too argues there is a need to challenge the view of “ageing as decline” that we’ve had for so long. One of its newsletters puts the focus on positive ageing. When we move our focus to growth-enhancing activities, it writes, we can achieve a different view on ageing. The negative ideas about ageing that many cultures insist on, writes Be Independent HomeCare from Ireland, once internalised, can act as a self-fulfilling prophecy. One that increases the chance of ill health and depression. In a similar way, the Australian Positive Psychology Institute calls a positive attitude towards ageing vital. Studies show that a positive attitude improves physical and mental health, the institute has pointed out.

The future of positive ageing?

According to Professor Nancy A. Pachana, in the field of psychology there is room for improvement when it comes to its views on ageing. Professor Pachana is Co-Director of the Ageing Mind Initiative, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland. She has been advocating a focus in psychology on wellness and adaptation in late life. And that this should include the concepts of successful and positive ageing. 

We asked Prof. Pachana whether she believes this approach of expecting to age in a healthy way can be used in the field of psychology. To which she replied: “Yes, I think it can, and it is in fact a very POSITIVE approach to ageing well!” So, next time our knees make a noise, or we forget something, we can consider something new. We can consider that the ageing process is less fixed than we think. That we can have more control over it than we think, by making subtle changes in the way we think and behave about ageing.

“Expecting to age in a healthy way is a very POSITIVE approach to ageing well!”

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