評論
打印
How Can We Reverse Aging?
改變心態能否使人變得更年輕？
Imagine that you could rewind the clock 20 years,and you're 20 years younger.
想象一下你能將時鐘回撥20年，然后年輕20歲，
How do you feel?
你會感覺如何呢？
Well, if you're at all like the subjects in a provocative experiment by Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer,you actually feel as if your body clock has been turned back two decades.
好吧，如果你跟哈佛心理學家艾倫·蘭格曾做過的一項頗具爭議性的實驗的受試者一樣的話，事實上你會感覺自己的生物鐘似乎被調回了20年前。
Langer did a study like this with a group of elderly men some years ago,renovating an isolated old New England hotel so that every visible sign said it was 20 years earlier.
幾年前，蘭格對一群老年人做了類似的研究，她將一個遠離城鎮的老式新印哥藍旅館進行了整修，以便所有可看到的標志都表明當時是20年前。
The men-in their late 70s and early 80s-were told not to recall the past,but to actually act as if they had traveled back in time.
接受實驗的老年人—年齡都接近80歲，或者80歲出頭—被告知不要回憶過去，而要假裝自己真的回到了過去。
The idea was to see if changing the men's mindset about their own age might lead to actual changes in health and fitness.
實驗的目的是想知道，人們看待自己年齡的心態的改變，是否會導致其健康方面的實際改變。
Langer's findings were stunning:
蘭格實驗的結果是令人震驚的:
After just one week, the men in the experimental group had more joint flexibility,increased handiness and less arthritis in their hands.
實驗進行僅僅一周后，與對照組的同齡老人相比，實驗組的老人的關節更靈活，手更靈巧，而且關節炎的發病率也更低。
Their mental sensitivity had risen measurably,and they had improved posture.
他們的思維明顯更敏銳了，身姿也更矯健了。
Outsiders who were shown the men's photographs judged them to be significantly younger than the controls.
看到他們照片的外人都覺得他們比對照組的人明顯年輕。
In other words, the aging process had in some measure been reversed.
換言之，衰老過程在一定程度上被扭轉了。
Though this sounds a bit woo-wooey,Langer and her Harvard colleagues have been running similarly inventive experiments for decades,and the accumulated weight of the evidence is convincing.
雖然這聽起來有點不可思議，但蘭格和她的哈佛同事們進行此類創意性實驗已經幾十年了，并且積累的實驗數據很有說服力。
Her theory, argued in her new book, Counterclockwise,is that we are all victims of our own stereotypes about aging and health.
她在自己的新書《逆時針》中提到了這月的理論: 我們都對衰老和健康有一些固化的印象和看法，并深受其害。
We mindlessly accept negative cultural cues about disease and old age,and these cues shape our self-concepts and our behavior.
我們不知不覺地接受著關于疾病和衰老的消極文化暗示，而這些暗示又影響了我們的自我意識和行為。
If we can shake loose from the negative clichés that dominate our thinking about health,we can "mindfully" open ourselves to possibilities for more productive lives even into old age.
如果我們能從主導我們對健康的觀念的負面陳腐思想中解脫出來，那么即便已步入老年，我們也能有意識地敞開心扉去迎接更富有成就的生活。
Langer's point is that we are surrounded every day by subtle signals that aging is an undesirable period of decline.
蘭格的觀點是，我們每天都被微妙的暗示所包圍，這些暗示讓我們覺得衰老是令人生厭的衰退期。
These signals make it difficult to age gracefully.
由于這些暗示，我們很難優雅地變老。
Similar signals also lock all of us-regardless of age-into pigeonholes for disease.
類似的暗示還把我們所有人—不分年齡地—困在了疾病的分類架上。
We are too quick to accept diagnostic categories like cancer and depression,and let them define us.
我們總是太容易接受諸如癌癥和抑郁癥等的疾病診斷分類，并且讓這些疾病定義我們的健康狀態。
That's not to say that we won't encounter illness,bad moods or a stiff back.
這并不是說我們不會遭遇疾病，不良情緒或腰酸背痛。
But with a little mindfulness,we can try to embrace uncertainty and understand that the way we feel today may or may not connect to the way we will feel tomorrow.
但如果我們稍微有心一點，我們便可以嘗試包容生活中一些不確定的東西，并且明白我們今天的感受可能跟明天的感受有關，也可能無關。
