Harvard psychology professor Ellen J. Langer firmly believes that “It is not primarily our physical selves that limit us but rather our mindset…” In Counterclockwise, a book more about theory than practice, she summarizes a multitude of studies, including her own, that demonstrate how our thoughts affect our bodies and that many of our ideas are damaging. Langer is especially interested in mindsets that assume aging is a long descent into illness. We’re victims of self-fulfilling prophecies, she suggests. We expect our eyesight and hearing to falter in later years, and so they do. She also explores the potential in placebos and the fact that sometimes when we’re ill, we get better mostly because we expect to. Overall, Counterclockwise is about the psychology of possibility and the power of thinking positively. Want to explore a new way to look at aging? Check out this book.
