YOU'RE ONLY AS OLD AS YOU THINK

Your attitude towards ageing can reduce the toll time takes on your brain and body. It's a statement that sounds ridiculous, but the science backs it up. The question is: how much could a change of attitude change your life?

- by DAVID ROBSON

Think, for a moment, about your hopes and fears for the future.

Do you see your 60s, 70s or 80s as a time of growth and opportunity? Will ageing bring wisdom, status and friendship? Or do you see yourself becoming more lonely, helpless and grumpy as you get older?

Will the last years of your life be – in the words of Shakespeare – “...mere oblivion/Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything”?

Quite incredibly, those beliefs may predict how you fare in the decades ahead, determining everything from the health of your memory to your risk of cardiovascular disease through a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Your views about ageing may even influence your lifespan by as much as 7.5 years.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, though, and few are as extraordinary as this. But many scientists from across the world are coming to the same conclusion: your mindset can shape your biology.

Unpicking the mechanisms behind this link between mind and body could offer new strategies to enhance the health of our ageing population. And, if we want to live a long and happy life, it may never be too early to put those principles into practice ourselves.

LIGHTING THE TOUCHPAPER

Dr Becca Levy, a professor of public health and psychology, lit the touchpaper of this research at the turn of the millennium. As a young graduate student, she had just spent a semester in Japan, thanks to a fellowship from the US National Science Foundation. The country was famous for its population's extraordinary longevity and, immersing herself in its culture, she was struck by how much reverence the Japanese paid to their oldest citizens. Could the two be linked?