Counterclockwise: A Thought Experiment

Photo of author by Coffee And A Map

Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychology professor, conducted an experiment in 1979 called the 'Counterclockwise' experiment.

For this experiment she got 8 male volunteers who were in their 70's and took them to a converted monastery in New Hampshire. 

Everything in the old monastery was recreated to look like it was 1959 - twenty years prior.

The pictures on the walls, the books, the music; everything was set up to look and sound just as it would have in 1959. 

There were no mirrors so the participants couldn't look at themselves. They did not have modern day clothing, or current individual photos, and nobody assisted them physically in any way.

They were told to discuss historical events of that time as if they were current events.  They were instructed to talk and act as if it was 1959 - not only to recall what it was like, but to live as if they were there again.

Another group of men of similar age lived in a comparable environment, but they weren't instructed to talk and act as if it was 1959. They could reminisce about the era, but they did not act as if it was twenty years prior - as if they were back in 1959.

Both groups lived this way for five days.

All of the subjects from both groups were tested and measured in various health and performance metrics before the experiment began.

At the conclusion of the experiment all subjects were tested on those metrics again, and showed evident improvement in virtually every category - including vision, hearing, memory, joint flexibility, posture, and arthritic symptoms. Over half of the subjects in the first group - the group that acted as if they were back in 1959 - also tested at higher IQ scores after the conclusion of the experiment.

You can read more about the Counterclockwise experiment here.

While this test may have been debated and scrutinized since then, I do not think it would be a good idea to ignore the results.

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I have encountered numerous people over the course of time who do not believe that the thoughts we think have much, if any, influence on what our bodies do - on how they function.

Personally, I am always challenging and testing this belief on myself, and I can assure you that what we think and how we think affects our bodies and even our entire life. You can read about one of my self-experiments here.

We don't need to look any further than the music we listen to, to see that our thoughts affect our bodies.

We all have a song, if not several, from our past which we listen to that can instantly transport us back to a specific time or location. The ensuing memories give us the feelings we had when we were initially there. 

This is our thoughts affecting our bodies.

What happens in our mind is unquestionably reflected in our body. Thinking is a physical process that can be mapped and measured. I present to you the functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. An fMRI scanner measures changes in blood flow - actual physiological changes in our body - that occur from our brain's activity, aka our thoughts.

Still not convinced?

Let's do a little thought experiment on ourselves:

Have you ever read or heard an opinion - social, political, religious, scientific, legal, or otherwise - that you vehemently disagreed with? What happened in your body, physically, when that occurred? Did your muscles tense? Jaw clench? Brow furrow? Did you become visibly agitated?

See? Simply reading or hearing something can create a biological response in the body.

Some of us may have to go back in our memories much farther than others for this next one, but we've probably all had a first date with someone at some point in our lives. Do you remember being nervous before a first date? Why?

Surely it wasn't due to the thoughts you were thinking.

Need more evidence? Take a couple of minutes and ruminate on the following examples, one by one;

Think of that one person that really gets under your skin and drives you crazy by just being in their presence. Imagine that they are next to you right now.

Reflect on a moment from your past that may have filled you with fear before you did it. For example; having to speak in public.

Think of that moment, such as a child's graduation or that time you did something that you didn't think you could possibly do, that filled you with joy or pride.

Now recall one of the most incredible, amazing, or exciting things that has ever happened to you.

Think hard.

I'll wait...

Did you feel it? 

That was your thoughts affecting your body.

Every emotion we have creates a physical sensation in our body.

And our emotions are driven by the thoughts we think.

Stress, fear, anger, excitement, joy; they all stem from the thoughts we think and those thoughts produce a chemical reaction in our body.

When we believe that something will affect us in a particular way, it usually does. 

Placebo effect, anyone? 

Phantom pain?

Psychosomatic illness?

Many people can't distinguish between the thoughts that randomly run through their minds and what they are really thinking, because they don’t give any thought to what they're thinking. And before we can change our thoughts, we first need to notice that we're thinking.

There are elements of reality that we tend to not consider, or overlook altogether, just because we can't see them. Our thoughts are one of those elements.

But our thoughts are as real as anything else. 

They very much influence our physical reality;

The things we do, the things we feel, and our perception of the world.

What we think does not miraculously change things outside of us. But what we think and how we think can absolutely impact what happens inside of us.

If we don't regulate our thoughts, our body will eventually adapt to the new "normal" conditions that our thoughts have created. Changes in our minds - in our thoughts - are reflected by changes in our body, and vice versa.

If you've tried everything you could possibly think of to change something in your life and none of it works, it's most likely because you haven't changed the way you thought about it.

Sure, we can be overloaded with random thoughts. That's normal. But we choose which thoughts to obsess over, or give our attention to.

Whatever we don't work on, train, or practice, becomes our normal.

And we have probably neglected our thoughts for far too long.

Our own thoughts are more influential than we think.

Our own thoughts are more powerful than we know.

If you think that the way you think is set in stone;

If you think that what you think or how you think doesn't matter;

If you think that you can't change the way you think;

You may want to think again.

Photo - Coffee And A Map Looking into the fog