WHY NOSTALGIA IS GOOD FOR ME. Kids, I now have scientific support that my going on and on about how things were back in the day is good for me. The October Harvard Magazine has an article by Carl Feinberg which describes an experiment that the Professor Ellen Langer conducted some 30 years ago. She took two groups of men in their 70’s and 80’s to a location where each group lived together for a week The first group was to pretend that they were 22 years younger, living in 1959. The second group was to simply reminisce about their lives in 1959. Both groups watched movies and television programs from the 1950’s and discussed the events of the 1950’s. Both groups took cognitive and physical tests before and after the week, and “there were dramatic positive changes across the board. Both groups were stronger and more flexible…. Their joints were more flexible, their shoulders wider….” Interestingly, the group that pretended to be younger showed significantly more improvement. So I’ll be doing more reminiscing, although I don’t have any plans at the moment to try to act younger.
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Since you hardly ever seem to act old, I don’t know how you could act much younger.
Those who knew them in graduate school must all find it hard to believe that Phil and Elmer are finally grown up, much less nostalgic!.
Perhaps the whole issue of growing up or staying young is too mysterious to define. If being young means being engaged with the world, interested, willing to trust, etc., then we should all try to keep “being young.” But maturing involves other life-enhancing traits, like caution, responsibility, and perhaps kindness. I think a sense of the importance of kindness is a maturing quality, though some people, like Phil and Elmer have always had it.
I noticed that almost all of the respondents to a question in the fiftieth reunion booklet for my high school class said they still didn’t know what they wanted to do when they grew up.