Breakthroughs

Psychological Breakthrough: Dr. Ellen Jane Langer – 1982

In 1982, American Dr. Ellen Jane Langer was credited to have discovered the relation between thinking and having a longer, healthier, and more productive life. In her research, she demonstrated that more mentally active people were having a longer life expectancy. Her motive was to prove the direct relationship between low mental activity and the degeneration of elderly people. In doing so she offered hope to millions of people whose problem were previously seen as irreversible and inevitable such as senility or depression. By her work, numerous articles, and six academic books, she has exposed how the human limits were defined by our own minds. She is the author of Mindfulness and The Power of Mindful Learning. Dr. Langer is the first woman to become tenured in psychology at Harvard University. Did you know that just by having to take care of a plant, a pet or by staying mentally active, older people showed substantial improvement of their life quality and have a longer life?