No matter how old you are, you’re aging. You started aging from the moment you were born, and you’ll continue aging until the moment you die. That’s the brutal, universal fact. But people age differently, as you’ve noticed if you’ve looked around and compared yourself to your peers. Are you aging better than they are? Worse than they are? In what ways and for what reasons?

We’ve all heard about the placebo effect – which explains why name-brand medicines work better than the generic stuff, even when they share the exact same ingredients. But did you know that the way we think about ourselves and the world around us dramatically impacts our health, how fast or slow we age, and even how long we live? In fact, people with a positive mindset about aging live on average 7.5 years longer than those without. That might sound alarming to those of us who struggle to see the bright side, but the good news is we can make surprisingly simple changes or small shifts to how we think, feel, and act that will really pay off.

In this talk, Dr. Catherine Sanderson breaks down the science of thought and shows how our mindset—or thought pattern—exerts a substantial influence on physical health. Most importantly, this talk ends by giving specific strategies we can all use, no matter our natural tendency, to make minor tweaks in our thoughts and behaviors that will improve the quality and length of our lives.