Buckle up — mental time travel is a wild ride.
Wrinkles, crinkles and sags are just a few signs of aging that most men and women (even Botox buffs) can expect to see creep up on their faces as the years turn into decades.
But rather than merely bracing themselves for the radical, yet predictable maturation of their physique, one specialist argues that middle-aged adults who are able to see what they will look like in 20 years might be motivated to make healthier and wiser decisions for the future.
“The ability to time travel — albeit in our own minds — can help us manage our emotions and improve our decisions about the things that matter. Things, for example, like our finances or our health,” writes psychologist Hal Hershfield, author of the April 2023 tome “Your Future Self: How To Make Tomorrow Better Today.”
“We want the slightly over-budget, nicer car; we want the extra cocktail or delicious-looking dessert,” reads the book. “And yet at the same time, we wish to be financially stable and physically healthy.”
“However, by strengthening the connections between our past, present, and future selves, we can gain a new perspective on what’s important — and help create the future we want,” he says.
To help folks build a bond with who’ll they be in 2043, Hershfield, a professor of Behavioral Decision-making and Marketing at UCLA, uses specialized software to digitally age a person’s current photo, granting them an eye-opening glimpse into the future.
Face-aging via funky social media filters and trendy apps has become all the rage in recent months.
Gen Z icon Kylie Jenner, 26, skyrocketed into the viral stratosphere after superimposing under-eye bags and smile lines atop her typically silky skin by use of the “aging” filter on TikTok in July.
And thanks to a powerful scene dedicated to aging gracefully in the “Barbie” movie, out July 21, young women online rushed to digitally add years to their faces for fun sneak peeks at what they can hope to see in the mirror in the years to come.
But Hershfield’s work dives deeper than surface-level looks.
“I’ve shown people images of their future selves,” he pens of his research.
“We took photos of the participants with a blank expression and ran them through a software package to create digitally aged avatars,” the scientist adds. “Mimicking all the fun things that happen with age, we made their hair grayer, their ears droopier, and their under-eyes… baggier.”
For the analysis, Hershfield showed half of his study contributors their aged pictures while the other half were not permitted to see their future selves. After both research groups were subjected to an immersive virtual reality experience, each person filled out a survey detailing its impact on their decision-making.
“Those who confronted their future selves ended up putting more money into a hypothetical savings account than those who did not,” says the author, who’s since tested the intervention on thousands of men and women, discovering that most people become more frugal with their hard-earned dollars when their futures become a stark reality.
“To make better decisions today that create happier tomorrows, we need to find ways to close the gap between our current and future selves,” says Hershfield. “We need to make time travel easier, to help ourselves cross through that magic gate.”
He recently tested the mental time travel experiment on journalist Katie Glass, 42, virtually enhancing her image of what she’ll look like at age 62.
And much to the singleton’s shock, she was pleased to envision her older self without a husband or kids.
“In a funny way, seeing my picture makes me feel far less anxious about not having children,” Glass writes for the DailyMail.
“After all, this future me doesn’t look like she spends weekends looking after grandchildren,” she says. “She looks smart, cultured, interesting — and like she has plenty of time (and sleep) to herself.”
Hershfield’s mental exercise did, however, prompt Glass to begin stashing away monies and leading a healthier lifestyle in preparation for her sixties, seventies and beyond.
“I keep putting off organizing my pension (I know, I know . . .) because it’s something I associate with old people. But here I am old, and what exactly am I living on?” she says.
“I feel guilty admitting the same is true of my health. I know I should lose the extra pounds I’ve managed to acquire, but although I make occasional enthusiastic attempts to go to the gym, it never lasts.”
“Yet I want future Katie to be able to go out and enjoy herself,” inks Glass. “Not just to look good but also to not be blighted by illness.”
But rather than inciting a wave of fear about the future, Hershfield hopes folks begin treating themselves as would an elderly loved one.
“I maintain…that the idea of our future selves as being different people altogether should be a comforting one,” he says in the book.
“If we can treat those distant selves as if they are close others — people we care about, love, and want to support — then we can start making choices for them that appreciably improve our lives now and later.”
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