Latest / Age Like a Badass Mother / Ep. 113: Dr. Ellen Langer - The Mindful Body: Thinking Your Way to Chronic Health

Transcript

Ep. 113: Dr. Ellen Langer - The Mindful Body: Thinking Your Way to Chronic Health · Age Like a Badass Mother

• 0:00
  Hi friend, can you really think your way to better health and aging?
• 0:03
  Dr. Ellen Langer has spent more than 40 years proving that the stories we believe about aging, stress, and health may actually become self-fulfilling prophecies.
• 0:13
  If you've ever caught yourself saying something like, I'm getting so old, this conversation might completely change your perspective.
• 0:20
  Enjoy this encore episode with Dr.
• 0:22
  Ellen Langer. It is our most downloaded episode of all time.
• 0:27
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• 0:32
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• 0:35
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• 1:02
  That's ancientgrains.com with code HeLTY10.
• 1:05
  And now here's our guest, Dr.
• 1:08
  Ellen Langer.
• 1:21
  What if I told you that you could think yourself younger and healthier?
• 1:24
  Would you believe me? That's just what our guest today has proven with her scientific research. Ellen J.
• 1:31
  Langer is the author of 11 books, including the international bestseller, Mindfulness, which has been translated into 15 languages, and Counterclockwise, Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility.
• 1:44
  Most recently, she is the author of The Mindful Body Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health.
• 1:51
  Langer is the recipient of, among other numerous awards and honors, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest from the American Psychological Association, the Award for Distinguished Contributions of Basic Science to the Application of Psychology from the American Association of Applied and Preventative Psychology, and the Adult Development and Aging Distinguished Research Achievement Award.
• 2:20
  From the American Psychological Association.
• 2:22
  She is the author of more than 200 research articles, and her trailblazing experiments in social psychology have earned her inclusion in the New York Times magazine's Year-in Ideas issue.
• 2:35
  A member of the psychology department at Harvard University and a painter, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• 2:42
  Please help me welcome our guest, Dr. Ellen Langer.
• 2:48
  Hi, thank you, Lauren. Welcome.
• 2:49
  Welcome, good morning.
• 2:49
  Good morning. Good morning. So Dr.
• 2:52
  So Dr. Langer, you've conducted over two hundred studies.
• 2:54
  Linger, you've conducted over 200 studies.
• 2:58
  When did you first realize that people were being mindless?
• 2:58
  When did you first realize that people were being mindless?
• 3:03
  ~ gosh. ~ I think ~ what happened was I walked into Bloomingdales or someplace, bumped into a mannequin and said, Excuse me. And ~ then I started to pay attention to this.
• 3:17
  When I moved from ~ New York to Cambridge, it was very interesting to me because I had the stereotype of Cambridge as being very, very Harvard high IQ, everybody's smart. And ~ at this time, and it's changed since then, at three o'clock the bank would be closed and there was nobody using the parking spaces.
• 3:39
  That would never happen in New York.
• 3:41
  I mean, people would immediately rush there because you're not going to Right.
• 3:44
  get a ticket.
• 3:45
  And so I started noticing all of these sorts of things.
• 3:47
  You'd go into a bank in Cambridge and you'd have ten people on one line for the teller that that was before we had ATMs, and two people on another, you know, rather than the peop people at the back of the ten person line quickly going over.
• 4:03
  So it was a a difference between New York Street Smarts and ~ IQ.
• 4:10
  ~ you know, I I had misjudged a lot of it, but ~ I saw it as people just not being there.
• 4:17
  And they might have just not been in a hurry the way people in New York were.
• 4:21
  But nevertheless, ~ and my father, when I was growing up, would constantly go out in the evening, when he went out in the evening, and come back 'cause he had forgotten his keys.
• 4:33
  And so things started to add up.
• 4:36
  And I I must say, Lauren, I've been studying this for over forty-five years, and the resounding finding Is that virtually all of us, almost all the time, are mindless. Now the thing is that when you're not there, you're not there to know you're not there.
• 4:52
  But ~ let me tell you, we're not making the best use of ~ our minds, our lives and what have.
• 5:03
  Yeah, when I was reading your book, Yeah, when I was reading your book I was just thinking about all I was just thinking about all the times I'm mindless and just bumbling through the times I'm mindless and just remember you can you can think about that, but you're not aware of all the times you're not aware.
• 5:15
  Right? That's exactly so you have to you That's exact yes.
• 5:19
  know, multiply it or it's an exponentially more often that you're mindless.
• 5:23
  Right. But once you try to start paying attention you realize that that you are.
• 5:24
  Right, but once you try to start paying attention you realize that that you are.
• 5:30
  Well, when you notice things that you didn't notice, things right in front of you that have always been there, that's probably the best signal.
• 5:38
  You know, if everybody just walked out But yeah.
• 5:40
  of their house and ~ noticed three new things, all of a sudden they'd see the street is very different from the way it was the day before. ~ and if we keep doing that, what happens when you're actively noticing,~ which is the essence of being mindful?
• 5:57
  The neurons are firing, and all of that research that you mentioned suggest makes clear that that's literally and figuratively enlivening.
• 6:07
  So when you're there, the neurons are firing,~ you you look alert, people respond to you in a whole different way.
• 6:15
  You're taking advantage of things to which you'd otherwise be blind, avoiding dangers that you otherwise would have missed,~ life just becomes a very, a very different set of circumstances.
• 6:27
  simply by act of noticing. Let me tell you.
• 6:30
  So that's really just the key.
• 6:31
  So that's the essence The just of being mindful. But let me let me make clear, you know, so mind when people hear the word mindfulness, they often think of meditation.
• 6:40
  And meditation is something that's just different.
• 6:43
  Meditation is a practice you engage in to result in post meditative mindfulness.
• 6:49
  Mindfulness as I study it is immediate.
• 6:52
  And it results in from an awareness of un the implicit or the inherent uncertainty in everything.
• 7:01
  So you can become mindful in in one of two ways.
• 7:04
  Bottom up, which is act of noticing things that you think you know, then you see you didn't know them as well as you thought you did, your attention naturally goes to them.
• 7:13
  Or top down, which is realizing none of us know anything for sure.
• 7:18
  And that's very hard for people to accept.
• 7:20
  But everything is always changing.
• 7:23
  Everything looks different from different perspectives.
• 7:25
  So uncertainty is the rule, not the exception.
• 7:28
  Now, especially women, when we when we don't know in the society we've all been brought up in, you know, we take a backseat, we think that we're supposed to know.
• 7:38
  He typically is acting as if he does know.
• 7:41
  Well, he doesn't know, we don't know, we can't know. And so if we change our our~ perception of this.
• 7:49
  From ~ a personal attribution of not know, I don't know, but I should know.
• 7:53
  So then pretend, don't engage, to a universal attribute, I don't know, you don't know, nobody knows. Now, everybody thinks they know. So when I when I say this, I say, what is she talking about?
• 8:04
  So then I start, typically on the with these conversations, with the the thing everybody thinks they know.
• 8:11
  So Lauren, how much is one plus one?
• 8:16
  I I've scared you already, right?
• 8:16
  Two. Well I've I know what you're gonna say.
• 8:18
  I know what you're gonna say. Okay.
• 8:19
  I Okay, but you'll play along because your audience doesn't know.
• 8:23
  Yes, two. It's two.
• 8:23
  Two it's two.
• 8:24
  Right. But no, one in one isn't always two.
• 8:28
  First I'll give you the complicated one.
• 8:29
  If you're using a base ten number system, one plus one is two. If you're using a base two number system, one plus one is written as ten, but who cares about number systems?
• 8:40
  If you add one pile of laundry to one pile of laundry, one plus one is one.
• 8:45
  You add one watt of chewing gum to one watt of chewing gum, one plus one. Somebody sent me something the other day that I loved.
• 8:50
  If you take one pizza and you put it on top of one pizza, one plus one is two. However, if you take one lasagna and you add to it one lasagna, one plus one is one.
• 9:03
  It's just a bigger lasagna. So in the real world, one plus one doesn't equal two as or more often as it does.
• 9:10
  Now, think about this. This is the important part of this.
• 9:14
  If someone comes up to you now and asks you how much is one plus one, all of a sudden you have choices.
• 9:20
  Rather than mindlessly saying two, you say, I could say one, I could say two, I could say ten, possibly even other answers.
• 9:27
  All right. And you're present while you're doing this.
• 9:30
  You're noticing the context as you're making this decision.
• 9:33
  And all of that is gone when we're acting on the world like robots.
• 9:37
  How much is one and one two? Now, let me tell you something.
• 9:41
  And which would be relevant to the other questions you're gonna ask me.
• 9:44
  So I was a straight A student, right? The the one people dislike because I always knew the answer.
• 9:49
  I'm at this horse event and this man asked me, Can I watch his horse for him?
• 9:54
  Because he wants to get his horse a hot dog.
• 9:56
  Well horses don't eat meat, right? So I have to keep myself from laughing at him.
• 10:02
  I said, Sure, I'll watch your horse.
• 10:04
  He comes back with the hot dog and the horse ate it.
• 10:09
  And that's when I realized everything I thought I knew could be wrong.
• 10:13
  Now, if I were normal, that would probably scare me.
• 10:16
  You know, I don't know anything, but not me. What it did was excite me because that meant everything was All those things I thought couldn't be possible, like horses couldn't eat meat and so on, now needed to be questioned. ~ and lots of my work ~ goes in places where most people would have thought.
• 10:37
  No, it can't be. Horses can't eat meat.
• 10:39
  We can't improve our vision. We can't live longer by changing our minds.
• 10:44
  So on and so forth. And we can.
• 10:46
  Yeah, let's start digging into some of those studies.
• 10:48
  Yeah, let's start digging into some of those studies.
• 10:51
  Like I I feel like I'm pulling you out like a old rock star and and making Like I I feel like I'm pulling you out like a old rock star and and making you play all the hits. I'm sh I hope you're not sick of talking about No, you play all the hits. I'm sh I hope you're not sick of talking about these no, no. You know, it's it's it's interesting But because I've been doing so many podcasts.
• 11:03
  And and and many of them I say the same thing.
• 11:05
  I try to say them a little differently.
• 11:07
  And you know, that because I'm able to say them in a different way, it so on the top, you know, layer it looks like it's the same old, same old, but my experience of it is not.
• 11:18
  So I love talking about this stuff.
• 11:20
  Because my goal in it Good, good.
• 11:22
  is to get people to wake up, essentially.
• 11:25
  Go on, ask me the question. Yeah, and you know And you know, I think that I thought I hadn't heard of you.
• 11:29
  I thought I hadn't heard of you.
• 11:30
  My friend said, you have to have Dr.
• 11:30
  My friend said, you have to have Dr.
• 11:32
  Langer on. She told me about the counterclockwise study, Langer on. She told me about the counterclockwise study, which we'll talk about as it relates to age like a badass mother.
• 11:36
  which we'll talk about as it relates to age like a badass mother.
• 11:40
  But I then I was like, I've never heard of her.
• 11:40
  But I then I was like, I've never heard of her.
• 11:44
  But as I was researching you, I was like, But as I was researching you, I was like, this does sound familiar. So, you know, this does sound familiar. So, you know, it probably is new information to a lot of people.
• 11:49
  it probably is to a lot of people.
• 11:52
  Yeah. Yeah. Or they've forgotten that they knew.
• 11:52
  Yeah, or they've forgotten that they knew.
• 11:56
  But the new studies the So maybe new studies will be brand new for people.
• 11:59
  But yes, let's Yeah.
• 12:01
  start at the beginning. Start.
• 12:03
  Start. Start what what do you like to start with?
• 12:03
  Start what what do you like to start with?
• 12:05
  Like the house plant study or Well, Like the houseplant study or to you tell me.
• 12:07
  we don't have enough time to go that far back. Let's just start with the counterclockwise study.
• 12:12
  With counterclockwise, this is phenomenal.
• 12:13
  Counterclockwise. All right, so let me tell you what motivated this. You know, I started to think, ~ people talk about mind and body, and that's nice, but they're just words.
• 12:26
  And you always have the problem, how do you get from one to the other?
• 12:30
  How do you get from a thought to something material?
• 12:34
  Now we all know that the, you know, that the mind and the body are at least related.
• 12:39
  I'm gonna go beyond that though.
• 12:41
  You know, that you're walking down the street and a leaf blows in your face and you get startled until you realize it was just a leaf.
• 12:47
  Or you see somebody vomiting and you yourself, you know, feel like you're gonna regurgitate.
• 12:53
  And also I think our strongest medicine ~ is the placebo.
• 12:58
  You take this thing that's nothing, you think it's something, and you get better.
• 13:02
  Okay, so I say, wait a second, mind, body, ~ dualism, it there's just something wrong with that.
• 13:09
  Let's put them back together as one thing.
• 13:12
  And if the mind and the body are one thing, then wherever you're putting one, you're necessarily putting the body.
• 13:19
  Now you had said you heard about some of my work.
• 13:23
  You know, it takes such a long time for people for this to get into the the general public. ~ and the first influence of a lot of my work is people start talking about mind-body connection.
• 13:35
  It's not connected because if it's connected, you still have to go how is it connected?
• 13:40
  Let's just put them, it's one unit.
• 13:43
  And then the amount One thing.
• 13:44
  of control we have over our health and well being is enormous.
• 13:48
  So the first test of this is what I'm gonna call The famous counterclockwise study.
• 13:54
  Sounds obnoxious. How can she call her own study famous?
• 13:57
  Anyone who's misunderstanding It is.
• 13:59
  anything I'm saying now can tune in to The Simpsons Go to Havana.
• 14:03
  And they they talk about the study.
• 14:06
  Okay. The study was conducted a long time ago.
• 14:08
  Very simply. We took ~ a retreat, retrofitted it to 20 years earlier, and we were going to have elderly men live there as if they were their younger selves.
• 14:20
  So it w it wasn't quite a Hollywood set.
• 14:22
  I didn't have the funds for that, but you know, it ~ it took you back in time.
• 14:28
  You were going to be discussing things from the past, watching television shows from the past, and all the while discussing these as if it was just unfolding.
• 14:38
  In less than a week, we found people's vision improved, their hearing improved, their memory, their strength, and they looked noticeably younger.
• 14:50
  Just by changing their minds. This was nineteen seventy-nine.
• 14:51
  Yeah, and so this was nineteen seventy-nine.
• 14:55
  You set the clock back to nineteen fifty-nine.
• 14:55
  You set the clock back to nineteen fifty nine.
• 14:58
  So all the magazines were from nineteen fifty nine, So all the magazines were from nineteen fifty nine, the shows. ~ They had pictures of each other from that.
• 15:01
  the shows, the they had pictures of each other from that.
• 15:05
  They were told to talk in present as if it was nineteen fifty nine.
• 15:05
  They were told to talk in present as if it was nineteen fifty nine.
• 15:09
  But let me you know, we we can And you spend the whole time talking about just that study, but there are so many new ones that people haven't heard of.
• 15:17
  So let me let me just say that when the changes were occurring it was palpable.
• 15:24
  You know, when I first wrote about this, I was a little, you know, skittish here.
• 15:29
  I was this young woman and I was gonna be turning everything upside down.
• 15:33
  So I didn't state it as dramatically ~ as it actually unfolded.
• 15:39
  There were several of the men who had canes ~ that at the end they weren't using the canes.
• 15:46
  At the end of this I was playing football with touch football.
• 15:49
  I didn't want to be tackled anymore than they wanted to tackle me.
• 15:53
  But ~ yes, and so it was very, very exciting. And the next study,~ several years later, ~ was was very interesting and I think will be interesting to your audience if they don't know it.
• 16:06
  So we took chambermaids and the first thing we asked them was how much exercise do you get? Well, these are women who are exercising all day long.
• 16:15
  Right. ~ they said they weren't getting any exercise because they thought exercise is what you do after work. And after work they were just too tired.
• 16:24
  Okay, now first thing, if exercise is good for you, then they should be, whether they know they're exercising or not, they are exercising, they should be healthier than similar others.
• 16:36
  And they're not. Okay, so we divide them into two groups.
• 16:39
  Very simple study. And one group we teach them their work is exercise.
• 16:43
  We say making a bed is like working at this machine at the gym, you know, ~ dusting the windows like this other machine and so on.
• 16:51
  So now we have two groups. One group is oblivious to the fact that they work as exercise, the other group believes they work as exercise.
• 16:58
  We take many, many measures. They don't differ on any of them.
• 17:02
  They're not ~ one group isn't working any harder than the other,~ they're not eating any differently.
• 17:09
  Nevertheless, the group that changed their mind.
• 17:13
  And now sees their workers, exercise, lost weight, there was a change in waist to hip ratio, body mass index, and their blood pressure came down.
• 17:21
  Something very interesting about this that I've only recently started to talk about is that, I mean, because the results themselves are so, you know, ~ unusual, is that this was the study of the nocebo effect. And okay, so everybody has a placebo, you take a nothing, you think it's something, and it acts like the something.
• 17:42
  The nocebo is the inside out of that.
• 17:45
  You do something, here exercise, that's something, but you don't think it is, and that undercuts its effectiveness.
• 17:52
  you know, so Mm.
• 17:55
  you know, let's say you're going to a doctor and you're given medication and the medication isn't effective.
• 18:01
  What the doctor is likely to do is increase the dosage.
• 18:05
  But if you're not partnering in your own health care, that's not going to be effective.
• 18:10
  We have So much control that we're exercising,~ and the absence of that exercise is ~ is hurting us.
• 18:19
  Anyway, so that's the next study.
• 18:22
  We have so many of these studies.
• 18:23
  Let me just tell you one or two others.
• 18:25
  We have people in our sleep lab.
• 18:27
  They wake up and they see the clock, because we fudged the clock, that they think they got two hours more sleep than got, or two hours fewer, or the amount of sleep they got.
• 18:39
  What happened is biological and cognitive function follow perceived amount of sleep.
• 18:44
  If that clock tells you you've slept well, you've slept well. Let me tell you just the last one in the series, although we have so many in between.
• 18:53
  So we inflict a wound. It's a minor wound.
• 18:57
  Because nobody's going to let me hurt them, and I don't want to hurt anybody, but it's a wound. And again, I'm using a clock.
• 19:04
  So individually, you're in front of a clock.
• 19:06
  You've been wounded, you're in front of a clock.
• 19:08
  For a third of the people, the clock is going twice as fast as real time.
• 19:13
  For a third of the people, it's going half as fast as real time.
• 19:17
  And for a third of the people, it's real time. Now, most people would assume that wound is going to heal when wound heals. What's the difference what the clock says?
• 19:27
  But in fact, our perceived passage of time is what determines healing time.
• 19:33
  And the importance of this~ and another piece that I sh I should have said earlier, I don't know in what order to tell you.
• 19:41
  I'm so excited about sharing this information, is that where was I going with all of it?
• 19:47
  that when doctors tell you when You were talking about the pus doctors tell you ~ that whatever condition~ you have is going to take X amount of you know months whatever to heal, they can't know this. But It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
• 20:08
  Okay, so the piece that go back to the horses.
• 20:11
  And when I had that saw that horse eat the meat, I asked, what does it mean horses don't eat meat?
• 20:20
  Then I realized that science doesn't give us the answers that everybody thinks it does. Science only gives us probabilities.
• 20:31
  So if we take these kinds of horses and we feed them these kinds of Hot dogs, you know, mixed with what however amount of grain to meat and what have you, most of them won't eat meat.
• 20:44
  The most is translated as horses don't eat meat.
• 20:48
  It's very different. You know, if you're told it takes three months to heal from whatever you you broke an arm or what have you, what does that mean?
• 20:59
  Everybody doesn't heal in three months.
• 21:02
  Right? Some people take longer, some people take you know, that means we have a lot of room to to manipulate~ our our own ~ our own behavior, our own healing time. And ~ so all research is probabilistic.
• 21:18
  And if we accept that, then we don't disengage and just sort of blindly follow medical advice.
• 21:26
  Right? So one of my favorite things to to share with people is that If you have a chronic illness, most people think that means you have no control over it.
• 21:38
  All chronic means is that the medical world doesn't have any answer for us. There are many things we can do.
• 21:49
  So in the study you wanted me to begin with,~ I didn't. We take old people, we make them more mindful, and it's gonna be actively noticing new things.
• 21:59
  They live longer. Okay, so you've got a chronic illness.
• 22:02
  When you're told you have a chronic, what happens? You become depressed, you retreat from the world, ~ essentially increasing your mindlessness.
• 22:10
  If we turn that around and we become more mindful, the neurons are fire when we're going to be helping ourselves.
• 22:17
  Second, and this is wild, doesn't come from our lab.
• 22:21
  So you're in bed with whatever the chronic illness is, so you can't be outside exercising.
• 22:26
  Turns out imagined exercise is as effective.
• 22:32
  As actual exercise. This is several labs, not mine. Wild, right? So you can imagine yourself exercising.
• 22:39
  And if you're doing new exercises, then you're being mindful while you're doing that.
• 22:42
  ~ and good things are happening.
• 22:44
  The next thing is we developed a treatment which I call attention to symptom variability. That's just a fancy way of saying being mindful.
• 22:55
  Being mindful is noticing change.
• 22:56
  That means noticing variability, right? So We call people periodically in the course of the day and we say, How is your symptom? Whichever symptom we're talking about.
• 23:06
  Is it better or worse than the last time we spoke?
• 23:10
  And why? Now several things happen with this.
• 23:14
  First, when you have a chronic illness, you feel helpless. Now all of a sudden you're doing something for yourself.
• 23:19
  That feels good. Second, once you see that, geez, sometimes it's a little better.
• 23:24
  And nothing stays exactly the same.
• 23:27
  You know, when we say the stock market's going up, it doesn't go up in a straight line.
• 23:30
  It goes up and then down a little.
• 23:32
  And it just means it goes up more than it goes down.
• 23:34
  Everything is always changing.
• 23:36
  No matter if you think you're depressed all the time, stressed all the time, you know, and pain all you're not. ~ you can't be.
• 23:44
  Moment to moment, there are always changes.
• 23:47
  Okay, so then when we ask you, how is it different? and you see.
• 23:52
  You know, gee, today it's a little better.
• 23:53
  Well, that feels good. And all of a sudden, you know, you realize that it's not quite as bad as you had thought.
• 24:01
  The next is the most important.
• 24:03
  When we say why, why?
• 24:06
  I don't, you know, then you do a mindful search.
• 24:09
  And that mindfulness is good for your health.
• 24:12
  Finally, I believe if you're looking for a solution, you're more likely to find one than if you're not.
• 24:20
  And what you tend to believe with the chronic illness is that that's it.
• 24:24
  You know, there's nothing I can do.
• 24:25
  So anyway, so we do this, calling people periodically throughout the day, throughout the week, ~ over time, and we get improvements, significant improvements with Parkinson's stroke, arthritis, multiple sclerosis,~ chronic pain, a host of big disorders. The beauty, Lauren.
• 24:49
  is that you can do this for yourself.
• 24:51
  You have a smart smartphone, if you don't get it from your kids.
• 24:56
  And you set it to ring in two hours.
• 25:00
  And it rings. So how is a symptom now?
• 25:02
  Is it better or worse than before?
• 25:04
  And why? Then set it to ring in an hour and thirty-three minutes.
• 25:08
  You know, just pick different times.
• 25:09
  And you just keep repeating this.
• 25:12
  And ~ the good thing is that there's no negative side effects.
• 25:16
  ~ you're engaged so It's going to be good for you, even if you don't get a solution.
• 25:22
  But so let's say you're somebody who thinks that you're always stressed.
• 25:26
  So I call you periodically, or now you're going to do it yourself.
• 25:30
  How are you now? Is it better or worse than before?
• 25:35
  And why? And you do this over time.
• 25:37
  You say, you know, Lauren says to herself, I'm maximally stressed when I'm talking to Ellen Langer.
• 25:42
  Okay, well, if that were the case, the solution is easy, right? Don't talk to me.
• 25:48
  So you're going to improve even if you don't find a solution.
• 25:51
  And we find across a host of disorders that people do find solutions.
• 25:58
  And this is very exciting. ~ And it differs from and you can then share, this doesn't have to be in place of medical treatment.
• 26:05
  You can share the information with your physician.
• 26:08
  And you know, the hardest part with lots of disorders is the waiting time.
• 26:15
  ~ in between and finding out, you know, if you've improved or what have you.
• 26:19
  And this will keep us busy if nothing else.
• 26:23
  But it I shouldn't say if nothing else because the effects have been dramatic and exciting. Yeah, that's that that is ~ dramatic.
• 26:30
  Yeah, that's that that is ~ dramatic.
• 26:33
  Just to just the noticing. I have a question going back to like Just to just the noticing. I have a question going back to like the chambermaid study. So if you can notice yourself into losing weight, the chambermaid study. So if you can notice yourself into losing weight.
• 26:43
  can you do other things like noti how would you maybe do that for crepey skin Can you do other things like noti how would you maybe do that for crepey skin or wrinkles? Does that even happen?
• 26:50
  or wrinkles? Does that even happen?
• 26:53
  ~ we haven't tested it. Conceptually there's no reason why not.
• 26:57
  The problem with a lot of it is that if you deeply believe you can't, then it's very hard to per you know persuade yourself that you can.
• 27:08
  It's sort of, you know, for the same reason you can't give yourself a placebo.
• 27:12
  So you're gonna give yourself a nothing, tell yourself it's something, and you know, and then heal. ~ but ~ conceptually I don't know why not.
• 27:21
  And it's also the case that many of those wrinkles are, you know, when you talk about mind-body unity, everything is connected to everything else.
• 27:32
  And when you're at peace, every ~ freckle on your face, you know, every organ in your body.
• 27:40
  is going to also be responding.
• 27:43
  But you know, I think that the world has maybe it's Medicine Avenue has given us too much worry about these wrinkles.
• 27:51
  If we change the name of them to marks of distinction, you know, and and then we welcome them.
• 27:58
  Love it.
• 27:59
  And it's interesting because in welcoming them we'd probably be reducing, you know, ~ some of them. ~ so yeah, I think that ~ We're we're taught so many negative things about aging when we're younger that it's too easy for it just to take on a life of its own as we get older.
• 28:20
  I had this experience which I was about 30 years old, and I was at this very, very conference where everybody there was ~ in their late fifties. It was an invited small group of big shots.
• 28:32
  And they wanted to address the problem ~ in 2024.
• 28:38
  No, it was actually 2020.
• 28:40
  whatever it was, because this was many years earlier.
• 28:43
  There's going to be a lot of old people.
• 28:46
  So they wanted to address the problems of aging.
• 28:49
  So there I was with all these older people.
• 28:52
  And they just kept talking about all the problems.
• 28:56
  And and I didn't I you know I didn't accept those problems.
• 29:01
  And then I thought, well where where do I come from?
• 29:04
  I mean they're living it. What makes me so sure?
• 29:08
  And then I thought about it And thought, well, where do we get our ideas about aging in the first place?
• 29:14
  And it tends to be from your grandmother.
• 29:16
  Now, so if you have a grandmother who is young and vital,~ and grandmother the word means old, then your notion of old is young.
• 29:27
  And and that was the case for me.
• 29:29
  And we actually studied this, and it seems to be ~ to be true.
• 29:33
  So much Yeah.
• 29:36
  of what we experience.
• 29:37
  is a function of ~ the mindsets we ex the stereotypes we accepted when we were younger. If you just think about it, you know if you believe that as you get older you're gonna fall apart.
• 29:51
  Many people believe us. When you're first given this information, you're very young and vital, so who cares, right? So you lock yourself into it.
• 29:59
  So if you're 20 years old and you hurt your wrist, what are you gonna you're gonna take care of it, right?
• 30:05
  But let's say you're 75 years old and your wrist hurts.
• 30:09
  Too often people say, What do you expect?
• 30:12
  I'm 75. You start to fall apart.
• 30:15
  So then you have the young person taking care of the wrist, the older person not. Clearly,~ the young person's wrist is going to get better, and the older person's wrist not so much.
• 30:27
  And then we have this thing about forgetting.
• 30:29
  You'll love this. So I teach Harvard students, right? And before I give them a lecture on aging.
• 30:36
  This is in a health psychology course.
• 30:38
  First thing I say to them is, okay, this is on a Thursday, right? We meet Tuesday and Thursday.
• 30:44
  I said, What was the last thing I said on Tuesday?
• 30:47
  These are Harvard students, young, vital, smart. Nobody knows. The point being, Right.
• 30:55
  young people are not infrequently forgetful.
• 30:58
  And the problem for most of us as we're older is that.
• 31:04
  We oftentimes mistake ~ a circumstance for forgetfulness when it wasn't. So let me say, let's say you introduced me to four of your friends, and you know, big shouts, right?
• 31:18
  And I'm 30 years old and I'm an up and coming and I know I need to learn their names. Good.
• 31:26
  So I learn them. Now I'm seventy-seven, which I am.
• 31:32
  You introduced me to four of your friends.
• 31:34
  Frankly, Laura and I don't care, you know. Why should I learn their names?
• 31:39
  If I'm gonna have a relationship with them, there's gonna be plenty of time.
• 31:42
  Okay, so now the next day in both instances, you asked me about one of the friends.
• 31:48
  And I don't know to whom, you know, of whom you're speaking. It's not that I forgot.
• 31:54
  I didn't learn it in the first place.
• 31:58
  And if you don't learn it in the first place, when you don't know it in the second place, it has nothing to do with memory.
• 32:03
  So our values change, the way we organize our lives, the the things that we care about.
• 32:10
  If you don't care about the same things, you're not going to have that information handy.
• 32:15
  ~ you know, you're watching television, you're eighty years old and you're watching television with your daughter, maybe your granddaughter, and then afterwards~ you start discussing what you just saw.
• 32:30
  Well, you know, and you don't know what they're talking about.
• 32:33
  There's nothing wrong with you.
• 32:34
  You're not interested in the same things they were interested in.
• 32:38
  And so, you know, if you don't again see the same thing, you're not gonna have the information available to you.
• 32:46
  You see what I'm saying? You know, that's Yeah, absolutely. So you just need to expect that you're going to age well.
• 32:49
  Yeah, absolutely. So you just need to expect that you're going to age well.
• 32:55
  Yeah, and that you know, there may be some memory Is that basically loss, but you know, I there is some memory loss, but I think it's been grossly exaggerated.
• 33:02
  And we get so afraid that when you're in a set of circumstances ~ where you think you should remember and you're talking to yourself and you're afraid you're not gonna remember, you're making it harder for yourself to remember.
• 33:17
  and ~ I you know, when I'm lecturing, I mean I'm talking to hundreds of kids.
• 33:24
  ~ and it wouldn't matter if it were you know I do this sometimes when I'm giving a a talk before many, many people.
• 33:30
  and ~ I have so many ideas and I'll forget where I am and I'll say, What was I just saying?
• 33:39
  But who cares?
• 33:41
  So you said you're seventy seven.
• 33:43
  Has mindful aging changed for you now that it's in practice and not in theory?
• 33:51
  And and what are you doing to stay so engaged and youthful?
• 34:01
  N nothing has changed for me. I I tend not to pay any attention to age.
• 34:05
  You know, not that long ago I was helping this woman who I thought was an old woman, and my partner said to me, Honey,~ she's probably younger than you are.
• 34:16
  So I have no sense of how old I am.
• 34:19
  I'm just the same person I always was.
• 34:21
  ~ and you know, I was very fortunate, Lauren. I was brought up by parents who were fabulously supportive.
• 34:31
  And so having grown up ~ just being positive and feeling good about things,~ I tend I think the one of the major things that ages people is stress.
• 34:43
  And what people need to realize is that events don't cause stress.
• 34:48
  What causes stress are the views we take of events.
• 34:51
  And the more mindful you are, the more options you have as to how to understand an event. So If a simple thing happens, for example, let's say the internet goes out.
• 35:02
  Now, my God, some people, you know, to me, it would just mean, you know, that I'd go have breakfast. You know.
• 35:10
  And when you live your life ~ long enough in this way where you realize that events are neither positive nor negative,~ that ~ events are events and it's our understanding of them that leads us to feel however we're going to feel.
• 35:27
  you come to see how much control you have.
• 35:30
  And it's very important because stress ages people.
• 35:34
  But not only that, I think that stress is the major killer.
• 35:39
  You know, if you took people who had any disease, let's give them cancer, ~ and no one when they first find out they have cancer is going to be unstressed, but let's give people a few weeks to live with it.
• 35:51
  ~ then we measured their level of stress every few weeks.
• 35:56
  I think what we would find, I don't have data for this, but nevertheless I believe that we would find that the degree of stress determines the course of the disease over and above genetics, nutrition, even treatment. ~ and ~ I think the world is is coming closer and closer to this view. But everybody knows stress isn't good for you.
• 36:19
  And realizing that ~ You know, if you I I wrote a paper,~ a blog a long time ago about aging.
• 36:27
  You know, remember you were two years old and you scraped your knee and you scream bloody murder. And then you're six years old and Johnny or Janie doesn't send you a Valentine and you're crushed.
• 36:39
  And then you're thirteen years old and you get some pimples.
• 36:43
  You know, at some point you realize that this is all nonsense.
• 36:47
  And ~ that The same way if you scraped your knee now, you would realize it's going to heal, that most things take care of themselves.
• 36:59
  ~ and I think that ~ if if people even just realize that almost always the things we're worried about never happen.
• 37:09
  And if they happen, since you're able to think about them now, somehow you're able to deal with them.
• 37:15
  I think that ~ people should start controlling their stress.
• 37:21
  I think, you know, that something that I say to people that seems to~ work for them is next time you're stressed, just ask yourself, is it a tragedy or an inconvenience?
• 37:32
  Yes. Yes.
• 37:34
  It's almost never a tragedy. And the older we get, the more experience we have with things that we worried about and thought were tragic. You know, I I miss the bus, I ~ bang the car.
• 37:48
  I forgot to buy whatever I was supposed to buy at the supermarket, you know, so what? And you know,~ and and by doing this, we can't we don't waste so much time.
• 38:00
  Right now, you know, people keep worrying about events that are probably not going to even happen. so you know, Mm-hmm. Yeah. My friend and I have a saying.
• 38:08
  remember no worry before it's Yes. My friend and I s always say, May that be the worst thing that happened to me today.
• 38:15
  Like, you know, ~ I I don't stress very Yeah, that's good.
• 38:19
  much about anything. It has to be pretty good for me to stress out about Thank you. Yeah.
• 38:23
  it. And Yeah, I have a friend who calls most stresses ~ champagne problems.
• 38:30
  Champagne'll fix it. No or You know, that they're not they're not ~ no, no, no, no, champagne might affix it, but I think he was saying that ~ you know, these are luxury problems, A luxury problem, yes.
• 38:44
  you know, they're they're not life and death the way we Yeah.
• 38:46
  tend to often think about them.
• 38:48
  But you So you know, as one of the good things about getting older is that As you age, you you tend to learn.
• 38:56
  ~ you know, I I'm trying to hasten the learning.
• 38:59
  In fact, I teach my students that, you know, the wisdom that often comes with age, you don't have to wait until you're older to have it.
• 39:07
  All you need to recognize is that events don't cause our emotions.
• 39:13
  Our emotions are caused by our views of events.
• 39:16
  The more mindful we are, the more possibility possible ways of understanding The more experienced we are, the more we can look back and say, yeah, I thought that was awful.
• 39:27
  But look at how it turned out actually to be an advantage.
• 39:30
  You know, I have this little semi-treatment.
• 39:34
  We'll call it, I don't know what semi-treatment means.
• 39:36
  Ha ha.
• 39:37
  ~ that when people are stressed.
• 39:39
  If you think about stress, and you know, to be stressed means you believe something's going to happen, and when it happens, it's going to be awful.
• 39:47
  So take both of those. So ~~ you believe something is going to happen, just ask yourself for three, four reasons why it might not happen, and you're immediately less stressed.
• 39:57
  But then the fun part is the second part there.
• 40:01
  Let's imagine that this thing you're worried about does happen.
• 40:04
  And ask yourself, how is it actually an advantage?
• 40:07
  And you you know, you do these things often enough, you know, so for me, you know, life is just fine. Whatever happens i is good.
• 40:16
  You know, that, ~ If the internet goes out, as I said before, I'll have lunch. If the car doesn't work, that's good, I'll spend the day catching up on things in the house, so on. ~ that these are really not worth the time that we give them.
• 40:33
  And the time would be better spent just mindfully engaged in whatever we feel like doing in the course of the day.
• 40:43
  Yeah, I I agree with that. And you know, it brings me to I was reading about ~ language in your book.
• 40:52
  I think the language matters too.
• 40:54
  It's not just your perception of what happens, but like you were talking about chronic disease versus chronic health.
• 40:59
  ~ you know, definitely. ~ right.
• 41:00
  you said who decided the the disease was chronic or you know, a cancer versus a cold.
• 41:06
  When you go in remission, you you know, you're expecting the cancer to come back versus a cold.
• 41:12
  Yeah, let me tell the remission.
• 41:12
  Mm-hmm. Can you talk about that?
• 41:15
  Yeah, let me tell the remission story because that's fun.
• 41:18
  So I was visiting my friend Eva, who had this very bad case of cancer, an unusual cancer. And I said, How are you? And she said, Well, she's good because she just got back from Mass General and they told her cancer was in remission. And then something went off.
• 41:34
  I thought, wait a second. If I went for the very same test, They would tell me, presumably, I don't have cancer. Why is it I don't have it, but she has it in remission? Now, remission is better than an active case, but it's not nearly as good as being cured.
• 41:53
  And so we we looked at women on a breast cancer awareness walk to find out did they see their cancer as in remission or cured.
• 42:01
  ~ and we went back six months later, and those who saw their cancer as cured were better psychologically and physically.
• 42:10
  ~ that you know, I think the world that we've most of us have grown up in knows how to go they can't always do, but they know how to go to bed to improve.
• 42:23
  And I spend a lot of time in the mindful body discussing there's a better than better way. ~ the the one that was most fun for me was I was asked to give a sermon at one of the Harvard ~ churches. I'm Jewish and I'm not religious, but I say yes to everything. So I say yes and that what am I going to talk about?
• 42:44
  I know nothing about religion.
• 42:46
  So then I start I said, Well, forgiveness.
• 42:49
  I I could think about forgiveness.
• 42:51
  It's not religion, but it sounds religion y, and I could get away with it. And then I do a deep dive in my head, thinking about forgiveness, and I come up with something that was virtually sacrilegious. So for example If you ask 10 people, is forgiveness good or bad, they're going to tell you it's good.
• 43:09
  If you ask 10 people, is blame good or bad, they're going to tell you it's bad.
• 43:15
  But wait a second. The only way you can forgive is if you blame.
• 43:19
  Hmm. Our forgivers are our blamers.
• 43:22
  Now, do you blame people for good things or bad things?
• 43:25
  You blame people for bad things.
• 43:27
  But things in and of themselves are neither good nor bad.
• 43:30
  So what do we have here?
• 43:32
  We have people who see the world negatively, who blame, and then forgive. Didn't seem to me divine.
• 43:39
  There's a much better way. Certainly, if you blame, you're best off forgiving.
• 43:46
  However, you shouldn't be blaming in the first place.
• 43:50
  When you recognize this very simple thing, and this is important in our understanding ourselves, not just other people.
• 43:58
  Is that behavior makes sense when we do it, or else we wouldn't do it. Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, today I'm gonna be obnoxious, clumsy, irritable. Okay, so when people are behaving that way, what's really going on? So it turns out that every single, every single negative description of your behavior, of behavior in general, has an equally strong But oppositely valenced alternative, a positive for every negative.
• 44:30
  So let's say, you know, Lauren, and this is true, I am so gullible, it defies belief that somebody of my stature is just so gullible.
• 44:39
  I've been taken by two psychopaths, not just one. Okay, so I mark the edge of the gullible continuum.
• 44:46
  So help me not be gullible. So you're gonna help me.
• 44:49
  I'm gonna try, but I'm always going to fail.
• 44:52
  Why?
• 44:53
  Because from my perspective going forward, I'm being trusting. And as long as I value being trusting, I'm always going to be gullible.
• 45:02
  Okay. You, on the other hand, are inconsistent, and that drives you crazy.
• 45:08
  So you come to me, you know, Professor Dr.
• 45:11
  Langer, cosmic leader, can you help me not be so inconsistent?
• 45:16
  And I'll show you, we'll look at your past behavior and all the mistakes you made.
• 45:20
  So you're not gonna you're gonna try not to be inconsistent.
• 45:23
  But going forward, nobody intends to be inconsistent.
• 45:27
  You're intending to be flexible.
• 45:29
  And as long as you're flexible, you're going to appear at times inconsistent.
• 45:34
  So we gave people a list of behaviors.
• 45:37
  And we said, circle those things that you keep trying to change about yourself and you keep failing. So for me, I'd circle gullible. I would circle impulsive, and we don't care about the rest.
• 45:51
  Then you turn the page over, and in a mixed up order are the positive versions of these. Now the task is circle those things you really value about yourself.
• 46:02
  And to me, it's my being trusting and spontaneous.
• 46:06
  So if I'm trusting and spontaneous, I'm going to appear gullible and impulsive.
• 46:12
  And so what that means now Y your perception.
• 46:15
  is that whenever you're doing whenever you look back and say, God, how could I have done this or that?
• 46:21
  ~ there's always a good reason for it.
• 46:25
  And then we like ourselves more.
• 46:27
  And now you're living with somebody, and even though you've been living with them for 25 years, they're still getting on your nerves, and they promise they won't do it anymore.
• 46:36
  You say to yourself, You're gonna let them do whatever this thing is.
• 46:39
  ~ that's e excusing their behavior is better than punishing them for their But the better then better way.
• 46:49
  Is for you to understand it from their perspective going forward.
• 46:53
  So this very simple thing, mindfully recognizing behavior makes sense or the person wouldn't have done it, leads to better feelings about ourselves, improved relationships. And then again, you're just living in a world that's nicer, which makes it easier, less stressful.
• 47:10
  Yes. You're just giving them the benefit of the doubt, but you know, more or less, right?
• 47:15
  You're is it different?
• 47:16
  Well it's not no, I no, no. I think well, yeah, it it is different from the benefit of the doubt is that better than not giving them the benefit of it.
• 47:26
  But I'm saying there's a better than better way.
• 47:29
  It's not the benefit of the doubt.
• 47:31
  It's not that well maybe Mm.
• 47:33
  they did this bad thing, but you're gonna assume Right.
• 47:35
  they didn't mean it. I'm saying that very thing they did was sensible from their They did yes, from their perspective.
• 47:42
  So you have to put yourself in their shoes, perspective. So so if I do something where you think basically, from their point of view. Understand they were doing it.
• 47:47
  Yeah. Or or just or just say you don't even have to do that.
• 47:53
  You just say to yourself, What is a positive version of this very thing I'm accusing them of? So I'm driving you crazy because I'm gullible.
• 48:01
  I don't want you to give me the benefit of the doubt and saying maybe I wasn't gullible. I want you to say, What is the a positive version of gullible?
• 48:11
  And it's trusting.
• 48:11
  Mm.
• 48:12
  Do you want me to be less trusting?
• 48:14
  Yes.
• 48:14
  Probably not. But if we ever want to change anyone's behavior, our own or anybody else's, we need to address it from the perspective of the person going forward. If you want me to stop being gullible, you have to get me to stop valuing being trusting.
• 48:32
  If I want to get you to stop being so inconsistent, I have to get you to stop valuing being flexible.
• 48:41
  And my guess is most of the time we won't want ourselves or anybody else to change.
• 48:44
  Got it. That makes perfect sense.
• 48:46
  ~ let me just ask you a couple quick questions.
• 48:49
  I know we have to wrap it up here.
• 48:52
  what's the best piece of advice you've ever received?
• 48:55
  It doesn't even have to be age related.
• 49:01
  ~ gosh.
• 49:04
  I have no idea, you know. ~ it it's interesting that Well, do you have a best piece of it That's funny.
• 49:10
  I I have advice for other people for sure, but the reason that I don't know the best piece of advice is because, you know, it's just like with my writing,~ that I'll submit a book or an article and an editor will make some changes.
• 49:25
  And I like being edited so that when somebody tells me something, I immediately you know, incorporated if it's sensible to me.
• 49:34
  So it's not there's one piece of advice that may be, you know, advice coming every day or, you know, every week and so on.
• 49:42
  After seventy-seven years of it, you know, it it's hard to pick a single thing out.
• 49:46
  But one thing I will say, advice to people as they're aging, because right now the world seems obsessed with finding ways to live longer.
• 49:56
  And I think that that's a mistake.
• 50:01
  I think that rather than ~ worrying about adding more years to your life, what you want to do is add more life to your years.
• 50:11
  And that should also work to make you live longer.
• 50:16
  You know, we ~ i i it people people know ~ you well not there are lots of times people get a diagnosis with some, you know, you have a heart attack or you know, something of this sort and you live through it.
• 50:30
  And for those people, all of a sudden they come alive, you know, because they recognize that ~ all we have is right now and ~ why waste the time when we don't know how much time we have?
• 50:44
  And it's so easy ~ in all the ways that I've told you already today for for life to unfold very differently.
• 50:53
  If we stop blaming ourselves and blaming other people, if we recognize that we have control over our emotions, our emotions are choices.
• 51:03
  They derive from our understanding of events.
• 51:07
  The more mindful, the more potential understandings we have.
• 51:10
  and that ~ when it comes to our health, there are enormous things we can do to keep ourselves healthy and active.
• 51:20
  Hmm. I think I think you So there.
• 51:23
  summed it up. You did good. I can't thank you enough.
• 51:27
  You you are you embody Okay.
• 51:30
  everything you say. You are a delight.
• 51:32
  And and you have this beautiful lightness about you and and ~ whatever.
• 51:38
  You know, we've had a lot of technical difficulties today, and you're like, whatever. And I'm kind of the same way.
• 51:43
  I I'm like, whatever, Right.
• 51:44
  it'll all work out. And so I love that Yeah.
• 51:48
  quality in you.
• 51:49
  And I appreciate you ~ helping us Thank you.
• 51:52
  understand how to how to age better and l really just live better.
• 51:56
  I shouldn't even say age, just live better.
• 51:59
  So thank you. Thank you, Doctor Langer.
• 51:59
  Exactly. Right. Thank you.
• 52:02
  Take care. Thank you.
• 52:03
  This was fun. Nice to see you.
• 52:05
  Bye.
• 52:06
  All right. Bye now.