Latest / QUESTION EVERYTHING / Reversing Aging and Rethinking Health: What Harvard's 'Mother of Mindfulness' Wants You to Know: Dr. Ellen Langer

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Reversing Aging and Rethinking Health: What Harvard's 'Mother of Mindfulness' Wants You to Know: Dr. Ellen Langer · QUESTION EVERYTHING

0:04
Speaker 1: Big things happen when you're pretty, pretty bold, pretty clever,
0:08
Speaker 1: pretty strong. I'm Danielle Robe and each week my guests
0:12
Speaker 1: and I have conversations.
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Speaker 2: That put a new spin on pretty. This is pretty smart.
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Speaker 1: Hi, I'm so happy to be back with you twenty
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Speaker 1: twenty five. I missed you all last week. I don't
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Speaker 1: know about you, but I kind of needed a slow
0:30
Speaker 1: start to the year. I didn't want to jump back
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Speaker 1: into just being in a rush. I just wanted some
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Speaker 1: ease and some sleep. And you know, I was trying
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Speaker 1: to follow my own New Year's Action plan also, and
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Speaker 1: my word of the year was joy, so I was
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Speaker 1: trying to lean into that too, and I was so
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Speaker 1: excited thousands of you downloaded the New Year's Action Plan.
0:53
Speaker 1: I got videos and dms seeing you fill out the
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Speaker 1: action plan with your friends, with your CEO, g with mom,
1:00
Speaker 1: groups with best friends at coffee shops, and I'm so
1:03
Speaker 1: glad it helped because I got really, really positive feedback,
1:06
Speaker 1: like you all said that it really.
1:08
Speaker 2: Was working, and.
1:11
Speaker 1: That just it makes me so happy because it's how
1:14
Speaker 1: I set my goals and the whole point of this
1:16
Speaker 1: community is to get better together. So I'm so happy
1:20
Speaker 1: it was working for you, and it was actually just
1:23
Speaker 1: really fun to see it all happening. Like I felt
1:26
Speaker 1: so inspired watching you at a coffee shop with your
1:29
Speaker 1: best friend, drinking coffee on your computers setting goals. It's like,
1:34
Speaker 1: it's so special to be able to do that with
1:36
Speaker 1: somebody else in your life, Like it feels really inspiring.
1:38
Speaker 1: I actually there's one category that says like do you
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Speaker 1: want an accountability partner in this? And I wasn't going
1:45
Speaker 1: to have one, and my friend Rachel called me and
1:47
Speaker 1: was like, will you be my accountability partner? And I
1:50
Speaker 1: was like absolutely, and you have to be mine. So
1:53
Speaker 1: now I have one too. So the action plan works
1:56
Speaker 1: in unexpected ways. And since we last convened a few things,
2:00
Speaker 1: and you know, I had a flood in my apartment
2:01
Speaker 1: which was wild, and so I'm living in a new
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Speaker 1: apartment and I did not realize how much my space
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Speaker 1: was weighing me down. I was living in that one
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Speaker 1: bedroom apartment you guys probably saw on Instagram. I posted
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Speaker 1: something about it at one point because I was really
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Speaker 1: trying to save money and it was a decent space
2:19
Speaker 1: and an amazing location, but it didn't have a lot
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Speaker 1: of light and things were always breaking, and I did
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Speaker 1: not realize how my space was weighing me down. Like
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Speaker 1: being in a new place with taller ceilings and more light,
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Speaker 1: it just I wake up happier every day, Like I
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Speaker 1: can't believe that that flood, something that could be so terrible,
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Speaker 1: pushed me in the direction I needed to go.
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Speaker 2: My friend Kathleen was so funny. She called me and
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Speaker 2: she was like.
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Speaker 3: You summoned water.
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Speaker 1: I just I don't know. It did feel like the
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Speaker 1: universe was speaking to me. I'm turning thirty four on
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Speaker 1: January fifteenth, and I just kept thinking, like I don't
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Speaker 1: want to turn.
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Speaker 2: Thirty four in that apartment.
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Speaker 1: I put so much like meaning into moving and it
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Speaker 1: just wasn't looking like it was happening. And so the
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Speaker 1: fact that this flood made it happen is just kind
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Speaker 1: of wild to me. But after I moved, I got
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Speaker 1: everything settled, got internet, Like, you know, I'm actually still
3:24
Speaker 1: not like completely set up here. I have to forward
3:27
Speaker 1: my mail and do all those annoying things. But I
3:30
Speaker 1: did get to go to Chicago for a few days,
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Speaker 1: and to be home was so nice. I went to
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Speaker 1: honestly celebrate a friend who was working with Derek Rose
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Speaker 1: and he is a Chicago bull So I grew up
3:42
Speaker 1: as a huge Bulls fan.
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Speaker 2: I grew up in the Michael Jordan era.
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Speaker 1: And the Chicago Bulls announced that Derek Rose's number one
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Speaker 1: jersey would be retired, which makes him the fifth Bulls
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Speaker 1: player to receive the franchise honor, which is a big deal, right,
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Speaker 1: like his jersey's hung up there with Jordan and Pippin
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Speaker 1: and Bob Love and anyways, I went to an after
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Speaker 1: party at Tao and I lived out my high school dreams. Like, Okay,
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Speaker 1: this is so embarrassing, but I used to wear Kirk
4:08
Speaker 1: Heinrich dog tags to high school once in a while.
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Speaker 1: My friend Sasha and I would wear them. We were
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Speaker 1: just huge Bulls fans. It was so fun to be
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Speaker 1: a part. Like the stadium is called the United Center,
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Speaker 1: and Chicago fans are nuts like win or lose. They
4:22
Speaker 1: show up and they scream and they yell and they
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Speaker 1: dress up and it's just so fun to be a
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Speaker 1: part of that energy. And I go to other stadiums
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Speaker 1: because I love basketball, and I'll go watch games and
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Speaker 1: it's just not the same. Like the Bulls in the
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Speaker 1: United Center really know how to do it, so Anyways,
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Speaker 1: I go to tow I go to this after party
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Speaker 1: and I didn't know who was going to be there.
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Speaker 1: It ended up that all of the players I grew
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Speaker 1: up watching were there. So I met Luel Dang and
4:50
Speaker 1: he flew all the way from Africa. I met Carlos Boozer,
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Speaker 1: Joquem Noah and like I idolized these people in high school,
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Speaker 1: and there I was just standing talk them and I
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Speaker 1: was like, everybody's just a regular, regular person.
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Speaker 2: These people are just really tall.
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Speaker 1: Anyways, you know those moments like if you watch like
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Speaker 1: One Tree Hill or The o C or like certain shows,
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Speaker 1: it's like you don't even care if you meet a celebrity,
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Speaker 1: but somebody that meant something to you in high school
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Speaker 1: is something you care about. I remember when I first
5:17
Speaker 1: moved to LA I was interviewing a bunch of people
5:20
Speaker 1: on the red carpet. I would, you know, interview Tom
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Speaker 1: Hanks and like a list stars.
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Speaker 2: And I never really cared.
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Speaker 1: And then one day my friend was like, hey, can
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Speaker 1: you drop something off at this apartment? And I drove
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Speaker 1: kind of up into the Hollywood Hills and dropped it
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Speaker 1: off and I knock on the door and I forgot
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Speaker 1: his name. I think his name was Steven, but like
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Speaker 1: the guy from One Tree Hill opened the door and
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Speaker 1: I almost had a panic attack. It was like who cares?
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Speaker 1: But that was the thing that made me star struck.
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Speaker 1: So yeah, anyways, I'm back in this apartment. I have
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Speaker 1: no idea how to decorate it. If you guys are
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Speaker 1: good decorators, please send me some tips. I really have
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Speaker 1: no idea what I'm doing. When I I interviewed Jenny
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Speaker 1: Kine on Pretty Smart last year, she said, you have
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Speaker 1: to start with the coffee table and then build around that.
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Speaker 1: But as I'm looking at this layout, I'm like, don't
6:08
Speaker 1: you start with the couch? I would love to know
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Speaker 1: what you do? And I don't know how people work
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Speaker 1: and have things to do and have children and decorate
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Speaker 1: their place like it. It seems so overwhelming to me.
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Speaker 2: I don't know.
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Speaker 1: Maybe our guest today can help bring me some peace
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Speaker 1: about it, because we're talking about mindfulness today. But before
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Speaker 1: we dive in, I just want to note that I
6:27
Speaker 1: recorded this episode from our in person studio, which I'd
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Speaker 1: never done before, and both my internet and our guest
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Speaker 1: internet was a little wonky, so we did our absolute
6:36
Speaker 1: best to clean up the audio. But if you hear
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Speaker 1: any little weirdness that normally isn't there, please forgive me
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Speaker 1: and just know that I've learned my lesson. I'm never
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Speaker 1: filming in there again, virtually, but this episode was just
6:48
Speaker 1: too good not to air. It was really, really impactful
6:52
Speaker 1: for me, so I had to share it. Now, today's
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Speaker 1: guest is someone who has fundamentally changed my life with
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Speaker 1: one phrase. And you know, I don't like exaggerations. I
7:03
Speaker 1: barely use the word iconic because I just think it's overdone,
7:07
Speaker 1: you know, And when i'm I use it in my
7:10
Speaker 1: real life, but in work and in journalism, I'm like,
7:14
Speaker 1: we don't use hyperboles. So this phrase, when I tell you,
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Speaker 1: this phrase has changed my outlook entirely.
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Speaker 2: I mean it. I find myself repeating.
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Speaker 1: It over and over in my head when anything challenging happens.
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Speaker 4: Next time you're stressed, ask yourself, is it a tragedy
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Speaker 4: or an inconvenience? It's almost never a tragedy, you know,
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Speaker 4: I bang the car and this is the appointment, so lost, right,
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Speaker 4: So then you breathe, you know, and can continue.
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Speaker 1: And that wisdom comes from forty years of studying the mind,
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Speaker 1: Doctor Ellen Langer, who's been called the Mother of mindfulness,
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Speaker 1: is a Harvard psychologist. Is a Harvard psychologist, best selling author,
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Speaker 1: and a true trailblazer. She was the first woman ever
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Speaker 1: tenured in psychology at Harvard, and her work She was
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Speaker 1: the first woman ever tenured in psychology at Harvard, and
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Speaker 1: her work has literally been featured on The Simpsons, So
8:06
Speaker 1: you know she's iconic.
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Speaker 2: I think the word is justified there too.
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Speaker 1: Doctor Langer's groundbreaking research has shown that our minds are
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Speaker 1: far more powerful than we even realize. She's done studies
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Speaker 1: proving that simply changing how we think about things, our age,
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Speaker 1: our health, our exercise can actually change our bodies in
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Speaker 1: ways that seem almost magical.
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Speaker 2: But this is not wo woo.
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Speaker 1: It's science and it's fascinating. Her book, The Mindful Body
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Speaker 1: explores how we can think our way to better health.
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Speaker 1: She has several very famous studies, and one of them
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Speaker 1: I want to share with you.
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Speaker 2: It blew my mind. It's called the Counterclockwise Study.
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Speaker 1: Her question was, if we turn the clock back psychologically,
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Speaker 1: can we also do it physically? So she did an
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Speaker 1: experiment with eight elderly men, and she recreated the social
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Speaker 1: and physical environment of nineteen fifty nine at a week
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Speaker 1: long residential retreat, and upon arrival, the men had to
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Speaker 1: carry their own heavy suitcases, and it really set the
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Speaker 1: tone for the retreat. They couldn't rely on a defeatist attitude,
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Speaker 1: but instead had to engage fully in the recreated past. Okay,
9:12
Speaker 1: so they immersed them in this world of nineteen fifty nine,
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Speaker 1: and the men lived as though it were the present.
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Speaker 1: So they listened to Perry Cosmo, they watched Ed Sullivan,
9:21
Speaker 1: they discussed quote unquote current events, and by the end
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Speaker 1: of the week, they displayed remarkable improvements in flexibility, memory, hearing,
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Speaker 1: and overall well being. Observers even noted that they looked younger,
9:35
Speaker 1: which illustrated the profound connection between mindset and physical health.
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Speaker 1: They literally reversed signs of aging by pretending to live
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Speaker 1: in the past. She did this other study with maids,
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Speaker 1: and that's the studies words, not mine. She did another
9:50
Speaker 1: study with maids, and that's the studies words, not mine,
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Speaker 1: who simply reframed their daily work as exercise.
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Speaker 2: You know what happened.
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Speaker 1: They lost weight and lowered them blood pressure without changing
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Speaker 1: a single thing about their routines. But this episode isn't
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Speaker 1: just about research, it's personal. Doctor Langer shares the story
10:10
Speaker 1: of how her mother's cancer disappeared after doctors had written
10:13
Speaker 1: her off. We'll dive into why language like words in
10:18
Speaker 1: remission can hold us back, why she says stress is
10:21
Speaker 1: the true killer, and how uncertainty is actually a gift
10:25
Speaker 1: that can transform the way we make decisions. Honestly, I
10:29
Speaker 1: left this conversation thinking about how much more in control
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Speaker 1: we are of our lives than we realize.
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Speaker 2: I think you will too.
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Speaker 1: Doctor Langer's work is a testament to the untapped potential
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Speaker 1: of the human mind. This is not just a conversation
10:42
Speaker 1: about mindfulness. It's a masterclass in rethinking how we live,
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Speaker 1: we love, and approach the challenges in our lives. Doctor
10:50
Speaker 1: Langer's insights, I think will inspire you to see the
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Speaker 1: world and yourself with fresh eyes. How could just noticing, reframing,
11:00
Speaker 1: questioning change us?
11:08
Speaker 3: Doctor Langer?
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Speaker 1: In your most recent book, you write that we all
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Speaker 1: already have a potent tool for improving our health, and
11:14
Speaker 1: we may not even know it.
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Speaker 3: What is that tool?
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Speaker 4: Our minds? Essentially, the subtitle of the book, The Mindful
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Speaker 4: Body is thinking our way to chronic health and people
11:25
Speaker 4: don't have the vaguus notion. I think about how much
11:29
Speaker 4: control we can actually exercise over our health, our well
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Speaker 4: being simply by changing our minds. But we'll talk about that.
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Speaker 3: Right, yeah, we will.
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Speaker 1: Will you talk a lot about mind body unity, and
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Speaker 1: I think I've heard of the mind body connection, but.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, what is Let me explain this first of all,
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Speaker 4: In years past, people thought we had a mind and
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Speaker 4: a body. Not always, you know, Descartes gave us mind
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Speaker 4: body dualism. But let's start with that. The problem, if
11:58
Speaker 4: you conceive of yourself is having the mind and a body,
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Speaker 4: is how do you get from this fuzzy thing called
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Speaker 4: a thought to something material called the body. Now everybody
12:08
Speaker 4: has had experience with this. You know, you're walking down
12:11
Speaker 4: the street and all of a sudden a leaf blows
12:13
Speaker 4: in your face and you get startled. Your blood pressure increases,
12:16
Speaker 4: pulse rate, and so on until you see what was
12:19
Speaker 4: just a leaf, all right, Or you see somebody regurgitating
12:23
Speaker 4: on the side of the road and you self start
12:24
Speaker 4: to feel sick. My own experience was more dramatic than this.
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Speaker 4: So let me tell you first that The Mindful Body
12:31
Speaker 4: was first written as a memoir. So there are lots
12:34
Speaker 4: of very personal stories in it, and then it became
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Speaker 4: what it is, which is not so dissimilar from the
12:40
Speaker 4: mindfulness book that I wrote many years ago. All Right,
12:44
Speaker 4: So I was married when I was obscenely young. Don't
12:48
Speaker 4: ask about the circumstances anyway. So I was nineteen going
12:52
Speaker 4: on forty, and we went to Harris for our honeymoon.
12:57
Speaker 4: And we go into this restaurant and I ordered a
13:00
Speaker 4: mixed grill. On the mixed grill was pancreas. Now I
13:05
Speaker 4: can't figure it out why I thought that, now that
13:08
Speaker 4: I was a married woman, I should eat the pancreas.
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Speaker 4: The idea of it made me sick. Okay, but you
13:14
Speaker 4: know I was going to do it, because, after all,
13:17
Speaker 4: I was now all grown up. So I asked my
13:19
Speaker 4: then husband which of these things was the pancreas. He
13:22
Speaker 4: pointed to one. I ate everything else. I'm a very
13:26
Speaker 4: big eater. I enjoy eating enormously. Now came the moment
13:30
Speaker 4: of truth, could I eat the pancreas. I started eating it,
13:34
Speaker 4: and I'm literally getting sick, literally, and he's laughing. That
13:39
Speaker 4: wasn't the reason for the divorce. But anyway, he was laughing,
13:43
Speaker 4: Why you laugh. I was so inappropriate, and he said,
13:46
Speaker 4: because that's chicken. You ate the pancreas a long time ago.
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Speaker 4: So I had made myself sick. Now, the other pancreas
13:55
Speaker 4: story I have, and I bet you don't know anybody
13:57
Speaker 4: else who has two pancreas stories, was my mother had
14:00
Speaker 4: breast cancer and the cancer had metastasized and found itself
14:05
Speaker 4: in the pancreas. And as you probably know, that's the endgame.
14:09
Speaker 4: So here she was. The medical world wrote her off.
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Speaker 4: They didn't exercise her limbs. They just assumed she was
14:14
Speaker 4: soon to die. Then magically it was gone, And how
14:18
Speaker 4: did that happen? So I made myself sick, She made
14:21
Speaker 4: herself well. Spontaneous remissions are probably not as rare as
14:25
Speaker 4: people think. And at any rate, that's what I mean
14:29
Speaker 4: by our control over our bodies. So we take the
14:32
Speaker 4: mind and the body, and if you talk about a
14:35
Speaker 4: connection the way people do, you still have the problem
14:37
Speaker 4: how are they connected? Still? How do you get from
14:40
Speaker 4: that though ut pancreas to some physical change? And I say,
14:45
Speaker 4: these are just words. Let's put them back together and
14:49
Speaker 4: see the mind and body as one unit, simply one thing. Now,
14:54
Speaker 4: wherever you put the mind. You're necessarily putting your body
14:58
Speaker 4: right wherever you're putting the body, necessarily putting the mind.
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Speaker 4: So we've done lots and lots of fun studies, interesting studies,
15:05
Speaker 4: starting with one that many people know about because they
15:07
Speaker 4: did it so long ago. And this is a famous study.
15:11
Speaker 4: You saying yourself, obnoxious, How can she call one of
15:14
Speaker 4: your own studies famous? But that's because if you tune
15:18
Speaker 4: in to the Simpsons go to Havana, they described the study.
15:21
Speaker 4: So we've been on the simplom really made it. Yeah,
15:24
Speaker 4: But anyway, so this was a study where we retrofitted
15:28
Speaker 4: a retreat, timeless retreat, so that it seemed like it
15:31
Speaker 4: was twenty years ago. It wasn't quite a Hollywood set
15:35
Speaker 4: because I didn't have the funds for that, but still
15:37
Speaker 4: everything about it made you think you were stepping back
15:40
Speaker 4: into the past. And we had elderly men lived there
15:44
Speaker 4: as if they were their younger selves, So they spoke
15:47
Speaker 4: about past events, for instance, as if they were just unfolding.
15:51
Speaker 4: In a period of less than a week, their vision improved,
15:55
Speaker 4: their hearing, improved, their memory, their strength, and they looked noticeably.
16:00
Speaker 4: That was the first test of mine by the unity,
16:03
Speaker 4: and I have so many other This is a show
16:04
Speaker 4: where you have many women listeners, right, Okay, so women
16:08
Speaker 4: may be especially interested in the second study we did
16:11
Speaker 4: in this series. So we go to chambermaids. Now, as
16:14
Speaker 4: you know chamber maids, they're cleaning hotel and motel rooms
16:18
Speaker 4: all day long. So all they're doing is exercise, but
16:21
Speaker 4: they don't see themselves as exercising. They think exercise, according
16:25
Speaker 4: to the Surgeon General, who sits at a desk all day,
16:28
Speaker 4: is what you do after work. Okay. So we simply
16:31
Speaker 4: divide these women into two groups, and one group we
16:35
Speaker 4: teach them that they work as exercise. We change their
16:37
Speaker 4: minds making the bed it's like working at this machine
16:40
Speaker 4: at the gym, so on. Okay, So we have two
16:43
Speaker 4: simple groups. One now knows they work as exercise, the
16:46
Speaker 4: other doesn't. We find take many many measures. They're not
16:50
Speaker 4: eating any differently than that. One group isn't working any
16:53
Speaker 4: harder than the other. Nevertheless, the women who just change
16:57
Speaker 4: their minds and see their work as exercise loss weight.
17:01
Speaker 4: There was a change in WATS to hip ratio, body
17:04
Speaker 4: mass index, and their blood pressure came in. So the
17:06
Speaker 4: mind is a very powerful thing. And let me tell
17:10
Speaker 4: you that the book is full of these sort of
17:13
Speaker 4: startling findings that all follow from the assumption that mind
17:18
Speaker 4: and body are best seeing as a single unit. So
17:21
Speaker 4: on you get to ask me a question.
17:22
Speaker 3: Thank you.
17:23
Speaker 1: So with all of this research, do you apply this
17:29
Speaker 1: to your own life? Do you try to think your
17:32
Speaker 1: way into something or out of something?
17:34
Speaker 4: Okay, well, let's take a giant step back. So I've
17:39
Speaker 4: been studying mindfulness for over forty five years. Right now,
17:44
Speaker 4: mindfulness is I study it. I'm going to answer your question.
17:47
Speaker 4: It's just going to take me a minute to get
17:49
Speaker 4: that's fine. So mindfulness is I study. It has nothing
17:51
Speaker 4: to do with meditation, which is fine. Meditation is a practice. Mindfulness,
17:56
Speaker 4: as I study, it is the very simple process of
18:00
Speaker 4: of noticing. There are two ways to become mindful. One
18:03
Speaker 4: is you look at things that you think you know.
18:07
Speaker 4: When you see you didn't really know them at all,
18:09
Speaker 4: then your attention naturally goes to them. That's bottom up
18:13
Speaker 4: or top down. Is to recognize we don't know anything. Now,
18:17
Speaker 4: I was a straight A student, So for me to
18:19
Speaker 4: say that all of those a's got me into trouble
18:23
Speaker 4: is a very funny sort of thing. But I was
18:25
Speaker 4: at this horse event, and this man asked me, can
18:29
Speaker 4: I watch his horse because he's going to get his
18:31
Speaker 4: horse a hot dog. Now, with all those a's, you
18:34
Speaker 4: can be sure I knew horses don't eat me. Period.
18:39
Speaker 4: He came back with the hot dog, and the horse
18:41
Speaker 4: ate it. And that's when I realized that everything I
18:45
Speaker 4: think I know could be wrong, all right. Uncertainty is
18:49
Speaker 4: the rule. It's not the exception. Everything is always changing,
18:54
Speaker 4: Everything looks different from different perspectives, so you can't know. Now,
18:58
Speaker 4: Women too often know they don't know, the problem is
19:03
Speaker 4: they think they should know. And if he, for example,
19:06
Speaker 4: whoever he may be, is acting as if he knows,
19:09
Speaker 4: sometimes women just don't engage. Sometimes we as men as well,
19:13
Speaker 4: will pretend and so on, but definitely feel uncomfortable. What
19:17
Speaker 4: we need to do because my uncertainty is the rule
19:23
Speaker 4: is making universal attribution for uncertainty I don't know, you
19:27
Speaker 4: don't know, nobody knows, rather than a personal attribution I
19:30
Speaker 4: don't know, but it's knowable, all right. So when I
19:34
Speaker 4: started to think about this, I forgot the original question.
19:36
Speaker 4: But I promise you remind me. I'll get back to it. Well, parents, teachers,
19:41
Speaker 4: the world keeps giving us facts. And with these facts
19:46
Speaker 4: horses don't eat meat, you tend to accept them. And
19:49
Speaker 4: when you don't know, you think you should know and
19:51
Speaker 4: look for more absolutes. But science, for instance, which is
19:55
Speaker 4: the basis of many of our facts, doesn't give us absolutes.
19:59
Speaker 4: Science gives us probabilities, which says, if we do a
20:03
Speaker 4: study and we give some horses some meet most of
20:08
Speaker 4: the horses may not eat meat. But that doesn't mean
20:11
Speaker 4: all of the horses, under all circumstances won't eat meat.
20:14
Speaker 4: So what I'm saying is the research says probably that's
20:18
Speaker 4: translated in textbooks and talks by parents, teachers, journalists as absolutists. Right.
20:26
Speaker 4: And what that means, though, is it makes everything brand new. Now,
20:31
Speaker 4: let me give you just one more thing, and then
20:33
Speaker 4: we'll go back to whatever that question was, which is,
20:36
Speaker 4: if you know I do this when I'm giving talks,
20:39
Speaker 4: I'll often start by asking, if I'm asking you a game,
20:42
Speaker 4: how much is OnePlus one? This is the one thing
20:44
Speaker 4: everybody knows around the world, different languages, but everyone knows
20:48
Speaker 4: how much one in one, So how much is it two?
20:51
Speaker 3: Mathematicians would say two.
20:53
Speaker 4: Okay, they're going to say two, because that's the answer
20:55
Speaker 4: we've been taught. And anybody who's listening to this at
20:58
Speaker 4: this point might think, oh God, what is the matter
21:01
Speaker 4: with Professor Ellen Langler. But it turns out one plus
21:05
Speaker 4: one is not always two. If you add one pile
21:09
Speaker 4: of laundry to one pile of laundry, one plus one
21:11
Speaker 4: is one. You add one cloud to one cloud, one
21:14
Speaker 4: plus one is one. Somebody sent me one the other day,
21:16
Speaker 4: which is very fun. So if you had to take
21:18
Speaker 4: one pizza and you put another pizza on top of it,
21:22
Speaker 4: one plus one is two. But if you take one
21:25
Speaker 4: lasagna and you put another lasagna on top of that,
21:29
Speaker 4: one plus one is one. It's just a bigger lazagna,
21:32
Speaker 4: a right. The point is that in the real world
21:34
Speaker 4: one plus one probably doesn't equal to as often as
21:38
Speaker 4: it does. Now someone comes up to you now and
21:41
Speaker 4: ask you how much is one plus one, You're not
21:43
Speaker 4: going to mindlessly say two all of a sudden. You
21:46
Speaker 4: have choices. You can say two, you can say one. Actually,
21:50
Speaker 4: if you are using a base two number system, you
21:53
Speaker 4: could even say ten. All right, And so the point
21:57
Speaker 4: is that as soon as we accept these absolutes, we
22:01
Speaker 4: become mindless and we give up choices now when we're
22:05
Speaker 4: actively noticing or actively deciding which of these answers should
22:10
Speaker 4: I give. For example, the neurons are firing, and forty
22:14
Speaker 4: five years of our research shows that that's literally and
22:17
Speaker 4: figuratively inliven. So it's of old people. We made them
22:20
Speaker 4: more mindful, they lived them. What was your original question?
22:25
Speaker 3: Now you're saying uncertainty is the rule.
22:28
Speaker 1: Then I want to ask you about the illusion of control,
22:31
Speaker 1: because you've coined that term in your research. How much
22:34
Speaker 1: control do we actually have over our lives?
22:37
Speaker 4: Well, I think we have enormous control. And you know,
22:40
Speaker 4: when I did those illusion of control studies which set
22:44
Speaker 4: the stage for behavioral economics and all sorts, you know,
22:48
Speaker 4: understanding that people weren't always rational. I basically would see
22:53
Speaker 4: somebody talking to a slot machine, for example, and think
22:56
Speaker 4: they were irrational. Then I thought about it a lot
23:00
Speaker 4: more than this, and I've changed my mind entirely, and
23:04
Speaker 4: I think that essentially people don't have an illusion of control.
23:10
Speaker 4: That's something we call tell you that somebody else has.
23:14
Speaker 4: People have a belief that they have control, and one
23:17
Speaker 4: can never be sure of that. They can't. Now by
23:21
Speaker 4: having these notions that the things we can do and
23:23
Speaker 4: things that we can do, we're more tied to the past, right,
23:28
Speaker 4: because if no one's ever done it, how dare you
23:30
Speaker 4: think you could do it? But when we realize that
23:33
Speaker 4: science can never prove that something can't be done, all
23:37
Speaker 4: science can tell us is what you've tried didn't work right,
23:40
Speaker 4: So it's very different. We need to change our understanding
23:43
Speaker 4: from something being uncontrollable to it being indeterminate. Uncontrollable, you'd
23:50
Speaker 4: be foolished to try to control it indeterminate. Who knows? Right?
23:54
Speaker 1: So I've heard that trauma, when you have trauma in
23:58
Speaker 1: your childhood, you overestimate how much control you have in
24:02
Speaker 1: your life when you're an adult.
24:03
Speaker 3: Have you found that?
24:04
Speaker 4: No, I don't think that that's what happens. I think
24:08
Speaker 4: if you experience a trauma, you're on the alert to
24:12
Speaker 4: not have to experience it again. And you know, there's
24:15
Speaker 4: an interesting finding in psychology called confirmation bias, which essentially
24:20
Speaker 4: is if you think that something is going to be
24:24
Speaker 4: whatever your hypothesis is, you're going to find evidence for it.
24:28
Speaker 4: So if you wanted to say, you know, gee, aren't
24:31
Speaker 4: I wonderful? I want to say, am I wonderful? I
24:33
Speaker 4: mean a look, there's going to be lots of evidence
24:35
Speaker 4: if I said, aren't I awful? There's going to be
24:37
Speaker 4: lots of evidence, all right. But so what happens is
24:41
Speaker 4: these people are so attuned to interpreting everything in such
24:47
Speaker 4: a way as to be self protective. They're giving up
24:51
Speaker 4: an active, exciting way of being in the world through
24:54
Speaker 4: no fault of their own. But it can be changed.
24:57
Speaker 4: You know, I was talking to somebody about trauma other day,
25:01
Speaker 4: and as you know, in The Mindful Body, I talk
25:04
Speaker 4: a lot about attention to symptom variability. And that's a mouthful,
25:08
Speaker 4: but it really means just being mindful noticing change. And
25:12
Speaker 4: when you have any chronic disease, you tend to expect
25:18
Speaker 4: that it's uncontrollable, not indeterminent, that the symptoms are going
25:22
Speaker 4: to stay the same or just get worse. Nothing moves
25:26
Speaker 4: in only one direction. So the stock market, for instance,
25:29
Speaker 4: when it's going up, it doesn't go straight up. It
25:31
Speaker 4: goes up, and it goes down a little, then it
25:33
Speaker 4: goes up, and it's going up when it goes up
25:36
Speaker 4: more than it goes down. Same things with their symptoms, right,
25:39
Speaker 4: they're always changing. Now if we noticed when they changed
25:43
Speaker 4: we'd be able to exert control. And I'm going to
25:45
Speaker 4: get back to trauma in the moment. So very simple.
25:49
Speaker 4: So let's say you have some dread disease. I call
25:52
Speaker 4: you periodically and I say, how is the symptom now?
25:54
Speaker 4: Is it better or worse than before? And why? Several
25:58
Speaker 4: things happen. The First, you started off thinking there's nothing
26:01
Speaker 4: you could do about it, just as the person who's
26:03
Speaker 4: gone through this trauma. Second, as soon as you see
26:06
Speaker 4: when I call and there's a time where it's better,
26:09
Speaker 4: well that feels especially good. Third, once I ask the
26:13
Speaker 4: question why, now you're doing a mindful search, try to
26:17
Speaker 4: figure out why, and that itself is good for your health.
26:21
Speaker 4: And Fourth, I think you're more likely to find a
26:24
Speaker 4: solution if you're looking for So we've done this with
26:26
Speaker 4: big diseases, with Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis, stroke, orthritis, chronic pain,
26:33
Speaker 4: you know, and all of them find relief in the
26:36
Speaker 4: symptoms by doing this attention to variability. And that's also
26:40
Speaker 4: what the person suffering trauma can do. Things are changing.
26:46
Speaker 4: The feeling you have about the trauma is never exactly
26:49
Speaker 4: the same. Why now is it a little different, and
26:51
Speaker 4: how to take advantage of it?
26:53
Speaker 1: Because you mentioned Parkinson's and several other diseases.
26:57
Speaker 3: I want to talk about healing, which personally is what
27:00
Speaker 3: I'm most.
27:01
Speaker 1: Fascinated about in your work, because just last year you
27:04
Speaker 1: published another study that looked at how the perception of
27:08
Speaker 1: time impacts how we heal.
27:10
Speaker 4: This was the most recent of the mind by the
27:13
Speaker 4: Unity studies. So we take people and we inflict a wound,
27:18
Speaker 4: not a big wound that I'm not sadistic, and even
27:21
Speaker 4: if I were the powers that they wouldn't let me
27:23
Speaker 4: do the study. But it's a little bit and individually.
27:27
Speaker 4: Now people are in front of a clock unbeknownst to them.
27:31
Speaker 4: For a third of the people, the clock is going
27:34
Speaker 4: twice as fast as real time. For a third of
27:37
Speaker 4: the people, the clock is going half as fast as
27:40
Speaker 4: real time. For a third of the people of a
27:42
Speaker 4: clock is real time. Now, most people think things will
27:45
Speaker 4: heal when they heal. I mean, the body is what
27:48
Speaker 4: the body is. But it turns out that that wound
27:51
Speaker 4: heals based on perceived time what that clock tells us.
27:56
Speaker 4: We did another study not dissimilar from that. We have
27:58
Speaker 4: people in a sleep lab. They wake up. We've screwed
28:01
Speaker 4: around with the clock, so they think they got two
28:03
Speaker 4: hours more sleep than they got or two hours fewer
28:06
Speaker 4: or the amount of sleep they got. And again, cognitive
28:09
Speaker 4: and physical functions follow perceived sleep.
28:12
Speaker 1: So what do you think was happening in these patients'
28:15
Speaker 1: bodies to create such a significant change.
28:17
Speaker 4: You know, Remember, we're not talking about mind body connection
28:22
Speaker 4: where we say, okay, here they change their mind and
28:24
Speaker 4: that's going to lead to this, it's going to lead
28:26
Speaker 4: to this. We're talking about one thing, which doesn't mean
28:30
Speaker 4: that there isn't anything going on under the hood, so
28:33
Speaker 4: to speak, but it's all happening more or less simultaneously
28:37
Speaker 4: rather than sequentially. It's difficult for people to fully grasp
28:42
Speaker 4: that because everything we've been taught for our entire lives,
28:46
Speaker 4: you know, it rests on mind body dualism. But we've
28:50
Speaker 4: gotten an awful lot of traction by seeing it as
28:53
Speaker 4: a single thing. We've affected blood sugar level for diabetics,
28:57
Speaker 4: I mean lots of findings that mill or in the
29:00
Speaker 4: mindful body.
29:02
Speaker 3: What is a healing mindset?
29:04
Speaker 4: When you use the word mindset, typically it means you're
29:09
Speaker 4: mindlessly understanding something it doesn't have to But it's hard
29:14
Speaker 4: to have a mindful mindset. So let's just talk about healing.
29:18
Speaker 4: You know that how do you heal? You pay attention
29:21
Speaker 4: to your body and ways that most of us don't.
29:25
Speaker 4: You know, people sometimes oh my god, I gained twenty pounds.
29:28
Speaker 4: Nobody gains twenty pounds overnight, right, you know, if you
29:33
Speaker 4: were aware of yourself, you've not. You gained two pounds,
29:36
Speaker 4: which is not very hard to get rid of. All right,
29:39
Speaker 4: So it's sort of you know, if if I start
29:43
Speaker 4: my car and the car makes it, I'm not aware
29:46
Speaker 4: of the subtle sound difference, as a mechanic would be.
29:49
Speaker 4: I don't know if there's anything wrong with the car
29:51
Speaker 4: until the engine falls out or something. You know. But
29:55
Speaker 4: we can learn to notice more subtle changes without becoming
29:59
Speaker 4: hyperc ride. You know, I think that once we realize
30:04
Speaker 4: that our minds are as powerful as they are, I think,
30:09
Speaker 4: because this is the question you did ask me earlier.
30:11
Speaker 4: So do I pay any attention to, you know, to
30:14
Speaker 4: these sorts of things myself? And I started to tell
30:17
Speaker 4: you that just by being mindful, just by being aware
30:22
Speaker 4: that there are multiple understandings of events, that stress is
30:26
Speaker 4: a function of the views we take of events, not
30:30
Speaker 4: of events themselves. That I tend not to get sick
30:34
Speaker 4: in the first place, you know. But if I were sick,
30:38
Speaker 4: I would know that, and you know, and if I
30:41
Speaker 4: needed to, I would seek medical help. But I would
30:44
Speaker 4: be aware in ways that many people aren't that all
30:48
Speaker 4: of the information necessarily so that the doctor has is
30:53
Speaker 4: based on norms. Most horses don't eat meat. So when
30:58
Speaker 4: physicians say things like it's a terrible thing, and I help,
31:02
Speaker 4: very few do, but still some do might say to you,
31:05
Speaker 4: you have, you know, three months to live, six months.
31:09
Speaker 4: There's no way that they can know this. My mother
31:12
Speaker 4: was one of these people, right, and then magically the
31:15
Speaker 4: cancer was gone.
31:17
Speaker 1: Well I'm glad that you use the words magically because
31:20
Speaker 1: I think some people could look at your work and
31:22
Speaker 1: say this is magical thinking.
31:24
Speaker 3: But it is rooted in science.
31:26
Speaker 1: So that's what I was getting at with the healing mindset.
31:29
Speaker 1: Like when it comes to your mother who's fifty six
31:32
Speaker 1: years old, diagnosed with cancer, it had metastasized to her pancreas,
31:37
Speaker 1: which is most often terminal, and then this magical thing
31:41
Speaker 1: is you say, happen, like, what happened?
31:43
Speaker 3: What is the noticing?
31:44
Speaker 4: Well, you know, there's no you can never prove anything
31:48
Speaker 4: with one instance. It was kind of bizarre in some sense.
31:53
Speaker 4: You know, at that time I was settying the importance
31:55
Speaker 4: of perceived control. And when I went to be with
32:00
Speaker 4: her this is and she's in Florida, I more or
32:03
Speaker 4: less to go over her life, you know, which was bizarre,
32:06
Speaker 4: since I'm writing about it's very important for people to
32:09
Speaker 4: make choices and be in charge of their own lives.
32:11
Speaker 4: And when they do, they also are healthier and live longer.
32:15
Speaker 4: And I wouldn't let anybody in to see her who
32:19
Speaker 4: wasn't uplifting this one woman. It was strange. She just
32:23
Speaker 4: wandered and we didn't know her. And she said, Sylvia,
32:26
Speaker 4: my mother's name. Let me tell you a story. I
32:29
Speaker 4: had breast cancer also, and they told me I only
32:33
Speaker 4: had six months to live. And I went and I
32:36
Speaker 4: spent all my money. And that was five years ago,
32:39
Speaker 4: and I'm almost penniless now, so you know, I went
32:43
Speaker 4: ahead and I bought her fancy golf clubs because I
32:48
Speaker 4: thought that she would think that why would I spend
32:51
Speaker 4: so much money if she wasn't going to get better.
32:54
Speaker 4: But we were so close that she said to herself, ah,
32:58
Speaker 4: she want this is my mother's face, thinking to herself,
33:02
Speaker 4: she wants me to think that everything is going to
33:04
Speaker 4: be okay because she wants me. It's very hard to know,
33:08
Speaker 4: you know, what things what actually leads to health healing
33:13
Speaker 4: in any individual case. We do know that across and
33:17
Speaker 4: the science that we've done that when we do this
33:21
Speaker 4: attention to symptom variability, people heal. We know that in
33:25
Speaker 4: the early four experiments where we took elderly people made
33:30
Speaker 4: them more mindful. It's active noticing, they live longer. So
33:33
Speaker 4: I've got you know, it all rests on a lot
33:35
Speaker 4: of science. But the individual case. Oh, by the way,
33:40
Speaker 4: you know spontaneous remissions and nobody knows how to explain them.
33:46
Speaker 4: But the thing is that most people assume that they
33:50
Speaker 4: virtually never occur. And again we have no way of knowing.
33:54
Speaker 4: You know that I know lots of people who hate hospitals,
33:58
Speaker 4: doctors or whatever, and you know, for these people, they
34:02
Speaker 4: could have tumors, then the tumor goes away. There's just
34:06
Speaker 4: no way of knowing. So I'm not suggesting that it's
34:12
Speaker 4: highly likely, but I'm also not sure how likely it is.
34:18
Speaker 4: But the fact that it does exist means that when
34:23
Speaker 4: you're told you have three months to live, you should
34:28
Speaker 4: If it were I, I would say to the doctor,
34:30
Speaker 4: based on what the evidence and are those just probabilities?
34:34
Speaker 4: And has similar are those women for whom who died?
34:38
Speaker 4: How similar are they to me? And a life that I.
34:41
Speaker 1: Live well When it comes to mindset, one of the
34:43
Speaker 1: things that you've talked about that I thought was really
34:45
Speaker 1: interesting was that when people go to a doctor's office
34:49
Speaker 1: after they've had cancer and it is in remission, they say, Okay,
34:53
Speaker 1: you're in remission. But if I go to a doctor's office, yeah,
34:56
Speaker 1: and I say.
34:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, so let me tell you the start. So I
35:00
Speaker 4: went to see my friend Eva, and Eva had a
35:03
Speaker 4: terrible case of cancer, an odd kind of cancer. And
35:07
Speaker 4: I said, she just came back from Dana Barbara Betha's
35:10
Speaker 4: at one of the Harvard hospitals. And I said, so, Eva,
35:14
Speaker 4: how are you? And she said, you know, I'm very
35:17
Speaker 4: happy because they told me my cancer is in remission.
35:20
Speaker 4: And then, just as you explained, all of a sudden,
35:22
Speaker 4: wait a second. If I went and I took the
35:25
Speaker 4: exact same tests, they'd tell me I don't have cancer,
35:29
Speaker 4: why is it you have it? But they can't find
35:32
Speaker 4: it anywhere? And you know, it's not a simple thing
35:35
Speaker 4: that when women are told that cancer is in remission,
35:39
Speaker 4: it's better than told that the cancer is active. But
35:43
Speaker 4: still then there's a lot of stress, which again I
35:47
Speaker 4: think is the major killer. And this has been something
35:50
Speaker 4: that has haunted me for decades already. The medical world
35:55
Speaker 4: seems to have a five year rule. So if you
35:58
Speaker 4: have breast cancer and then you go into remission, they
36:02
Speaker 4: wait five years before they'll tell you the cancer is gone.
36:06
Speaker 4: I can't find evidence for the five years. All I
36:09
Speaker 4: know is that it's five years of worrying, five years
36:13
Speaker 4: of not being fully what you might be. So we
36:17
Speaker 4: did a little study where we look at women who
36:20
Speaker 4: see their cancer as in remission, those who see themselves
36:23
Speaker 4: as cured, and six months later, those who see themselves
36:28
Speaker 4: acued are healthier on every measure we took, and certainly happier.
36:32
Speaker 4: And you're going to think about it. If you have
36:34
Speaker 4: a cold and the cold goes away, you don't see
36:38
Speaker 4: the cold is in remission. Now if you get another cold,
36:42
Speaker 4: you say, well, you know, this cold is similar to
36:45
Speaker 4: the last one in some ways, because that's why we
36:47
Speaker 4: call it a cold. But just as certainly each cold
36:50
Speaker 4: is different. It's the same thing with a cancer.
36:53
Speaker 1: Okay, So question for you, because as a journalist, I'm
36:58
Speaker 1: a lover of words, and I do think that our
37:01
Speaker 1: words have power. Is there ever any evidence to support
37:05
Speaker 1: my theory, my armchair theory.
37:08
Speaker 4: But that words have power. Oh, you know, I talk
37:11
Speaker 4: about a lot of that in the book. I'm very
37:13
Speaker 4: sensitive to words. Also, you know that I have a
37:17
Speaker 4: part of the book where I talk about better than better. Now,
37:20
Speaker 4: I have respect for a lot of my colleagues who
37:23
Speaker 4: start with other people are in a bad place and
37:25
Speaker 4: then they find ways to make them better, as if
37:27
Speaker 4: that's as good as it gets. So as with my
37:30
Speaker 4: friend Eva, you know, having cancer and remission was better
37:34
Speaker 4: than not having it, but better yet would be cured.
37:38
Speaker 4: One of these. Some of these are kind of fun.
37:41
Speaker 4: I was asked to give a sermon, and I'm not
37:44
Speaker 4: particularly religious. I'm not religious, and also I'm Jewish, so
37:48
Speaker 4: that being in a church giving a sermon is kind
37:51
Speaker 4: of strange. But I say yes to almost everything. So
37:54
Speaker 4: now what am I going to talk about? I don't
37:57
Speaker 4: know what to talk about. I know very little about religion.
38:00
Speaker 4: I'll talk about forgiveness. And I came up with something.
38:03
Speaker 4: I like the word forgive, right, something that was almost sacrilegious. Okay,
38:08
Speaker 4: if you ask ten people, is forgiveness good or bad?
38:12
Speaker 4: What are they going to tell you good? It's good? Okay,
38:15
Speaker 4: If you ask ten people, is blame good or bad?
38:18
Speaker 4: What are they going to tell you it's bad? That
38:21
Speaker 4: means our forgivers are our blamers. Well, that's wild. Now
38:27
Speaker 4: do you blame people for good things or bad things?
38:30
Speaker 4: You blame people for bad things. But it turns out
38:33
Speaker 4: things in and of themselves are neither good nor bad.
38:36
Speaker 4: Anything can be understood as good, bad, or neutral. All right,
38:40
Speaker 4: So that means the people who see the world negatively
38:43
Speaker 4: blame and then forgive, which seemed to me hardly divine
38:48
Speaker 4: an alternative.
38:49
Speaker 1: And okay, So I have a question about this then,
38:52
Speaker 1: and I don't want to cut you off, but I
38:54
Speaker 1: don't want to forget this. So my grandmother is a
38:57
Speaker 1: Holocaust survivor, and when I'm in therapy, my therapist will
39:03
Speaker 1: say to me that a lot of my childhood was
39:06
Speaker 1: very stringent because she feels like the trauma from the
39:10
Speaker 1: Holocaust is like every decision is either right or wrong,
39:14
Speaker 1: and really no decision is right or wrong. And that's
39:17
Speaker 1: what your research shares is there any way to unwire
39:20
Speaker 1: my brain from thinking that, sure.
39:23
Speaker 4: Oh, we have so much to talk about and unpack.
39:26
Speaker 4: I'm going to go back to where I was, to
39:28
Speaker 4: come back to where you are, okay, Because one of
39:31
Speaker 4: the things that I thought was more important than all
39:35
Speaker 4: of these exciting health findings that I had was the
39:38
Speaker 4: realization that behavior makes sense from the actor's perspective, or
39:43
Speaker 4: else the actor wouldn't do it. That means everything you've
39:47
Speaker 4: done there was a reason to do it, or else
39:49
Speaker 4: you wouldn't do it. That every time you're judging yourself
39:52
Speaker 4: in a negative way, you're being mindless every time you're
39:56
Speaker 4: judging somebody else. So you can say to me, which
39:59
Speaker 4: is perfect true, Ellen, you are so gullible it's really pathetic.
40:04
Speaker 4: And then we'll look back in the past. My gosh,
40:07
Speaker 4: I really am that gullible. But and you're going to
40:10
Speaker 4: try to change me and say, yeah, I'm going to
40:11
Speaker 4: try to change I'm never going to succeed because going forward,
40:15
Speaker 4: my intention is not to be gullible. It's that I'm trusting,
40:19
Speaker 4: all right, And as long as I value being trusting,
40:22
Speaker 4: I'm going to be seen as gullible. You are so
40:26
Speaker 4: inconsistent it drives me crazy. But no one is intentionally inconsistent.
40:31
Speaker 4: So how might we look at that more mindfully where
40:33
Speaker 4: it makes sense? So from your perspective, you're flexible for
40:37
Speaker 4: each and every each and every negative description of our
40:42
Speaker 4: own or somebody else's behavior, there's an equally strong positive version,
40:48
Speaker 4: okay now, and when you realize that, then relationships to
40:52
Speaker 4: yourself and other people just change. That makes decision making,
40:58
Speaker 4: the segue to what you were asking me, now, decision
41:00
Speaker 4: making easier because if you're living in a friendly, supportive world,
41:05
Speaker 4: you don't worry so much. First of all, about what
41:09
Speaker 4: if I make the wrong decision right now? It's very interesting,
41:13
Speaker 4: So let me give you the one liner first. Then
41:17
Speaker 4: you know, so if people don't if this is too complicated,
41:19
Speaker 4: it's easy to read in my book, but to summarize
41:23
Speaker 4: in two minutes might not be. Rather than waste your
41:26
Speaker 4: time worrying about making the right decision, what people should
41:31
Speaker 4: be doing is simply make the decision, right, Okay, I
41:35
Speaker 4: said to my class, don't make any decisions this week.
41:39
Speaker 4: Flip a coin, use some heuristic, you're going to do
41:42
Speaker 4: the first thing that occurs, whatever it is, just don't
41:44
Speaker 4: make any decision. And they come back and they had
41:48
Speaker 4: a glorious stress free week. And now, the reason that
41:52
Speaker 4: this is so powerful is because when you can't make
41:55
Speaker 4: a decision, that means the alternatives are psychologically equivalent. N't
42:00
Speaker 4: equipped you? If I say to you do you want
42:02
Speaker 4: a ARB? I don't know. If I say to you,
42:05
Speaker 4: do you want ten dollars or ten thousand dollars? There's
42:07
Speaker 4: no decision right the you know, once once the two
42:11
Speaker 4: are spread apart, right, So we don't do We shouldn't
42:17
Speaker 4: be doing cost benefit analysis. Every cost is simultaneously a benefit.
42:22
Speaker 4: If you add them up, it's not going to tell
42:24
Speaker 4: you what to do. Gathering information to help you with
42:28
Speaker 4: decision information is good, but it doesn't help make the
42:31
Speaker 4: decision because there's always another piece of information that could undo.
42:36
Speaker 4: You know, should I go to Florence or Paris? I
42:39
Speaker 4: don't know they're both in my cities. Well, start gathering
42:42
Speaker 4: information and then I find yeah.
42:43
Speaker 1: But that's that's sort of like a like a low
42:47
Speaker 1: cost decision, like.
42:48
Speaker 4: Okay, should I should I get pregnant? Should I have
42:50
Speaker 4: an abortion? Should I have an abortion or not? Is
42:54
Speaker 4: that good enough?
42:54
Speaker 3: Right?
42:55
Speaker 4: Should I, you know, get divorced or not? Should I
42:57
Speaker 4: get married, should I take It doesn't matter, it's all
43:00
Speaker 4: the same.
43:01
Speaker 1: Wait, what do you mean it's all the same, Like
43:03
Speaker 1: if I marry, if I marry Brian, my life is
43:06
Speaker 1: going to be different than if I marry Justin.
43:09
Speaker 4: Yes, But the thing is you can't know how it's
43:11
Speaker 4: going to be different in advance. If you knew that
43:15
Speaker 4: marrying Brian was going to be great and George was
43:17
Speaker 4: going to beat you, there'd be no decision. Of course,
43:20
Speaker 4: you're going to marry the one with them, You're going
43:22
Speaker 4: to have a great life. When you can't make a decision,
43:25
Speaker 4: it's because the alternatives feel the same. Oh wow, you
43:29
Speaker 4: know that's why you can't make the decision. All right.
43:33
Speaker 4: Once you make a decision, Now, what people don't realize
43:36
Speaker 4: is we make decisions to take action. Once you take
43:40
Speaker 4: the action, the game is over. So as soon as
43:43
Speaker 4: you marry who is George, I'd named to mutin. But
43:47
Speaker 4: as you marry George, you no longer know what it
43:51
Speaker 4: would be like to be with Brian. It's also the
43:54
Speaker 4: case that if you left George at that moment and say,
43:57
Speaker 4: oh this isn't good, let me try the other relaytionship,
44:00
Speaker 4: you're not the same person anymore.
44:02
Speaker 1: You talk about mindfulness, but I think it's really interesting
44:06
Speaker 1: that you talk about mindlessness.
44:08
Speaker 3: What is the cost of not being mindful?
44:10
Speaker 4: Well, for forty five years we've been doing research where
44:15
Speaker 4: forty five is a long time opportunity is for to
44:18
Speaker 4: test lots of variables, and we find when you're more
44:23
Speaker 4: mindful the neurons I told you before a fla. You know,
44:26
Speaker 4: you are active, you live longer, you're healthier, you're happier.
44:30
Speaker 4: People see it was more charismatic. Your relationships are better,
44:34
Speaker 4: your memory is better, you're more creative, you're a better leader,
44:37
Speaker 4: you're more authentic. Everything that we've tested, you know, just
44:41
Speaker 4: sort of think about it that why why do something
44:46
Speaker 4: if you're not going to show up for it? All right?
44:50
Speaker 4: And again, so being mindful is so easy. All you
44:54
Speaker 4: need to do. You start off knowing you don't know
44:57
Speaker 4: if you came to see me, you've never been to
44:59
Speaker 4: min you don't have to practice being mindful. You'd walk
45:03
Speaker 4: in and you'd say, oh, did you do those paintings?
45:06
Speaker 4: What is that over there? You know, oh, wonderful furniture.
45:10
Speaker 4: You know, you would just notice naturally. And so what
45:14
Speaker 4: happens is that this act of noticing what.
45:17
Speaker 3: To flex your mindful muscle. Then you just have to notice,
45:20
Speaker 3: you're saying.
45:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, like you know, I mean, mindfulness is the essence
45:25
Speaker 4: of engagement. Whenever you're having fun, it's because you're being mindful,
45:30
Speaker 4: because you're noticing. And when you think, you know, as
45:33
Speaker 4: in the one plus one is you know two, or
45:36
Speaker 4: horses don't eat meat or whatever. I mean, this came
45:39
Speaker 4: to mind. You know, I would bump into a mannequin
45:42
Speaker 4: and I'd say, excuse me. You know, people are talking
45:45
Speaker 4: to machines all the time as if they're people mindfulness.
45:49
Speaker 4: It turns out that most of us are mindless almost
45:54
Speaker 4: all the time. We're not there. Now. The thing is,
45:57
Speaker 4: when you're not there, you don't know you're not there.
46:00
Speaker 4: So when people give that homely advice, you know, stop
46:03
Speaker 4: and smell the roses or be in the moment, that's sweet,
46:08
Speaker 4: but it's meaningless because when you're not there, you don't
46:11
Speaker 4: know you're not there. And when you're there, you're there.
46:14
Speaker 4: It's all those times when you become sick or you're
46:17
Speaker 4: unhappy or you're stressed, that mindlessness is overwhelming and that's
46:23
Speaker 4: what we need to change. So how do you change it?
46:27
Speaker 4: You know that when you're stressed, you're assuming that something
46:31
Speaker 4: is going to happen, and when it happens, it's going
46:33
Speaker 4: to be awful, and we can't predict, and nothing in
46:38
Speaker 4: and of itself is good, bad, or indifferent. Now you know,
46:42
Speaker 4: you can say, and some of your listeners might say,
46:45
Speaker 4: you know, what does she know from her ivory teller
46:48
Speaker 4: and whatever. But let's keep in mind. I'm seventy seven
46:52
Speaker 4: years old, so I've had a very long life. My
46:54
Speaker 4: mother died when I was reasonably young. I was divorced
46:57
Speaker 4: when I was young. I had a major find that
47:00
Speaker 4: destroyed eighty percent of what I own like, and I've
47:03
Speaker 4: been taken by two psychopaths. I mean, you know, I've
47:06
Speaker 4: had a full life. And still what I'm saying is
47:10
Speaker 4: that your experience is a function of your views. Your
47:14
Speaker 4: views are under your control. If you see it as,
47:17
Speaker 4: oh my god, this is awful, that's the way you'll
47:20
Speaker 4: experience it, and that turns out to be bad for
47:23
Speaker 4: your health. And so a story I tell him the
47:26
Speaker 4: book is one day I come home night from having
47:29
Speaker 4: dinner at somebody's house, and my house was up in smoke,
47:33
Speaker 4: and all my neighbors were outside. So this is late
47:36
Speaker 4: in December, so that I wouldn't have to face this alone.
47:40
Speaker 4: The next day I called the insurance agent and when
47:44
Speaker 4: he came came over the next day. I called him
47:47
Speaker 4: that night. He said this was the first time in
47:50
Speaker 4: his twenty five years. This is not bragging. He's just
47:53
Speaker 4: sharing that the damage was worse than the call most
47:57
Speaker 4: people am. I go to my God, and it's not
47:59
Speaker 4: that bad. Here. It was very bad, you know, but
48:04
Speaker 4: I felt that I had already lost all of this stuff.
48:07
Speaker 4: Throwing my sanity away with it wasn't going to help. Now.
48:11
Speaker 4: Let me just take moment more, all right. So I
48:14
Speaker 4: move into a hotel. I'm a site to be seeing
48:17
Speaker 4: with my two little dogs and what have you. This
48:19
Speaker 4: is around Christmas, Christmas Eve. I go out, I come back,
48:23
Speaker 4: and my room is full of gifts. Not from the
48:27
Speaker 4: people who own the hotel, not from the management, but
48:30
Speaker 4: from the so cold little people. That's chamber maids, they
48:34
Speaker 4: waiters and waitresses who took care of me, the people
48:37
Speaker 4: who park my car. I tell you it took years
48:41
Speaker 4: for me to be able to tell the story without
48:43
Speaker 4: it bringing tears to my eyes. Every Christmas I'm reminded
48:48
Speaker 4: about how good people can be, and I don't remember
48:52
Speaker 4: what I've lost in the fire. So net Net, it
48:55
Speaker 4: was positive, and I'm not saying that. You know, when
48:57
Speaker 4: it happened, of course I was scared. Of course I
49:00
Speaker 4: was stressed, and so on and so forth. But you know,
49:04
Speaker 4: when something happens, when you make whatever work for you,
49:08
Speaker 4: when you notice the things that are going right, it
49:12
Speaker 4: tempers whatever those negative things are. And so you know,
49:16
Speaker 4: I've had a life where I don't have to reinterpret things.
49:20
Speaker 4: My first response to it, you know, is positive. You know.
49:24
Speaker 4: Right now, so my internet here is unstable. So if
49:29
Speaker 4: the internet goes out to you, this might be a
49:32
Speaker 4: big deal to me. All Right, I'll go and I'll
49:35
Speaker 4: start making dinner. It just doesn't matter. So while you're
49:39
Speaker 4: mindless and think that outcomes are in your heads rather
49:42
Speaker 4: than events, you have to kill everybody, go as fast
49:45
Speaker 4: as you can to get something that you think is good,
49:48
Speaker 4: and you have to race as far as you can
49:50
Speaker 4: away from that which is bad. When you're mindful, Oh,
49:54
Speaker 4: whatever whatever it is, you know it will work. It
49:57
Speaker 4: will feel good.
49:58
Speaker 1: First of all, I really I've never heard you tell
50:01
Speaker 1: that story, and I really appreciate you sharing it. I
50:04
Speaker 1: love my job because I'm constantly reminded by how good
50:07
Speaker 1: people can be.
50:08
Speaker 3: I get the best of.
50:09
Speaker 1: The human spirit every day in their stories, and so
50:12
Speaker 1: I really relate to what you're saying. Earlier, you said
50:15
Speaker 1: I say yes to almost everything. A person as credentialed
50:20
Speaker 1: and busy as you are.
50:22
Speaker 3: Why do you say yes?
50:24
Speaker 4: Because there is always a good reason to say yes.
50:27
Speaker 4: And I imagine the person and you know, I know
50:31
Speaker 4: they'll be happier with a yes. Since I've been invited
50:34
Speaker 4: to do so many podcasts. Now, what I do is
50:37
Speaker 4: cop out. I send it to my agent and decided
50:41
Speaker 4: should I do it or not? So I let him
50:43
Speaker 4: be the bad guy. But I say yes to most things,
50:47
Speaker 4: and I'm happy about it. You know, it's sort of
50:50
Speaker 4: you can go to the party or not go to
50:53
Speaker 4: the party that you're invited to. If you go to
50:57
Speaker 4: the party, it's going to work for you. You're going
51:00
Speaker 4: to have some fun there, and then it's going to
51:02
Speaker 4: seem like it was a good decision.
51:04
Speaker 1: Okay, I have a few rapid fire questions for you,
51:06
Speaker 1: and then you're done with me.
51:08
Speaker 4: I don't want to be done with you. This is fun.
51:11
Speaker 3: You're super kind. What's something that you've changed your mind
51:15
Speaker 3: about this?
51:15
Speaker 4: Yere? This is very silly, but since I tend to
51:19
Speaker 4: be a very I was very fortunate. My parents were
51:21
Speaker 4: wonderfully supportive, which allowed me to just be a happy camper.
51:27
Speaker 4: But people would invite me for dinner when I was younger,
51:30
Speaker 4: and they say, is there anything you don't eat? I
51:32
Speaker 4: thought you have to come up with something or else
51:34
Speaker 4: they're going to think you're not discriminating, So I would
51:37
Speaker 4: tell them I don't like lime movies. You know, I
51:39
Speaker 4: don't know why I felt I should malign the lime
51:41
Speaker 4: moy but actually they quite tasty, so that was a
51:45
Speaker 4: reason change.
51:48
Speaker 3: That's hilarious.
51:50
Speaker 1: You talk a lot about stress in your work. You
51:52
Speaker 1: mentioned during this conversation you think it's the killer. What's
51:56
Speaker 1: the single best way to reduce stress something we can
51:59
Speaker 1: do today?
52:00
Speaker 4: Well, I'll tell you several. For us, I like these
52:02
Speaker 4: one liners. My friends said this. They write these down
52:05
Speaker 4: and put them on their refrigerator. Next time you're stressed,
52:08
Speaker 4: ask yourself, as it a tragedy or an inconvenience. It's
52:11
Speaker 4: almost never a tragedy, you know, I bang the car
52:15
Speaker 4: and just the appointment. So what right? So then you breathe,
52:18
Speaker 4: you know and can continue. It's also if you ask
52:21
Speaker 4: you if you think back of the times you were stressed.
52:24
Speaker 4: The things are worried about almost never happen, and if
52:28
Speaker 4: they do happen, we're here to talk about it, which
52:31
Speaker 4: means somehow we were able to deal with it. I
52:34
Speaker 4: think that once we recognize that events don't cause stress,
52:39
Speaker 4: our views of events cause stress, and we're in charge
52:42
Speaker 4: of the views. So when you're stressed about something, you
52:46
Speaker 4: ask yourself, what are all the other reasons? You know,
52:49
Speaker 4: other ways of understanding it. If you're a student and
52:51
Speaker 4: you're afraid you're going to fail the test, what are
52:53
Speaker 4: three reasons you'll do well on the test? How many tests?
52:56
Speaker 4: You know? It's not really very hard. Once you simply yourself,
53:01
Speaker 4: how might I look at this differently?
53:03
Speaker 3: So? I heard Adam Grant was one of your students.
53:05
Speaker 3: Is that true?
53:06
Speaker 4: Yes?
53:07
Speaker 3: Was he a good student?
53:08
Speaker 4: Yes, he was a wonderful student. And if not, which
53:11
Speaker 4: of course he was a wonderful student, what would be
53:13
Speaker 4: the likelihood that I would share with you now? But
53:16
Speaker 4: anyway that's true.
53:18
Speaker 1: Do you remember him being an engaged student? Did he
53:20
Speaker 1: ask a lot of questions.
53:22
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, no, we work closely together. I thought he
53:25
Speaker 4: was a wonderful find. Actually we did lots of the
53:29
Speaker 4: research on what I was telling you before that behavior
53:33
Speaker 4: makes sense. That came after some similar work with Adam
53:38
Speaker 4: about what I call putting people back in the equation.
53:41
Speaker 4: And this is important for women to understand, it's important
53:44
Speaker 4: for everybody. But all right, everything that is was at
53:49
Speaker 4: one point a decision. Somebody decided how told the chair
53:53
Speaker 4: should be, where the cabinet should be, what are the
53:56
Speaker 4: rules to tennis for everything? Now, whatever these things are,
54:02
Speaker 4: we take what we're presented with as if that's the
54:04
Speaker 4: way it's supposed to be. And what Adam and I
54:08
Speaker 4: did some research on putting what I call putting people
54:11
Speaker 4: back in the equation. So let's say you'll like this
54:16
Speaker 4: from Chicago. I don't know the appropriate analogy, but so
54:19
Speaker 4: let's say you have a sign outside and says keep
54:22
Speaker 4: off the grass. So most people, unless you're from Chicago
54:25
Speaker 4: or New York, will keep off the gress. Imagine if
54:28
Speaker 4: the sign said Ellen said keep off the grass, then
54:33
Speaker 4: you'd say, who is this Ellen? Maybe she doesn't live
54:36
Speaker 4: there anymore. Maybe I can negotiate with her, and so on.
54:40
Speaker 4: You see, if you want to persuade somebody, you leave
54:43
Speaker 4: people out. You say horses don't eat meat, cigarettes are
54:47
Speaker 4: bad for you, chocolate is bad for you, breastfeed, you know,
54:51
Speaker 4: whatever they current view is. If you said to people
54:55
Speaker 4: that Smith, Welinsky, and Kagan did a study that showed
55:00
Speaker 4: that breastfeeding is better for most of the babies being tested,
55:05
Speaker 4: all right, you would be less likely to feel you
55:08
Speaker 4: absolutely have to breastfeed. Don to say what I'm saying.
55:12
Speaker 4: So the point, the larger point, is that when you
55:15
Speaker 4: recognize that everything that is was a decision. For something
55:20
Speaker 4: to be a decision means there was uncertainty. You don't
55:24
Speaker 4: want to lock yourself in if it doesn't work for you,
55:27
Speaker 4: change it. Everything is mutable. Now the reason this is
55:31
Speaker 4: important for women. Let me go back a little bit.
55:36
Speaker 4: When I lecture, I'll look out and I'll see is
55:38
Speaker 4: there anybody very tall yet? And often there'll be a man,
55:42
Speaker 4: let's say, about six'. FIVE i ask him to come
55:44
Speaker 4: to the. Stage so he's six,' five. I'm. Five three
55:47
Speaker 4: we look totally with the. Pills together he'll put, his
55:50
Speaker 4: hand put your. HAND up i put my hand next.
55:52
Speaker 4: To his his hand is three inches larger. Than mine
55:55
Speaker 4: the simple, question is should we do anything physical the?
55:58
Speaker 4: Same way the answer. Is no why is this important?
56:02
Speaker 4: For women the more different you are from the person
56:05
Speaker 4: who wrote, the rule the more important it is for
56:09
Speaker 4: you not to mindlessly. Follow it and since the tall
56:13
Speaker 4: white men probably wrote many of, these rules it's more
56:17
Speaker 4: important for those of us not tall white men, to see.
56:21
Speaker 4: You know and so that means when you're, learning instructions
56:25
Speaker 4: you don't hold, the racket, the club, you know whatever
56:28
Speaker 4: it is that, this way you sort of hold it,
56:32
Speaker 4: this way kind of, you know you may hold it.
56:34
Speaker 4: This way you learn, everything conditional and that means that
56:39
Speaker 4: if you're learning to bring this, full circle how much
56:43
Speaker 4: is one? In one you don't say one in one,
56:45
Speaker 4: is two no matter what. You're taught you say one
56:48
Speaker 4: in one could, Be two and that way alternatives stay lively?
56:52
Speaker 3: Well, said.
56:55
Speaker 1: Okay, Doctor linger what is a book that you've read
56:57
Speaker 1: that everybody should read?
57:00
Speaker 4: For body.
57:02
Speaker 3: And what is the smartest decision you've ever made to?
57:05
Speaker 4: Study mindfulness, YOU know i don't know how one decides
57:09
Speaker 4: that their decisions are. SMARTER enough i think that if
57:12
Speaker 4: you're operating on this, world successfully that means everything, you're
57:17
Speaker 4: doing you're recognizing the Advantages in it doesn't mean you
57:21
Speaker 4: can't do a, you know three hundred, and sixty one
57:23
Speaker 4: hundred and maybe degree turn to something. Else RATHER but
57:27
Speaker 4: i don't organize myself in. THAT way. I think i
57:30
Speaker 4: don't evaluate here or ten GOOD things, i did ten.
57:33
Speaker 4: BAD things i just am and if, something happens AND
57:38
Speaker 4: as i, said before, you know, THINGS happen i find
57:41
Speaker 4: a way to take advantage.
57:43
Speaker 1: Of them i've always struggled with that question because of that.
57:47
Speaker 3: Exact, IDEA yeah.
57:48
Speaker 4: I mean but that's not the way too many, people live.
57:52
Speaker 4: YOU know i mean people think that what they want
57:55
Speaker 4: is for everything to, be perfect and they don't realize
57:58
Speaker 4: that if everything if let's say you're, a golfer if
58:01
Speaker 4: you've got a hole in one every time you swum the,
58:04
Speaker 4: golf club there'd be. No game so what makes the
58:08
Speaker 4: game or the challenge is what makes something challenging is
58:10
Speaker 4: that it's not always going to be successful, And, recognizing
58:15
Speaker 4: matt you don't get as discouraged. With setbacks, you know
58:19
Speaker 4: all they're telling you is that's not, the way and
58:22
Speaker 4: you try. Another way what does? This say?
58:25
Speaker 1: Final question we have a question everything game because, you're
58:28
Speaker 1: virtual you have to tell me when to.
58:31
Speaker 3: Say. Stop stop do you fall in?
58:34
Speaker 4: Love, easily yes all, the TIME but i stay in love.
58:38
Speaker 4: As well oh.
58:39
Speaker 3: That's beautiful what do you mean you fall in love all.
58:42
Speaker 4: The, time well What ever, I'M doing i love IT
58:45
Speaker 4: because i won't do IT if i don't enjoy. Doing
58:49
Speaker 4: it and all you need to do is actively. Engage
58:52
Speaker 4: it so that's falling in love with The food, i'm
58:56
Speaker 4: eating The games, i'm playing The people i'm, talking to
59:00
Speaker 4: and as far, as ROMANTIC if i weren't already, In
59:04
Speaker 4: love i've probably fallen in. Love Easily but i've been
59:07
Speaker 4: in love with the same person for over thirty years
59:09
Speaker 4: and that seems. To Work so i'm going to stay For.
59:12
Speaker 3: Doctor langer thank you so much for. Your time this
59:15
Speaker 3: was a lot.
59:15
Speaker 4: Of fun thank you for. Having, me.
59:22
Speaker 1: Okay you know what time. It is today's a. Good
59:25
Speaker 1: day to have a. Good day i'll see you. Next
59:27
Speaker 1: week