DeepSummary
Ellen Langer, a psychologist at Harvard, is known as the 'mother of mindfulness.' She has conducted research for over 45 years on the effects of mindfulness, which is the act of truly noticing and being present in the current moment, rather than assuming we already know what's going on. Langer explains that by being mindful, we open ourselves up to new perspectives and possibilities, leading to psychological and physiological benefits.
Langer discusses several studies she has conducted demonstrating the power of mindfulness on health and well-being. In one study, making hospital chambermaids aware that their work counted as exercise led to weight loss and improved health markers. Another study showed that placing elderly people in an environment decorated to seem 20 years in the past led to improvements in vision, hearing, memory and overall apparent youthfulness.
Langer emphasizes that our thoughts and mindsets have a profound influence on our bodily health. She suggests practices like intentionally noticing changes in symptoms to engage mindfulness. By letting go of assumptions that our condition is static or uncontrollable, we can potentially improve our health through the mind-body connection. Ultimately, Langer advocates for adopting a more mindful, present way of living and thinking.
Key Episodes Takeaways
- Mindfulness, the active state of noticing and being present in the current moment without assumptions, leads to psychological and physiological benefits.
- Our mindsets and beliefs powerfully shape our bodily health through the mind-body connection.
- Practices like intentionally noticing changes can engage mindfulness and potentially improve medical conditions.
- Letting go of assumptions that our situation is static or uncontrollable provides more possibilities for positive change.
- Langer's research demonstrates concrete examples of how shifts in mindset produced measurable effects like weight loss and apparent rejuvenation.
- Adopting a more mindful worldview and way of living could reduce stress and allow us to positively influence our well-being.
- We tend to be mindless far more often than we realize, despite believing we are paying attention.
- Uncertainty and openness to different perspectives is key to mindfulness, contrasting our typical mindless assumptions.
Top Episodes Quotes
- “All you need to do is notice. Now, if you ask people, are they noticing? Of course. Right. And so when I start lectures, what I often do is give them an instance where they're going to reveal their own mindlessness, because 45 years of research has shown me that, sadly, virtually all of us, almost all the time, are not there.“ by Ellen Langer
- “Everything is always changing. Everything looks different from different perspectives, but we hold it still, and then what we do is we confuse the stability of our mindsets with the underlying phenomena.“ by Ellen Langer
- “When you're mindful, as the neurons are firing, that's going to have a positive effect on our bodies.“ by Ellen Langer
- “Virtually all of our problems, personal, interpersonal, professional, global, are the direct or indirect result of our mindlessness.“ by Ellen Langer
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Episode Information
Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas
Sean Carroll | Wondery
6/17/24
For those of us who are not dualists, the mind arises from our physical bodies -- mostly the brain, but the rest of the body has a role to play. And yet it remains tempting to treat the mind as a thing in itself, disconnected from how the body is doing. Ellen Langer is a psychologist who is one of the foremost researchers on the idea of mindfulness -- the cognitive skill of paying to one's thoughts, as well as to one's external environment. Her most recent book is The Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health. We talk about how our state of mind can effect the functions of our body, sometimes in surprising ways.
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Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2024/06/17/279-ellen-langer-on-mindfulness-and-the-body/
Ellen Langer received her Ph.D. in Social and Clinical Psychology from Yale University. She is currently a professor of psychology at Harvard University. She is also an artist with multiple gallery exhibitions. Among her awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Liberty Science Center Genius Award.
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