The Harvard Scientist Who Says You Can Use Your Thoughts To Improve Your Health | Ellen Langer

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Sep 16, 2024

Ellen J. Langer, a Harvard psychologist and author, explores the critical link between mindset and physical health. She challenges conventional views on positive thinking, placing emphasis on mindfulness and being present. Langer discusses intriguing studies on placebos and the impact of perceptions on healing, particularly in chronic conditions. She also shares insights on reframing aging, highlighting how a mindful approach can transform our understanding of growing older and enhance our overall well-being. Tune in for practical tips on incorporating mindfulness into daily life!

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ANECDOTE

Wound Healing and Time Perception

Wound healing time correlated with perceived time, as manipulated by altered clocks.
This demonstrates the mind's influence on physical processes.

INSIGHT

Mindfulness, Not Positivity

Langer advocates for mindfulness, not positive thinking.
Mindfulness, defined as actively noticing new things, empowers choice and presence.

INSIGHT

Uncertainty is the Rule

"Knowing" creates mindlessness, hindering attention and growth.
Embrace uncertainty; everything is in flux, offering constant opportunities for noticing.

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The connection between your psychology and your health, and how to work with it.

Ellen J. Langer is the author of eleven books, including the international bestseller

Mindfulness, which has been translated into fifteen languages, and Counterclockwise:

Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility. Most recently, she is the author of The

Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health.

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 Preventive Psychology, and the Adult Development and

Aging Distinguished Research Achievement Award from the American Psychological

Association.

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. A member of the psychology department at Harvard University and a

painter, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In this episode we talk about:

The power of placebos
Why she isn't a fan of positive thinking as it is talked about in new age circles
Her version of mindfulness, which is quite different from the version we usually talk about here on the show, which comes out of Buddhism
Psychological treatments for chronic illness
Smart strategies for reframing aging.
Why the world would be boring if you knew it all
What she means by her concept of a "mindful utopia"
And her favorite one liners