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Lewis HowesLewis Howes

"STRESS Is The #1 Cause of DISEASE” (Do THIS To HEAL!) w/ Harvard Psychologist Dr Ellen Langer

Today, we have a true pioneer in the world of psychology, Dr. Ellen Langer. She made history as the first woman to be tenured in psychology at Harvard University.

Dr. Ellen LangerguestLewis Howeshost
Feb 21, 20241h 26mWatch on YouTube

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Transcript

  1. 0:00 – 3:35

    Intro

    1. EL

      We have a notion of mind and body as separate. Wherever you're putting the mind, you're necessarily putting the body. And so now I have decades worth of research showing that we can put the mind in very unusual places, take the measurements from the body, and indeed, the effects are, are clear.

    2. LH

      Can you think yourself to being younger? In studies over four decades, Harvard psychology professor Ellen Langer showed that mental attitude can reverse the effects of aging and improve physical health. Everybody's talking about this, Professor Langer. Welcome to the table.

    3. LH

      What do you think is the root of sickness and illness and disease in your mind?

    4. EL

      Mindlessness. I believe that stress is the major source of our illness.

    5. LH

      Really?

    6. EL

      Over and above diet, genetics, even treatment. Down the road, psychology will be the most important aspect-

    7. LH

      Really

    8. EL

      ... of your wellbeing. I did several studies where we make seniors more mindful, and they live longer. Mindfulness, as I study it, has nothing to do with meditation.

    9. LH

      So when there's things happening in the world, how do you interpret these-

    10. EL

      Yeah, no, no, I-

    11. LH

      ... events-

    12. EL

      You know, I'm telling you

    13. LH

      ... so you don't stress yourself into sickness and disease?

    14. EL

      Yeah. I would say that...

    15. LH

      Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the mother of mindfulness, the mother of positive psychology, Dr. Ellen Langer, in the house. So good to see you.

    16. EL

      Thank you.

    17. LH

      Um, y- your bio is really impressive. You are a, a, a pioneer in the world of psychology, and you made history as the first woman to be tenured in psychology at Harvard. You've got three different awards, science, scientific awards around your studies, and 13 different books, and you've got so much information backed by research and science, talking about how to heal our bodies, how to heal our minds, how to reverse our aging, all these different things that I'm fascinated to go into because I think a lot of people don't believe that you can change your body and the pain within your body with your mind and your thoughts, and you are talking about, specifically in this book, that you can. And I'm curious, if someone is saying, "This is just a bunch of crap," you know-

    18. EL

      [laughs]

    19. LH

      ... "I don't believe any of this. I only believe that, you know, I have to take a pill or medicate myself to heal my body," what would you say to that?

    20. EL

      I'd say, "I feel sorry for you because you're missing out on a great opportunity to take care of yourself." It's interesting that we have a notion of mind and body as separate, and that's ruled for so long. That's why people think, um, you know, the only way you can heal yourself is by taking some medication. Um, there's no reason to have a mind and body as separate. They're just words. And the loss of this book is based on the idea of putting them back together-

    21. LH

      Mm

    22. EL

      ... even just for useful purposes, right? And if you have a mind and body, and they're one thing, then wherever you're putting the mind, you're necessarily putting the body. And so now I have decades worth of research showing that we can put the mind in very unusual places, take the measurements from the body, and, um, indeed, uh, the effects are, are clear.

    23. LH

      Wow.

    24. EL

      I think that for this person, the non-believer, um, uh, you might ask them if they've ever seen, this may be off, off color or whatever, somebody regurgitating on the side of the road, and how do they end up feeling? Because many people need to vomit just by watching somebody else.

  2. 3:35 – 7:18

    Mind Body Unity

    1. EL

      Nothing is happening to them. Maybe a less colorful example, and better, is, um, you're walking down the street and a, a leaf blows, uh, in your face. You're startled by it, just a leaf, but you can feel the changes in your body. You know, my first experience with this mind-body unity was many, many years ago. So I was married when I was very young, and we went to, um, Paris on our honeymoon. And I was now 18, 19, going on 30, so had to be very sophisticated.

    2. LH

      [laughs]

    3. EL

      And we're in this restaurant, and on the menu was this mixed grill that I ordered, and on the, um, plate came pancreas. So I said to my then husband, "Which of these is the pancreas?" He points, "That one." So I eat everything else, and now comes the moment of truth. I have to eat it because after all, I'm married.

    4. LH

      Wow.

    5. EL

      I don't know how that followed, but it seemed to at the time. So I start eating, and I'm literally getting sick. He starts laughing. I say, "Why are you laughing?" He said, "Because that's chicken. You ate the pancreas a long time ago."

    6. LH

      Oh, man.

    7. EL

      All right. So I was thinking myself ill.

    8. LH

      Interesting.

    9. EL

      And, um, all of the research supports that. You know, it's interesting, again, I thought of this just the other day. Um, I might even have it in [laughs] the book and have forgotten it, but I was in Missouri-

    10. LH

      Mm

    11. EL

      ... uh, several decades ago, and a friend dragged me to an iridologist. And, you know, I'm up for anything. I mean, I'll go to, you know... So I went to see this iridologist, who looked in my eyes, and she says I have problems with my gallbladder.

    12. LH

      Hmm.

    13. EL

      Okay, fine.

    14. LH

      Just by looking in your eyes?

    15. EL

      Yeah, my eyes. Okay, so the game is over. And then eventually I go to the doctor, and lo and behold, I had a gallstone.

    16. LH

      Really?

    17. EL

      Yeah. And-

    18. LH

      Now, do you think you thought that to occur, or did you actually have it?

    19. EL

      Oh, no, no, no. [laughs] That's a good question, [laughs] but, no, I don't want to go there. I don't know how it-

    20. LH

      All right

    21. EL

      ... how it happened. Here, the point for me was by looking in my eye, she, you know, she knew there was something in other parts of my body that were not right. And, you know, what people don't realize is that every thought, if I, if I lift my arm, my whole body is different.

    22. LH

      Hmm.

    23. EL

      Different in tiny ways that we, we haven't been able to measure, but it's all connected, and, um, which- In some sense lends more credence to this whole idea of mind-body unity. Now, the first study we did, uh, was a study where we took old men to a retreat-

    24. LH

      Mm-hmm

    25. EL

      ... that we had retrofitted to 20 years earlier.

    26. LH

      Right. What was this called again, the-

    27. EL

      Uh, we called it the counter-clockwise study.

    28. LH

      Yes.

    29. EL

      So they were going to live for a week as if they were their younger selves.

    30. LH

      And they were in their late 70s, 80s?

  3. 7:18 – 11:03

    The Aging Study and its Results

    1. EL

      for a week. At any rate, you could, you know, you looked at them, and didn't matter what number you attached to them, they were old.

    2. LH

      Right.

    3. EL

      They're... Now they were gonna live for a week as if they're their younger selves. So they'll be talking about current events, things from the past, as if they're just unfolding, and, um, other things as well. But-

    4. LH

      Like, they would have newspapers from-

    5. EL

      Everything was-

    6. LH

      ... 30 years prior

    7. EL

      ... exactly, exac- And they were making their own meals, and they would correct each other. So if you would say, "Was," you know, somebody would tell you, "Is," um, because the past was now the present for them.

    8. LH

      Wow, and they were listening-

    9. EL

      Yeah

    10. LH

      ... to older music-

    11. EL

      Yeah

    12. LH

      ... and watching older movies-

    13. EL

      Yeah

    14. LH

      ... and everything.

    15. EL

      I, I could spend the whole time with you just so I know [laughs] that study so. You want me to give more details, just tell me, but let me tell you the results-

    16. LH

      Sure

    17. EL

      ... 'cause those were amazing. So they lived as their younger selves for a week. Without any medical intervention, their vision improved-

    18. LH

      Wow

    19. EL

      ... their hearing improved, their memory, their strength, and they looked noticeably younger.

    20. LH

      Man.

    21. EL

      And I must tell you that almost from the beginning, the changes were palpable. You know, and, um, a- and most people accepted the findings. There were a couple of people, "You can't make people younger." And I'm not saying that, uh, chronologically we're changing your age, but, um, it is the case that we associate certain ways of being with certain times in our lives.

    22. LH

      Mm.

    23. EL

      And that these men had, um, were living their lives now very dependent on their adult daughter, presuming that they can't do many of the things that they used to do, and, um, they were wrong. And so that set the stage for a host of studies, most of which, or all of them actually to date, are in The Mindful Body.

    24. LH

      That's fascinating. What would you say are... You know, that study was a while ago, right?

    25. EL

      Yeah. No, that was, um, let's see. We designed it in 1979.

    26. LH

      Wow.

    27. EL

      Yeah, a long time. Before you were born.

    28. LH

      Yeah. Wow. So what would you say in the last 44 years, I guess, um, what is the new-

    29. EL

      Has the world changed?

    30. LH

      Yeah, [laughs] I mean-

  4. 11:03 – 14:48

    The Difference between Meditation and Mindfulness

    1. EL

      fine, it's just different, okay? When you meditate, you take yourself out of the world, and you, um, say your mantra to yourself over and over. Mindfulness as I study it couldn't be more in the world.

    2. LH

      Hmm.

    3. EL

      That what you're doing is not a practice, it's a way of being. You actively notice new things about the things you thought you knew. You come to see you didn't know them at all, and then your mind naturally goes to them. Now, if we start off with the realization that everything is changing, everything looks different from different perspectives, the idea of being certain of anything becomes silly-

    4. LH

      Hmm

    5. EL

      ... because you can't know. It's not what it was the last time you looked. And if you could adopt just one mindset, and it's the only one I believe that is good for you, um, that uncertainty is the rule, not the exception, then you don't, you don't know, so then you tune in. The problem is our parents, our schools, the media, virtually everything is trying to teach us absolutes, and when you think you know something, you don't pay any attention. So I'll do what I do probably too frequently now. Let me ask you a simple question. This is the one that everybody knows.

    6. LH

      Oh, man.

    7. EL

      How much is one plus one?

    8. LH

      Two? [laughs]

    9. EL

      Okay, and that's what everybody says.

    10. LH

      [laughs] I feel like this is a trick question. [laughs]

    11. EL

      Well, it is, though, because, uh, one plus one isn't always two. That if you were adding one wad of chewing gum plus one wad of chewing gum, one plus one is one. If you add one pile of laundry plus one pile of laundry, one plus one is one. You add one cloud plus one cloud, one plus one is one. In the real world, one plus one probably doesn't equal two as or more often as it does. So now look at the difference. Somebody, it's unlikely, but after we finish, somebody comes over to you and says, "How much is one plus one?" You're not gonna mindlessly say two.

    12. LH

      Hmm.

    13. EL

      You're gonna pay some attention to the context, and then you're going to answer more mindfully and say, "It could be," and then you can say, "It could be one. It could be two."

    14. LH

      Interesting.

    15. EL

      You know, so-

    16. LH

      It's all context

    17. EL

      ... yeah, exactly.

    18. LH

      It means context.

    19. EL

      Exactly. Everything changes-

    20. LH

      Hmm

    21. EL

      ... um, and our minds tend to hold things still. We think we know. We want to know, um, because we think that gives us control. But since things are changing, you don't want your mind to hold it still while in fact it's changing because then you're giving up control that you otherwise would have.

    22. LH

      Wow. This is fascinating stuff. Now, I'm curious about, you know, chronic health, thinking our way to chronic health. This is the subtitle of your book, The Mindful Body. Um, you say we can think our way to chronic health.

    23. EL

      Yeah. Well, you know, the reason I wanna use the term chronic is because it's a little startling because we only think of chronic illness. Uh, people tend to assume that as you get older, you're going to fall apart. You're going to get sick. And, um, sickness and aging are not the same thing. One can live their entire life without illness.

    24. LH

      Hmm.

    25. EL

      Um, and the way to live one's life is essentially the same when you're 10 years old or when you're 80 years old, just by knowing you don't know and tuning in. Now, people don't like not knowing because they think you can know, and what I'm here to tell everybody is you can't know. Uh, so what you need to do to, to live the kind of life that I'm suggesting is be confident and uncertain. All right?

    26. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    27. EL

      If you think you should know, then you pretend. Um, but you can't know. Now, that makes everything possible. Now, I was at this, uh, horse event many years ago.

  5. 14:48 – 18:40

    The Horse and the Hot Dog Incident

    1. EL

      Um, after this I'm gonna use only new stories.

    2. LH

      Okay.

    3. EL

      But, um, and this man asked me if I'd watch his horse for him because he was gonna get his horse a hot dog. Well, as you might know from the credentials you read, I, I was an A+ student. So I knew as well as anyone in this world, that's ridiculous. Horses are herbivorous. They don't eat meat. He came back with the hot dog and the horse ate it.

    4. LH

      Right. [laughs]

    5. EL

      And at that moment I realized everything I thought I knew could be wrong. Now, for me, that was actually exciting because that meant that everything was possible. All of those things that we were taught, um, are impossible and not to strive for actually became, um, available in a whole different way.

    6. LH

      Wow.

    7. EL

      And the next step in the reasoning for me was to see that, you know, recognize that experiments, science, mm, science give us our facts mostly, right? But that science only gives us probabilities. There's no experiment that gives you anything absolute. So it's sort of most horses under the conditions that were tested didn't eat the meat, which is very different from all horses never eat meat.

    8. LH

      Right.

    9. EL

      You know? And, um, so... And it's very important for one's health because you have to realize that any information you're given is a best guess. Now, it's an educated guess, but it's still not an absolute.

    10. LH

      [sighs] This is fascinating 'cause what I heard you say a moment ago is that if you wanna live till you're 80 or 90 or 100 without illness or disease, think like a 10-year-old is kinda what I heard you, you say.

    11. EL

      Well, what I'm saying is the way of thinking should be no different, which is life is exciting when you address it as brand-new, when you're not afraid of, uh, trying new things, um, when you recognize that all of the stops you've put on yourself-

    12. LH

      Hmm

    13. EL

      ... were just decisions that some other people made and there's no reason not to do whatever it is you want to do. Um, you know, you don't wanna hurt anybody.

    14. LH

      Sure, sure, sure.

    15. EL

      But, you know, for people to say you're too old to play tennis or you're too old to... I don't know. What are people too? I don't pay any attention to it-

    16. LH

      Right. [laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah

    17. EL

      ... so I can't generate the instances. But, you know, one of the earlier titles of the book was Who Says So? Um, and I think that that's a refrain that people should, you know... And that's where they're similar, not to 10-year-olds, but I think two or three-year-olds. You know, "Who says so?"

    18. LH

      Right, right, right. [laughs]

    19. EL

      "Who are you to know?" Um, and-

    20. LH

      So it's almost always like having a beginner's mindset.

    21. EL

      Yeah. Yeah.

    22. LH

      What is a thing that you've learned in the last few years that maybe you thought you knew that completely rocked your, your world?

    23. EL

      People have asked me that. Um, it's, you know, I don't know if it's my being dense [laughs] or what it is, and it's hard for me to answer. I know there was something that I came to many years ago that I think was far more important to me than most people who read about what I say in this regard. But it's still, um, l- let me share that with you, which is- The simple idea that behavior makes sense from the actor's perspective, or else the actor wouldn't do it. Now, what that means is when you see me, let's say, as gullible, um, I'm not intending to be gullible. What is it I'm intending? Well, I'm trusting. When I see you as inconsistent, you don't intend to be inconsistent. What you're being is flexible. Mm. And turns out for every single negative description, there's an equally strong but oppositely valent- That's interesting ... for every positive, there's a negative, every negative. Now, what that means

  6. 18:40 – 22:28

    The Consequences of Mindlessness

    1. EL

      is, you know, a- a- to make it a little more sensible, nobody wakes up in the morning and, and says, "You know, today I'm gonna be gullible, obnoxious, sloppy," [laughs] you know, whatever we call people. So what is it that they're intending? Now, people don't realize that it made sense to them because they often engage in the action mindlessly. Mm. So they don't know why they're doing what they're doing. So if you say to me, "Ellen, you are so gullible," which I am, and now I look back at my behavior the way you are look- my God, I can't believe it, and I, that I'm not gonna be gullible anymore. Of course it's going to fail, because going forward I'm not being gullible, I'm being trusting. So the point is, if you want to get someone to change, you have to address the behavior from the perspective- Mm ... in which they're engaging in. Mm-hmm. You want me to stop being gullible, you have to teach me to stop being trusting, and my guess is then you wouldn't want to. So you can see how life would unfold very differently, because as far as I can see, people are constantly evaluating each other- Mm-hmm ... judging themselves, um, foregoing pleasures for fear of what somebody else might say and so on. Wow. What do you think is the root of sickness and illness and disease in your mind? Mindlessness. Really? Oh, yes. I think that, um, um, I would say virtually all, I'd probably even mean all, but be a little safer, all of our problems are the direct or indirect consequence of mindlessness, whether it's personal, interpersonal, global. My- What is mindlessness to you? Okay. Um, [laughs] mindlessness is, um, that responding to the world, um, based on these absolutes, where you think you know. You're like an automaton, you know? And so what happens is when you learn something, then you keep doing it. Okay, so when you first learn it, you can be doing it mindfully, but you know, now you know how to do it, you do it the same way over and over again, but the world is changing, and very often you come up short. I mean, an example I used to use a lot is, um, and this isn't good for California, and the last time I used it and was going to not use it again was in India, where it's also not good. It depends on snow. Okay. [laughs] Put that aside. That if you're driving in snow and the car starts to skid, and you ask somebody older than you, um, unless you were taught by that older person, "What do you do when you're driving on ice?" And most people will say, "You slowly pump the brake and turn into the skid." That made sense when you first learned it. However, and you keep doing that, but now there are anti-lock brakes, and the way you stop a car on ice is you firmly hit the brake. Okay? So what you learned for safety's sake is now unsafe. So the point is, once you think you know, you freeze everything while things are actually changing. So you're not, um, able to avoid the danger that hasn't yet arisen. You can't take advantage of the benefits that are right in front of you because you just don't see it. And most of us are using yesterday's solutions to solve today's problems. Now, you know, people are afraid, um, you, to, to, um, just let things be because they think there are good things and bad things, and I have to jump over, you know, fences or kill people, do whatever I have to do to get those good things and to avoid the bad. But things in and of themselves are neither good nor bad, and when you fully recognize that, then, you know, if this interview goes well, wonderful. If this interview doesn't, wonderful. It doesn't matter. There'll be other reasons. You know,

  7. 22:28 – 26:06

    Dealing with Stress and Worry

    1. EL

      if it doesn't go well, then that will free up some time in some, in some fashion. I'll have learned something that'll make the other one, the next one, you know, even bigger and what have you. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah. You know, the idea, people, by believing there are things that are good and things that are bad, um, set themselves up for all sorts of stress, for example. So when you- so when there's things happening in the world in the last four years with- Terrible. [laughs] Terrible ... horrible things happening, wars and COVID and all these different things- Sure ... how do you interpret these- Yeah, no, no, I- ... events- You know, I'll tell you ... so you don't stress yourself into sickness and disease? Yeah. No, it's a very important question, and I don't know that I have, um, the right answer. I would say, though, that telling yourself that the world is falling apart, uh, that we're on our way to a dictatorship, whatever things that are going to keep you up at night is not serving any purpose. Mm. So, um, do something about it, whether that means finding, um, places to donate money, to do some work, to elect the, uh, officials that, um, have the same views as you, and so on. Um, but if you're doing nothing but worrying, worrying is a waste of time. You know, that I have a few one-liners about worrying. The first one is, um, you should ask yourself, which is not the case here- Yes ... is it a tragedy or an inconvenience? Now, you're talking about potential tragedies, but most of the things we worry about are just inconveniences. Inconveniences. Right. Yeah. As, you know. And, um, most of the things we worry about never happen. And if you reflect on the last time you worried and how you dealt with it and you saw it didn't even happen, you'd be more persuaded of that. Mm. The way to deal with stress, I think, is, um, re- All right. Stress relies on two things. It relies on an assumption that something is going to happen, and that when it happens it's going to be awful. Well, the first you can't predict. And this is very hard for people to accept, that predictability is an illusion. You can post it. You can look back. You know, let me, let me make this, uh, use an example. Let's say you're at a party and we see Tom and Susie fighting, and I said to you, "Are they gonna get divorced?" You say, "How do I know," right? Sometimes people fight. Well, let's say we don't have that conversation. So you see Tom and Susie fighting. Two weeks later, you're told, "You know, Tom and Susie are getting a divorce." "Ah, I knew it. You should have seen the way they went at each other at the party." All right. You can't predict. You can predict, you can predict for a group that if you were to start, um, 100 Mercedes and you turn the key, most of them will start, not necessarily all of them, and that would be more than if you were in some used car, um, car lot.

    2. LH

      Sure.

    3. EL

      But you can't predict the individual case, and we're all individuals. And when it comes to our health, um, you know, uh, we really care more about how the medicine's going to go down-

    4. LH

      Right

    5. EL

      ... for us personally.

    6. LH

      Uh-huh.

    7. EL

      Now, I believe that stress is the major source of our illness.

    8. LH

      Really?

    9. EL

      Over and above, uh, diet, uh, genetics, even treatment. It's a very big statement. And that stress, though, is psychological, right? Events don't cause stress. What causes stress are the views you take of the event. So if you open it up and you're more mindful, um, and if you said to yourself-

    10. LH

      Mm

    11. EL

      ... um, rather than this thing is gonna be awful, give yourself five reasons why it might actually be an advantage. So now, could be awful,

  8. 26:06 – 29:48

    Navigating Stress and Finding the Goodness of People

    1. EL

      could be advantageous, you're immediately somewhat relaxed. But I say go the next step. Let's assume it does happen. What are the advantages?

    2. LH

      The worst-case scenario of things, yeah.

    3. EL

      And, and what are the advantages? And so then when you say, you know, you'll be able to deal with whatever happens, then you're, you're less worried about them-

    4. LH

      Yes

    5. EL

      ... and, you know, you don't have to spend so much time trying to control the outcome.

    6. LH

      Mm.

    7. EL

      Yes. But for the big things that are happening in this world right now, um, I, I think that it's a super test of all that I'm saying. [laughs]

    8. LH

      Yeah, yeah.

    9. EL

      You know?

    10. LH

      How do you, how do you manage stress, though? I mean, you're-

    11. EL

      I don't experience it most of the time.

    12. LH

      Really?

    13. EL

      I, you know, I was-

    14. LH

      You're a professor at Harvard. You've got books. You've got people that rely on you. You see, you know, people coming to you with their problems. How do you navigate all that?

    15. EL

      Yeah. Um, I surely at this age have had real things happen. Um, I had a fire that destroyed 80% of what I owned way back whe-

    16. LH

      Wow

    17. EL

      ... you know, my mother died, um, when she was a young woman. Um, uh, I've been, you know, divorced, and so none of those things sound so big [laughs] anymore, but nevertheless, um-

    18. LH

      In the moment, it's like-

    19. EL

      Just at the... Yeah.

    20. LH

      Yeah.

    21. EL

      So, um, and when those things happen, I don't think that my response is, "Oh, well." You know, I'm of this earth. Um-

    22. LH

      Sure, sure

    23. EL

      ... but it, it doesn't stay with me. So let's say the... Now, I wrote about this in The Mindful Body. When the house went up in smoke, that, um, I called the insurance adjuster. He came over the next day, and he said it was the first time in his 25 years of the job where the call was less bad than the, um, than the damage. Most people go, "Oh, my God. Oh, my God," and he gets there, "Eh, it's not so terrible."

    24. LH

      One little room. Yeah, yeah.

    25. EL

      Yeah. And he... But, you know, to my mind, it was already gone. What was the point in getting crazy over it? And I immediately felt that what had been burned were things of my past. You know, so if I were to redo it today, you know, that day, would I, how many of those things would I have bought again or, or what have you? Um, but it was still a little scary.

    26. LH

      Sure.

    27. EL

      And, but I might as well tell the whole story now, because this turned out to be wonderful.

    28. LH

      Really?

    29. EL

      How could it have been wonderful?

    30. LH

      Tell me.

  9. 29:48 – 33:29

    The Power of Mindset

    1. EL

      before telling them that I don't know how this is going to go, you know, for the following reasons. And I think it was the best class that I taught.

    2. LH

      Really?

    3. EL

      Because it, it was happening right then, you know, that all of the information I was giving them was, um, a new version or a version that I believed right at this moment. You know, when you, you present PowerPoints, it's just too easy not to use the same PowerPoint-

    4. LH

      Right

    5. EL

      ... and to, you know, you don't wanna think things through again.

    6. LH

      So you're innovating things.

    7. EL

      Yeah.

    8. LH

      You're, you're adding to it.

    9. EL

      And so I enjoyed it more than any other class I'd taught. Um-

    10. LH

      This is fascinating. Now, you're speaking about kind of lost things from the past. A lot of people hold onto the traumatic memories- And it keeps them stuck in a, a mindset of resentment, fear, anxiety, frustration, guilt-

    11. EL

      Mm-hmm

    12. LH

      ... whatever it might be from these traumatic experiences that either happened to them, that they interpreted, or that they were a part of or did to other people. And they hold onto these memories and put a lot of meaning on-

    13. EL

      Yeah

    14. LH

      ... those memories, and it causes them to feel stuck or gain weight or get sick and have anxiety. How powerful is our thoughts around the past?

    15. EL

      Well, I think that what we need to do, when people... There's data, not mine, that shows trying not to think about something is totally ineffective. It always comes back. But so what you want to do is not try not to think about it, but to think about it differently.

    16. LH

      Interpret it differently.

    17. EL

      Yeah, um, and your feelings will be based on your interpretations. You know, so that for me, the fire, you know, was not the scary thing. It, you know, so I lost some things, so who cares?

    18. LH

      Right.

    19. EL

      Um, and then I got all of this, uh, attention, this, uh, a feeling of the goodness of stranger, you know-

    20. LH

      Community-

    21. EL

      Yeah

    22. LH

      ... love, support. Yeah.

    23. EL

      And so it, it's not a scary thing for me.

    24. LH

      Wow.

    25. EL

      So if we open up our minds and see that no matter what we're experiencing, there are multiple ways of understanding it. There is no one way of looking at it. Um, and that's what we do when we're being mindless, you know. Um, and then it lends itself to, again, all sorts of possibilities. And it occurs to me that we only talked about the counterclockwise study. I probably, with your permission-

    26. LH

      Go ahead.

    27. EL

      Okay.

    28. LH

      Yeah, share another one.

    29. EL

      Because, um, uh, there are many in the book, but to be more persuaded of this mind-body unity-

    30. LH

      Yes

  10. 33:29 – 37:13

    The Mind-Body Connection in Wound Healing

    1. EL

      so many things for us to talk about. I did this, uh, study recently with my graduate student, Peter Ungle, and, um, it's a study on wound healing.

    2. LH

      Oh.

    3. EL

      Now, so-

    4. LH

      This is interesting

    5. EL

      ... in order to test, um, the one's mind, the degree to which your mind affects healing, uh, we had-

    6. LH

      The physical body. Yeah, yeah

    7. EL

      ... right, we had to inflict a wound.

    8. LH

      Really?

    9. EL

      I'm not sadistic.

    10. LH

      Right, right.

    11. EL

      And even if I were, the, uh, human subjects committee is not gonna let me. So it's a minor wound.

    12. LH

      Sure. Little-

    13. EL

      But it's a wound

    14. LH

      ... a little cut, a paper cut or something like that.

    15. EL

      Uh, but no, we used, um, um, the Chinese cupping.

    16. LH

      Okay.

    17. EL

      Um, so it creates a... Okay. And all we have are people in front of a clock.

    18. LH

      It's like a bruise almost.

    19. EL

      Yeah.

    20. LH

      Yeah, like a-

    21. EL

      Un- Right, exactly. Unbeknownst to them, the clock is going twice as fast as real time, half as fast as real time, or real time. And the question we're asking is, does that bruise heal based on perceived time, which is the time the clock tells you, or real time? And it turns out it's perceived time.

    22. LH

      Come on.

    23. EL

      Yeah. And we're doing this now with, um, people who have had, um, a hernia operations, um, uh, cataract surgery. Um, I wanna do with broken bones as well, where we tell people. Right now, you know, the doctor will probably tell you, say, "How long is it gonna take for me to heal?"

    24. LH

      It, it take three to six months for recovery, yeah.

    25. EL

      Right. And I think they use the outer limit. I want to tell people, you know, some people have healed as quickly as, and give the quicken heal as time, healing time, and see what happens.

    26. LH

      Interesting.

    27. EL

      Um-

    28. LH

      So if a doctor who is a credible expert and is telling you, "This is gonna take three to six months of recovery. It's gonna be a lo-

    29. EL

      You're, you're not gonna do anything-

    30. LH

      It's gonna be a long road-

  11. 37:13 – 41:02

    Mindful Search for Improvement

    1. EL

      What happens if you pay attention? So what we do, we start by calling people, um, every day, twice a day, sometimes three times a day at various times, and we say, how... Let's say y- you have chronic pain, for example. It could be stress, it doesn't matter what it is. People in chronic pain think they're in pain all the time.

    2. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    3. EL

      People who are stressed think they're stressed... Nobody is anything all the time. So we call and say, "How is it right now? Is it better or worse than before? And why?" The why is the crucial question. All right, so what happens is now there are going to be times it's gonna be better, so you're gonna feel, gee, you know, it's not as bad as I thought it was. There, there are moments of relief. Why initiates a mindful search. Why now is it better than before? And by doing this, the very... And the process now gives you some control over the disease. So control itself is important to your health.

    4. LH

      Interesting.

    5. EL

      When you're in control, you're looking for ways to be better.

    6. LH

      To improve, yeah.

    7. EL

      Right, exa- so we use the stress. So you're stressed all the time. I call you. How are you? Okay. Then all of a sudden you realize, you know, when you're talking to Ellen Langer, then you're maximally stressed. So then it's easy, right? Don't talk to me-

    8. LH

      Uh-huh

    9. EL

      ... as a way of improving, all right? So three things happen when you do this attention to variability, which is just a fancy way of saying being mindful, noticing change. The first is that you see, hey, it's, it's not that you're maximally awful all the time. Second, by asking why you're being mindful, that's good for your health.

    10. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    11. EL

      And third, that you're more likely to find a solution if you're looking for one. Now, we've done this with Parkinson's, stroke, multiple-

    12. LH

      Really?

    13. EL

      ... sclerosis, arthritis, chronic pain, a host of real disorders. And in each case, uh, we get very positive results. And so, you know, a- now we're, we're looking at how this might actually explain the placebo. And the way is that you take a pill, now you're expecting yourself to get better. So you're looking. Am I better? Oh, wait, now I'm not as better as I was [laughs] before. Why? And the process unfolds naturally. Now, so what I was trying to arrange it so people could take care of themselves rather than rely on a doctor to give them a nothing, so that they, um, take care of themselves. Um, it, it doesn't seem that way because we're calling them, but most people now have smartphones. It's very easy. You set your smartphone to ring in an hour. You ask yourself, how is it now? Better or worse than before? Set it now for two hours and 10 minutes. Just vary the times. Um, and, uh, you will be better even if it doesn't completely go away, although we have very positive, um, very positive findings.

    14. LH

      This is powerful.

    15. EL

      You know, and the thing about a placebo that's kind of interesting, because when we, um, a... The BBC did a version of a replication of the counter-clockwise study, and I remember there was this actress who was one of the participants, and she got better and she couldn't understand it. And she said, "You know, you say it's placebo, but you know..." Arguing because placebos are bad. Now, placebos to people are bad only because the people who started talking about them were pharmaceutical companies.

    16. LH

      Ah.

    17. EL

      And for a pharmaceut- Look, I wanna bring this drug to market to make a fortune, and this damn thing, you know, this placebo-

    18. LH

      That's free. Yeah, yeah

    19. EL

      ... is just as good-

    20. LH

      Yeah, yeah

    21. EL

      ... so then I can't bring it to market. But if you think about it, and then people say, "It's only psychological." As if, wait a second, you know, physical is real, you know, psychological not,

  12. 41:02 – 45:02

    The Influence of Thoughts on Pain

    1. EL

      and now I'm saying it- they're both the same.

    2. LH

      So what influences the other? Do our thoughts influence our-

    3. EL

      It's all happening simult- more or less simultaneously.

    4. LH

      Really?

    5. EL

      Yeah. You know-

    6. LH

      So if we feel pain somewhere, we feel overwhelm or stress, or we feel a sharpness of pain somewhere, is our thoughts influencing that pain, or is our, the feeling-

    7. EL

      Oh, surely

    8. LH

      ... of it influencing our thoughts?

    9. EL

      Both. It's, it's one thing.

    10. LH

      Interesting.

    11. EL

      You know, I raise my arm. That's affecting my wrist, um, my forearm. You know, it's all happening essentially at the same time. You know, um, there was somebody... I can't believe that I couldn't remem- I couldn't find who did this study where they, uh, did the biochemistry of a teardrop, and that-

    12. LH

      Hmm

    13. EL

      ... a teardrop of sadness is biochemically different from a teardrop of happiness.

    14. LH

      Really?

    15. EL

      I remember the iridologist, iridologist, who was able to look in my eye, um, and know there was something wrong with my gallbladder. It's all the same. I go like this, my mind, my brain is different. We don't have the, um, sophisticated machinery, technology to, to, uh, pick up the difference.

    16. LH

      Hmm.

    17. EL

      But if I took a few cells of your skin and you were mindful versus mindless, uh-

    18. LH

      It would be different

    19. EL

      ... the difference is there.

    20. LH

      Really?

    21. EL

      But we can't see that now.

    22. LH

      Holy cow.

    23. EL

      Yeah.

    24. LH

      This is fascinating. What, I mean, what would you see, say then if people wanna live pain-free If they wanna live pain-free, stress-free, and they wanna feel like they're aging gracefully

    25. EL

      [laughs] All in one visit

    26. LH

      ... what, what can they be, what is the cocktail of ingredients that you should be doing on a daily basis to create that?

    27. EL

      Well, yeah. Um, you should, um, accept that everything is uncertain.

    28. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    29. EL

      And so, um, then you can't know those things. You know, if you forget something, doesn't mean now you're becoming s- um, getting dementia.

    30. LH

      Mm.

  13. 45:02 – 48:58

    Making the Moment Matter

    1. LH

      Sure. This is all fascinating because I think a lot of people want to live longer and, but they wanna live longer healthier.

    2. EL

      Yeah.

    3. LH

      They don't wanna live in pain and on medications and stressed about it. They want to feel better and-

    4. EL

      So let me, let me tell you.

    5. LH

      Yeah.

    6. EL

      What people want to do, and should be doing, is making the moment matter. And that whatever they're doing, they should enjoy doing it rather than doing it for some end. You know, so that, "I hate exercising, but I'm gonna exercise so I live longer." No. Um, and there are people who exercise and then e- end up having heart attacks-

    7. LH

      Mm

    8. EL

      ... because of the exercise. You can't, um-

    9. LH

      'Cause they're stressed about it, yeah.

    10. EL

      Uh, yeah. Um, what you want to do is if you do it, show up for it. If you show up for it, it'll be enjoyable. If it's enjoyable, um, you can't ask for more than that. You know, s- so many people are trying to add more years to their lives, and I think that what we should be doing is adding more life to our years.

    11. LH

      Wow.

    12. EL

      And that will end up, I think, in the long run for most people, have us living longer.

    13. LH

      That's it.

    14. EL

      But whatever you're going to do, it should be fun. Now, s- how could it be fun? Uh, it depends on the way you do it. Doing it mindfully, actively noticing, it sounds so simple, but that's the essence of engagement. That's the, that's what you're doing when you're having fun. And it's no work. That's why I say it's very important to understand mindfulness as we study it has nothing to do with meditation. If you were to leave California and come back to the East Coast and come visit me at my house, you wouldn't have to practice, uh, being mindful. You'd walk into my house, you'd be curious, "Oh, look at, did she do that painting? Wow, this is the book she's read?" You know, whatever it is you saw, you would notice because, um, you knew you didn't know and, you know, and you'd be curious. Um, and you know, once you're noticing, the neurons are firing, and that's figuratively and literally enlivening. So that's all you have to do. Now, the problem is the world has taught us to divide work and play, for instance.

    15. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    16. EL

      And that work has to be bad, so for students it can be play and study, or, you know, work and life. And again, I object strenuously, um, that, um, we-

    17. LH

      Bring play into your work.

    18. EL

      Exactly. You know, that, um, and people talk about work-life balance. You know, I, I have so many of these in the book where here is bad, and then-

    19. LH

      Uh-huh

    20. EL

      ... the experts help us to get here. It's better, but not as nearly as good as it could be. So work-life balance is better than work-life imbalance.

    21. LH

      [laughs] Yeah, yeah.

    22. EL

      But better still is work-life integration.

    23. LH

      Mm.

    24. EL

      Make it one thing. Don't be a different person at work.

    25. LH

      Mm.

    26. EL

      Um, you know, that there should be a certain seriousness to even play, um, and, uh, playfulness to our work. Um, we have studies where we just have people notice things about, uh, whatever they're doing, and it ends up fun. Um, we had people, this is, um, a study, um, so what did we do? We gave people index cards that had on them jokes.

    27. LH

      Jokes?

    28. EL

      And their job was to evaluate how funny the joke was.

    29. LH

      Mm.

    30. EL

      Okay? So for half of the people, it was a job. For half of the people- It was just an activity

  14. 48:58 – 52:42

    Mindfulness and Losing Weight

    1. EL

      You know, the doctors make a lot of errors, um, no different from the rest of us except, um, medical errors are very costly-

    2. LH

      Yes

    3. EL

      ... and can cost people their lives. And those all result, to go back to your original question, how do we fix everything, by making people more mindful.

    4. LH

      Mm-hmm

    5. EL

      When you're more mindful, you see what's going on, and you'd know that you were leaving that sponge inside the, the person's body before you sewed them up.

    6. LH

      Wow.

    7. EL

      Um, so no matter what you're doing, if you're doing it mindfully, you're going to be enjoying it. And if you're enjoying it, um, that's going to be its own reward which will probably lead to the longer life. I'm trying to think-

    8. LH

      Right. Right. Sure. Sure

    9. EL

      ... why I became the first person you asked. [laughs]

    10. LH

      That's great. I love this. I, I, you know, I feel like a lot of what I've noticed in the world lately is that a lot of chronic illness is linked to people being obese. Obesity is up in this country and around the world. Um, and you talked about the, the chambermaids-

    11. EL

      Yeah

    12. LH

      ... study. But I'm curious, can, can people just think themselves thinner? Is it possible to lose weight by your thinking alone?

    13. EL

      Well, um, that's what seemed to be the case with the chambermaids study. But I think that, you know, again, if you want to stop doing something that you're doing, the best way to do it is not to look at the result of what you've done-

    14. LH

      Mm

    15. EL

      ... but to look at why you're doing it in the first place.

    16. LH

      Can you give an example?

    17. EL

      Well, sure. Um, you know, that, um, I've gained 20 pounds, therefore I want to take off the 20 pounds. Um, why did you gain the 20 pounds? You know, were you eating because you are anxious? Well, then, you know, we have to find a way of not being so anxious. I think that, um, for many people who are trying to lose weight, um, they are not paying attention to why they gained it in the first place. If you are mindful, you would notice that, you know, you gained three pounds. Taking off three pounds is not very hard for most people. If you don't notice until you go up two sizes, um, it's-

    18. LH

      Then you're not being mindful

    19. EL

      Exactly. It's going-

    20. LH

      You're not paying attention-

    21. EL

      Right

    22. LH

      ... to what you're consuming. You're just eating throughout the day, or you're not, whatever, you're not moving your body enough. Something, right?

    23. EL

      Yeah. Um-

    24. LH

      You're not paying attention

    25. EL

      ... you're, you're not paying atten- well, it, paying attention sounds big. I, you're just noticing-

    26. LH

      Okay

    27. EL

      ... little things.

    28. LH

      Okay

    29. EL

      And then it becomes much more doable. Um, but and people have written now about mindful eating. Um, in fact, the word is so out there that I think that it's g- it's importance may get lost with that.

    30. LH

      Mm-hmm

  15. 52:42 – 56:35

    The Silly Worries of the Past

    1. EL

      old, I don't know, you're in elementary school at six years old?

    2. LH

      Yeah, you're-

    3. EL

      Okay

    4. LH

      ... first grade

    5. EL

      ... you're first grade.

    6. LH

      Yeah.

    7. EL

      And Johnny or Janie doesn't send you a valentine, you know, the world's gonna end. And then you get a little older, and now you've got some, uh, pimples, and, "Oh, my God, I'm never gonna be attractive." And then you get, and you get your first job, and, "Am I ever g-..." It just goes on and on until at some point you say, "It was all so silly." You know, and we can be taught the ways it's silly right from the beginning. Um, to realize there are many ways of doing, you know, everything. And by thinking that there's one right way, then that makes so many of us wrong. And, um, and there are things we put in place to keep us down. And I'm here to say you wanna do it differently, do it differently. We should all be doing it differently, in a whole different way. When I lecture sometimes, I look in the audience. I say, "Is there anybody here who's 6'5?" Surprisingly, [laughs] there almost always is. I ask them to come on the stage. I'm 5'3".

    8. LH

      Uh-huh.

    9. EL

      We look ridiculous-

    10. LH

      Yeah, yeah, yeah

    11. EL

      ... together, right? I ask him to put his hand up. I put my hand next to it. His hand is three inches bigger than mine. And then I ask a simple question: "Should we be doing anything the same way?" Anything physical. It seems silly, right? And so it is with, with everything else.

    12. LH

      Mm-hmm

    13. EL

      You know, that, um, people... Who are the people who decided these are the things we should know, these are the ways we should know it? You know, it got to the po- gets to the point where imagine you're in school and you're asked the question, "How much is one plus one?" And little Johnny says, "One." What's going to happen?

    14. LH

      Mm

    15. EL

      In today's schools-

    16. LH

      The teacher's gonna say, "No, that's not right."

    17. EL

      Exactly. And the, the child is going to be looked down on by all the other kids. "Ha ha," you know? Um, and then grows up feeling- ... uh, less than. Um, and sometimes less than is because you actually know more than rather than less.

    18. LH

      Oh, interesting.

    19. EL

      Um, it's interesting that when we're putting people down, um, there's a way, and talk about three levels here. So let's imagine we have a little kid who's uninhibited, okay? Um, now then we have people like us, more you, your age, that are inhibited. What does inhibited mean? You know the rules. You're supposed to do this. You're not supposed to do that, and you comply. Then hopefully, hopefully, you get to a certain point where you say, "Who cares?"

    20. LH

      [laughs]

    21. EL

      Right? Now, that behavior of the who cares, the old person, may resemble-

    22. LH

      That's interesting

    23. EL

      ... the young person. And it's a mistake to think of that person as, um, uh, behaving childishly. So they're not, um, uninhibited the way the child is. They're disinhibited.

    24. LH

      Interesting.

    25. EL

      Um-

    26. LH

      It's interesting, it's you see, you know, my grandfather, before he passed, he used to just say whatever was on his mind.

    27. EL

      Yeah.

    28. LH

      And, and it was inappropriate for-

    29. EL

      Mm-hmm

    30. LH

      ... a lot of people, but for him he was just like, "I don't care." You know?

  16. 56:35 – 1:00:24

    The Power of Blame and Forgiveness

    1. EL

      is going to feel better if he or she can pick it up by themselves, and you don't want to deny them that. And so you don't give help that's not really needed. So level one and three are not the same. This, they're both not helping, but they're very different people.

    2. LH

      Interesting.

    3. EL

      Uh-

    4. LH

      One's just kinda like whatever. The other one's saying, "I don't wanna rob them of the-

    5. EL

      Right

    6. LH

      ... opportunity-

    7. EL

      And so-

    8. LH

      ... of empowering themselves."

    9. EL

      Right. So and this goes, or there are so many things. I, I spend a lot of time with, um, language that, uh, is interesting to me because I think here in the world that we live in today, most people are not, um, enjoying the, um, the lives that they could be enjoying, and they don't know what's available to them. So many years ago, I was asked to give a sermon in one of the Harvard churches. Okay. And I say yes to everything, [laughs] so I say yes. I'm not religious, and if I were to be religious, I'm Jewish, so I, what's an appropriate topic? I thought, forgiveness. It sounds sort of religious-y. It's not, but I could get away with it. So I start to think about forgiveness, and I come up with something that's almost sacrilegious. If you ask 10 people is forgiveness good or bad, what are they gonna tell you?

    10. LH

      Good.

    11. EL

      It's good.

    12. LH

      Yeah.

    13. EL

      If you ask 10 people is blame good or bad, what are they gonna tell you?

    14. LH

      Bad.

    15. EL

      It's bad. Gee, but you know you have to blame before you can forgive.

    16. LH

      Hmm.

    17. EL

      So our forgivers are our blamers. Now, do you blame people for good things or bad things? You blame people for bad-

    18. LH

      Bad things

    19. EL

      ... but things in and of themselves are neither good nor bad. So what do we have here?

    20. LH

      Interesting.

    21. EL

      We have people who see the world negatively, who blame, then, um, you know, come to forgive. Hardly divine. Okay, so if you blame, it's better to forgive than not. However, you shouldn't be blaming-

    22. LH

      In the first place

    23. EL

      ... in the first place-

    24. LH

      Yeah

    25. EL

      ... because their behavior made some sense-

    26. LH

      Oh

    27. EL

      ... or else they wouldn't have done it.

    28. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    29. EL

      So if you understand that their behavior was sensible, then there's no reason to blame them. Then there's no opportunity necessary for forgiveness. So we leave it at forgiveness rather than this whole, uh, better way of, of being. So we have trying. It's much better, uh, than giving up to try, right? So we're always teaching kids to try. Well, I did this study, well, then I was informed that this should be called the Yoda study, which I didn't realize, and it is the Yoda study. "Don't try. Just do it." That you, would you try to eat an ice cream cone?

    30. LH

      No, you do it.

  17. 1:00:24 – 1:04:11

    The Importance of Language and Self-Identification in Chronic Illness

    1. EL

      the same thing for cancer.

    2. LH

      Interesting.

    3. EL

      In some way the cancer is, all cancer bears something in relationship to each other, or else we wouldn't call it by the same name, but each cancer, each moment is different.

    4. LH

      So how important is language in our lives?

    5. EL

      It's crucial because we, the way we use language, once we name something, we think we know it. Once we think we know it, we don't pay attention to it anymore while it's changing.

    6. LH

      It's interesting, my, uh, fiance, she's, uh, from Mexico, and I don't know the exact language on how they say certain things, but when they have, for example, when they have, um, a cold, they don't say, "I have a cold." They say something that's like-

    7. EL

      It's-

    8. LH

      "It's, or I'm experiencing a cold"-

    9. EL

      Yeah

    10. LH

      ... or something like that.

    11. EL

      Yeah.

    12. LH

      They don't own the sickness.

    13. EL

      Yeah.

    14. LH

      They don't own the disease-

    15. EL

      Mm-hmm

    16. LH

      ... the illness, the anxiety, the stress. They don't say, "I have-

    17. EL

      Yeah

    18. LH

      ... stress." "I'm experiencing it."

    19. EL

      Yeah. No, it's... W- and we do here with, um, if you have some disease, you almost become the disease.

    20. LH

      Mm. You, you identify.

    21. EL

      I, yeah, and that's very hard. You know, so I had a student, a wonderful young woman, who had MS, and I heard, you know, somebody comes over and asks her how she is, and she was great. Rather than, you know, "Oh, my goodness," for every question. The MS is with her. And, um, and then she, you know, explained to the person how her mind is working, her arm, you know, and went through all the parts of her that are just fine. And that gave me a different idea that when you have a chronic illness, all the word chronic means is that the medical world doesn't yet know how to help you.

    22. LH

      Mm.

    23. EL

      It doesn't mean that there is no way to help yourself. And so I don't have data to support this, but it seems to me a thought experiment that if you built up the rest of your body, made yourself strong, I can't imagine that wouldn't help the healing. So I show a slide, um, I don't remember what I was talking about during COVID, but, you know, and you imagine Olympic runners, uh, versus a couch potato. And let's assume both of them were exposed to COVID and both, both of them got COVID. It, it seems to me the Olympic athlete would probably have an easier time with it. And, you know, a- and so, um, you can build up the rest of your body. That feels good. You're in control. You're being mindful. So that itself is helping whatever the disease is. And it may actually be, um, enough to fully turn things around.

    24. LH

      So how we think and identify ourselves also is determined based on the life we're gonna live as well, it sounds like.

    25. EL

      That, well, the way we define ourselves will determine the life we're going to live. And that's also important because too often people say they can't.

    26. LH

      Mm.

    27. EL

      Whatever it is, they can't. And you can't n- you can never prove that you can't. There's no experiment that can prove that you can't. All an experiment can prove is that if you do this, um, this may happen. It doesn't tell you that there's, you know, no way for anything else to happen. And then if you think about all of the advances the culture makes, that, you know, the big ones are always things where everybody said it was impossible, right? It's impossible until somebody does it, and then it becomes possible.

    28. LH

      Yeah.

    29. EL

      Then people don't learn from it because they think they always knew it. And so they go on to the next thing that can't be.

    30. LH

      Wow.

  18. 1:04:11 – 1:08:11

    Embracing the Unknown and Learning from Mistakes

    1. EL

      to think now. They're blocking new thoughts, so these are old thoughts. But you're a little kid, and you're in the elevator and trying to press the button.

    2. LH

      Uh-huh.

    3. EL

      And you can't reach it. And so your parent picks you up and you get it. And then eventually you're able to hit the... And at that point, it's no longer fun. I mean, when was the last time you got excited that you could hit the elevator button?

    4. LH

      Right, right, right.

    5. EL

      Okay? Or if you were playing golf and you got a hole in one each time you swung the club. There's no game there anymore.

    6. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    7. EL

      It's the not knowing that makes it exciting, the mastering not having mastered. Um, and so when you get something wrong, I, I think we should all be more like the, the computer programmers, where when they get it wrong, they don't say they got it wrong. It's a bug. It's in the system, and I'm going to figure it out. You know, if you think of, I, I like crossword puzzles. So in doing a crossword puzzle, it's great fun for me, or Words with Friends or whatever word games. Um, after I finish it, it wouldn't be fun for me to do it again.

    8. LH

      Mm-hmm. 'Cause you completed it.

    9. EL

      'Cause I know all the answers.

    10. LH

      Yeah, yeah.

    11. EL

      So you have to recognize that the not knowing is what makes it interesting. What makes it impossible for some of us, under so many circumstances, is somebody else standing over you, uh, whether it's a teacher, a spouse, making you feel stupid for not being able to, you know-

    12. LH

      Right

    13. EL

      ... to answer the question right away.

    14. LH

      Right.

    15. EL

      Um-

    16. LH

      Judging you, shaming you-

    17. EL

      Yeah

    18. LH

      ... making you wrong.

    19. EL

      And then, you know, that we need to reali- so my goal, this is, I'll write my next book about this. Right now, the world is vertical. You have those of us on top, uh, comfortably, um, and you have, you know, we, we make it as if we really know how we stack up, right? Um, as if the measures we're using are always reliable. And I wanna take that vertical and make it horizontal, uh, with the realization that everybody has special skills. So let me tell you where this came from. We are having lots of furniture coming, uh, to be, uh, stored in our basement. I've seen the amount of furniture. I know the size of the basement. And I say to myself, "There is no way, no way that-

    20. LH

      It's gonna fit

    21. EL

      ... all of that is gonna fit." This man who, um, does some work for us, um, who has no sense of himself. He is, um, uneducated. He, uh, everything negative, right, in his mind. He takes the furniture, fits it all in where it's all accessible. And when I saw that, the first thing that occurred to me, it's not fair.

    22. LH

      Right. You're this genius

    23. EL

      It's really true. Yeah

    24. LH

      You have a genius award, you're a professor at Harvard

    25. EL

      I, I couldn't do it. Right. And he couldn't do it. Um, and, um, I thought maybe some things would change during COVID when you saw how important somebody who's delivering toilet paper, you know, is relevant to

    26. LH

      Uh-huh

    27. EL

      ... more important than the architect-

    28. LH

      Right

    29. EL

      ... at that moment. But, um, to recognize that everybody doesn't know something, everybody knows something else. Everybody can't do something, everyone can do something else. And to, um, to question, when I talk about talent and things like that in the book here, who chose the criteria? You know, to say, "You're good, you're not as good," and so on. You change the... You know, when I said before about the 6'5" guy and I, uh, doing things differently, he wrote the rules. Now, the more similar you are to him, the white, tall male-

    30. LH

      Mm-hmm

  19. 1:08:11 – 1:11:57

    The Rules of the Game in Tennis

    1. EL

      who determined, uh-

    2. LH

      Sure

    3. EL

      ... the rules of the game.

    4. LH

      Wow.

    5. EL

      It's very important. I mean, you know, I use this example a lot also, and I'll stop saying that. I'm a tennis player. And, you know, I throw the ball up, I kill it, it doesn't go in. I throw it up, now I have a wuss, very weak second serve 'cause I'm playing doubles and I don't want to-

    6. LH

      Right

    7. EL

      ... get everybody angry.

    8. LH

      [laughs]

    9. EL

      Okay. Um, if I had created the game of tennis, you'd have three serves. The first one, I kill it. Second one, now I'm gonna learn from that first one, I kill it again.

    10. LH

      Ah.

    11. EL

      More often it's going to go in.

    12. LH

      Interesting.

    13. EL

      And I still have my backup third serve.

    14. LH

      Interesting.

    15. EL

      Nobody would think that two serves somehow comes from the heavens. Right? This is the way it has to be. All right, so who decided? Now, it doesn't mean we have to change the rules for each of us. It does mean that when you don't do it as well as somebody else, you recognize it's only because of the way the rules were written. Uh, at my 5'3", I'm going to break more dishes than you are.

    16. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    17. EL

      Right? Who decided that the cabinet should be all the way up there?

    18. LH

      Yeah.

    19. EL

      So.

    20. LH

      As opposed to down here. Exactly, yeah.

    21. EL

      Yeah. You know, I mean, everything could be... You know, it, it's mechanically it's not very difficult to have the shelves change, uh, height.

    22. LH

      True, yeah.

    23. EL

      Um, but we don't think about that because we hold everything still and we think that everything that is had some good reason for it being that way. And the reason is just that a group of people made the decision-

    24. LH

      Right

    25. EL

      ... for it to be that way.

    26. LH

      Yeah.

    27. EL

      Then we freeze it, as I was saying-

    28. LH

      Mm, mm

    29. EL

      ... with how do you stop on ice in a car? You know, everybody learns you gently pump the brakes, and they're doing that even though now that's ac-

    30. LH

      Until they invent new technology. Yeah, yeah

  20. 1:11:57 – 1:15:42

    Making Decisions and Finding Joy

    1. EL

      y- we have to be more specific about what you think you're lacking. You know, that, um, what... I, if it's anything material, um, it's in order to get people's approval.

    2. LH

      Mm.

    3. EL

      And why do you want people's approval? Because then you will have better sense of your own self. Well, we don't need any of that. You know, that you can make yourself, um... If, if we just go back to what I just said about realizing that everybody doesn't know something but everybody knows something, you know, so what do you know, what can you do? And if you spend your moments doing those things so that you're happy, uh, the problems all go away.

    4. LH

      Right.

    5. EL

      Now, I was on this, um, uh, gave a lecture, uh, down in, um, Australia many years ago, and unexpectedly she called all the s- the person in charge called all the speakers, so we're all sitting on stage, and then she asked each of them what was their bucket list. Okay, so now she comes to me and I go, "I don't have a bucket list." She goes, "You don't have a bucket list?" I said, "No." That if you make the moment matter, you can't do more of that. And so, and you know, if you're happy, then you're happy [laughs] . Yes. And you don't have to then wait for a vacation to be happy. You know, it's nice- You don't need to do certain things- Exactly ... to create that joy. Exactly. Exactly. You just are joy. Whatever you're doing- You're being it ... should be fun. And you know, I tell my students, and I mean, I'm sure that they think I'm very strange, you know, that if you're flossing your teeth, make it a game. For me, everything is, is virtually a game. It's, there's this wonderful video out there, I don't know if you've seen, it's called Piano Stairs. Yes. I don't- Of the person climbing and falling? That guy? No, no, no. Oh, okay. No, no, no. And these, I think it was, uh, in, well, some place in Scandinavia- Okay ... is where it started. They go to, um, the subway, and the subway stations seem to be the same all over the world. And they see, um, everybody is taking the escalator, and there are stairs and an escalator. So everybody's taking the escalator. Then they lay down a piano- Keys ... uh, keys- Yeah ... on the stairs. So as you go up the stairs- With sound ... it goes woo, woo. Okay, right. And- Interesting ... in almost no time- Everyone's- ... everybody's now taking the stairs. Interesting. And so what I tell my students- That's cool ... why wait for someone to put, you know, to put the piano keys down there? You c- do, do, do, you know, sing yourself as you go up the stairs. Everything can be made fun. Mm. But in this world, we've decided these, these things are work, and work is supposed to be stressful. These things are fun. As a result, when you're not working, you're not having fun, you're stressed, because why aren't I [laughs] having fun? Yes. Um, and, uh, I think i- it doesn't take much to, to change some of this. Most of it just comes from realizing that it was put in place at one time to serve the needs of certain people, and that if it doesn't serve- And then it stuck, yeah ... uh, if, it doesn't serve your needs, change it. Change it. Um- I love this. One of the quotes you have in your book, you say, "Don't try to make the right decision- Yeah, this is a hard one ... make the decision right." Yeah. I, this is so important that I don't know, um, it, reading it I think is easier than listening to me talk about it, but let me tell you. Okay, so, the most stressful thing in the world for people are making decisions. Now, remember I said stress is the major killer. Okay, so let's look at decision-making. Okay, we go back and add up some of the things I've already said. The first is there's no such thing as good or bad. That's a frame you put on things. Things in and of themselves are neither good nor bad. So if you were making a decision, and what you're gonna do is a cost-benefit analysis,

  21. 1:15:42 – 1:19:37

    The Illusion of Predictability in Decision Making

    1. EL

      if every cost is a benefit and every benefit is a c- you can't add them up. They're not gonna tell you what to do. Not only that, but if you were going to do a cost-benefit analysis, there's nothing that tells you when to stop pulling in information, and each new piece of information could change the sense of a decision. Not only that, but I told you prediction is an illusion. Decision-making relies on being able to predict. Right [laughs] . Right? You know, that, um, if you, if you have to decide you want, um, a car or a boat, um, strange choice [laughs] . [laughs] I don't think anybody makes it, but anyway, let's just leave it that way, okay? So we have a car and a boat that cost about the same money- Uh-huh ... and you can't decide which one, that the decision you're making depends on your guess about how much you'll enjoy. Well, I enjoy the boat. I get seasick, so not appealing to me. Uh, but will I enjoy the boat as much as I have enjoyed it? You can't say. Things change. Okay, now help me get back to this- Yes ... but I want people to understand when I say you can't predict. So, um, that, uh, when I was married at the time with the, um, pancreas, he was in the Army, it was a Vietnam sort of thing, and I was able to go to the commissary. So this is like- Uh-huh ... um, Costco. Uh-huh. But Costco didn't exist. Sure. So I go and I buy as many stockings as they had, 'cause these were expensive, right? Now they were, like, half price. A week after I got home, pantyhose had come out. Ah. Now, this is probably for a man, I don't know. Sure, sure. Uh, so the stockings were no longer useful. Oh, man. Now, um, I'm skiing and I finally decide, okay, what I'm gonna do, um, is invest in ski boots that are comfortable, that are warm. I do that, and then, um, I end up spending winters in Mexico, so I never go skiing again. Right. You, you don't know, okay? You can't predict. You really can't predict. You think you can, but you can't. Okay, if you can't predict, making decisions makes no sense. Mm. If the way you make a decision is to do a cost-benefit analysis, um, if the cost and benefits are only limited by the way you think about things, that's not gonna get you anywhere. So then the point is rather than try to make the right decision- Mm ... which you can never make. So, uh, let me, one more little piece. Do you want A or B? You know, they're psychologically the same. Whenever you can't make a decision, it's because the alternatives are psychologically the same. Mm. Then you pull in information to make them different. So, um, let's say you find out A is $100 and B is $1,000. There's no decision, right? Mm-hmm. It follows mechanically. Yes. You're gonna take the $1,000. Yes. Okay? So you're never really doing these cost-benefit analyses. Sometimes you gather information so you can justify, "Well, here's why I did this thing that you think is stupid." So anyway, you have to read it to fully appreciate it, but the bottom line is rather than waste your time trying to make the right decision, make the decision right. And so I had students live for a week, I said, "From now until you come back for class next week, do not make any decisions. Flip a coin, use a rule, you know, the rule could be the first thing that occurs to you is the option you're going to choose, but no decisions for the week." They come back and they had a stress-free, wonderful week.

    2. LH

      And they, and you accept the decision you made as the right decision.

    3. EL

      Y- y- exactly, because you can't know.

    4. LH

      Interesting.

    5. EL

      Now, sometimes people regret the decisions that they make, and that's mindless for many reasons, but not

  22. 1:19:37 – 1:22:54

    The Fable of Interpretation

    1. EL

      the least of which is-

    2. LH

      Because you can't change it again

    3. EL

      ... not only that, is that that other thing that you regret having chosen this could've been worse.

    4. LH

      Right.

    5. EL

      It could've been-

    6. LH

      You never know.

    7. EL

      Exactly. Exactly.

    8. LH

      There's that whole story, like the, the fable of, um, like the farmer and the horse or something.

    9. EL

      And the horse, there's a nail in his hoof [laughs]

    10. LH

      Yeah, and it like goes and goes with like, okay, the horse broke its leg or-

    11. EL

      Right [laughs]

    12. LH

      ... but then it-

    13. EL

      Right

    14. LH

      ... the other... Yeah, something that's like, but that bad decision turned into a good decision.

    15. EL

      Exactly.

    16. LH

      And that good d- and then something bad happens.

    17. EL

      Right.

    18. LH

      And it's like, you would almost wanna-

    19. EL

      And, and it's like, it's like the, um, um, my house burning down.

    20. LH

      Yeah, exactly. It's like this horrible thing that is a-

    21. EL

      But you don't have to wait.

    22. LH

      Right.

    23. EL

      You know, you can create the good-

    24. LH

      Yes

    25. EL

      ... um, of whatever happens. Yeah. Um.

    26. LH

      Yeah, and, and you say there is no good or bad.

    27. EL

      No.

    28. LH

      It's all interpretation.

    29. EL

      Yeah.

    30. LH

      I agree with that.

  23. 1:22:54 – 1:26:37

    The Power of Mindfulness

    1. LH

      and science, and when people have these tools and they apply them, they're gonna live happier, healthier, longer, better lives. And so I'm so grateful that you're, you're putting this out there. I've, I've a couple final questions for you. Uh, but I'm, I'm just so grateful you're here sharing this. This question is a hypothetical scenario, so bear with me. Um, it's a question I ask everyone towards the end, called the three truths. So imagine, in this hypothetical world, you get to live as long as you wanna live, but it's eventually the last day on this earth for you. And you've written 13 books, and I'm assuming you're gonna write 20 more, and you're gonna do so many other things to share with the world. But imagine in this hypothetical last day scenario, no one has access to your books. This interview is gone. No one has access to anything you've ever shared for whatever reason. You have to take it all with you to the next place. But you get to leave behind three lessons, three things you know to be true from all your life experience, and this is all we would have to have access to your information, your content. What would you say are those three truths for you?

    2. EL

      You know, I can probably just repeat what I've said to you. One is to recognize that behavior makes sense, or else people wouldn't do it, and that will improve our relationships and our relationships to ourselves-

    3. LH

      Mm-hmm

    4. EL

      ... partly. Uh, the second is, um, that people have to appreciate, enjoy, exploit the power of uncertainty.

    5. LH

      Mm.

    6. EL

      And I mean, uh, just be mindful.

    7. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    8. EL

      But that follows. Each of these leads to the other.

    9. LH

      Of course.

    10. EL

      You know, I have, um, an acronym that I use in teaching at the end of my classes. It's called GLADO, G-L-A-D-O. So it's my recipe for happy life. Be generous, loving, authentic, direct and open. And each of these leads to the other, and all of them follow from, uh, being more mindful.

    11. LH

      Oh, I love that. GLADO. Generous, loving, authentic, direct and open. Um, I wanna acknowledge you, Ellen, for the contribution you continue to make on society, on humanity and the world through your research, through teaching your students at Harvard, and then taking that research, putting it into things that we can all understand, apply in our lives, through taking the time to craft these social experiments that you do, uh, and giving us more inspiration and more hope. So I'm just grateful that you're changing the paradigm for a lot of our thinking, and the things that we have thought are one way, you're shifting it to say, "Hey, there's another way." So I really acknowledge you for your contribution and the gifts that you bring to the world. I'm so glad that you're, you're doing this. And, um, again, The Mindful Body. Uh, the final question I have is what is your definition of greatness?

    12. EL

      [laughs] Being awake. Being, being present, being there. And you know, it's funny because people say, you know, sort of stop and smell the roses, or you should be present, and that's sweet, but it's an empty instruction because-

    13. LH

      Mm

    14. EL

      ... when you're not there, you're not there to know you're not there. And so the way to be there is, uh, to notice new things about the things you think you know, you see you didn't know them, your attention naturally goes there. Or top-down, to start off recognizing that-

    15. LH

      Mm

    16. EL

      ... you don't know, nobody knows, you can't know, and that n- knowing is exciting

  24. 1:26:37 – 1:26:58

    Overcoming the Programming of Lack

    1. EL

      rather than scary.

    2. LH

      But sit with the lack and be curious of what's on the other side of it, right?

    3. LH

      Mm-hmm.

    4. LH

      Because the body's programmed into lack now subconsciously, right? So the emotion of lack drives our thoughts and drives our behaviors, so it makes sense then that if an emotion is a record of the past, then we're doing thi-

Episode duration: 1:26:58

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