"Don't Learn It Too Late!" - How To Get Back On Track & Design Your Dream Life | Dr. Ellen Langer

1. 0:00 – 1:45

   Uncertainty as the foundation of mindfulness and meaning

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee0:00

      What would you say is the most important mindset shift that we can all make if we want to live a life full of meaning and purpose and free from regret?

   2. ELDr. Ellen Langer0:13

      I think it's realizing that uncertainty is the rule, not the exception. And when we know we don't know, then we naturally tune in. And people are oblivious to the fact that most people are not there. They're, uh, oblivious. Um, and when you're not there, you're not there to know you're not there, right? And, you know, it's interesting. I did a podcast the other day on happiness, and it was-- it occurred to me, and I ha- was surprised I hadn't said this before, but if you ask yourself, "Can a robot be happy?" Um, of course, the answer is no. And yet, um, when you're mindless, you're no different from being a robot. So when you think you know, there's no reason to tune in. If you were going to come visit me right now, you'd come to my house, um, and you'd pay attention. You'd see. You'd look at the paintings. You'd say, "Did she do that?" You, you... "What books am I reading? What, what is that?" [laughs] You know, you'd be asking yourself questions and enjoying yourself, um, without any effort. That's the important thing. So when we realize we don't know, life becomes interesting again and effortless. Now, people know they don't know, but they think they should know, and they think other people do know. And so we pretend. We, we, um, um, avoid situations rather than approach them. And, um, what people need to realize is that everything is always changing. Everything

2. 1:45 – 4:06

   Why “absolute facts” create mindlessness (the 1+1 lesson)

   1. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:45

      looks different from different perspectives, so we can't know. Now, what I often do, I, I've said this so many times that people probably know the right answer [laughs] but not realize how important it is. One of the things that everybody thinks they know is how much is one plus one, right? You know, and if somebody were to ask you that, you'd probably think, "God, are they crazy?" or, "Is this boring?" or, "Why should I engage in this?" And it turns out that in school, we're taught absolute facts, but there are no absolute facts. I say that absolutely. [laughs] Um, that one plus one is two, if you're using a base ten number system. If you're using a base two number system, one plus one is 10. But more interesting than that is if you add one wad of chewing gum plus one wad of chewing gum, one plus one is one. You add one cloud plus one cloud, one plus one is one. Uh, somebody sent this to me the other day. If you take one pizza and you add one pizza, you have two pizzas. But if you take one lasagna and you add one lasagna, one plus one is one. It's just a bigger lasagna. And so what is the point of all of this? The point is that when we know we don't know, we have choices. If now somebody were to say to you, "How much is one plus one?" You know, you could say, "One, two, ten." Um, you have, uh, options that make the, the whole event more interesting, all right? And you pay attention to context. And when you're doing this, actively noticing the neurons are firing, and, uh, decades of our research shows that that's literally and figuratively in line with it. So if you don't show up, you can't enjoy yourself. If you don't show up, um, you know, if you're not living, you're dying. And the change is very simple. Just know you don't know.

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:36

      It makes me think of the Eastern concept, the importance of keeping a beginner's mind, right-

   3. ELDr. Ellen Langer3:43

      Mm

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee3:43

      ... in whatever we do. And, you know, I've been a medical doctor for, I think, twenty-three years now, and it's really interesting for me that I think the very best clinicians I know, they say, "The more patients we see, the more we realize how much we don't-

   5. ELDr. Ellen Langer4:05

      Don't know

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee4:05

      ... know." Yeah.

3. 4:06 – 6:44

   What the “hot dog horse” taught her about medicine as probability

   1. ELDr. Ellen Langer4:06

      Yeah, I think that that's crucial. In fact, you know, so, uh, a story I've also told many times, it'll take me a moment for it to become relevant to you, but I'm at this horse event and this man asked me can I watch his horse for him because he wants to go get his horse a hot dog. Well, you know, I'm a straight A student. I'm the one everybody resented. [laughs] I, I even studied what was under the pictures in these books growing up. Um, so I think he's crazy. You know, horses don't eat meat. He brings back the hot dog and the horse ate it, and that made me realize that everything I thought I knew could be wrong. Science only gives us probabilities. How could you do a study that showed that horses don't eat meat? What you have are, uh, different kinds of horses that are different degrees of hungry, a different amount of meat mixed with a different amount of grain, so on and so forth. And then you find that most of the horses don't eat meat, not that all horses don't eat, but that's a mouthful. So our facts, mostly, you know, our medical facts in particular, are given as absolutes. And again, when you know something is absolute, you don't need to pay any attention to it.

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:16

      Yeah.

   3. ELDr. Ellen Langer5:17

      And physicians need to know that all of their learning, all of their information are, is essentially probability. That means it's true for some people, not for all people. And, um, then they would proceed a little differently, which would return control of people's health back to the individual. It, it's a whole different way of living.

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:41

      Yeah.

   5. ELDr. Ellen Langer5:41

      And I think it'd be better for the physicians because if the physician knows he doesn't know, then he's going to pay a different kind of attention, and that mindfulness is going to be good for his or her health.

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee5:54

      Yeah.

   7. ELDr. Ellen Langer5:55

      And, uh, by the way, you know, especially during COVID, one of the things that kept being discussed is, uh, burnout. Um, you know, and burnout results from mindlessness. You do the same thing over and over and over again, and at some point you can't bear being there. But when you recognize that, again, things are always changing and you can't be sure what, what's going to happen in any particular situation, you sit up and pay attention. So you're seeing a patient, and if you think you know, uh, everything about this patient, um, it's not going to-

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:28

      Yeah

   9. ELDr. Ellen Langer6:28

      ... be exciting for you. Uh, if you know that the patient is changing, you're changing, you're gonna notice different things, then you engage the whole situation differently, and that's good for your health, it's good for the patient's health, it's good for the relationship between you.

4. 6:44 – 7:09

   Burnout, closed minds, and showing up in doctor–patient relationships

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee6:44

      Yeah. What, what's really interesting, uh, Ellen, is as you were describing that whole relationship between a doctor and a patient and how we might evolve it, it's convention before you call your patient in to have reviewed their notes, right? But the cost of that-

   2. ELDr. Ellen Langer7:07

      Right

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:07

      ... is that you have a closed mind.

5. 7:09 – 8:22

   Losing her notes in a fire—and teaching her best class by not knowing

   1. ELDr. Ellen Langer7:09

      Exactly. Well, let me tell you. So I had experienced a major fire that had destroyed, uh, 80% of what I owned, and, uh, one of the things that-- and the only thing I remember that was burned in the fire were my notes for a large class I was teaching in a couple of weeks. All right, so I did this thing. [laughs] I called one of the students who had taken the course in the past who got an A and borrowed her notes. [laughs] And then I gave the course. Now because they weren't my notes, because I wasn't quite sure of, you know, of anything I was going to say, um, I was present in a way that I hadn't been for years, and it was the best course I had ever given.

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee7:51

      Why?

   3. ELDr. Ellen Langer7:52

      Um, because I had, you know, a general sense, um, but all the particulars had to make sense to me at that moment. Um, and, uh, yeah. So I think that we're, uh, we're oftentimes just oblivious to how mindless we are. So it's not as if we can say, "Well, this time I'm going to pay attention," because we're not realizing that we're not there. When you're not there, you don't know you're not there. Uh, but being there makes all the difference in the world.

6. 8:22 – 16:55

   Reframing disaster, redefining stress, and “tragedy vs inconvenience”

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee8:22

      You just mentioned the experience of you having a lot of your things lost in a fire.

   2. ELDr. Ellen Langer8:29

      Mm-hmm.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee8:30

      Now, although I'm in the UK and you're currently in Mexico, uh, we probably have a lot of mutual friends who live in Los Angeles who-

   4. ELDr. Ellen Langer8:38

      Yeah

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee8:38

      ... have recently faced fires. Now, of course, every situation is different and individual for that person, but I wonder whether you feel able to give some general advice given that you have experienced a house fire before.

   6. ELDr. Ellen Langer8:56

      Sure. Um, I will. I'll, I'll give the advice and then afterwards we can [laughs] evaluate whether it's actually likely to be helpful or not. You know, of course it depends on whether you have insurance and things of this-

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee9:08

      Sure

   8. ELDr. Ellen Langer9:08

      ... sort. Uh, but let's talk about the people who are insured. So, um, as soon as, uh, um, I experienced this, the next day I called the insurance company and the day after, uh, the agent came and he said, "My goodness, this was the very first time that the damage was worse than the call." Most people, "Oh my God. Oh my God," and then he gets there, it's not so terrible. And, um, a- and that wasn't the way I was because I had already lost everything. Throwing my sanity and sense of calm after that was, was just going to cost me more rather than less. I also realized that everything I had in that house represented who I was, 'cause I, I hadn't gone shopping in the last few weeks [laughs] , um, rather than who I am right now, and it was an opportunity to, uh, uh, reinvent myself in some way, in, in a small way. And also that when you-- people who are experiencing these fires, um, need to appreciate that much of what has gone up in smoke they, they really don't care about. You know, that, um, we-- I, I, I think in general people acquire, um, in some way to feel good, to feel good about themselves. You know, you might ask why these people, these are not people in the fire, who've experienced a fire, but just in general, why there are so many millionaires, billionaires who are depressed, you know? Um-

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee10:39

      Mm-hmm

   10. ELDr. Ellen Langer10:39

       ... and, uh, you know, we, we want to achieve for what reason? We, we want to acquire for what reason? And much of it, I believe, is probably so that we will get the respect of other people. And if we get the respect of other people, then we'll have greater respect for ourselves. And there's a much easier way to do all of this. You know, that, uh, most of what's lost, as I said a moment before, I don't even remember the things that I lost in that fire. But let, let me tell you a story that probably, uh, nobody in California has experienced, but it's meaningful to make. Um, right after the fire, since I didn't have my house any longer, I moved into the Charles Hotel and I was a sight to be seen. There I am with my two little dogs and whatever. It was Christmas Eve. I went out, I came back, and my room was full of gifts. Not from the management of the hotel, not from the owner of the hotel, but from the so-called little people, the people who parked my car, the chamber maids, the waiters and waitresses. I, I can't tell you, it, it took me years to be able to tell this story without it bringing s- tears to my eyes because it was just so sweet. Every Christmas I am reminded of the basic goodness of so many people. So, you know, um, you know, when you, when you think about it, I don't remember what I lost except for those notes to that course. Um, and I do remember the warmth, uh, that I experienced. Uh, it was actually, uh, on whole a positive experience. So I think that people need to understand that events themselves are neither positive nor negative. What, um, makes them positive or negative is the way we understand these events. The more mindful we are, the more choices we have for how to understand the things we experience. You know, um, I, I'm curious about your view of this, um, as a important physician. My view is that stress is the major killer. I think everybody these days knows that stress isn't good for you.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:51

       Yeah. Listen, I 100% agree with you that stress is the number one cause-

   12. ELDr. Ellen Langer12:58

       You agree? Mm. Yeah

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee12:59

       ... of symptoms, disease. No question at all. The, the, the, the longer I go on in my career, the more I think actually if I had to pick, I'd say it was stress. Yeah, it doesn't mean nutrition's not important, it doesn't mean that sleep is not important or exercise and movement, but I think when your stress response is activated chronically, as it is for so many people, we just don't realize that it impacts every single organ system in the body, including our immune system. And the other thing which I think really relates to your work is this idea for me that stress is not just external, right? Which many people think, it's to do with my workload, what my boss has me to do, my-- the external events in my life will determine how stressed I feel. But as you just mentioned, and as I passionately believe, a huge part of stress, if not the vast majority of stress, is actually internal with how we view those external-

   14. ELDr. Ellen Langer13:59

       Exactly

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee13:59

       ... events.

   16. ELDr. Ellen Langer14:00

       You know, and so stress is psychological. And so if disease is primarily a function of, um, stress and we can control our thoughts that will control whether or not we're stressed, it means we have enormous control, um, over our health.

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee14:18

       Yeah.

   18. ELDr. Ellen Langer14:19

       Far greater than most people realize. You know, um, I have a few one-liners I, I like after doing so many years of research to see if I can capture some of the major thoughts very briefly. Uh, one of these is if people just ask themselves, is it a tragedy or an inconvenience? Now, I'm not talking about the fire, you know, but most of the stress that we experience, I think people would realize, you know, so what? You know, it's really not such a big deal, and they'd immediately feel better. But also, stress requires two things. It requires a belief that something is going to happen, and that when it happens, it's going to be awful. And it, you know, a- almost always the things we worry about don't happen. So if you simply said to yourself when you were stressed, why, what are three reasons, five if you're interested, um, you know, that this thing might not happen. So you start off, oh my God, it's gonna happen, realizing maybe it won't happen. But then the more interesting part for me is to say to yourself, let's assume it does happen. How might that actually be a good thing?

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:27

       Yeah.

   20. ELDr. Ellen Langer15:27

       And so even with that fire I, I mentioned, the negative effects of it are totally gone, and yet every single Christmas, um, it brings me joy to reflect on it.

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:39

       Yeah.

   22. ELDr. Ellen Langer15:39

       You know? Uh, so, um, ask yourself, is it a tragedy or an inconvenience? We can't predict what's going to happen, but once we recognize that whatever happens, we get to determine how we respond to it, so it doesn't matter what's going to happen.

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee15:58

       Yeah.

   24. ELDr. Ellen Langer15:59

       You know, you're not a victim of these happenings.

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee16:02

       Yeah. The way I look at life, um, a- and I think one of the reasons why I love this new book of yours so much is because I do believe, as I mentioned, that stress is a huge part of the way that we feel and our risk of getting sick in the future, et cetera, et cetera. I also believe, as I mentioned, that a huge part of stress is the way we look at the world.

   26. ELDr. Ellen Langer16:28

       Right. Right.

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee16:28

       And as you said right at the start of this conversation, one of the most important mindset shifts is going from this idea that we know everything that's happening and we can predict, so we have this element of control, and going, actually, actually, I just don't know, right?

   28. ELDr. Ellen Langer16:43

       Mm-hmm. [laughs]

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee16:43

       Actually, everything depends on the context. And as you say with that one plus one, I guess I feel that these are things I didn't learn as a child. I've learnt in my 40s.

7. 16:55 – 23:11

   “Better than better”: work-life integration, labeling, and making life a game

   1. ELDr. Ellen Langer16:55

      Yeah. On the contrary, that, uh, the world teaches people that life is stressful, work is stressful. When you're young, school is str- I, I don't, uh-- I think that's a major mistake. Work shouldn't be stressful. You know, so I talk in the book, and you might recall, um, about better than better. You know, that, uh, lots of my colleagues and lots of the world when they're experiencing something bad find a solution that is better, but they don't come close to the better than better way of living. You know, so that, um, we have stress is bad, so work, let's say, is stressful. So then people are told, uh, uh, to seek work-life balance, you know, which means this bad has to be bad, and now we need to have some fun in our lives so we can tolerate, um, all of these necessary bad things. And, uh, I think that that is totally mindless, um, that we shouldn't seek work-life balance because that says the bad has to be bad, but rather we should have work-life integration, that no matter what we're doing, there's a way of doing it that, that can be interesting, if not simply fun, no matter what. And, um, people are taught to accept it and then, you know, they say, "Okay, well, I can tolerate it," rather than, "No, um, there's a better than better way of dealing with things."

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee18:25

      Yeah. One, one of the, the key messages, uh, in your book is this idea that if we label something a certain way, then all our behaviors are predicated on the assumption that that label was correct, right? So one thing I'm pushing back against at the moment is this idea that behavior change is difficult, right? If we keep saying to people, "It's really difficult, but you can do it," we're pr- we're pre-judging the experience for that person and we're saying, "Hey, this is gonna be difficult." And so they then have a reason when they can't do this to go, "Yeah, I knew. He said it was difficult. I found it, you know, I found it difficult." It confirms the belief that you already had. But what would happen if you never believed that in the first place?

   3. ELDr. Ellen Langer19:14

      Well, what people also don't realize, they think in some way that they want to be completely successful. And so sort of a, an, an example I often use, you're a little kid and you're in the elevator, and you can't reach the button, and you're very excited, but you just can't do it. And a parent picks you, or whoever's with you, adult, picks you up and you press the button. Then you're a little taller and you're trying to... And eventually though, you're able to hit that button, and that's when the, uh, the activity is over for you. When was the last time you got in an elevator and were excited that you hit the button? Or, you know, you're playing golf and, "Yeah, I wish I could just, you know, swing this better and get a, you know..." And so eventually you get, nobody has done this, but imagine that now you get a hole in one every single time you swing the club. There's no game there. So, you know, um, and, and the- there's something, I, I think I might be the only one who, I, I don't know where I learned this. It's, uh, but I learned it was called the Texas curse, which is I wish you what you wish for yourself. Um, and that the things we wish for, we shouldn't wish for. You don't want everything to be so easy, you know? Um, I was doing this, uh, TV show 40 years ago, um, on my nursing home study, and I kept telling him, here's the way I would open it up. N- nobody ever listens to me [laughs] just to, I still think it's a good idea.

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee20:36

      [laughs]

   5. ELDr. Ellen Langer20:37

      Which was, you know, you ask somebody, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if somebody, all of your meals were taken care of, and you didn't have to clean the house, and essentially there was nothing you had to do?" And then the camera should pan the nursing home, 'cause that's the life people are living. You know, that's not what we want. You know, it, it's the challenge. It's the, the possibility for mastering something, not having mastered it. Um, that's the essence of everything, truly.

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:07

      Yeah. Yeah, I, I love it. And, and it makes me think that next time I go into a lift, I'm gonna try and see-

   7. ELDr. Ellen Langer21:13

      [laughs]

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee21:13

      ... if I can recreate some sort of excitement about pressing the button.

   9. ELDr. Ellen Langer21:16

      Well, but you can. You can do it with your eyes closed. You know, so I had this friend who lived in this very fancy building in New York, very varied. And, um, and in this, because the building was so exclusive, uh, you go in the elevator, and there was actually an elevator operator. Wh- why do we need elevator operators, right? [laughs] You know, most buildings you press the button. And I thought, "My goodness," you know, "what a job that every day he's just going up and down the elevator." It was wonderful because I watched how he actually did this. He, you know, I would go and I'd say, "33rd floor." He would look at the numbers, turn around, and then turn his dial to see if he could get to the 33rd floor.

   10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:00

       Right.

   11. ELDr. Ellen Langer22:01

       You know, he made it a game. Um, and that's the way it stayed interesting.

   12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:05

       Yeah.

   13. ELDr. Ellen Langer22:06

       Um, and I think that, um, I, I, I make virtually everything a game.

   14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:11

       Yeah.

   15. ELDr. Ellen Langer22:12

       And that doesn't mean I don't take things seriously, but, um, I, I'm not gonna do it if it isn't fun. You know, I even say to my students, 'cause I remember years ago when people used to go to the movies [laughs] rather than have these giant TVs at home, and, um, the, uh, so many people would sit there and as they leave the movie would complain about how awful the movie was. I, I couldn't imagine doing that. You know, that I say to them, either make it fun, make it interesting, or leave with no matter what you're doing.

   16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:44

       The implications of your work and what you're talking about are so, so profound for people when they really understand how much our mindset influences-

   17. ELDr. Ellen Langer22:56

       Everything

   18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:56

       ... every single aspect of our lives.

   19. ELDr. Ellen Langer22:58

       Yeah.

   20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:58

       And-

   21. ELDr. Ellen Langer22:58

       Yeah

   22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee22:59

       ... you know, one thing I've concluded over the past few years is this idea that there's no such thing as wasting time. It's, it-

   23. ELDr. Ellen Langer23:05

       Right

   24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:05

       ... it doesn't exist. You spend time, and there's a consequence. You either like the consequence and wanna repeat it-

8. 23:11 – 29:29

   Mindlessness, “wasting time,” and realizing rules can be changed

   1. ELDr. Ellen Langer23:11

      No, but I think that when you're mindless, you are wasting time

   2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:14

      ... although you could also take the argument one step further and go, if you're spending it mindlessly and you realize that actually you were spending it mindlessly, then it wasn't a waste because then you've learnt, well, wait a minute, my time is much better if I spend it mindfully as opposed to mindlessly.

   3. ELDr. Ellen Langer23:34

      Yeah. No, that's true, except that most of the time you don't realize it.

   4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:38

      Yeah.

   5. ELDr. Ellen Langer23:39

      You know, if I ask you how much is one and one and you say two, you're oblivious to the fact that it could also be one, two, or ten, for example.

   6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee23:48

      Yeah.

   7. ELDr. Ellen Langer23:48

      You know, um, uh, where everything we're taught, um, teaches us absolutes. So, um, I had this experience, and I was in college, and I'm an anti-crastinator. I do everything early. But this time I did it last minute. And in the morning I read over this paper that I had written, and it said, obviously, I don't remember what followed that, and I had no idea what I was talking about [laughs] You know, that, uh, it wasn't obvious, but most of the time we don't get to review. You know, uh, that when we're mindless, it's not that we couldn't come up with a solution, it doesn't occur to us. So for example, when I gave the first talk I gave, uh, there was a big audience and there was a lot of distance between me and the audience. So the first thing I did was move all the chairs. In- interesting and a little mindless, 'cause I could've just been closer to them [laughs] but decided to move the furniture, um, so I would not be nervous. And, um, if you ask- and most people don't do this. They take whatever is as if that's the way it's supposed to be. But if you ask them, "Could you just move the chairs?" Everybody would say yes.

   8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee25:01

      Hmm.

   9. ELDr. Ellen Langer25:02

      You see what I'm saying? It just doesn't occur to you most of the time. Um, I think that people don't realize that virtually everything that is was at one point a decision. And for it to be a decision means there was uncertainty. And what that means is that, um, if you follow the logic straight through, that virtually everything is mutable. Everything can be changed, and most people take it as it is.

   10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee25:32

       Yeah.

   11. ELDr. Ellen Langer25:32

       As if there's some, uh, larger reason for, um, how things, how things are. Whether it's the rules of a sport, uh, you know, e- everything-

   12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee25:43

       Yeah

   13. ELDr. Ellen Langer25:43

       ... uh, can be changed. So to my mind, that if it doesn't work, change it. But you can't change it if it doesn't occur to you that it can be changed. And also, interestingly, the more different you are from the person who created the rule, the more important it is for you not to follow it. So an example to make that clearer. When I, uh, give these lectures in person, often I'll, I'll ask, "Is there somebody very tall out there?" And it's, I don't know why, but there's always a guy who's 6'5".

   14. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee26:14

       Oh.

   15. ELDr. Ellen Langer26:15

       I invite him to the stage. I'm 5'3", so we look ridiculous together, right? I ask him to put his hand up. I put my hand next to his. His hand is three inches larger than mine. And then I simply raise the question, "Should we do anything physical the same way?" And, and the answer is clearly no. Now, if he decided how you're supposed to hold the tennis racket, the golf club, um, with his larger hand, and I hold it the same way, I'm never going to maximize my potential performance.

   16. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee26:45

       Yeah. Th- this is so, so important, and it so deeply resonates with me, as very much how I see the world, Ellen. One, one of these, the key messages I think that you teach us in all of your work, but particularly in this book, is to stop living by mindless rules, right?

   17. ELDr. Ellen Langer27:02

       Yeah. Yeah.

   18. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee27:02

       And, you know, you mentioned, uh, someone who was 6'5". Well, as it happens, I was wondering where you were going because I'm actually 6'7". What's interesting is you were telling that story and I was thinking about this idea about the beliefs we absorb, and we take them to be truth, without ever questioning them. So in my 20s, I was crippled with lower back pain, okay? And what would everyone say? "Oh, you know, at that height, you know, it- it's just the way it is."

   19. ELDr. Ellen Langer27:32

       Yeah.

   20. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee27:32

       You know, yeah, tall people, you're gonna have back pain. Until at one point I was just like, wait a minute. Who said that that's true?

   21. ELDr. Ellen Langer27:41

       Right.

   22. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee27:42

       Why would it be that this human body that's been, uh-

   23. ELDr. Ellen Langer27:44

       [laughs]

   24. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee27:45

       ... that's been evolving for hundreds of thousands of years is so incapable that I'm gonna have back pain just because I'm tall? I just thought, nonsense. I don't buy it. I'm not having a part of that. I'm completely pain-free from back ache despite-

   25. ELDr. Ellen Langer28:00

       Yeah

   26. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee28:00

       ... the fact that I'm 6'7", right? So it's simply not true. You know how much I believe in the power of small, intentional routines to transform your health. And one of my absolute favorites at the moment is to take a break mid-morning and have a cup of Pique's Sun Goddess Matcha. This fantastic drink contains L-theanine, a natural compound that keeps me calm and focused, and EGCG catechins, which help kickstart lipid metabolism and curb cravings. One of the things I love the most about Pique, and what really sets them apart, is their commitment to quality. Their Sun Goddess Matcha is organic, ceremonial grade, and quadruple tested for pesticides, heavy metals, and mold. And it's been crafted by ninth degree tea masters in Japan, ensuring it's the highest quality that you can find. If you're looking for a small change that can make a really big difference, I cannot recommend Pique's Sun Goddess Matcha enough. All you have to do is go to piquelife.com/livemore for your 20% off and a free starter kit. There's a reason that Pique has over 15,000 five-star reviews. Try it today and take advantage of their 30-day satisfaction guarantee. You either love it or you get your money back.

   27. ELDr. Ellen Langer29:29

       Right.

9. 29:29 – 37:49

   Questioning labels: limps, chronic illness, and noticing symptom variability

   1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee29:29

      But my, my question is, is this the mindset you can choose to adopt? Because many people, Ellen, I think will be listening, go, "Well, yeah, I've got that mindset. I believe these rules. I believe that things are really certain and I shouldn't really question them." But I guess I think you and me both share this belief that actually we can change our approach to life.

   2. ELDr. Ellen Langer29:54

      Everything. Everything. Everything. You know, but you can only change it if you realize that you're trapped in it.

   3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee30:00

      Hmm.

   4. ELDr. Ellen Langer30:01

      You know, that, um, I smashed my ankle many years ago, and smashed it, not, you know, not just broke the ankle. So I have all this metal in my, uh, ankle. And I was told by the medical world that I'd never be able to walk without a limp. Now, um, I don't really listen. [laughs] Sometimes that's a good thing. And so I forgot that I wasn't supposed to walk without a limp and, you know, and I never had the limp. Um, but if let's say I had walked, you know, believed that I had to limp, it would have to occur to me to question that for me to change it. And so if you and I are now saying, well, wait a second, why accept that you have to walk without the limp? Then what you do, even if all your, you know, for the past 10 years you've been limping, is to, um, uh, try to walk differently.

   5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee30:57

      Yeah.

   6. ELDr. Ellen Langer30:57

      Um, what, what people don't realize is, uh, the enormous amount of control we have over our psychological and physical health by recognizing change. And, you know, so that even with walking, you know, with a limp, I think most people who walk with a limp probably don't walk with a limp with every step they take.

   7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee31:22

      Mm.

   8. ELDr. Ellen Langer31:22

      And so what's happening for the moment that they're walking and there is no limp? What's happening if you're suffering from chronic pain, you think you're in pain all the time. Nobody has anything all the time. But if you were to notice, gee, right now I'm not in pain. And then you ask yourself, well, why? And several things happen when you do that. First is you're going to see, gee, you're not in the same amount of pain all of the time, so that feels better. Second, when you ask yourself, well, why now am I in less pain than I was before? To fi- try to find the reason you're going to engage in a mindful search for information, that itself is good for your health, and I believe you're much more likely to find a solution, be able to change if you're actually looking for it. And we did this, I call this attention to symptom variability, which is really just a fancy way of saying being mindful. When you're mindful, you notice change. And so we had people attend to, uh, the symptoms of their chronic illnesses in the fashion that I just described. Um, and we found relief for people who have multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, chronic pain, arthritis, um, several very real, uh, disorders.

   9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee32:40

      Yeah.

   10. ELDr. Ellen Langer32:40

       So because you know, what happens is people mistakenly think, and the medical world doesn't help them think otherwise, that when the, the medical world tells you you have a chronic illness, all that means is not that there is no, um, solution to the problem, but that the medical world doesn't have a solution to the problem.

   11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee33:00

       Yeah.

   12. ELDr. Ellen Langer33:00

       And so you have a chronic illness, you presume without realizing it, that your symptoms are gonna stay the same or just get worse. But again, nothing moves in only one direction. You know, when the stock market is going up or down, it doesn't go in a straight line. If it goes up, it goes down a little and it goes up some more and so on-

   13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee33:20

       Yeah

   14. ELDr. Ellen Langer33:20

       ... or in the reverse direction. So the que- well, why? Why now is it a little better? And, um, you know, so n- that's been, um, a lot of work that I'm very excited about because there are no negative side effects that you get with, uh, different kinds of surgery or medication or whatever, that the person can do this attention to symptom variability in, um, coordinated with whatever medical care they're getting. And, you know, that so often, um, y- you're waiting for the medical world to give you the answers that the test results have given you and so on, and, uh, this allows you to have something to do for yourself, um, while you're waiting. And the results have been remarkable.

   15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:08

       Yeah. Th- this is, uh, an incredibly fascinating topic to me, this idea that someone, let's say, has got chronic pain. So they see their doctor, they're diagnosed with some form of chronic pain, so they then label themselves, "I have chronic pain." Okay? Not, "I'm currently suffering with pain," not something else-

   16. ELDr. Ellen Langer34:27

       Yeah

   17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:27

       ... but, "I have chronic pain." So they put on that label, the coat, and they walk around in the world, right? So what's really interesting is that people then don't really notice when they're not in pain.

   18. ELDr. Ellen Langer34:39

       Oh, exactly. When they don't.

   19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:40

       Yeah.

   20. ELDr. Ellen Langer34:40

       Exactly.

   21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee34:41

       So, so I would notice for many years, like let's say with a, with, with sort of these chronic health conditions that conventionally the medical profession have struggled with for years and ended up making patients feel bad about, okay? So whether it be irritable bowel syndrome or chronic fatigue syndrome, just to take two examples, right? So what I realized a few years ago is if I didn't do what's called an MSQ, a medical symptom questionnaire, that we were gonna have a problem, because the problem would be is that a patient would come in and let's say that you, uh, recommended a series of things for them to, to focus on. And if they came back in two months and they were 50% better, they wouldn't notice the 50% better.

   22. ELDr. Ellen Langer35:26

       Yeah.

   23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:26

       The focus would be on the 50% that was still bad. So what an MSQ does, a medical symptom questionnaire does, is I was able to say, "Hey, listen, two months ago, I know, I know you're saying that things are still not good, but wait a minute. Let me just show you. Two months ago, your MSQ score was 72," right? "Now your MSQ score is only 18. Isn't that remarkable?" And you could see the whole mindset start-

   24. ELDr. Ellen Langer35:53

       Yeah.

   25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee35:53

       "Oh, yeah. That's a good point, doctor. Actually, I didn't... Oh, yeah. That's gone. That's gone. That's gone. That's gone." So what I'm trying to get to, Ellen, is I have thought for many years, and I think your research totally backs this up, this idea that awareness is the most important factor in any change.

   26. ELDr. Ellen Langer36:12

       Yes. Yes. Yes. That what happens is, um, people don't realize that, um... A- and, and people engage in hypothesis, uh, con- confirmation. You know, no matter what question you ask yourself, if you ask yourself, "How am I wonderful?" You'll seek all the information about how you're wonderful. But if you ask yourself, "How am I miserable?" You'll seek the inform- you know, whatever question you ask yourself, you're going to be able to validate. And-

   27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee36:39

       Hence the benefits of gratitude, right?

   28. ELDr. Ellen Langer36:41

       Exactly. Exactly. And so, um, you know, I, I usually use this example with stress. There are some people who think they're stressed all the time. Nobody is anything all the time. So if I call you periodically and I say, you know, "How stressed are you right now? Is it more or less than the last time we spoke, and why?" And we keep doing this, that, let's say you find out, you know, um, you're not stressed, uh, you are maximally stressed when you're talking to Ellen Langer. All right, well, so then the answer is easy: don't talk to me.

   29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee37:13

       [laughs]

   30. ELDr. Ellen Langer37:14

       But, you know, by recognizing that things are changing and asking why. Otherwise, whatever you're expecting you're going to see, and you're oblivious to the absence thereof. You know, that if I think I'm stressed all the time, I just don't notice when I'm not stressed. If I think I'm in pain all the time or the example you, you, you had just given. We really have to just ask ourself the, the, the other question. You know, don't ask you, you, ask yourself, uh, "When am I in pain?" Ask yourself, "When am I not in pain? When am I not stressed? When am I not a, a miserable person?" [laughs]

10. 37:49 – 45:11

    Cravings, control, mindful eating, and why behavior makes sense

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee37:49

       I, I wonder if any of your work, uh, speaks to this little exercise I've, I, I've done with patients for many years, right? This idea that, um, often, let's say people are trying to, um, change their diets. They wanna, they wanna reduce how much sugar they're having, for example, and one thing that's really common is that people can manage it often in the day, but at 9:00 PM, in front of the sofa, with the television on in the evening, they can have a craving for ice cream or sugar, right? And I have this little exercise called the three Fs: feel, feed and find. And the first F is feel. Basically, I say, "So okay, you're on the sofa at 9:00 PM. You, you've got the craving to have the ice cream. Now, if you can, before you open the freezer and the spoon somehow ends up in your mouth with ice cream on it, can you take a pause and ask yourself, 'What am I really feeling?'"

    2. ELDr. Ellen Langer38:46

       Mm-hmm.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee38:46

       "Is this physical hunger or is this emotional hunger? Am I a bit stressed-

    4. ELDr. Ellen Langer38:52

       Mm

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee38:52

       ... a bit lonely, a bit," whatever it might be. And then, you know, we go through a sequence of those three Fs to help people. But I would always say, and I, and I maintain, that the most important of the Fs is the first F. Because once you understand-

    6. ELDr. Ellen Langer39:06

       Mm-hmm

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:06

       ... why you're going to that behavior, your relationship with that behavior immediately has changed. Whether you can change it straight away or not, the awareness that actually, oh, that's why I'm consuming sugar-

    8. ELDr. Ellen Langer39:21

       Yeah

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:21

       ... starts to change things, right? I, and, and I wonder how that plays into this research where, where you've done with people-

    10. ELDr. Ellen Langer39:26

        Uh

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:26

        ... with MS or chronic pain when they realize-

    12. ELDr. Ellen Langer39:29

        Yeah

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee39:29

        ... oh, wait a minute, I'm not always in pain, right? Do, do you see a similarity there?

    14. ELDr. Ellen Langer39:34

        Sure, sure. But I think something else is going on with the ice cream, which is, um, it's very important for people to feel control over their lives, um, and, and moment to moment control. And, um, so when you want the ice cream and you say to yourself you're not allowed to have it, I say, well, who's telling me I'm not allowed to have it? [laughs] I'm in charge. And then you go and you reach for the ice cream as if, again, uh, the amount you're going to consume is fixed. See, so when you started talking, I thought, you want ice cream? I have some ice cream. Doesn't mean you have to eat, you know, a pint of it. And when we say to ourselves we can't, um, then we object.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:15

        Yeah, I agree. And just, just to, just to clarify, I, whe- when I, when I go through the exercise, I actually say, "Go ahead and have it afterwards if you want, but at least-

    16. ELDr. Ellen Langer40:24

        Yeah

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:24

        ... understand-

    18. ELDr. Ellen Langer40:25

        Right

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:25

        ... why." Because that thing of control is interesting, isn't it? That, that whole idea of-

    20. ELDr. Ellen Langer40:29

        Mm-hmm

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:29

        ... perceived control. I think some people struggle with their sugar intake 'cause they feel out of control. I don't know why I keep reading books on sugar, yet somehow I keep ending up with the ice cream spoon in my mouth-

    22. ELDr. Ellen Langer40:40

        Mm

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:40

        ... which makes them feel out of control. But if at least you understand, oh, every time I have a row with my partner, I want to have ice cream-

    24. ELDr. Ellen Langer40:50

        Yeah, yeah

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee40:50

        ... I think that gives you a sense of control.

    26. ELDr. Ellen Langer40:53

        But also that, you know, um, you can have, uh, a serving spoon, you can have a, um, a tablespoon, or you can have a teaspoon.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:02

        Yeah.

    28. ELDr. Ellen Langer41:03

        And if you make the choice, let me see, which of these am I going to use now to, to have the ice cream, as soon as... So you feel in control again. And then when you use the teaspoon, uh, and just ask yourself, "Is that enough?" uh, oftentimes you'll find it is. I mean, for me, you know that if you gave me a giant, you know, sandwich, not just a sandwich, [laughs] two pieces of bread, but a- whatever you put in front of me, I will eat the whole thing. Um, and, uh, but I'd be satisfied with a tiny little piece.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee41:36

        Well, that's the whole thing about mindful eating, isn't it? About having that-

    30. ELDr. Ellen Langer41:38

        Yeah
11. 45:11 – 56:35

    Relationships: labels, naive realism, and the “three levels” of meaning

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee45:11

       I've, I've heard you apply that attention to variability concept to relationships, right? Because relationships-

    2. ELDr. Ellen Langer45:17

       Sure

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee45:18

       ... are a place where we often limit ourselves with labels and words. You know, my wife always does this. My husband-

    4. ELDr. Ellen Langer45:27

       Exactly

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee45:27

       ... always does this. So perhaps you could explain how this applies to relationships.

    6. ELDr. Ellen Langer45:32

       Well, in, in the way you just said, um, you know, that, uh, I think that you're stubborn, for example. Well, so there are two ways to approa- apply both of what I said. Um, I can see that there's another way of understanding what stubborn means, that here you have a strong belief in something, you know, that you're a person with, um... What is the word I'm looking for? Uh, [laughs] I think I'm having a senior moment, but right before this it was a junior moment, so I can be forgiven.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee46:04

       [laughs]

    8. ELDr. Ellen Langer46:04

       So then I, um, at, with you doing very little, assume now, 'cause I've called you stubborn so many times, I think you're being stubborn. Um, and I no longer look for all the moments that you're not stubborn. And if I paid attention to the times you weren't stubborn, um, the times you were stubborn would play differently for me. You know, I'd think there must be some reason. Since I know you're not always stubborn, why are you stubborn now? And what people don't realize in relationships, it, it might sound simplistic, but, uh, I think it's, it's potentially meaningful. Relationships are like dances. You know, that if you dance, you, it's hard to get somebody else to do something different. But if you behave differently, if you were dancing, the dance would be different. Um, so, um, uh, you know, you don't have to throw up your hands in, in frustration quite as often as we do. And so many things. So the first is, when the person is irritating you, recognize how that behavior makes sense from the other person's perspective, or else they wouldn't do it. So my being gullible irritates you, but once you realize it's because I'm trusting, it's kind of nice.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee47:16

       Yeah.

    10. ELDr. Ellen Langer47:16

        Your being inconsistent drives me crazy, but once I realize that's because you're flexible, I love you again.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee47:22

        Ellen, this is so important, this concept, right? Because it's important on an individual level, but if we think across society at the moment, there seems to be-

    12. ELDr. Ellen Langer47:31

        Yeah

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee47:31

        ... a lot of division, right? Right? This mindset, Ellen, completely changes that. If you understand that, hey, listen, everyone's doing the best that they can. Everyone's behavior makes sense if you understand them and their childhood and their parents and their life experiences-

    14. ELDr. Ellen Langer47:48

        Mm

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee47:48

        ... then suddenly everything becomes a bit more compassionate. We start to understand people.

    16. ELDr. Ellen Langer47:54

        People tend to suffer from naive realism, which essentially is you see something a particular way, and you're oblivious to the fact that it can be understood differently. And so then you get irritated at the other person res- "Well, how could you do that?" [laughs] You know? Because your understanding of it is single-minded.

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:12

        Yeah, which is wh- which is why, Ellen, the first thing you said to me wh- when, when I asked you the question, what's the most important mindset shift we can make? That's it. It plays out here, right? This idea-

    18. ELDr. Ellen Langer48:22

        Yeah

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:22

        ... that actually you don't know everything, right? You just don't know everything. If you know that you don't know, it's like, oh, well, you know-

    20. ELDr. Ellen Langer48:29

        Mm

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:29

        ... I wonder why that person is engaging in that behavior and-

    22. ELDr. Ellen Langer48:32

        Yeah

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee48:32

        ... and believes what they believe about the world.

    24. ELDr. Ellen Langer48:35

        Exactly. You know, we can be noticing different things, so of course then we're going to respond differently. We can notice the same thing differently. So in this instance, uh, you can see me as, um, gullible or trusting. Those will lead to very big differences. Or we can see the same thing the same way but value them differently. And so when, when somebody is responding differently from you, um, rather than the naiv realism which is they're doing this to irritate you [chuckles] which typically people are not doing what they're doing for any reason about you, it's usually just about them. But then everything becomes also much more interesting. You know, there, there's also the three levels that I talk about in the book. Um, I'm gonna talk about The New Yorker. I love The New Yorker. Uh, it's just a way of telling the story. Level one, people who don't read The New Yorker. Level two, people who read The New Yorker. Level three, people who don't read The New Yorker anymore. They could read it again, but that makes it too complicated. The point is, level one and level three are doing the same thing, but they're very, very different. And every time you're castigating somebody, you're presuming it's a level one when it may actually be a level three. Uh, another example. Uh, let's say somebody, um, you see somebody drop their cane, and the level one person doesn't give a damn and walks away. The level two person runs over to help. Okay, well, that's what we want everyone to do. The level three person doesn't help, but they're not helping because they want to wait and see what's going to happen because they believe the person will be better if they can figure out how to help themselves.

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:34

        Yeah.

    26. ELDr. Ellen Langer50:35

        So one and three are both not, but they're different. And, you know, if we recognize that the same behavior can have such different meaning, and we presume each time it's a level three, even if it was only a level one, we ourselves grow-

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee50:51

        Yeah

    28. ELDr. Ellen Langer50:51

        ... and become less judgmental. All of this, uh, these three levels, um, and the behavior makes sense from the actor's perspective, lead us to be less judgmental, and we're less judgmental of other people. We also become less judgmental of ourselves. Our relationships improve. As our relationships are improving, we tend to be more mindful, more willing to be out there in the world. Our health improves.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee51:16

        Yes. Can I ask you then, what, in your experience, is the main problem that people run into in their relationships?

    30. ELDr. Ellen Langer51:27

        Well, they're mindless. [laughs] You know, it's, it's the one problem you run into in all of life. Um, it's thinking you know, and so you don't pay any attention. Um, but in relationships per se, uh, you know, it, it's interesting because I say in my relationship, you know, something goes awry, I might say, "Are you saying I don't love you?" You know, bring it back to basics. And of course the person is not saying that and it immediately plays out differently. Um, but recognizing that uncertainty even in the relationship isn't, is the rule, and we don't know why we did what we did. We don't know why he or she did what they did. And finding out is a way of becoming closer rather than presuming that we know. And you know, when you say somebody does something all the time and that seems to give you justification for being annoyed by it, y- you still ask like, "Well why? Why do they do it all the time?"
12. 56:35 – 1:06:35

    Hierarchy, expertise, and why anecdotes matter (especially in medicine)

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee56:35

       Yeah. Uh, Ellen, this is, I mean, right up my street, super fascinating, particularly because you are a professor at Harvard, right?

    2. ELDr. Ellen Langer56:45

       Yes. Oh.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee56:45

       Okay. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

    4. ELDr. Ellen Langer56:47

       Yeah. Yeah.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee56:47

       So the conditioning we would have is that a Harvard professor knows, right? So-

    6. ELDr. Ellen Langer56:53

       Yeah

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee56:53

       ... I was actually in Boston a week ago, okay?

    8. ELDr. Ellen Langer56:57

       Mm-hmm.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee56:58

       And I met up with some friends of mine who are Harvard professors. Now, A, I'd love to know your perspective on how your, um, studies over the years and how our mindset influences our physiology, frankly, how that has been viewed at such a prestigious academic institution, okay? But I also would like to know about this idea of, um, I'd like to explore this idea of hierarchy, okay? And so one of these Harvard professors I was with last week, um, was saying to me, "I can't stand anecdotes," okay? "Anecdotes just really irritate me."

    10. ELDr. Ellen Langer57:36

        [laughs]

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee57:37

        "Anecdotes are not science," okay? And I've not been able to stop thinking about it since then because-

    12. ELDr. Ellen Langer57:44

        Yeah

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee57:44

        ... and I'll tell you why.

    14. ELDr. Ellen Langer57:45

        No, because the anecdotes lead to the science, right? You have to have the experience to get-

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee57:49

        Yeah

    16. ELDr. Ellen Langer57:49

        ... the idea in the first place.

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee57:50

        A, the anecdotes lead to the science, but also... And, and it goes back to what you said before about science actually is only probability. It's not reality. It's probability. It tells you what-

    18. ELDr. Ellen Langer58:02

        Yeah

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee58:02

        ... is likely to happen, okay? It's our-- science is our way of trying to explain reality. Science in and of itself is not the reality, right?

    20. ELDr. Ellen Langer58:11

        Right.

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee58:11

        And so during my career as a doctor, I've realized that the anecdote has always been of more interest to me than the science. Why? Because my job as a doctor is to help the individual patient in front of me. Therefore, I very early on in my career figured out it's fine if a research study says A, B, and C, but if D is helping my patient get better-

    22. ELDr. Ellen Langer58:38

        [laughs]

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee58:39

        ... well, for that patient, D is much more relevant.

    24. ELDr. Ellen Langer58:43

        Right.

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee58:43

        Right. So, um, this whole thing of hierarchy, which I'm dead against, right? I think-- I actually genuinely do believe that we should see everyone as an equal, and actually, we can learn something from everyone. But in the UK, and I think in the US at the moment, there's this movement to go, "There's a problem with information out there. We need more people talking about evidence-based nutrition." I saw a post on Instagram about this yesterday. And I'm, again, I'm not saying they're wrong, right? Who am I to say what's wrong or right? But I'm questioning it going, well, hold on a minute. Whose evidence and in what context, and how do we know that that evidence is relevant for that individual?

    26. ELDr. Ellen Langer59:21

        Right.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee59:21

        So Professor Langer, what is your perspective on what I've just outlined?

    28. ELDr. Ellen Langer59:25

        [laughs] I agree completely. [laughs] The implication of what you're saying is, you know, again, as I keep saying, we don't really know. And my research tends to be different from, um, I think the field at large, um, because I think most people are trying to say what is. And in my work, I'm trying to develop what could be. You know, so if I were able to trai- train-

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee59:52

        Mm-hmm

    30. ELDr. Ellen Langer59:52

        ... one dog to say, uh, "Hey, Professor Langer, do you wanna go have a, an ice cream?" [laughs] Um, that would be enough. It wouldn't matter that I couldn't get all the dogs, you know, to say this, um, to talk about possibility. Uh, I had the experience, um, very close to me to take Dexedrine for some reason, and it would put her to sleep. You know, dexedrine is an arouser, right? You know, so when you, when you have these anecdotes and you see, yeah, well, there are deviations from whatever the rule is, um, that leads you to, to pay a different kind of attention. What people, uh, science is talking about large numbers, and you can predict sort of-
13. 1:06:35 – 1:16:42

    Mindful noticing in daily life: habits, safety assumptions, and boredom

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:06:35

       So how do we start noticing then? If, if, if everything around us is training us now more and more to be mindless, how do we start becoming more mindful?

    2. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:06:46

       Um, well, the, the first way probably is to recognize that, um, uh, we don't know. I'm gonna keep getting back to that.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:06:55

       It's quite freeing that-

    4. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:06:57

       Well, it isn't. But, but it isn't in a way that, um, where you think, you know, you're supposed to notice everything about yourself or remove every... You know? And that's not... You know, when, when I say to people, "We should be mindful all the time," people get crazy. "Oh, my God, it sounds overwhelming." And, um, I'm not saying we should be mindful of everything all the time, because that would be overwhelming. But we should mindlessly accept nothing. So we should always be either mindful or actively noticing or potentially mindful. Now, people think mindlessness serves a purpose. I don't think so. I think, you know, we, we even have, I'm doing some work now on a new book on habits, where people think, um, they should develop good habits. No, habits are mindless. A good habit is better than a bad habit [laughs] , but it's still better, uh, to be present rather than... 'Cause once you're doing something habitually, it, you know, you're no longer paying attention to the context, whether right now it's a good thing, for example, to be doing whatever it is.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:08:05

       Okay, this is really interesting. So can-- might one argue, Ellen, that the reason we sometimes want to automate things is because, you know, we're not having to use up cognitive resource for it? You know, a habit is something, isn't it, that we're doing without any conscious thoughts, right? So by definition-

    6. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:08:24

       Yeah. But you're, you're, you're headed some place as if, you know, we only have 10 units.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:08:29

       Yeah.

    8. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:08:29

       So we don't wanna use up those units on these minor things, so we have it for more imp- But the more, the more. The more mindful you are, the more energy you have, the more capacity you have.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:08:39

       So, so this is like brushing your teeth, right? You can brush your teeth whilst also thinking about tomorrow's to-do list and, you know, thinking about the emails you didn't do, or you can brush your teeth while paying attention to the bristles.

    10. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:08:52

        You should be there. You should be there.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:08:53

        Yeah.

    12. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:08:53

        So let's say, you know, the example I ha- you know, use is, um, let's say you're a kid and you're, you know, thinking about a test you have to take, and y- you reach for the box of, uh, cereal and you pour it into the bowl, and you're, you're not there because you're thinking about, um, whatever you're thinking about other than the breakfast. You're not gonna notice the shell of the nut in that bowl that then cracks your tooth. You know, that when you recognize that, um, um, if everything-- i- if nothing is perfect, that means we want to be there to recognize the imperfection. And [laughs] this event comes to mind. So friends of mine were leading this, um, safari or whatever, and they're in India. And so they have these tourists, and there's a tiger, and one of them takes out, um, a piece of rope, like, um, a cord, and gives one of the tourists a cord and takes the other end and gives another tourist the cord and says, "Don't go," you know, "Stay on this side of the cord," as if the tiger is going to pay any attention to that. You s- I mean, that's the way we're trained to assume that in the States, not in all countries. Um, but if, you know, if the food is, uh, available, then somebody has made sure it's safe for us. Um, we do everything based on the assumption that some, some other group of people who know more, um, have said that this is okay. Um, I'm in Mexico, as you said, and there's, um, um, a place I drive where there's no traffic light, there's no stop sign, and there are also no accidents as far as I can tell because everybody is there paying attention.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:10:49

        Yeah.

    14. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:10:49

        Because there's nothing else telling you. You know, there's nobody telling you that this is the way to do it, so you do it that way and you don't have to see-

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:10:57

        Yeah

    16. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:10:57

        ... you know, on how things could go wrong. Um, and so it's not just to be there to avert the danger not yet arisen. You wanna be there because, um, that's the [laughs] only place where you're growing, where you're exciting, where, you know, y- your life becomes meaningful in the smallest detail. If you're gonna brush your teeth, show up for it. Now, if you're taught to brush your teeth so that you do it in some automatic way, um, so it's boring. Boredom is when you're doing it the same way over and over again, and you feel compelled to be there, but you're not noticing anything new.

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:11:36

        Are you mindful all the time?

    18. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:11:39

        Um, well, it's interesting, you know, that for me, when I find myself not being mindful, I go, "Yes, I'm right" [laughs] . That, um, this mindlessness is all over the place. So no, I'm probably more mindful than most people. Um, I've been studying this for 50 years. Um, but sure, there are times that I'm not mindful. Every time, you know, I get a little frustrated with something, um, you know, uh, in that relationship, "How could you do that?" [laughs] You know, the sorts of things we were talking about before. No, um, but I snap back very quickly.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:14

        Yeah, I, I, yeah, you know, the last few days I've been re- reading your new book and, um- It's changed how I go for walks or how I've been driving around. So I've been taking this idea of, well, can you notice new things every time? So, you know, the same drive that I do all the time, oh, wow, I didn't see that tree or that fence looking like that, right? Or-

    20. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:12:35

        Yeah

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:36

        ... on the walk around my block, uh, that I, that I went on this morning, I started to actively look for new things that I'd never seen before, and they're all there. I mean, they would've been there-

    22. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:12:45

        Yeah

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:45

        ... the entire time, but I never-

    24. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:12:47

        But it's not just that you're noticing them. The, the act of noticing them feels good.

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:12:52

        Yeah. Okay.

    26. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:12:53

        It's energizing, and that's the piece that people don't understand because when I say you should be mindful all the time, they think, "Oh, that would be exhausting." But no, it's energizing.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:13:03

        Well, that, that brings up the concept of fatigue that you write about as well, right?

    28. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:13:07

        Yeah.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:13:07

        And what fatigue really is.

    30. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:13:10

        Yeah. Um, I don't know if we can prevent all fatigue, but certainly we suffer fatigue, fatigue at times we don't need to, that if we were mindfully doing what we're doing, as I said, it would be energizing rather than enervating. And that, you know, what purpose does fatigue serve? Um, and I was thinking about this because for me, you know, if you watch me giving talks even now, that, you know, for most people, they start out here and then they get tired. I don't know. I just go in the opposite direction.
14. 1:16:42 – 1:19:32

    Fatigue as context-dependent: the two-thirds effect and perceived sleep

    1. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:16:42

       Yeah. So we did a study, um, in, um, sleep, and I, I'll tell you after I tell you what we found. Uh, we should talk a little bit about how hard it was to actually run this study.

    2. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:16:53

       [laughs]

    3. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:16:53

       Um, but so we have people, they're in a sleep lab. Um, they wake up and the clock tells them that they got, um, a certain amount of sleep or the clock is rigged and it tells them they got two hours more sleep than they got or two hours fewer. And biological and cognitive function seem to follow perceived amount of sleep.

    4. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:17:17

       Yeah.

    5. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:17:17

       Now, the, the science about the science is really fun for... not fun. It was so hard for me to do this study. Such a simple study. Move the little clock, you know, an inch [laughs] however long it is on a clock. Um, and, um, you know, I didn't want to, uh, take the time and the resources to set up my own sleep lab for... you know, I just wanted to test this one idea. Um, so I call the medical world, people who have sleep labs, and they won't do it. And I said, "It's so easy." They said they don't think it'll work. I said, "So? If it won't work, it won't interrupt whatever study you're doing just to change the clock." And it was interesting because nobody that I had spoken to early on in the medical world thought it would work. Everybody in the psychology wor- world thought, of course it'll work. Um, you know, um, no doubt on either side, which was kind of fun. Then eventually I found people who were willing to do it, and obviously it worked or I wouldn't be talking about it. Um, y- you're talking about anecdotes that sometimes you can make the point with an anecdote or you can't even get the study done because there's so much, um, um- disbelief surrounding the possibility

    6. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:18:36

       Yeah. Th- this idea that our perception, um, and our thoughts affect our reality and our physiology is-

    7. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:18:46

       It's the whole ballgame

    8. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:18:47

       ... it's the whole ballgame. And, and your entire career-

    9. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:18:50

       Yeah

    10. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:18:50

        ... that message is interwoven everywhere. We haven't even covered a, a small fraction of the studies, of the exciting studies that you write about in The Mindful Body. Um, that there, there are just so many. And that, that sleep study you just quoted, I actually referenced and wrote about in my brand-new book actually-

    11. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:19:07

        Right

    12. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:19:07

        ... so I, I'm familiar with it. I think it's, I think it's absolutely brilliant. But this idea that, um, we don't know, okay? It has lots-

    13. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:19:18

        Well, it's more than that we don't know, it's that we don't know that we don't know. That's the bigger problem. 'Cause then when we think we know, then we disparage other people, different ideas. Uh, we limit ourselves in so many ways.

15. 1:19:32 – 1:30:49

    Decisions, regret, and moving from forgiveness to understanding

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:19:32

       Yeah, and it, and it makes me think of the two word sort of, uh, fixed view of the world-

    2. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:19:36

       Yeah

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:19:36

       ... or a more fluid and flexible view of the world. And I think this plays into your rather provocative section on decision making, right?

    4. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:19:45

       Yeah. Yeah.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:19:46

       Um, I wonder if you could talk about decision making-

    6. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:19:48

       Sure

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:19:48

       ... a little bit because I think it, it's so fascinating the way you look at it.

    8. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:19:53

       Thank you. Um, well, it's interesting because people have trouble making decisions, and they think they should do what decision theorists tell them to do. And I think this is an instance where the experts are wrong and the people are right and should just know that what they're doing is fine. Essentially, let me give you the bottom line first, which is rather than waste your time, the big words, waste your time trying to make the right decision, what we need to do is almost randomly choose and make the decision right. Don't worry about making the right decision, make the decision right. What does that mean? When you, you're making a decision, you make a decision to take action. As soon as you take that action, there's no way to assess what the other alternative decisions would have been. So you can never know. Now, and we have lots of people who suffer decision regret, which is kind of funny because the presumption is that, you know, so you do something, it doesn't work for you. You say, "Oh, I should've done this other thing," uh, as if the other thing would've been better. The other thing could've been the same, worse, you know, or better. But more important than that, the consequence of the decision is totally a function of the view you take of it. So interestingly, all of my decisions are good. You know, it's amazing. I, I just don't make bad decisions. Now, how could that be? Because whatever happens, uh, is the right thing. Now, the way people think they should make a decision is to do some kind of cost-benefit analysis. That's nice if you live in the world where there really are good things and bad things. When you recognize that the things themselves are neither good nor bad, that means every cost is a benefit, every benefit is a cost. You add them up, they're not gonna tell you what to do. Now, even beyond that, you have people telling you gather information. This sounds good, but it's ridiculous, let me tell you. If there were only 10 pieces of information that could possibly be considered to make your decision, certainly having eight pieces of that information is more helpful than having two pieces of information. But the amount of information you could collect is almost endless.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:22:14

       Mm.

    10. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:22:15

        And if you think for, you know, let's say there are a million pieces of information, the difference between five and 15 is meaningless, right? Put it five over a million versus 15 over a million and, you know, you're talking about a tiny bit of information. And there's no natural endpoint to the information you could collect. Now, you're collecting the information and you say, "Okay, now I have enough." Uh, the next piece you could have collected could have changed it all. You know, should I buy the house? So, all right, I like the ceilings, there are enough closets, it's near the schools. You know, everything is wonderful. I'm gonna buy the house. And then you find out they're going to put, um, a highway right in front of the house that, uh, the government has just decided on. You didn't know about it.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:23:00

        Mm-hmm.

    12. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:23:00

        So then it's a bad decision. But actually, is it a bad decision? Well, maybe it's a good decision because then they'll pay you to get rid of the house so they can enlarge the-

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:23:09

        Yeah

    14. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:23:09

        ... um, so, so the, the point is that there's no natural endpoint. You can just keep gathering information. There's no natural endpoint to the information to make the decision. There's no natural endpoint to an assessment of the, uh, advantages or disadvantages to any of those alternatives. Um, and each alternative is simultaneously good or bad depending on how you view it, so you can't do a cost-benefit analysis. So what is a person to do? It doesn't matter. Now, it's one thing if you're deciding should you get M&M's versus a Mounds bar. People say, "Okay, yeah, why should I waste all this time?" I'm suggesting [laughs] and this generally gets people crazed, that if you're deciding should you get married, should you take the job, it's exactly the same thing. You cannot know. Should you take the job? Let's say, well, you'd have to have an option of taking the job, seeing how it ex- how it feels, taking a different job, seeing how it feels. But you can't even do that because once you've taken the job, you're already a different person. So when you start that second alternative, um, you know, you can't adequately assess.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:24:25

        Yeah, and this plays in, Ellen, to how I have changed my own relationship with regret, okay? So I think-

    16. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:24:33

        Mm

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:24:33

        ... in the past- I very much would regret a lot, and there would be guilt and shame and all kinds of things associated with previous decisions. But I, like you, believe that these mindsets are completely malleable, and we can change them any time we want to once we are aware that we're choosing to take a particular mindset, and then when we go, "I don't want to, actually. I'm gonna, you know, live my life with a brand-new mindset," and it can take time to practice it. But the point I'm trying to get to is that for the last few years, I, I actually don't believe in regrets anymore. I think it's a-

    18. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:25:09

        Oh

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:25:09

        ... pointless phenomenon. Um-

    20. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:25:11

        Right

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:25:11

        ... I actually believe that regret is a form of perfectionism, this idea that actually there was a perfect decision. I think that, that when we're regretting something, we're effectively saying, or certainly this is my interpretation of what I think many of us are saying, is, "I had the potential to make the perfect decision, and the fact that I didn't means I've somehow failed. Therefore, for the rest of my life, I'm gonna regret something that I did 30 years ago when I didn't know better."

    22. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:25:40

        Mm-hmm.

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:25:41

        Or, as you say, and I really like this chapter, um, well, I like all the chapters, frankly, but this, this, th- this whole idea on, um, making decisions so therefore it sort of makes regret a little bit pointless because it's the mindset you choose to take over anything that happens in life.

    24. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:25:58

        But there's a step before that, which is when you make, when you choose whatever you choose, there's some good reason for it, or else you wouldn't have chosen it.

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:26:06

        Exactly.

    26. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:26:07

        And if you're aware of that, then you don't, you're less likely to, to have any regrets. So let's say, um, I decide, you know, um, today all I wanna do is, um, I've just been traveling. I just want to relax. I want a very simple day. Um, so I'm not gonna go to that big event tonight, whatever that big event is. And then I find out that that big event would've been spectacularly important for the rest of my life. Now, because I made the mindful decision to stay home, I know that what I need right now is just some peace and quiet to be by myself, and so on. Um, I'm not going to regret not having done that other thing. If I don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing now, and I find out the other option was a good one, um, of course, you know, then I would experience regret.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:27:02

        Mm.

    28. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:27:03

        So the bottom line, if you know why you're doing what you're doing, you're not gonna regret not doing something else.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:27:08

        Yeah, I love that. So if you're paying attention in the, in the moment to what you're doing-

    30. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:27:13

        Right
16. 1:30:49 – 1:37:02

    No bucket list needed: fullness in the present and reframing arousal

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:30:49

       Tell me about your experience in Australia when you were a- asked about your bucket list.

    2. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:30:54

       Yeah. So this is funny. So I go to Australia and I give a talk and a, a number of other people give individual talks. And then, um, the surprise, we're all brought out on stage, all these big shots, um, uh, like a panel, and somebody, uh, asks the first person about their bucket list, and they have an answer. And I'm the last person in this row, so I have a chance to think about it. And then in the next person, what's their b- bucket list? And I'm kinda, "What's on my bucket list? I don't have a bucket list." [laughs] And then in my typical style, I say, "Well, if I don't have a bucket list, it's probably fine not to have a bucket list." [laughs] And why is it fine not to have? You know, so then she gets to me, and I say, "I don't have a bucket list. That if what you're doing is fun, enjoyable, and you're doing it fully, you don't need to be doing anything else." You know, a bucket list, you know, w- is the kind of thing where, um, you know, it's like work, you know, where I need a vacation. And if you're working the right way, you should never need a vacation. It's different wanting a vacation. But if, like a glass of, a glass and you're gonna pour water in it, and the glass is full, it's full. Um, and it doesn't have to be full by going on a safari or whatever else might be on people's bucket lists.

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:32:17

       Yeah.

    4. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:32:17

       And you know, I'm not speaking against, um, travel, uh, vacations. But you shouldn't need them.

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:32:24

       Yeah.

    6. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:32:24

       You know, as you said, you walk outside, all of a sudden you see new things. I mean, there are people, you know, when you're young and you, and you go to Europe and you go to all of the cathedrals, um, if you asked any of those people, "Do we have any cathedrals back in the States?" They wouldn't know.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:32:39

       Mm-hmm.

    8. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:32:40

       [laughs] It's just something you do in this other location. But the, the more important part of it is that when the moment is full, it's full. Uh, and then you don't need anything beyond that. And the fullness can be garnered from very little, very, um, small things. We, we don't have to be investing large sums of money and so on. You know, if, uh, you were very stressed and you asked me to help you, many things I could do. But one, I might say to you, you know, "Thread a needle. Here's a needle. Uh, thread it." And you'd be threading that needle, and then afterwards I say to you, "So were you stressed when you were threading the needle?" And you say, "No." You know, you're busy threading the needle. Um, so what happens is when, especially when we think we have big problems, we seek big solutions. And, um, if you take care of the moment, then the end of the day is fine. It's only these moments.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:33:41

       The power of now, as Eckhart Tolle says.

    10. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:33:43

        Mm-hmm.

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:33:44

        It's, um... Hey guys, I really hope you're finding this useful. If you are and you want more content like it, please do check out my book, MAKE CHANGE THAT LASTS: 9 Simple Ways To Break Free From The Habits That Are Holding You Back. It's in all the usual places as a paperback, e-book, and as an audiobook, which I'm narrating. Now, back to the video. That it's really fascinating as you were talking about that threading the needle story. It made me think that is it possible to be stressed when you're in the moment?

    12. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:34:17

        No, because stress is an evaluation of a future event.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:34:22

        Okay. But let's imagine that you, you really are in danger, okay? There is a wild predator attacking you which activates your stress response. You're in the moment evaluating danger, trying to escape, aren't you? But you're in the moment-

    14. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:34:38

        No

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:34:38

        ... but you're still stressed.

    16. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:34:39

        Yeah, I think it's all wrong. That's what we're taught. Um, I, I may be wrong in this but, um, when, um, I give an example to people and they say, "Aren't there times that mindlessness is good for you?" Um, and which is what this stressful situation you're suggesting. And I say, "No." Let's say you're in a park and you're with a little kid, you know, three-year-old. And the three-year-old wanders... This is, you talking to me. The three-year-old wanders into the street. Isn't it better just mindlessly pulling the three-year-old out of danger? And I thought, well, first, if you're mindful, the child wouldn't have ended up in the street in the first place. Second, um, that, you know, you can pull the child to the right or to the left, um, you know, to get him out of the car's way and you have to have some sense of which way the car is moving. You know, and you can only do that if you're present to know the car turning this way-

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:35:36

        Mm

    18. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:35:36

        ... turning that way, going straight. How shall I pull this child into a safe location? Um, so I think that if you're face to face, which none of us ever are. I mean, these examples are kind of silly. Um, you're face to face with that tiger, you know, and because you're face to face with the tiger, the medical literature and psychological literature, you know, you have a fight or flight, then the adrenaline starts pouring, you know, to help you, uh, become safe. Um, I, I don't see why if I were face to face with a tiger or any other dangerous situation, why it wouldn't be, why I wouldn't be thinking more clearly the less stressed I was.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:36:19

        Yeah. I definitely agree that the more you can train yourself to not see situations as stressful and threatening, the calmer you are, the better.

    20. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:36:28

        And that can be exciting.

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:36:30

        Yeah, for sure.

    22. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:36:31

        You know, the... You're going, you're going out on your first date. Who remembers what that was like? But, you know, the person is coming. Um, you can see yourself as anxious, um, or you can see yourself as excited. Um, biochemically it's the same. Physiologically-

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:36:47

        Yeah

    24. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:36:47

        ... it's the same response. But that label makes such a big difference. If I see myself as excited and I open the door and there you are- I'm going to, you know, be much more appealing [laughs]

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:37:00

        Yeah

    26. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:37:00

        than I'm scared.

17. 1:37:02 – 2:15:14

    Landmark studies, labels that become self-fulfilling, and final practical takeaways

    1. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:37:02

       Ellen, I've re- I've realized we- we've got to this point in our conversation, and we've, we've not dealt with some of your greatest hits yet, okay? So, um-

    2. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:37:09

       Okay

    3. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:37:10

       ... now, I, for many people, for people who are listening who perhaps are not familiar with your work, some of your studies, the Counterclockwise study, the Chambermaid study, the Nursing Home study, these are legendary. In fact, a lot of listeners, I'm sure, will have heard about them without necessarily knowing that you were the creator and the author of these studies. So could you just go through some of these, uh, top-line studies to explain-

    4. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:37:38

       Right

    5. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:37:38

       ... some of your work to my audience, please?

    6. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:37:41

       Okay. Well, so I got into all this in the first place with a nursing home study, um, where we took people in nursing homes, and we either gave them tender loving care as the comparison group, or we gave them choices to make, um, and a plant to take care of. Um, and, um, we went back 18 months later, and twice as many people in the group that we gave these active, uh, choices to were still alive, right? So then the first thing that came to me was, well, wait a second, how is it that making a choice translates, um, into longevity? And that led me to the, the mindfulness work. Um, but the mindfulness work, here, you know, how is it your thoughts have all these powerful physical effects on you? Um, and I, I started to think that, well, we have this idea. It was clear to me that we had, it had this effect on us. This was before people were talking about mind-body connection. We had a mind and a body, and the big question was, well, how do you get from this fuzzy thing called a thought to something material called the body? And I, these are just words. Um, somebody decided to talk about a mind and a body. [laughs] You know, we could have talked about mind, body, and elbows, and we would've had a different conception of people. So I argued, let's put the two together, even if it's just for useful purposes, heuristic purposes. Although now I think it's literally true. Put the mind and body back together. Then wherever you're putting one, you're necessarily putting the other.

    7. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:39:17

       Mm-hmm.

    8. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:39:18

       Wherever you're putting the mind, you're putting the body, and the question is how you get from one to the other goes away. Now, I have been talking about this. We, we did the-- I published the Counterclockwise study in 1981, a long time ago. Takes so long for things to change. Um, and people finally start talking about mind-body connection. That's wrong. You have the same problems. How are they connected? Um, see it as one thing.

    9. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:39:44

       Yeah.

    10. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:39:45

        So the first study that we did, and, uh, the BBC did a replication of this that only people in, um, uh, the United Kingdom could see, uh, called The Young Ones. But to go back to the study itself, what we did was to take a retreat and retrofit it to 20 years earlier and had elderly men live there as if they were their younger selves. So they discussed past events as if they were just unfolding, for example. In a period of time as short as one week, we found their vision improved. When have you ever heard an old person's vision-

    11. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:40:20

        Mm-hmm

    12. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:40:20

        ... improving without medical intervention? Their hearing improved, their strength, their memory, and they looked noticeably younger. That was the first test of mind-body unit. The second test, which was, uh, a few decades later, was we take these chambermaids, this is work I did with Ali Crum, um, and very simply first ask them how much exercise are they getting. These are women who are exercising all day long, right? Cleaning the hotel and motel. Still, they thought they're not getting any exercise because exercise, they believed, according to the surgeon general who sits at a desk all day, is what you're doing after work, and after work they were just too tired. Okay? We very simple study, divide them into two groups, and we're gonna teach one group that their work is exercise, so we're changing their minds. They're taught, um, working, you know, working on this machine at the gym, uh, is like making a bed and so on. We teach them they are getting lots of exercise. So you have two groups now, one who doesn't think they're getting any exercise, one that does. They're not eating any differently from each other. They're not working any harder. Nevertheless, simply changing their minds to see their work as exercise resulted in a loss of weight, a change in waist-to-hip ratio, body mass index, and their blood pressure came down.

    13. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:41:47

        Yeah.

    14. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:41:47

        Then we have many, many of these studies that are reported in the book. Um, an example of another, uh, we take people who have type 2 diabetes. Um, we take many measurements. We're going to have them play computer games. The reason will become clear in a moment. And there's a clock there, and they're told, "Change the game you're playing every 15 minutes or so." That ensures that they'll look at the clock. Unbeknownst to them, the clock is rigged, so it's going twice as fast as real time, half as fast as real time, or real time. And the question we're asking is, will blood sugar level vary based on clock time, perceived time, or real time? And it turns out perceived time. And I, I, I don't know how I get, got this clock obsession, [laughs] but we've used it in a lot of studies.

    15. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:42:38

        Yeah, this stuff, Ellen, is, is, is just so fascinating because it also, it also highlights arguably one of the biggest holes in all of medicine and the way we practice, which is we just don't take into account our mindset or our thoughts-

    16. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:42:57

        Right

    17. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:42:57

        ... or our beliefs, right? And then there's another study, uh, I'm pretty sure it's in your new book, about- Diabetics. There's a belief that giving people more information is a good thing, right?

    18. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:43:14

        Mm-hmm.

    19. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:43:14

        That would be the conventional belief, and I, I would often... And, and I think much of me subscribes to that belief, but-

    20. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:43:21

        But it doesn't, it doesn't matter that whether you give them more or less. It depends on how the information-

    21. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:43:27

        Exactly

    22. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:43:27

        ... is received. So if re- if more information leads people to be more certain, and more certain leads them to be more mindless, then that's how the problem arises.

    23. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:43:38

        Well, maybe you could explain that through the lens of this, uh, this diabetes, pre-diabetes study where the patients who were told that their... Well, uh, they, they were told they were on the borderline of pre-diabetes, right? Could you, could you explain that study?

    24. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:43:52

        Sure. So, um, I call this the borderline effect. It's not just in medicine. It, uh, no matter what you're doing, there's always a point where people above this borderline respond one way, people below it respond a different way. [laughs] And where there's no meaningful difference above and below. So for example, let's say you're grading papers and you give one student an 89, or they take a test and they get an 89. That makes it a B. Another student gets a 90. That makes it an A. Nobody's gonna think there's any meaningful difference between 89 and 90, but there's a real difference over time between a B student and an A student.

    25. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:44:36

        In terms of their perception of themselves, you mean?

    26. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:44:39

        Not just them, but the world's perception of them as well.

    27. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:44:42

        Yeah.

    28. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:44:42

        Right? Um, you know, you, you take a, mm, typical example, you take, um, an IQ test and if you get 69, then you're cognitively deficient. You get 70, you're in the normal range. But again, one could have sneezed, misread the question. But once you're labeled, you've got this cognitive problem, or you're normal, over time it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

    29. RCDr. Rangan Chatterjee1:45:07

        Mm.

    30. ELDr. Ellen Langer1:45:07

        And that's, that's the point to a lot of this. That we, um, once we get these labels, uh, we then behave according to those labels and they become true even if they weren't.

Episode duration: 2:15:15