#1 Mindset Expert: Simple Mindset Shifts That Transform Your Body, Energy, & Life
Dr. Alia Crum (guest), Mel Robbins (host), Narrator
In this episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast, featuring Dr. Alia Crum and Mel Robbins, #1 Mindset Expert: Simple Mindset Shifts That Transform Your Body, Energy, & Life explores stanford Mindset Expert Reveals How Beliefs Reshape Health And Behavior Mel Robbins interviews Dr. Alia Crum, a Stanford psychologist and head of the Mind & Body Lab, about how core mindsets—our mental “settings”—directly shape perception, emotions, motivation, and even physiology.
Stanford Mindset Expert Reveals How Beliefs Reshape Health And Behavior
Mel Robbins interviews Dr. Alia Crum, a Stanford psychologist and head of the Mind & Body Lab, about how core mindsets—our mental “settings”—directly shape perception, emotions, motivation, and even physiology.
Crum explains that mindsets are not objectively true or false, but powerful, oversimplified beliefs (e.g., “stress is harmful,” “healthy food is depriving,” “my body can’t be trusted”) that literally help create our lived reality.
Using research on placebo effects, cancer treatment, weight loss, and her famous Milkshake Study, she shows that what we *believe* about food, medicine, stress, and our bodies can amplify or blunt their real physical effects.
The conversation concludes with practical guidance: identify current settings, deliberately choose more useful ones (e.g., “indulgence” with food, “my body is capable,” “this is manageable”), and recognize that mindsets are changeable, learnable skills.
Key Takeaways
Mindsets are adjustable 'settings' that shape your reality by design.
They’re not facts but core judgments (e. ...
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Your beliefs can enhance or diminish the effects of real treatments.
In migraine research, the same drug worked better when people believed it was the real medication, and a placebo labeled as the drug worked almost as well. ...
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Adopt 'mind and matter,' not 'mind over matter,' for health.
Crum emphasizes taking the best available medical care *and* cultivating helpful beliefs about your illness, treatment, and body—especially mindsets like “this is manageable” and “my body is capable” in conditions like cancer.
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What you believe about food changes how your body metabolizes it.
In the Milkshake Study, people drinking the *same* 350-calorie shake had a threefold greater drop in the hunger hormone ghrelin when they believed it was a rich, indulgent 620-calorie shake versus a 140-calorie 'diet' shake.
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Shift from a restraint mindset to an indulgence mindset with eating.
Seeing healthy foods as “disgusting but necessary” keeps your body in a state of deprivation and hunger. ...
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Old protective mindsets can become self-fulfilling and limiting.
A fear of flying, for example, might start from one bad experience and then create hypervigilance to bodily sensations, more anxiety, and avoidance. ...
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Self-talk like 'I am capable' can alter performance and effort.
When Mel reframed from “I’m weak” to “I’m capable,” the same 30-pound weight felt and functioned differently for her. ...
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Notable Quotes
“Mindsets are quite literally settings of the mind.”
— Dr. Alia Crum
“These mindsets are not true or false. They’re oversimplified, highly evaluative judgments—but they matter in shaping our lives.”
— Dr. Alia Crum
“The total effect of anything we do is a combined effect of what's actually in it and what you believe to be true about it.”
— Dr. Alia Crum
“It no longer needs to be, 'Is it mind over matter?' No, it’s mind and matter.”
— Dr. Alia Crum
“At any given moment, at any given time, you have the power to flip the switch.”
— Dr. Alia Crum
Questions Answered in This Episode
Which current 'settings of my mind' around health, stress, or my body might be quietly working against me rather than protecting me?
Mel Robbins interviews Dr. ...
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How could I deliberately reframe one recurring fear or limitation (like flying, public speaking, or dating) as an 'old setting' and test a new belief in real life?
Crum explains that mindsets are not objectively true or false, but powerful, oversimplified beliefs (e. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What would it look like, in practical terms, to eat every meal—healthy or not—in a genuine mindset of indulgence and sufficiency rather than restraint?
Using research on placebo effects, cancer treatment, weight loss, and her famous Milkshake Study, she shows that what we *believe* about food, medicine, stress, and our bodies can amplify or blunt their real physical effects.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
If I’m facing a medical diagnosis, how can I simultaneously honor the seriousness of the situation and adopt the mindset that it is manageable and my body is capable?
The conversation concludes with practical guidance: identify current settings, deliberately choose more useful ones (e. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
In what ways might my beliefs about money (scarcity vs. abundance, 'I’m bad with money' vs. 'I can learn this') be shaping my financial behavior and outcomes?
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Transcript Preview
Do you believe the world is dangerous or safe? That's a mindset. Do you believe the world is just or unjust is a mindset. Do you believe the world is abundant, you know, full of resources, enough for all of us to go around? Or do you believe it's scarce? That's a mindset. These mindsets, Mel, they're not true or false. They're not right or wrong. They're oversimplified, highly evaluative judgments, but they matter in shaping our lives. In fact, they create our realities.
Today, the world's number one expert in mindset, Dr. Alia Crum, is here in our Boston studios. Dr. Alia Crum is a Stanford professor and she runs the Stanford Mind and Body Lab. She has proven in her research over and over again that your thoughts are working against you.
My life's work is to understand the power of the human mind. Mindsets are quite literally settings of the mind.
Wait a minute-
(laughs)
Hold on a second. I ... Okay, and now I feel almost like an idiot.
So the total effect of anything we do, whether that's medication or what we eat, for example, is a combined effect of what's actually in it and what you believe to be true about it. It no longer needs to be, "Oh, is it mind over matter?" No, it's mind and matter.
Dr. Alia Crum in the house. Thank you and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.
Thank you, Mel. It's so exciting to be here.
I am so excited because I really wanna make being super fit and healthier and happier easy and I- I do believe that you can help me change my mindset. So here's how I wanna start. Could you tell the person listening, how would my life be different, how might it be better if I take all of this amazing research and all the tools you're about to teach us and I just apply it to my life? What's gonna happen?
Hmm. So, Mel, uh, my life's work as an academic, but also as a human, is to understand the power of the human mind. So I think we all know this, right? There is this power of belief, of mindset, and the people who are listening to your show are especially clued into this fact. But I'd like to go a little deeper and be a little bit more specific.
Okay.
Right, so when we say things like, "Oh, just believe," or-
Yes.
... um, "Think positive."
Uh-huh.
Or, you know, "Change your mindset." Like, what do we really mean?
I don't know.
(laughs)
What, what I'm hoping you're gonna tell me because I think with th- a lot of us do feel like, okay, I just have to believe, but you're here to teach us, no, there's actually something deeper and there's something more accessible.
Yeah, I think we need to be more specific. So say you have something stressful on the horizon like a job interview or say you're trying to lose weight or get healthier or say you were just diagnosed with cancer-
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