Latest / The Pausecast / Ep. 105 - Dr. Ellen Langer on Mindfulness for Women Leaders

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Ep. 105 - Dr. Ellen Langer on Mindfulness for Women Leaders · The Pausecast

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Hi, I'm Rachel O'meara. I'm the host of The Pause Cast.
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I'm also the author of PAUSE Harnessing the Life Changing
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Power of Giving Yourself a Break as well as a private coach for
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men and women who are struggling with how to get out of overwhelm
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and reclaim their lives. The Pause Cast is dedicated to
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helping individuals learn the tools and be more self aware
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that we can all be more capable of to live our best life to
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reach our potential. Whether this is your first time
0:34
listening or you're a regular, I invite you to download my free
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gift to you, which is a blueprint called The Three.
0:41
Keys to stay out of overwhelm and thrive.
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The blueprint is available at my website www.rachelomara.com.
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Get it today so you can start to implement these tools that we
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can all learn. And that's what the PAUSE cast
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is all about. Welcome everyone to the podcast.
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I am super, super thrilled. This morning I am here with
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Doctor Ellen Langer. Hi Ellen, How are you?
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Good. To see you again, Rachel.
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Always good to see you, and I want to share a little bit about
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Doctor Langer before we jump in. You may know her from her
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numerous books out, including Counterclockwise and.
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Her studies. I think, Ellen, one of your
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gifts is all the studies that you bring to the world on
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research and mindfulness and what it really means, whether
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it's aging studies or awareness studies.
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And they're so powerful. So you are a social psychologist
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and you were the first female tenured professor in psychology
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at Harvard. Lovely accolades there.
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You've won three distinguished awards.
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One of them included was the The Liberty or what was the full
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name. Of that one, three distinguished
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Scientist awards and then you're referring to the Liberty Science
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Genius award. OK, good.
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We got that out. Beautiful, beautiful.
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And one last thing about Ellen, because she's so modest.
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She's the mother of positive psychology and the mother of.
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Mindfulness, so welcome Ellen. I know you and I have known each
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other. Yeah, for a few years.
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You came to Google and I had you.
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I hosted you to speak to the leaders.
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Google School for leaders. So it's an honor to to be with
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you again and and learn a little more from you.
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I am wondering if you would be up for leading us in your
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version of a pause. Would you be up for that
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California style as you'd say? First, people need to understand
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that mindfulness, as I've been studying it for over 40 years,
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is mindfulness without meditation.
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It's so easy it almost defies belief when they tell you about
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the results of being mindful. But before we get to that this,
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we're going to have to do a pause.
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Mindfulness is the simple act of noticing, that's all.
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If you notice new things about the things you thought you knew,
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you come to see, you didn't know them at all, and then your
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attention naturally goes to them.
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So this act of noticing whether you're noticing new things about
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things that are familiar, or familiar things about things
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that seem to be brand new, in both cases, the neurons of
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firing. And our research shows that it's
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literally and figuratively enlightening.
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So I guess the easiest thing for people to do now is just look
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around the room, look at something they think they know,
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a lamp, a couch, a person, and just notice three or five new
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things about it. When we do this with
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relationships, where people think they know the other person
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and they notice different things about the way they're looking,
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the way they're sounding, walking, anything, their
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relationships start to come alive again.
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So I don't know if noticing a lamp at this point is going to
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be effective, but it doesn't matter.
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I have so much data showing that when you're more mindful, your
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memory improves, your relationship, improve you're
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considered more charismatic, attractive, you become
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healthier. Many, many studies on health.
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It's, as I said, literally and figuratively enlivening.
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But the fun thing, as I've just said, it bears repeating.
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It's so easy now. Meditation is not mindfulness.
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Meditation is what you engage in to result in post meditative
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mindfulness. This is sort of and more
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immediate. Not better, not worse, just
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different. Thank you.
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I love the active noticing and noticing new things and I think
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that is what catches. Me and others off guard is that
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it is so easy and it's almost like you don't even want to try
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it because you're like, that'll never work.
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Forget it. Well, but it's also the case
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that after these 40 some odd years of research, we find that
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virtually all of us are mindless almost all the time.
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But. Now the autopilot, right?
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Like, that's the autopilot. Yeah, exactly.
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But when you're mindless, you're not there.
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So you're not there to know that you're not there.
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And so, you know, in talks that I give, I might give people
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little things to make them realize that they don't know.
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Another way of understanding mindlessness is that you're
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frequently in Arab but rarely in death.
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So let's take one. So Rachel, how much is 1 in one
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one? One in one is 2.
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OK, now that's what we're taught.
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So if somebody asks you that, you tune out if you don't pay
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any attention. And it turns out one in one is 2
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if you're using a base 10 number system.
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If you're using a base two number system, most people don't
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even know their other number systems. 1 + 1 is written as 10.
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Easy to understand. If you take one wad of chewing
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gum and you add it to one wad of chewing gum, 1 + 1 = 1.
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One pile of laundry plus one pile of laundry 1 + 1 = 1.
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So in the real world rather than the world of abstractions. 1 + 1
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probably doesn't equal to as often as it does, but again,
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when we think we know, we tune out.
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Yeah. And we don't know that we don't
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know like your quote is so powerful and it's it's true and
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that's what we think in these assumptions, these assumptive
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words world of of like not thinking what we know the base
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10 number system. So one of the things right now,
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well, so many of people are suffering from.
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Nervousness about COVID is that people think, Oh my gosh,
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everything is so uncertain now, I don't know how to cope.
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What they need to understand is 2 years ago things were just as
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uncertain. Six months ago was just
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uncertainty is the rule, not the exception.
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So when we think we know like one and one is 2, it's because
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we're holding everything constant.
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But it's just our mindsets that are holding it still.
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The phenomenon is actually always in flux.
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We could never, and you could say, you know, would we have
7:21
predicted Obama three years before he was elected president?
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Would we have predicted Trump? You know, even the day of the
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election? You know, probably not.
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And so when we recognize that we we never knew.
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However you cope with not knowing in the past is the way
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you can cope with it right now. And the likelihood of any one of
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us getting the virus if we're washing our hands, practicing,
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you know, social distance, doing, taking ordinary steps
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that have been defined by experts, the likelihood of
8:01
getting the virus is very low and so to waste precious moments
8:06
being stressed about it. Probably is not sensible when it
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turns out that stress is probably believing cause of most
8:16
illness. It is.
8:19
Being afraid you're going to get the illness, but that stress
8:21
itself is making you sick. It's the catch 22, right?
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Yeah. And then we're all fretting and
8:29
in that uncertainty because my sense is I'd love to hear your
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your thought is. We're we're exposed to more
8:37
uncertainty. Yeah, no, We're aware of the
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uncertainty now. There's always been uncertainty,
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but we're like more aware of it because we're not aware of
8:42
regular. But if we remember all the
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things we thought, you know, everything is the same until
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it's not. And things have always been
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changing. And you know, you can ask CEO's
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of major companies. You can probably answer this
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easier than I. Rachel, But you know, you, you
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produce typewriters and you're writing high and all of a sudden
9:08
computers are invented and you, you know, put a lot of money in
9:13
45 records and then CD's or whatever the next, you know,
9:17
change was. But these these are changes that
9:20
change everything. The iPhone has changed the way
9:23
all smartphones, but especially the iPhone.
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Yeah, if you're saying that to Google people, but.
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That's OK, we're all and I I say it too.
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I say Zoom. When we have Google me I get in
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trouble. All the time.
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But yeah, I I think that's spot on.
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And and I I wanted to ask you what your sense of this
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defensive pessimism is Like, how does.
9:44
That relate to I've just written about this.
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It's interesting because you know, while people are so
9:50
worried about the virus, lots of people have an attitude of
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defensive pessimism. What that means is they believe
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you should expect the worst, so somehow you can prepare for it
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and hope for the best. And I find both parts of that to
10:07
be problematic, first of all to over the worst, say.
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That again, hope for the worst. No, Expect the worst.
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Expect the worst. Good and hope for the best.
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And hope for the best. So while you're expecting the
10:20
worst, it turns out that we typically get what we expect.
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Everything is very complicated. Everything can be understood in
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so many ways. If you're looking for those
10:31
negatives, you're going to find them.
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And again, that's going to cause more stress.
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But the interesting thing is hope.
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Now hope feels like something positive, doesn't it?
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And it's certainly better to be hopeful than hopeless.
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However, hope also is a negative expectation.
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So, Rachel, do you drink coffee in the morning?
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I gave it up. I have.
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OK. What do you do in the morning?
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So I have I have a green tea basically.
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So you get out of bed and you do whatever you're going to do, and
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then you go to the kitchen. You don't hope you can have
11:09
green tea. You know you're going to have
11:12
green tea, so you know. What's in the cupboard?
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You're waiting for it all morning.
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OK, right, right. But the point is that hoping
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builds in, has built into it the possibility that it's not going
11:24
to be there, but things are not going to work.
11:27
Mindful optimism in contrast to this isn't putting your head in
11:32
the sand. What it is is making a plan, as
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we said, doing some social distancing, washing your hands,
11:38
wearing a mask and then just going about your business.
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And if you do that, what's happening is that you're
11:46
becoming stronger and stronger, so that if in fact you do end up
11:52
getting sick, you're better able to deal with it this defensive,
11:56
pessimistic style. You're stressed almost all the
11:59
time, which weakens the system and then makes you more
12:02
vulnerable. So none of us know what's going
12:06
to happen. We never knew what's going to
12:09
happen. And the idea is to just go about
12:14
living, living in the moment, making the moment matter.
12:18
Life only consists of moments, and you don't have to worry
12:22
about next week, next year, getting this or that.
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All you need to do is make the next moment matter.
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And it's a much easier task for all of us.
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When you do that, you've built up the resources.
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So should anything occur again, you're better able to deal with.
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It and I'm catching. I'm catching what you're sharing
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and that it's intentional. So bringing the intention into
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that mindful optimism of of like OK what is my plan.
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How am I going to go about my day So I feel that I feel good,
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that I don't feel this manic, the the panic, stress and the
12:57
things that would and could determine.
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But that that that can make an act that can make a real
13:02
difference and. Then, well, it turns out that
13:05
stress relies on two things. One is a belief that something's
13:10
going to happen, and two, that when it happens, it's going to
13:14
be awful. So you need to combat both of
13:17
those. So the first that something is
13:20
going to happen, well, we've just said you can't predict.
13:23
So if you take the something, whatever the something is, and
13:26
you give yourself 5 reasons why it won't happen.
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So there you went from Oh my God, it's going to happen to
13:31
Maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't.
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That's like auto, like auto correcting like in, yeah.
13:36
A word doc. So now you don't think things
13:42
are necessarily going to happen then and this is hard to believe
13:46
in the age of COVID, but this is me with respect to everything,
13:51
everything cuts both ways. It's almost like you get to re
13:39
change your thought, yeah? It all depends on how you look
13:54
at it. So if you said, what are?
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35 Possible Advantages of whatever this feared thing is,
14:02
you know that should it happen, Forget COVID, Almost anything
14:06
else you know. Should you be fired?
14:07
You're worried about being fired.
14:09
So now we've said, rather than spend the time worrying, you say
14:13
to yourself, OK, one or three reasons, five reasons I probably
14:17
won't be fired. So now you don't know you will
14:19
be, you won't be, but you're at least less certain that you're
14:23
going today. Then if we say what are the
14:26
advantages of being fired, Well, there are many.
14:29
Nobody who is spending their time being afraid of being fired
14:33
is being nurtured while they're at work.
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And in some cases if you're not going to starve to death, you're
14:39
better off because it's very hard for us to make changes.
14:43
So if it happens to us rather than us freely leaving, then we
14:48
can create the lives that. Are better for us to be living
14:55
things that are more meaningful to us.
14:57
It's terrible. I think of this, you know, these
14:59
people who go to work for 810 hours a day hating what they're
15:03
doing. And part of that is because this
15:06
culture has this mistaken assumption that work has to be
15:10
stressful. I don't think anything has to be
15:12
stressful and that you know, then you have people, business
15:17
gurus. You know nice smart people, but
15:20
who will say things like when you want to have some work life
15:23
balance now, like hope? Like it's better to be to have
15:27
hope than be hopeless. It's better to have work life
15:30
balance than work life imbalance.
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However, there's again a better way, which is a work life
15:37
integration. You want to be the same person
15:39
you are whether you're at work, at play, and so to do that you
15:44
have to give up. Some of these mindless
15:47
understandings you have about work reduce that stress.
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I think that's so powerful, and I think that I think people are
15:56
looking for a magic solution like what you're sharing about.
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If I only correct my work life balance if I only have.
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Less stress, but there's not necessarily a plan in place and
16:06
that's what I'm hearing from you, is this positive spin on
16:09
things. No, no, it's not a spin.
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Because a spin sounds like here's the real thing and we're
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going to, you know, turn it around to make it look like
16:18
something other there. There's no right.
16:20
You know, in the proverbial glass, half empty, it's also
16:23
half full. That's not a spin.
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That's right. You know, you might see me as
16:28
gullible. From my perspective, I'm
16:30
trusting. It's not a spin on it.
16:32
I may see you as inconsistent, You see yourself as flexible.
16:38
So everything can be understood in many ways, and the point that
16:42
people have to realize is by not choosing but falling into a
16:48
single minded way of seeing things, then they're vulnerable
16:51
to whatever follows from that understanding.
16:54
They have to realize that by and large.
16:59
Our emotions or choices. Our emotions follow from the
17:02
frames we choose. So if I'm going to see you as
17:06
inconsistent, I'm not going to care about you, want to spend
17:09
time with you, whatever. If I see you as flexible, then
17:13
you become very appealing to me. If you see me as impulsive, you
17:17
might not want to have anything to do with me.
17:20
But if you see me as spontaneous, then you're going
17:22
to seek me out. The very different behaviors
17:26
follow from just a change of the frame, and most of us have been
17:31
taught to learn the world in the same way we learn that one and
17:35
one is 2. Someone just told us and we
17:37
assumed that was it. There are no alternatives, or we
17:41
memorized it in school. Whatever the case is, we're
17:46
holding the world still when it's better for us to understand
17:52
that it's naturally varying. Which provides all sorts of
17:56
opportunities for us. Yeah, yeah.
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And if I'm hearing everything and kind of taking this in as an
18:02
integration of of what it means for people who are feeling
18:05
stressed and overwhelmed in the in the world right now more than
18:08
ever probably is this idea of it's not necessarily achieving a
18:13
work life balance, it's not necessarily having hope or these
18:16
these changes, but it's the work life integration and reframing
18:21
of how I can see things and choosing.
18:24
In the moment what I can maybe focus on it's that is positive
18:29
or or taking the time for myself that I know I need potentially
18:32
if instead of being in that fight or flight or stress.
18:35
Zone, right. I mean, as far as the work life
18:38
balance, what that consists of is, you know, in a gross way
18:44
that work is hard and stressful and home life, you know.
18:49
Hopefully it is less so. Hopefully, yes.
18:52
I don't think people should accept work as stressful.
18:57
I don't think that they should go.
19:00
They should make it fun. Everything is fun.
19:03
And there's this wonderful little video that people should
19:05
watch. It's called Piano Stairs.
19:08
I think it was someplace in Scandinavia.
19:10
Do you know it? I'll put it in the show notes.
19:12
I don't think so. Let me tell you.
19:14
So they're in the subway and you have an escalator right next to
19:19
stairs. And virtually everybody takes
19:22
the escalator so that it goes on.
19:24
You see people taking the escalator.
19:26
Now what they do is they lay down on the stairs a piano
19:30
keyboard. So as you walk up the stairs,
19:33
you're making noise. Do, do, do, do, do.
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OK, now, because it's such fun, everybody is taking the stairs.
19:41
All right, you know, so things that were arduous could become
19:45
fun. You don't need to wait for
19:47
somebody to put the keyboard down there.
19:49
You can just, you know, sing if you're going up the stand
19:52
yourself. You know that when you're if
19:55
you're doing, if I'm at your house and you make me dinner,
19:58
which I hope will happen sometimes.
20:00
So. And this all passes.
20:01
You're invited. I'm going to, you know,
20:04
volunteer and almost insist on doing the dishes.
20:07
Doing somebody else's dishes is often fun.
20:11
So why is it doing your own dishes isn't fun?
20:14
Really. Just that.
20:14
What I'm saying yeah, you know So what I'm.
20:18
Yeah, what I'm what I'm hearing too.
20:20
You want to. Speak Why should I let you
20:21
speak? The fact that it's John podcast
20:24
is hard. I got something to say.
20:25
Hang on. A second.
20:26
You'll get it back, no. Well what I'm hearing is this is
20:29
like the play in in what you do do.
20:32
Whether it's you know going up an awesome staircase with with
20:35
the sound already from up keyboard but but making it fun,
20:38
making it playful where we can learn and be in the moment
20:42
because we're not in that head zone of oh I got to do this or
20:45
that and the next thing and that's what I wanted to share
20:48
and that I am reminded of how powerful that can be and we've
20:51
lost that. I think in the work world a lot,
20:53
even where I work like #1 place to work basically at Google and
20:58
and people are super stressed out there too.
21:00
So it's like it's got to be about your attitude or or what
21:02
you can do in a woman and. Well, it's interesting that, you
21:06
know, I've gotten calls from media for, gosh, for many, many
21:10
years saying there's so much information out there.
21:13
How are people able to cope? Because that's part of the
21:16
reason that people are so stressed at work.
21:19
And I make them aware that there really, there's no more
21:22
information now than there ever was.
21:25
What is different is people thinking that their performance
21:30
will be greatly improved. If they take in more
21:34
information. The interesting thing, Rachel,
21:36
is I haven't been able to find any evidence for that, that more
21:41
information actually improves whatever you're doing.
21:45
Now, certainly if you have no information, you don't even have
21:48
to start whatever it is. But thinking mindfully about
21:53
what you're doing as you're doing it is probably going to
21:57
yield greater benefits. Then just mindlessly gathering
22:01
more and more data and so if you said you have enough right now
22:07
to do it whatever the IT is, then okay, That removes part of
22:12
the burden. And if in doing it you, you
22:16
know, you make it fun, that doesn't mean it can't be a
22:19
serious task. But it, you know, I was with my
22:22
grandkids the other day and we're driving and.
22:25
What? They're pretty fun grandkids.
22:27
They're great. Five year old twins, beautiful.
22:30
Anyway, and so again, so I said, OK, what color is the next
22:34
oncoming car going to be? And so, you know, I know that
22:39
more cars are black, so of course I'm going to win the
22:41
game, but you're gonna totally had those.
22:43
Then I vary black, black, black, but it it was a very simple way
22:49
to change this drive. Into something that even I was
22:53
enjoying. I want to play that game,
22:55
actually now because I I mean, I'm already in.
22:59
Like, I can see. Yeah, just leaving that spark of
23:01
like, ooh, that sounds cool. So I get.
23:03
It a long time ago where we had people doing the task where they
23:08
did it as if it was work or as if it were play and but they did
23:12
the exact same task. Now, oddly, the task was reading
23:16
cartoons, reading cartoons, reading the cartoons.
23:19
Like in a newspaper. Like the funnies.
23:21
No, we just gave them, you know, and evaluating how funny they
23:27
thought it was. So this was the task.
23:30
It should have been fun in and of itself, but because it was
23:33
work, they didn't enjoy it. Their minds wandered.
23:36
They wanted to be paid more for doing it, you know, and so on.
23:40
So we can take things that are fun and make them into work,
23:44
things that are work, and make them into fun.
23:46
I think that. You know, if I'm not enjoying
23:50
what I'm doing, by and large, I'm not going to do it.
23:54
Life is too short. And that doesn't mean that you
23:57
have to flit around from one activity to the other that you
24:00
can take even, you know, So I did the study that you might
24:05
know of with chambermaids. So chambermaids were on my mind
24:09
every time I talk about the study.
24:11
And I know that most of you are listening to say, oh gosh,
24:14
wouldn't that be a boring occupation?
24:18
And I say, no, everything can be fun.
24:21
So what are they doing? They're making beds all day
24:23
long, but they're making beds that strangers slept then.
24:27
And those sheets are like a Dimestar novel.
24:30
Those sheets will tell you if you know how to read them, how
24:35
many people were in that bed and what they did and how well they
24:38
slept and how well they enjoyed it, you know, whatever physical
24:43
activities they're engaged in. It's all there in the sheets,
24:46
but for most of us, it's just a sheet.
24:49
You know, it's like one in one is 2.
24:50
There's no need to pay any attention.
24:53
So what we've done in our lives is try to make things simple by
24:58
labeling them and so on. And then we get to the point
25:02
where, well, we don't know how to amuse ourselves because it's
25:06
just making a bed, but no everything.
25:10
Is potentially interesting. Yeah.
25:12
And and I agreed and I and you're reminding me of just how
25:16
important that is every day and and if I may, I know you were
25:19
sharing earlier you've had a really busy day you've done a
25:22
ton of things already you're you're on the East Coast time
25:25
and so how do you personally do that for yourself.
25:28
Well, I'm curious what you do besides counting the cars, yeah?
25:31
No, it's interesting. It's interesting because one of
25:35
my students is doing the study with this where if you, your
25:39
audience can't see me, but in hearing me, you may get a sense
25:42
of this that I start off down here, imagine wherever down here
25:46
is and as you know, as the conversation goes or my lectures
25:51
go, I get more and more engaged, more and more excited.
25:55
So rather than wearing down. I become energized.
26:01
You both, you go up. Exactly and exactly.
26:05
And so how do you do that? No, no.
26:07
So do you just, like notice your modulation do?
26:11
It's just whatever I'm talking about, I am.
26:14
It's real. You know, I'm not just
26:17
repeating. Even if I say something I've
26:19
said 1000 times, as I'm saying it, it feels brand new.
26:24
And and as I've said that the data are clear that mindfulness
26:29
is energy beginning, not consuming and that most fatigue,
26:38
you know, is really a function of boredom.
26:41
So, you know, we did this, this study and and some of these are
26:44
very simple. Let me give the the simplest
26:46
version of this If we tell people to do 100 jumping jacks
26:52
and tell us when they get tired. They tend to get tired around 67
26:59
alright 2/3 of the way through. If we tell people to do 200
27:05
jumping jacks, they get tired at 134.
27:10
Wait when you tell them to do how many?
27:12
What it was? That one, you're doing 100
27:14
jumping jacks, but. You're going to get tired around
27:17
2/3 of the way. So if we tell other people now
27:22
do 200 jumping jacks, twice as many, they still get tired
27:27
around 2/3 of the way through, but they're they're doing much
27:30
more. So what I'm suggesting is that
27:32
when we begin a task, we sort of overlay it with a beginning,
27:37
middle, and end. And you know, around the middle.
27:42
We start getting tired and then eventually we work ourselves
27:46
where we just have to give it up.
27:49
Yeah, Frank Beach did this study.
27:50
I think it was fifties, 40s, I don't know, ages ago with rats.
27:56
Wonderful little study. So we'd have a boy rat and a
27:59
girl rat copulate and then the boy rat is tired, so he there's
28:04
a refractory period, however, if right after he copulates with
28:11
one little girl rat. They introduce another little
28:15
girl Rat. So it's a different scenario, a
28:17
different context. He starts all over again.
28:20
That's a smart. Rat, yes, but he doesn't need
28:24
the rat. And the point is that much of
28:28
fatigue is a psychological concept, so if you see things as
28:33
the same, it's always the same. Then you get exhausted with the
28:37
sameness, and then you need to break out of it if you're
28:41
noticing differences. And everything is always
28:44
changing then it's like chain, you know you're changing in some
28:48
sense the context every few minutes and it just gets more
28:52
and more exciting. Yeah.
28:54
I think that is such a like looping it all into your act of
28:58
noticing concepts of we we have to create the choice I'm
29:03
hearing, we have to create the choice to choose different and
29:06
newness, but also just the noticing is so important.
29:10
And the complacency or the boredom and all of that is like
29:13
how we get sucked into those older maybe not so exciting
29:16
patterns of that we grow up with or we know about.
29:19
Because that's what I think a lot of folks in the world do.
29:23
But we can do differently whether you're the smart rat
29:27
doing this thing or you know you think you can do more jumping
29:31
jacks. It reminds me of a I had this a
29:33
similar experience in my training and in my emotional
29:36
intelligence training with the right foundation where I was
29:39
asked to do pushups and then we were we kept getting asked and
29:43
like it was kind of that same concept because we always were
29:45
doing more than you thought but we didn't know we were doing
29:47
that. It was in the moment kind of
29:49
experiment. I did like 200 push ups and
29:52
craziness and people were like yelling and crying and but we
29:54
did it because you could you could choose differently.
29:56
So my guess is it's all about the like, the framing in our
29:59
minds that we need to help us with that too.
30:02
No, people have no idea. How much they can do with
30:07
anything that the world has imposed all sorts of limits that
30:13
that's what my research is basically about smashing and
30:18
showing that those limits are are a fiction and you smash
30:22
those limits that's that's actually I think accurate.
30:25
And that, yeah, you're kind of like just pulling the rug out
30:29
from everyone's feet because that's what isn't.
30:31
That's what's expected is these limits.
30:33
And then you're like, hang on a second.
30:35
These year old guys are like moving around like they're 30 or
30:37
you know the like all of those. That's right.
30:39
That's the counterclockwise study.
30:41
Yeah, the but we have lots of new research.
30:45
Let me end this with this on chronic illnesses.
30:49
So most people when you you're told you have a chronic illness
30:53
and we're doing it with COVID now, but we don't have the data
30:56
yet. But we have the data with
30:58
multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's. We're gaining data with stroke.
31:03
MC And mild cognitive impairment, chronic pain,
31:07
arthritis and lots of big heavies, stress and depression
31:11
as well. OK, So what is it that we're
31:13
doing? So you get a diagnosis and
31:16
people then think that whatever they have is going to stay the
31:21
same or it's just going to get worse.
31:24
And that's the the mindlessness that operates with respect to
31:27
the health world. Now nothing stays the same.
31:30
We've already said that. Everything is always changing.
31:34
Sometimes it's a little better, sometimes it's a little worse.
31:37
Well, with illness, what happens is we tend to only notice when
31:43
it gets worse. The key to health, oddly, is
31:48
noticing when it gets better. OK.
31:51
So what we do is we call people throughout the day, throughout
31:56
the week and sometimes it's two weeks and we simply ask them how
31:59
do you feel now? And is it better or worse than
32:03
it was before? And why?
32:05
Well, three things happen. The 1st is that people tend to
32:09
think they have the symptoms all the time.
32:11
And now they say they don't have the symptoms all the time.
32:14
So let's say, Rachel, you're stressed and you think you're
32:17
stressed all the time. Well, no one is anything all the
32:21
time. So now I call you and you know
32:24
right now turns out you're not stressed.
32:27
So you immediately feel better because you went from thinking
32:30
stressed all the time to, well, not all the time.
32:33
Then you start looking around for, well, why am I not stressed
32:37
Now? He's ah, because you're talking
32:39
to your old friend Ellen Langer. OK, So what that means is we
32:44
have to speak more often. The point is that if you're if
32:51
you ask the question why, it initiates A mindful search.
32:55
And as I've said now several times, that mindfulness in
32:58
general is good for your health. And then finally, if you're
33:02
looking for a solution, you're much more likely to find it.
33:06
So we have illnesses where the medical world says there is no
33:10
control, so you don't bother looking for it, and in fact all
33:17
of the diseases I've said. Are we're able to ameliorate the
33:22
symptoms with this? And the main take away for
33:25
people is they didn't know before, They don't know now.
33:30
Everything is always changing. Everything looks different from
33:34
different perspectives. Nobody knows you're not less
33:39
smart than the next person. Nobody knows.
33:42
Some people think they know, but they're wrong.
33:44
You can't know because. It's always changing.
33:47
So the attitude you want to assume is one of confidence but
33:53
uncertainty. And then everything becomes an
33:57
adventure. You don't have to practice
34:00
anything. You just as soon as you know
34:03
that you don't know it, because it's not the same, you're
34:06
naturally going to look at it. If you came to visit me right
34:09
now, I'm in my house in Provincetown.
34:12
You've probably never been to Provincetown.
34:14
I win when I was in middle school.
34:17
You don't remember much about knowledge, OK?
34:20
So if you came to visit me, you wouldn't have to engage in any
34:23
practice. You just expect that you're not
34:25
going to know that things are going to be new.
34:28
And then you would notice. And then, as I said, that act of
34:31
noticing is on energizing. And enlivening and turns out to
34:38
be important for our health, Yes.
34:42
And like Mic Drop, I don't think I could say it better than that.
34:46
And yeah, it's so important to know that we can create that for
34:51
ourselves. You don't have to take a long
34:52
trip or check out or. It's about being in the moment
34:56
to actively notice and and cultivate that for ourselves.
35:00
So great, great way to end our conversation.
35:04
I have one last question for you, Ellen.
35:06
And I know what do you do to to destress and unwind.
35:10
I can see this lovely painting behind you.
35:13
I know there's something there, and your passions, but tell us
35:16
what? You do.
35:17
Well, I don't have to destress because I don't get stressed in
35:20
the 1st place. I'm human.
35:22
It doesn't mean that I've never experienced stress.
35:25
You're actively noticing all the time how could.
35:26
You possibly be stressed but. I I started to paint when I was
35:32
50 last week. No, that I'm 73 right now.
35:36
And it's just great fun. And what would happen is I would
35:41
paint and something would happen and then I'd want to know is it
35:45
more generally true or just true for me?
35:48
So then I'd go back and be a psychologist and do some
35:50
research and go back and forth. And I wrote about all of this in
35:54
my book On Becoming an Artist, which is really about
35:57
interpersonal mindfulness. That's great.
36:00
The the one book that you probably would have been good to
36:04
mention for people is the 25 year anniversary edition of
36:08
Mindfulness. So the book that really started
36:11
a lot of this and in it it the the it's a general take.
36:18
It tells you exactly what mindfulness is.
36:20
Lots of research, but research that's related to relationships,
36:24
health, business, and. In general, it's it's.
36:31
It's an easy read, because why shouldn't it be?
36:34
Yeah, well, you have an updated introduction to that.
36:36
I know, I've read it, and it's about just how this has changed
36:39
in the last 25 years since you originally wrote it with your
36:42
studies. And there's a lot of great
36:44
studies that you've cited in there, too.
36:46
It's a wonderful introduction to your work, I think.
36:48
Yeah, thank you. I mean, I can take a minute if
36:51
you want and tell people you know.
36:53
So aside from this attention to symptom variability, which is a
36:57
fancy way of saying being mindful, lots of the new work is
37:03
a further test of this mind body unity idea which simply says
37:07
mind, body, these are just words.
37:09
Put them back together and then wherever you put the mind,
37:13
you're necessarily putting the body.
37:15
So the original study was the counterclockwise study to which
37:18
you referred earlier, where we took old men to a timeless
37:22
retreat and had them live as if they were the younger selves.
37:26
The study is now well known, so I won't go through it.
37:28
I can say it's well known because if you watch, I don't
37:32
know which season it is, it's The Simpsons Go to Havana.
37:35
They actually describe. I think it's either Season 8.
37:40
Episode 27 Episode 2015 Whatever and any Google Simpsons go to
37:47
Havana. But the more recent versions of
37:50
these, So we have people, you're in a sleep lab and you wake up
37:54
and you look at the clock and the clock says you got two hours
37:58
more sleep than you got, or two hours fewer or the amount of
38:01
sleep you actually got. And it turns out biological and
38:04
cognitive functioning follows perceived sleep.
38:08
Not the actual sleeve we have. Diabetics is the last one.
38:12
I'll tell you diabetics who they come in and they're going to
38:16
play computer games and they're told that change the game you're
38:21
playing every 15 minutes or so. That's just to ensure that
38:24
they'll look at the clock. And again, now the clock is
38:27
going twice as fast as real time, half as fast as real time
38:32
or real time. And what happens is blood sugar
38:35
level follows perceived time. Not actual time.
38:40
So the control we have over our health and wellbeing just far
38:45
exceeds what most people take to be real.
38:49
And it's important to recognize that especially in these times
38:54
of COVID, because there are many things that one can do for their
38:59
health and what we should be doing is all the right things as
39:04
being mindful is going to be a protective factor.
39:07
To keep you well, make it less likely that you get it.
39:11
If you do get it, then practicing this attention to
39:15
symptom variability is likely to reduce, if not totally
39:21
eliminate, the symptoms. At any rate, clearly, I believe
39:25
that the answer to almost all ills is to be more mindful.
39:29
When you're more mindful, you're healthier you your relationships
39:34
are better if people see you as charismatic.
39:37
It leaves its imprint on what you do. 40 years of research.
39:42
A lot of time. 40 years. You're you are no doubt, yes,
39:45
have so much to back up what you're saying right now.
39:48
And thank you so much for sharing your critical work in
39:52
the world. Ellen, I'm so grateful for you
39:55
to join us on the podcast today. I love what you're sharing, and
39:59
I can't wait to see what else you can come up with.
40:02
Thank you so much. All right, Rachel.
40:04
My pleasure. You stay well.
40:06
Thank you. You too.
40:08
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