>> Hi, I'm Lewis Howes, New York Times best-selling author and entrepreneur, and welcome to "The School of Greatness," where we interview the most influential minds in the world to inspire you to live your best life today.

In this episode, Dr.

Ellen Langer, who made history as the first woman to be tenured in psychology at Harvard University, shows that our thoughts can influence our physical well-being, from weight loss to wound healing.

We dive into her fascinating findings and her bold theory of mind-body unity.

I'm so glad that you're here today.

Now let's dive in and let the class begin.

♪♪ ♪♪ A lot of people don't believe that you can change your body and the pain within your body with your mind and your thoughts, and you are talking about, specifically in this book, that you can.

And I'm curious, if someone is saying this is just a bunch of crap -- you know, "I don't believe any of this.

I only believe that, you know, I have to take a pill myself to heal my body," what would you say to that?

>> I'd say I feel sorry for you because you're missing out on a great opportunity to take care of yourself.

It's interesting that we have a notion of mind, and body as separate, and that's ruled for so long.

That's why people think, you know, the only way you can heal yourself is by taking some medication.

There's no reason to have a mind and body as separate.

They're just words.

And lots of this book is based on the idea of putting them back together, even just for useful purposes.

Right?

And if you have a mind and body and they're one thing, then wherever you're putting the mind, you're necessarily putting the body.

And so now I have decades worth of research showing that we can put the mind in very unusual places, take the measurements from the body, and, indeed, the effects are clear.

>> Wow.

>> I think that for this person, the non-believer, you might ask them if they've ever seen -- this may be off-color or whatever -- somebody regurgitating on the side of the road, and how did they end up feeling?

Because many people need to vomit just by watching somebody else.

Nothing is happening to them.

Maybe a less colorful example and better is, you're walking down the street and a leaf blows in your face.

You're startled by it.

Just a leaf.

But you can feel the changes in your body.

You know, my first experience with this mind-body unity was many, many years ago.

So, I was married when I was very young, and we went to Paris on our honeymoon.

And I was now 18, 19 going on 30.

So had to be very sophisticated.

And we're in this restaurant, and on the menu was this mixed grill that I ordered, and on the plate came pancreas.

So I said to my then husband, "Which of these is the pancreas?"

He points, "That one."

So I eat everything else.

And now comes the moment of truth.

I have to eat it because after all, I'm married.

>> Wow.

>> I don't know how that followed, but it seemed to at the time.

So I start eating, and I'm literally getting sick.

He starts laughing.

I say, "Why are you laughing?"

He said, "Because that's chicken."

You ate the pancreas a long time ago.

>> Oh, man.

>> All right.

So I was thinking myself ill.

>> Interesting.

>> All of the research supports that.

You know, it's interesting.

Again, I've thought of this just the other day.

I might even have it in the book and I've forgotten it.

But I was in Missouri several decades ago, and a friend dragged me to an iridologist.

And, you know, I'm up for anything.

I mean, I'll go to, you know... I went to see this iridologist who looked in my eyes, and she says I have problems with my gallbladder.

>> Mm.

>> Okay, fine.

>> Just by looking in your eyes.

>> Okay.

So the game's over.

And then, eventually, I go to the doctor, and lo and behold, I had a gallstone.

>> Really?

>> Yeah.

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

>> No, no, no, no.

That's a good question.

I don't want to go there.

I don't know how it happened.

Here, the point for me was, by looking in my eye, you know, she knew there was something in other parts of my body that were not right.

And, you know, what people don't realize is that every thought -- If I lift my arm, my whole body is different.

Different in tiny ways that we haven't been able to measure.

But it's all connected.

And which, in some sense, lends more credence to this whole idea of mind-body unity.

And the first study we did was a study where we took old men to a retreat that we had retrofitted to 20 years earlier.

>> Right.

What was this called again?

>> We called it the counter-clockwise study.

>> Yes.

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

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

>> Yeah.

Even older.

80s, 90s.

>> But now, remember, that was quite a while ago.

>> Okay.

>> You know, that was when 70 was the new 90 or even 100 or whatever.

I mean, they were really old.

>> Yeah.

Like, walkers, canes.

>> They get younger as I get older.

>> Right, right, right.

>> As I recall.

>> So they're in walkers, they're in canes.

They're immobile.

They're very slow.

>> Well, actually, you know, that when I was interviewing people to do the study -- So their adult daughter would typically bring them to the lab, and I see them tottering down the hall.

And at one point I said to myself, "Why am I doing this?

I don't know if they're going to live through the day."

>> Wow.

>> No less be able to live for the week.

You know, it was -- it was a -- I took on something that only the younger me would have considered taking on.

You know, I was in charge of their entire lives, these several, you know, seven men, old men.

Every aspect of their lives for a week.

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

Now they were gonna live for a week as if they're their younger selves.

So they'll be talking about current events, things from the past as if they're just unfolding.

and other things, as well.

>> Like they would have newspapers from 30 years prior.

>> Everything, exactly.

And they were making their own meals, and they would correct each other.

So if you would say "was," you know, somebody would tell you "is" because the past was now the present for them.

>> Wow.

And they were listening to older music and watching older movies and everything.

>> I could spend the whole time with you.

I know that study.

So you want me to give more details, just tell me.

But let me tell you the results because those were amazing.

So they lived as their younger selves for a week.

Without any medical intervention, their vision improved, their hearing improved, their memory, their strength, and they looked noticeably younger.

And I must tell you that, almost from the beginning, the changes were palpable.

You know, and most people accepted the findings.

There were a couple of people said, "You can't make people younger."

And I'm not saying that, chronologically, we're changing your age, but it is the case that we associate certain ways of being with certain times in our lives, and that these men had -- were living their lives now very dependent on their adult daughter, presuming that they can't do many of the things that they used to do, and they were wrong.

And so that set the stage for a host of studies, most of which -- well, all of them, actually, to date, are in "The Mindful Body."

>> That's fascinating.

What would you say are -- You know, that study was a while ago, right?

>> Yeah.

No, that was -- Let's see.

We designed it in 1979.

>> Wow.

>> Yeah, a long time -- before you were born.

>> Yeah.

Wow.

So, what would you say, in the last 44 years, I guess, what is the new -- >> Has the world changed?

Yeah.

>> I mean, what are the new studies or research that you've done to show how to either reverse aging or to, I guess, create longer aging, in the biological sense?

>> Well, remember, it's all one, mind and body.

So we don't have a psychological as opposed to biological.

>> So it's both -- it's the mind and the body.

>> But I thought you were asking me, so I'm gonna answer the question I thought you were gonna ask, not the one that you did, right?

Which was how has the world changed?

Because that's a lot of years.

And way back at the beginning, the medical model believed that psychology was more or less irrelevant.

All right.

Now, I'm sure everybody thought it was nice to be happy, but that wasn't going to affect your physical health.

Now that's changed, and now what most people believe is a biosocial model.

So these things like stress and so on matter, but they don't go nearly as far.

And I'm saying, down the road, psychology will be the most important aspect of your well-being.

So that's a change that's come about slowly.

Now, for me, personally, once we had those data, I did several studies where we simply make elderly people -- Every time I say the word "elderly," I stop, now being older myself.

But we make seniors more mindful, and they live longer.

So it's important for you to know that mindfulness, as I study it, has nothing to do with meditation.

Meditation is fine.

It's just different, okay?

When you meditate, you take yourself out of the world, and you say your mantra to yourself over and over.

Mindfulness, as I study it, couldn't be more in the world, that what you're doing is not a practice, it's a way of being.

You actively notice new things about the things you thought you knew, you come to see you didn't know them at all, and then your mind naturally goes to them.

Now, if we start off with the realization that everything is changing, everything looks different from different perspectives, the idea of being certain of anything becomes silly because you can't know.

It's not what it was the last time you looked.

And if you could adopt just one mindset -- it's the only one I believe is good for you -- that uncertainty is the rule, not the exception, then you know you don't know, so then you tune in.

The problem is, our parents, our schools, the media, virtually everything is trying to teach us absolutes.

And when you think you know something, you don't pay any attention.

So I'll do what I do, probably too frequently.

Now, let me ask you a simple question.

This is the one that everybody knows.

How much is one plus one?

>> Two.

>> Okay.

And that's what everybody says.

>> I feel like this is a trick question.

>> Well, it is, though, because one plus one isn't always two, that if you are adding one wad of chewing gum, plus one wad of chewing gum, one plus one is one.

If you add one pile of laundry, plus one pile of laundry, one plus one is one.

You had one cloud plus one cloud.

one plus one is one.

In the real world, one plus one probably doesn't equal two as or more often as it does.

So now look at the difference.

Somebody -- it's unlikely, but after we finish, somebody comes over to you and says, "How much is one plus one?"

you're not going to mindlessly say, "Two."

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

It could be two."

>> Interesting.

It's all context.

>> Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Everything changes.

And our minds tend to hold things still.

We think we know.

We want to know, because we think that gives us control.

But since things are changing, you don't want your mind to hold it still while, in fact, it's changing, because then you're giving up control that you otherwise would have.

>> Wow.

This is fascinating stuff.

Now I'm curious about, you know, chronic health, thinking our way to chronic health.

This is the subtitle of your book, "The Mindful Body."

You say we can think our way to chronic health.

>> Yeah.

Well, you know, the reason I want to use the term "chronic," just because it's a little startling, because we only think of chronic illness.

But people tend to assume that as you get older, you're going to fall apart, you're going to get sick.

And sickness and aging are not the same thing.

One can live their entire life without illness.

And the way to live one's life is essentially the same when you're 10 years old or when you're 80 years old.

Just by knowing you don't know and tuning in.

Now, people don't like not knowing because they think you can know.

And what I'm here to tell everybody is, you can't know, so what you need to do to live the kind of life that I'm suggesting is be confident and uncertain.

All right?

If you think you should know, then you pretend.

But you can't know.

Now, that makes everything possible.

Now, I was at this horse event many years ago.

And after this, I'm going to use only new stories.

>> Okay.

>> And this man asked me if I'd watch his horse for him because he was going to get his horse a hot dog.

Well, as you might know from the credentials you read, I was an A+ student, so I knew as well as anyone in this world, that's ridiculous.

Horses are herbivorous.

They don't eat meat.

He came back with the hot dog, and the horse ate it.

>> Right.

>> And at that moment, I realized everything I thought I knew could be wrong.

Now, for me, that was actually exciting, because that meant that everything was possible.

All of those things that we were taught are impossible, not to strive for, actually became available in a whole different way.

>> Wow.

>> And the next step in the reasoning for me was to see that it recognized that experiments, science -- science give us our facts mostly, right?

But that science only gives us probabilities.

There's no experiment that gives you anything absolute.

So it's sort of most horses, under the conditions that were tested, didn't eat the meat, which is very different from all horses never eat meat.

>> Right.

>> You know, and, um... And it's very important for one's health because you have to realize that any information you're given is a best guess.

Now, it's an educated guess, but it's still not an absolute.

>> This is fascinating because what I heard you say a moment ago is that if you want to live till you're 80 or 90 or 100 without illness or disease, think like a 10-year-old, is kind of what I heard you say.

>> Well, what I'm saying is, the way of thinking should be no different, which is, life is exciting when you address it as brand-new, when you're not afraid of trying new things.

When you recognize that all of the stops you've put on yourself were just decisions that some other people made, and there's no reason not to do whatever it is you want to do.

You don't want to hurt anybody.

>> Sure, sure, sure.

>> You know, for people to say, "You're too old to play tennis," or, "You're too old to --" I don't know.

What are people to -- I don't pay any attention to it, so I can't generate the instances.

But, you know, one of the earlier titles of the book was "Who Says So?"

And I think that that's a refrain that people should, you know... And that's where they're similar not to 10-year-olds but I think 2- or 3-year-olds.

Yeah, "Who says so?"

>> Right, right, right.

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

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

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

>> People have asked me that.

It's, you know... I don't know if it's my being dense or what it is that it's hard for me to answer.

I know there was something that I came to many years ago that I think was far more important to me than most people who read about what I say in this regard, but it's still -- Let me share that with you, which is the simple idea that behavior makes sense from the actor's perspective, or else the actor wouldn't do it.

Now, what that means is, when you see me, let's say, as gullible.

I'm not intending to be gullible.

What is it I'm intending?

Well, I'm trusting.

When I see you as inconsistent, you don't intend to be inconsistent.

What you're being is flexible.

And it turns out for every single negative description, there's an equally strong but oppositely valenced -- For every positive, there's a negative.

Every negative... Now, what that means is, you know, to make it a little more sensible, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, "Today I'm going to be gullible, obnoxious, sloppy."

I mean, you know, whatever we call people.

So what is it that they're intending?

People don't realize that it made sense to them because they often engage in the action mindlessly.

So they don't know why they're doing what they're doing.

So if you say to me, "Ellen, you are so gullible," which I am, and now I look back at my behavior the way you're -- "Oh, my God.

I can't believe that."

And I'm not going to be gullible anymore.

And, of course, it's going to fail because, going forward, I'm not being gullible, I'm being trusting.

So the point is, if you want to get someone to change, you have to address the behavior from the perspective in which they're engaging in.

You want me to stop being gullible, you have to teach me to stop being trusting.

And my guess is then you wouldn't want to.

So you can see how life would unfold very differently.

Because as far as I can see, people are constantly evaluating each other, judging themselves, foregoing pleasures for fear of what somebody else might say and so on.

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

>> Mindlessness.

>> Really?

>> Oh, yes.

I think that, um... I would say virtually all -- I probably even mean all but be a little safer.

All of our problems are the direct or indirect consequence of mindlessness, whether it's personal, interpersonal, global.

>> What is mindlessness to you?

>> Mindlessness is that responding to the world based on these absolutes where you think you know.

You're like an automaton, you know?

So what happens is, when you learn something, then you keep doing it.

Okay.

So you first learn it, you can be doing it mindfully, but, you know, now you know how to do it.

You do it the same way over and over again.

But the world is changing, and very often you come up short.

And an example I used to use a lot is -- And this isn't good for California.

The last time I used it and was going to not use it again was in India, where it's also not good.

It depends on snow.

>> Okay.

>> Put that aside.

But if you're driving in snow, and the car starts to skid, and you ask somebody older than you, unless you were taught by that older person, "What do you do when you're driving on ice?"

And most people will say, "You slowly pump the brake and turn into the skid."

That made sense when you first learned it.

However -- And you keep doing that.

But now there are anti-lock brakes, and the way you stop a car on ice is you firmly hit the brake.

Okay.

So what you learn for safety's sake is now unsafe.

So the point is, once you think you know, you freeze everything while things are actually changing.

So you're not able to avoid the danger that hasn't yet arisen, you can't take advantage of the benefits that are right in front of you because you just don't see it.

Most of us are using yesterday's solutions to solve today's problems.

Now, you know, people are afraid to just let things be because they think there are good things and bad things, and I have to jump over fences or kill people, do whatever I have to do, to get those good things and to avoid the bad.

But things in and of themselves are neither good nor bad.

And when you fully recognize that, then, you know... If this interview goes well, wonderful.

If this interview doesn't -- wonderful.

It doesn't matter.

There'll be other reasons.

You know, if it doesn't go well, then that will free up some time in some fashion.

I'll have learned something that will make the other one -- the next one, you know, even bigger and what have you.

Do you see what I'm saying?

You know, the idea -- people, by believing there are things that are good and things that are bad, set themselves up for all sorts of stress, for example.

>> So when there's things happening in the world in the last four years with -- >> Terrible.

>> Horrible things happening, wars and COVID and all these different things, how do you interpret these events... >> Yeah.

No, no.

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

>> No, it's a very important question, and I don't know that I have the right answer.

I would say, though, that telling yourself that the world is falling apart, that we're on our way to a dictatorship, whatever things that are going to keep you up at night, is not serving any purpose.

So do something about it.

Whether that means finding places to donate money, to do some work, to elect the officials that have the same views as you, and so on.

But if you're doing nothing but worrying, worrying is a waste of time.

You know, I have a few one-liners about worrying.

The first one is, you should ask yourself -- which is not the case here -- is it a tragedy or an inconvenience?

Now you're talking about potential tragedies, but most of the things we worry about are just inconveniences.

Right.

And most of the things we worry about never happen.

And if you reflect on the last time you worried and how you dealt with and you saw it didn't even happen, you'd be more persuaded of that.

The way to deal with stress, I think, is, um, stress relies on two things.

It relies on an assumption that something is going to happen, and that when it happens, it's going to be awful.

Well, the first you can't predict.

And this is very hard for people to accept that predictability is an illusion.

You can post it, you can look back.

You know, let me make this -- use an example.

Let's say you're at a party, and we see Tom and Susie fighting.

And I said to you, "Are they gonna get divorced?"

You say, "How do I know?

", right?

Sometimes people fight.

Well, let's say we don't have that conversation.

So you see Tom and Susie fighting.

Two weeks later, you're told, you know, Tom and Susie are getting a divorce, I knew it.

You should have seen the way they went at each other at the party.

All right.

You can't predict.

You can't predict.

You can predict for a group that if you were to start 100 Mercedes and you turn the key, most of them will start, not necessarily all of them, and that would be more than if you were in some used car lot.

>> Sure.

>> But you can't predict the individual case.

And we're all individuals.

And when it comes to our health, you know, we really care more about how the medicine is going to go down for us personally.

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

>> Really?

>> Over and above diet, genetics, even treatment.

It's a very big statement.

And that stress, though, is psychological, right?

Events don't cause stress.

What causes stress are the views you take of the event?

So if you open it up and you're more mindful, and if you said to yourself, um, rather than this thing is going to be awful, give yourself five reasons why it might actually be an advantage.

So now it could be awful, it could be advantageous.

You're immediately somewhat relaxed.

But I say go the next step.

Let's assume it does happen.

What are the advantages?

>> The worst-case scenario.

>> And what are the advantages.

And so then, when you see, you know you'll be able to deal with whatever happens, then you're less worried about them.

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

You know, I have an acronym that I use in teaching at the end of my classes.

It's called GLADO -- G-L-A-D-O.

So it's my recipe for a happy life.

Be generous, loving, authentic, direct and open.

And each of these leads to the other, and all of them follow from being more mindful.

>> Oh, I love that -- GLADO.

Generous, loving, authentic, direct, and open.

I want to acknowledge you, Ellen, for the contribution you continue to make on society, on humanity, and the world through taking the time to craft these social experiments that you do and giving us more inspiration and more hope.

We hope you enjoyed this episode and found it valuable.

Stay tuned for more from "The School of Greatness," coming soon on public television.

Again, I'm Lewis Howes, and if no one has told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

Now it's time to go out there and do something great.

If you'd like to continue on the journey of greatness with me, please check out my website, lewishowes.com, where you'll find over 1,000 episodes of "The School of Greatness" show, as well as tools and resources to support you in living your best life.

>> The online course, Find Your Greatness, is available for $19.

Drawn from the lessons Lewis Howes shares in "The School of Greatness," this interactive course will guide you through a step-by-step process to discover your strengths, connect to your passion,and purpose, and help create your own blueprint for greatness.

To order, go to lewishowes.com/tv.

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