08 September 2009
Reviewing Reviewers--Counterclockwise
)Published on September 8th, 2009 @ 05:37:22 pm, using 234 words, 114 views
I’m sure it’s not as easy as this review of Ellen Langer’s Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility makes it sound, but it may just be that you have it in your power to use your mind to overcome some serious health conditions. Not cancer, maybe, but listen to this experiment that was done:
Langer says by changing the way we observe and label our experience—specifically, by becoming more aware of the variability we often mindlessly ignore—we can improve our health and quite possibly prolong our lives. In a recent study that makes the point, Langer and a Harvard colleague, psychologist Alia Crum, told cleaning personnel in Boston hotels that the considerable exercise they got every day in their job satisfied government guidelines for living an active lifestyle. Their activity levels did not change, but their perspective did, and they soon lost more weight and body fat than control subjects did.
Langer attributes outcomes such as this one to the placebo effect: when people are persuaded to think mindfully about what they are doing, they adopt more positive and empowering beliefs about themselves, and they feel and perform better.
Another cool experiment situated older folks in an environment from their youth and actually affected the participants’ aging. Worth your time, will definitely make you think.
Wish I’d known this when I had allergies really bad. Imagine myself in the Arctic . . . .
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