"Anyone who has grown nauseated at the sight of someone vomiting has had firsthand experience of the mind influencing the body. Still, our entire Western tradition of thought sees them as separate."

-- Ellen J. Langer, The Mindful Body

#quote #EllenLanger #mindandbody

"Although some still accept the medical model, the biosocial model of illness is now the prevalent view. Developed by George Engel, it recognizes that biological (genetic, biochemical), psychological (personality, emotion, cognition), and social factors (family, culture) interact to cause illness, and hence the mind can affect the body."

-- Ellen J. Langer, The Mindful Body

#quote #EllenLanger #illness #model #West

"I agree with Dr. Damasio that our emotions color our perceptions and the information we choose to consider. But I think it’s important to add that emotions also often determine what we deem as relevant in the first place."

#quote #EllenLanger #emotionalintelligence

"Regret about a decision rests on a faulty assumption that the choice not made would have yielded more positive consequences.
...
And curiously, those who regret a decision are often the very people who believe the situation could always get worse. If it could have gotten worse, what sense does it make to regret one’s choice?"

-- Ellen J. Langer, The Mindful Body

#quote #EllenLanger #decision

"... branding expert Martin Lindstrom conducted an experiment in which employees at a large bookstore chain removed all but one of the store’s display tables, so that instead of hundreds of titles, only ten books were on display. Sales increased. All of these examples show that having more options to choose from is not better."

-- #EllenLanger, The Mindful Body

#quote #choices

"My age and baseball talent then imprinted on him a standard by which he’d later evaluate the new crop of boys trying out. Those boys who could do as well as I did could play on the team. I, of course, could not, because back then Little League was just for boys. Though I am amazed in retrospect by the arbitrariness of this convention, I never saw it as odd when it was happening. Girls simply weren’t good enough to play. Period."

- #EllenLanger, The Mindful Body

#book #quote

"From 1951 through 1973, Little League baseball was restricted to boys only. In 1974, due to a lawsuit brought on behalf of Maria Pepe by the National Organization for Women, the New Jersey Superior Court decided that Little League baseball must allow girls to play.[10][11] In the final week of December 1974, President Gerald Ford, signed a bill that opened Little League baseball to girls." (Wikipedia)

In 1979, eight old men lived as if it were 1959 for a week. Their aging reversal was extraordinary.

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/counterclockwise-study-effect-of-mindset-on-aging/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=counterclockwise-study-effect-of-mindset-on-aging

"So everything we’re learning as absolutes makes us think we know and we don’t know. And when you think you know, you no longer pay any attention. It makes us evaluative of other people who may see a different world. " -- Ellen Langer in a really interesting Freakonomics piece/podcast on mind/body research. Turns out we can change a lot with how we use our attention. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/pay-attention-your-body-will-thank-you/

#memory #health #MindBody #MindBending #EllenLanger #mindfulness #Freakonomics #aging #attention