The Mindful Body - Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health

Informationen zum Autor Ellen J. Langer Klappentext "When it comes to our health, too many of us think that a medical diagnosis describes a static or worsening condition. We then live our lives as though our ailments-our stiff knees or frayed nerves or failing eyesight-can only change in one direction: for the worse. Langer's life's work proves the fault in that logic. She has spent more than forty years testing the limiting effects of our negative assumptions as well as the healing power of being mindful-present in the moment and not distracted by memories or projections into the future. In The Mindful Body she unpacks her findings and boldly demonstrates how our thoughts and perspectives have the potential to shape our well-being for the better. Taking us into Langer's trailblazing Harvard lab, The Mindful Body recounts many of her colorful experiments to illustrate the influence of expectation and belief on how our bodies function, how we heal, and even how we age. In one study, Langer rigged eye charts so that participants would get some of the smaller letters correct right away, giving them the expectation that they could improve their overall eye test scores. And they did. In another, she showed that wounds heal faster when subjects are placed in rooms with accelerated clocks; when you think that time is passing faster, your body heals faster! On the other hand, her work reveals that discouraging health news can lead to a worsening physical state: she showed that learning you are pre-diabetic-even when only a fraction separates your blood sugar from a "normal" categorization-may actually play a part in the development of the disease."-- Leseprobe Chapter 1 Whose Rules? Any fool can make a rule. And any fool will mind it. —Henry David Thoreau Rules are important but, in my view, they should guide not govern our behavior. We need to take a closer look at the creation and adherence to “rules” in general before we can more fully understand the problem mindless compliance to rules has on our health. Consider a simple, low-stakes example. I’ve been painting for decades, though I’ve never been formally trained. When I started to paint, I had no idea what the rules were. I didn’t even know there were rules. Had I known, I think my own technique would have taken a different form. I am still amused when I go into an art supply store and see the labels indicating which brush to use for which effect, as if there were no other way to achieve it—as if there were a right way and a wrong way. On occasion, I cut the hairs of my brushes to get a novel look. I’d like to think it is this originality—the desire to create something different, a work of art that doesn’t resemble anything else—that makes my paintings interesting, at least to me. The novelty might not have been possible if I had rigidly followed the rules. This attitude has defined my artistic style. One of my first paintings featured a boy holding groceries at the top of a distant hill. In the foreground, a woman sits on a bench. When I was done with the painting, I showed it to a few friends. One person commented on my “mistake,” how the perspective was all wrong, since the boy in the distance was too big. I dutifully tried to “fix” things, shrinking the boy to make him look more realistic. But then I realized that the flaw is what made the painting worth looking at. In life as in art, although we tend to praise rule followers, I believe that breaking the rules is often necessary. Too often, we follow rules mindlessly. We buy the “right” brushes and wear the “right” clothes and ask the “appropriate” questions. When we approach the rules mindfully, however, we realize they are often arbitrary and don’t make sense. You don’t need to use that brush or obey the rules of perspective. It’s your painting. It’s your life. That’s okay with paintbrushes, you might say, but not so with h...

Product details

• Authors: Ellen J Langer, Ellen J. Langer
• Publisher: Ballantine
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 05.09.2023
• EAN: 9780593497944
• ISBN: 978-0-593-49794-4
• No. of pages: 288
• Dimensions: 145 mm x 217 mm x 24 mm
• Subject: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Natural sciences (general)