Change your mindset, change the game | Dr. Alia Crum | TEDxTraverseCity

Summary

This talk explores the profound impact of mindset on health and well-being. Through various studies, including the placebo effect in pain relief and the influence of beliefs on exercise and diet benefits, the speaker illustrates that our expectations and perceptions can significantly alter the effectiveness of treatments and daily activities. The presentation challenges the audience to reconsider their mindsets, suggesting that a shift in perspective can enhance health outcomes and overall life experiences.

Takeaways

• 🧠 The power of mindsets significantly influences our health and well-being, as demonstrated by the placebo effect in medical treatments.
• 💉 In a study by Dr. Fabrizio Benedetti, patients given morphine by a doctor reported more pain relief than those receiving it through an IV, showing the importance of awareness and expectation in treatment efficacy.
• 🤔 The placebo effect is not about fake treatments but the psychological impact of expectations on the body's healing processes.
• 🏋️‍♀️ Mindsets can affect physical outcomes, as suggested by the study with hotel housekeepers who believed their work was exercise, leading to health improvements without additional physical activity.
• 🍔 Mindsets about food can alter physiological responses; participants' hunger hormone levels dropped differently based on their belief about the milkshakes' nutritional content, despite consuming the same shake.
• 🧘 Mindsets can transform our perception of stress, with the potential to view it as enhancing rather than debilitating, affecting our health and performance.
• 📈 Mindset shifts can have a cascade effect on various aspects of life, including health improvements and job satisfaction, as seen with the hotel housekeepers' study.
• 🧬 Mindsets are not just about our perceptions but can actively recruit healing properties within our bodies, as highlighted by the Italian researchers' findings on the placebo effect.
• 🌱 Mindsets are a natural part of human cognition, helping us simplify the world, but they also play a crucial role in determining our health outcomes.
• 🔄 Mindsets are not fixed; they can be shifted to have a more beneficial impact on our lives, as shown by changing employees' views on stress.
• 🌟 The potential of mindsets extends beyond immediate health effects, influencing academic and professional success, as well as longevity and the aging process.

Q & A

What is the main topic of the talk given by the speaker?

The main topic of the talk is the significant impact of our mindsets on various aspects of our lives, including health and well-being.

What was the purpose of Dr. Fabrizio Benedetti's study on patients undergoing thoracic surgery?

The purpose of Dr. Benedetti's study was to investigate the effect of patients' awareness and expectations on the efficacy of pain relief treatment using morphine sulfate.

What was the surprising finding from the morphine administration experiment in Dr. Benedetti's study?

The surprising finding was that patients who were aware of receiving morphine by a doctor reported significant pain reduction, whereas those who received the same dose through an IV pump without awareness did not experience the same level of pain relief.

What does the speaker define the placebo effect as?

The speaker defines the placebo effect as a powerful demonstration of the ability of our mindsets, specifically the expectation to heal, to recruit healing properties in the body, rather than a response to a fake pill or procedure.

What is a mindset according to the speaker?

A mindset is described as a setting of the mind, a lens or frame through which we view the world, simplifying the potential interpretations of any given moment.

How did the speaker's experience with Professor Ellen Langer influence his perspective on mindsets and exercise?

The speaker's interaction with Professor Langer made him question whether his fitness gains were due to the time and energy invested in training or simply because he believed he would get fitter and stronger.

What was the experiment conducted with the hotel housekeepers to test the impact of mindset on health?

The experiment involved educating half of the hotel housekeepers about the physical benefits of their job, expecting them to receive health benefits. After four weeks, those who received the information showed improvements in weight, blood pressure, body fat, and job satisfaction.

What was the purpose of the milkshake experiment conducted at Yale?

The purpose of the milkshake experiment was to test whether the mindset of participants about the content of the milkshake would affect their hormonal response, specifically ghrelin levels, even when they consumed the same milkshake.

What was the outcome of the milkshake experiment regarding the participants' ghrelin levels?

The outcome showed that when participants believed they consumed a high-calorie milkshake, their ghrelin levels dropped significantly more than when they believed they consumed a low-calorie shake, despite both times receiving the same milkshake.

How did the speaker's research on stress among employees after the 2008 financial collapse aim to change their mindset?

The research aimed to change the employees' mindset about stress by showing them video clips that presented stress as either debilitating or enhancing, to see if this would affect their health symptoms and work performance.

What were the effects of changing the employees' mindset about stress in the study?

The employees who watched the video clips presenting stress as enhancing reported fewer negative health symptoms and a higher level of engagement and performance at work over the following weeks.

What is the overarching message the speaker wants to convey about the power of mindsets?

The overarching message is that our mindsets significantly influence our health, well-being, and performance, and that recognizing and harnessing this power can dramatically alter our lives for the better.

Outlines

00:00

🧬 The Power of Mindsets in Medical Treatments

The first paragraph introduces the concept of mindsets and their impact on various aspects of life, starting with a study by Italian researchers, including Dr. Fabrizio Benedetti, on the placebo effect in patients undergoing thoracic surgery. The study showed that patients who were aware of receiving morphine reported less pain than those who received the same dose without their knowledge. This principle was further tested with treatments for anxiety, Parkinson's disease, and hypertension, revealing that awareness and expectation of treatment significantly influence the effectiveness of medical interventions. The speaker then delves into the nature of the placebo effect, explaining it as a demonstration of the power of mindsets in influencing our bodies' healing properties.

05:03

🏋️‍♀️ Mindsets and the Perception of Physical Exercise

The second paragraph explores the influence of mindsets on physical fitness, using a study involving 84 hotel housekeepers who unknowingly met the Surgeon General's exercise requirements through their daily work. Despite their high level of physical activity, most did not consider their work as exercise. The study split the housekeepers into two groups, with one group receiving information about the health benefits of their daily activities. After four weeks, those informed about the benefits experienced weight loss, reduced blood pressure and body fat, and increased job satisfaction, suggesting that changing one's mindset about physical activity can have tangible health benefits without altering behavior.

10:03

🍦 The Role of Mindsets in Dietary Perception and Response

In the third paragraph, the discussion shifts to the role of mindsets in dietary intake and the body's response. A study conducted at Yale involved participants consuming milkshakes with varying perceived calorie content. The participants' ghrelin levels, a hormone associated with hunger, were measured after consuming shakes labeled as 'sensible' and 'indulgent.' Interestingly, the ghrelin levels dropped significantly more after consuming the 'indulgent' shake, even though both shakes were identical in calorie content. This indicates that the mindset about the food consumed can influence the body's hormonal response, suggesting that our beliefs and expectations about what we eat can affect our metabolism and satiety.

15:04

🤯 Rethinking Stress: Mindsets and Their Impact on Health

The final paragraph addresses the common mindset that stress is inherently negative and its potential to be reframed as a positive force. The speaker references research showing that stress can have enhancing effects on health and performance. A study with 300 employees, conducted after the 2008 financial collapse, demonstrated that changing the mindset about stress from debilitating to enhancing led to fewer reported negative health symptoms and improved work engagement and performance. The paragraph concludes by emphasizing the importance of recognizing the power of mindsets in various aspects of life, including intelligence, talent, aging, and the placebo effect, and encourages the audience to consider the potential of mindsets to transform their lives.

Keywords

💡Mindset

A mindset is defined as a mental attitude or inclination that predetermines a person's response to situations. In the context of the video, it is portrayed as a powerful factor influencing health and well-being. The video emphasizes that our mindsets can dramatically affect how we perceive and benefit from medical treatments, exercise, diet, and stress.

💡Placebo Effect

The placebo effect refers to a perceived improvement in a condition or symptoms due to a patient's belief in the effectiveness of a treatment, rather than the treatment itself. The video discusses this phenomenon through the lens of a study where patients reported less pain when receiving morphine from a doctor rather than an IV pump, highlighting the role of expectation in healing.

💡Thoracic Surgery

Thoracic surgery is a medical procedure involving operations on the organs within the thoracic cavity, such as the heart and lungs. The video uses thoracic surgery as an example to illustrate the impact of the placebo effect, where patients' expectations of pain relief influenced their experience with morphine.

💡Morphine Sulfate

Morphine sulfate is a powerful opioid painkiller commonly used in the management of severe pain. In the script, it is mentioned as the standard treatment for pain after thoracic surgery, and its effectiveness is compared between patients who received it with or without personal interaction from a doctor.

💡Expectation

Expectation in the video is the anticipation or belief about the outcome of an event or action. It is shown to have a significant impact on the effectiveness of treatments, as patients who expected to benefit from their treatment experienced greater relief, regardless of the actual medical intervention.

💡Exercise

Exercise is any bodily activity that enhances or maintains physical fitness and overall health. The video discusses the concept of exercise as a placebo, suggesting that the belief in the benefits of exercise can contribute to its effectiveness, independent of the physical activity itself.

💡Hotel Housekeepers

Hotel housekeepers are used in the script as a case study to demonstrate the power of mindset in perceiving physical activity. The housekeepers, despite engaging in physically demanding work, did not view their job as exercise and thus did not associate it with health benefits until their mindset was changed through a presentation.

💡Ghrelin

Ghrelin is a hormone that stimulates appetite. In the video, it is used to illustrate the direct connection between mindset and physiological responses. Participants' ghrelin levels dropped differently when they believed they consumed low-calorie versus high-calorie shakes, even though they consumed the same shake in both instances.

💡Stress

Stress is a psychological, physiological, and emotional response to demanding or threatening situations. The video explores the idea that the mindset one holds about stress can influence its impact on health and performance, suggesting that viewing stress as enhancing rather than debilitating can lead to positive outcomes.

💡Surgeon General

The Surgeon General is a high-ranking official in the United States who provides guidance on public health issues. In the script, the Surgeon General's recommendations for physical activity are referenced to highlight the unrecognized exercise housekeepers get from their work.

💡Mindset Shift

A mindset shift refers to a change in one's perspective or attitude towards something. The video argues that altering one's mindset can lead to significant changes in health and well-being. For example, changing the perception of stress from negative to potentially positive can result in fewer reported health symptoms and improved job performance.

Highlights

The study by Dr. Fabrizio Benedetti in Italy showed that patients receiving morphine from a doctor reported less pain than those receiving it through an IV pump, despite the same dosage.

The effectiveness of treatments like anxiety, Parkinson's disease, and hypertension medications was found to be influenced by patients' awareness and expectations.

The placebo effect is not about fake pills but the power of mindset and expectations to recruit healing properties in the body.

A mindset is a frame of mind that simplifies our interpretation of the world and plays a significant role in our health and well-being.

Exercise can be viewed as a placebo, where belief in its benefits might contribute to actual physical improvements.

Hotel housekeepers unaware of their job's exercise value did not perceive themselves as getting regular exercise, despite their physically demanding work.

Changing the mindset of housekeepers about their work as exercise led to measurable health benefits, such as weight loss and reduced blood pressure.

A study involving milkshakes showed that participants' hormone levels responded differently based on their belief about the shake's nutritional content, not the actual content.

The belief about the foods we eat can influence our body's response, suggesting that mindset plays a role in diet and health.

Stress is often perceived negatively, but research indicates that it can also have positive effects on health, well-being, and performance.

Changing employees' mindset about stress from debilitating to enhancing reduced negative health symptoms and improved work performance.

Carol Dweck's research suggests that shifting mindsets about intelligence from fixed to changeable can alter academic and professional success.

Becca Levy's research shows that changing mindsets about aging from deterioration to wisdom and growth can extend longevity.

Ted Kaptchuk's work at Harvard's program for placebo studies is exploring how to harness the placebo effect in clinical practice.

The psychological and physiological effects of anything in our lives can be influenced by our mindset.

The power of mindset is not limitless, but it is significant enough to reconsider where its limits lie.

Changing our mindset can dramatically alter any facet of our life, as demonstrated by the various studies presented.

Transcripts

Transcriber: Queenie Lee Reviewer: Peter van de Ven

So today, I'm going to talk about how our mindsets matter

in virtually every facet of our lives.

But I want to begin by telling a story about a group of researchers in Italy.

Dr. Fabrizio Benedetti and his colleagues

studied a group of patients undergoing thoracic surgery.

What you should know about thoracic surgery

is that it's a very invasive procedure.

Patients are put under anesthesia while the surgeons make major incisions

into the muscles of the sides and the back

in order to gain access to their hearts and to their lungs.

Now, about an hour after the anesthesia fades away,

the pain starts to set in.

Fortunately, patients are given strong doses of morphine sulfate,

a powerful painkiller.

This is routine treatment for thoracic surgery,

but Dr. Benedetti and his colleagues made a few subtle tweaks:

half of the patients were given the dose of morphine

by a doctor at their bedside;

the other half was given the exact same dose of morphine,

but it was administered into their IV by a pre-programmed pump.

You would think that both of these groups of patients

would experience the same relief,

but this was not the case.

The group that received the morphine by the doctor

reported significant reductions in their pain levels.

The other group -

the group who received the same exact amount of morphine

but wasn't aware of it -

they didn't seem to experience the same benefit.

So Dr. Benedetti and his colleagues didn't stop there.

They used the same procedure

to test the effectiveness of other treatments -

treatments for anxiety,

treatments for Parkinson's disease, treatments for hypertension.

What they found was remarkable and consistent.

When the patients were aware of the treatment

and expected to receive the benefit,

the treatment was highly effective.

But when they weren't,

that same drug, that same pill, and that same procedure was blunted,

and in some cases not even effective at all.

So I read about these studies

when I was a student at Harvard University,

and at the time, I was heavily immersed into the literature on the placebo effect.

And the more I read,

the more I started thinking about the true nature of placebos.

So what is the placebo effect really?

Well, most people discount the placebo effect

as just some magical response to some fake pill or some faux procedure,

but that's not what the placebo effect is.

The placebo effect is not about the faux pill,

or the sugar pill, or the fake procedure.

What the placebo effect really is,

is a powerful, robust and consistent demonstration

of the ability of our mindsets -

in this case, the expectation to heal,

to recruit healing properties in the body.

So what is a mindset?

A mindset is quite literally a setting of the mind,

it's a lens or a frame of mind through which we view the world,

we simplify the infinite number of potential interpretations

at any given moment.

Now, the ability to simplify our world through our mindsets

is a natural part of being human.

But what I want to suggest to you today

is that these mindsets are not inconsequential,

and instead, they play a dramatic role

in determining our health and our well-being.

So while I was at Harvard,

I had the opportunity to work with Professor Ellen Langer.

She is a professor of psychology

and when she heard that I was also a division one athlete, laughed at me.

She said, "You know, exercise is just a placebo, right?"

(Laughter)

Now, I was kind of offended because at the time

I had been spending up to four hours a day training my body to be in optimal shape.

But she did get me thinking about mindsets

and how they might matter outside of medical laws.

Was I getting fitter and stronger

because of the time and the energy that I was putting into my training?

Or was I getting fitter and stronger because I believed that I would?

What about the other extreme?

What if people were getting an extraordinary amount of exercise

but weren't aware of it,

would they not receive the same benefit?

We decided to test this,

and to test this we found a really unique group of women -

a group of 84 hotel housekeepers

working in seven different hotels across the US.

These women are on their feet all day long.

They're using a variety of muscles,

and they're burning an extraordinary amount of calories,

just doing their job.

But what's interesting

is that these women don't seem to view their work in this light.

We asked them; we said, "Do you exercise regularly?"

And two-thirds said "No."

(Laughter)

So we said, "Okay. Well, so, on a scale of zero to ten,

how much exercise you get?"

And a third of them said, "Zero. I get no exercise at all."

So we wondered what would happen if we could change their mindset.

So we took these women, we split them into two groups.

We measured them on a variety of things,

including their weight, their blood pressure, their body fat,

their satisfaction with their job.

And then we took half of them

and we gave them a simple 15-minute presentation.

We gave them this poster and we said,

"Your work is good exercise.

It satisfies the Surgeon General's requirements,

which are quite simply to accumulate about 30 minutes

of moderate physical activity.

You should expect to receive those benefits.

15 minutes.

We came back four weeks later and we measured them again.

Not surprisingly,

the groups that didn't receive this information didn't change,

but those that did looked different.

They dropped weight,

they had a significant reduction in systolic blood pressure,

they dropped body fat,

and they were reported liking their job more.

(Laughter)

So what does this tell us?

To me, it was fascinating

that just as a result of a simple 15-minute presentation,

the whole game changed,

producing a cascade of effects on both their health and their well-being.

Presumably without even changing behavior.

Now some of you might be thinking,

"How do you know they didn't change their behavior,

because that must have been what produced the effects?

We know they didn't work any more,

and the room attendants themselves assured us

that they didn't join the sports club down the street.

But of course, we can't know for sure

if they weren't putting a little more oomph

into making their beds.

So this question really plagued me.

Is there a direct, immediate connection between our mindsets and our bodies?

So to test this,

I worked with my colleagues at Yale,

Kelly Brownell, Will Corbin and Peter Salovey,

and we did so by making a big batch of milkshakes.

So we made this big batch of milkshakes,

and then we invited people to come to our lab to try the milkshakes,

and in exchange we would give them 75 dollars.

Sounds great, right?

The less appealing aspect of the agreement

was that while they were drinking the shakes,

we had them hooked up to an IV

so we could get their blood samples.

We are out to measure ghrelin.

Ghrelin is a peptide secreted in the gut,

the medical experts call this the hunger hormone.

So when we haven't eaten in a while,

our ghrelin levels start to rise,

signaling to the brain, "It's time to seek out food,"

and slowing our metabolism, just in case we don't find that food.

Now say we go out,

we find and we devour a milkshake, a hamburger, some french fries,

our ghrelin levels drop, signaling to our brain,

"Time to stop eating," and revving up the metabolism

so we can burn the food that was just consumed.

So the participants came in, we hooked them up to an IV,

and then we gave them a milkshake, Sensi-Shake.

This is zero percent fat, 140 calories, zero added sugar,

this is guilt free satisfaction.

So they drank their shake,

and in response their ghrelin levels dropped

but only very slightly,

signaling to the brain that some food had been consumed

but not a whole lot.

So a week later, they came back to our lab,

we hooked them up to an IV again, and we gave them this shake.

(Laughter)

620 calories, 30 grams of fat, 56 grams of sugar:

now this, this is decadence you deserve.

(Laughter)

And in response to this shake, their ghrelin levels dropped again,

but this time at a significantly steeper rate,

about three times more than the shake they had before.

Now, this would make good sense to any metabolic nutritionist

who understands that the drop in ghrelin is proportional

to the amounts of calories consumed.

But there was a catch:

in this study,

even though the participants thought they had consumed the sensible shake,

and the indulgent shake,

in reality, we gave them the exact same shake at both time points.

So what does this tell us?

Just as in the case when the same amount of morphine

produced more or less of an effect depending on our awareness,

and just as in the case when the same amount of exercise

produced more or less of a benefit depending on how it was construed,

here again our mindsets proved to matter.

In this case suggesting it might not be just calories in and calories out,

or the precise makeup of fats, nutrients, but what we believe,

what we expect, what we think about the foods we eat

that determines our body's response.

So in light of this,

it behooves us to consider our own lives:

what are our mindsets?

And how might we begin to shift them, to alter them,

to have them be more beneficial?

So take the stress, for example.

What's your mindset about stress?

If you're like most people,

you have the mindset that stress is bad: bad stress.

Now, this is not surprising considering that everywhere we look

there's warnings, labels yelling at us, reminding us

about the negative effects of stress.

But the truth of stress is not so clear-cut,

and in fact, there's a robust and growing body of research

showing that stress can have positive effects,

enhancing effects on our health, our well-being and our performance.

Now I'm not here to try to persuade you that the effects of stress are enhancing,

but rather to point out that the truth of stress

is like most things in life,

and that is, it is uncertain.

And therefore to raise the question:

do our mindsets about stress determine our response?

So to test this question,

I worked with Shawn Achor and Peter Salovey,

and we worked with a group of 300 employees.

This was after 2008 financial collapse,

and we decided - they were stressed,

they had just heard that ten percent of their workforce

was going to be laid off,

and they were overworked.

We decided to see if we could change their mindset.

And we did so by having them watch simple video clips.

So I'm going to show them to you here simultaneously,

but half of the participants saw the one on the left,

half saw the one on the right.

(Video starts)

["Stress is debilitating"] vs ["Stress is enhancing"]

(Video ends)

So you get the point, yes?

So here we are ...

in the dark.

(Laughter)

So here we are -

they're watching facts, research, anecdotes,

all true, but oriented towards one view or the other.

What we found was interesting:

those who watched these simple three-minute video clips

before the bell rang, before their job began,

over the course of the next few weeks reported fewer negative health symptoms,

fewer backaches, less muscle tension, less insomnia.

And they also reported a higher level of engagement and performance at work.

So at this point I've presented four studies -

four studies that demonstrate the power of mindsets in medicine,

in exercise, in diet, and in stress.

There are many other very talented scholars

tackling this phenomenon as we speak.

Carol Dweck's research demonstrates us

that if we can shift our mindset about intelligence and talent

as something that's fixed

to something that's changeable over time,

it can dramatically alter our academic and professional success.

Yale epidemiologist Becca Levy's research shows us

that if we can change our mindsets about aging,

from viewing aging as an inevitable process of deterioration

to a process of gaining wisdom, gaining growth,

not only shapes the course of how we grow old

but even extends longevity.

Ted Kaptchuk and his group at Harvard's program

for placebo studies is doing cutting-edge work

understanding how we can begin to harness

and ethically utilize the placebo effect in clinical practice.

So though the context is different, the message is the same.

Our mindsets matter.

Don't get me wrong,

I'm not saying that medicine doesn't work,

or that there are no benefits of exercise,

and that what we eat doesn't matter; it does.

But the psychological and physiological effect

of anything in our lives

can and is influenced by our mindset.

So is the power of mindset limitless?

Probably not,

but what I hope I've done for you today

is inspire you to reconsider where those limits really are.

Because the true task ahead

is to begin reclaiming this power for ourselves,

to acknowledge the power of mindset

and know that just like this,

(Snaps her fingers)

in just the blink of an eye,

we can change the game of any facet of our life

quite simply by changing our mindset.

Thank you.

(Applause)