Speaker 1: Stay tuned to the end of the episode for an
Speaker 1: important update. This is Dennis for no in Australia.
Speaker 2: I'll play at Long Island Golf Club here in Melbourne
Speaker 2: and welcome to golf sad not eight one. I think
Speaker 2: another way to understand mindfulness, especially with respect to sports,
Speaker 2: is a soft openness. You don't want to be focused
Speaker 2: tightly on any particular thing because then you're oblivious to
Speaker 2: everything else around it. So let me give a different
Speaker 2: sport as an example. I'm on horseback and I'm racing
Speaker 2: through the woods. If I say to myself, watch out
Speaker 2: for the branches so I don't get knocked off the horse.
Speaker 2: So I'm vigilant. I'm focusing on those branches. Now as
Speaker 2: I ride through the woods, I may stumble over a
Speaker 2: boulder because I was not paying attention to anything but
Speaker 2: the branches. So mindfulness is different from vigilance. When you're vigilant,
Speaker 2: you have a particular stimulus in mind. When you're mindful,
Speaker 2: you're just there.
Speaker 1: A mindful golfer needs a mindful body, as explained by
Speaker 1: the mother of mindfulness, doctor Ellen Langer.
Speaker 2: This is Golf Smarter, sharing stories, tips and insights from
Speaker 2: great Golf minds to help you lower your score and
Speaker 2: raise your golf IQ. Here's your host, Fred Green.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Golf Smarter podcast.
Speaker 2: Ellen, Hi, Fred, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: It's great to have you on the show. You know,
Speaker 1: Golf Smarter clearly now that we're in our twentieth year
Speaker 1: of doing this podcast, the intention always was about mindfulness
Speaker 1: in golf, and you know, I've always felt that if
Speaker 1: you understand strategy and you understand how to control your
Speaker 1: emotions on the golf course, you can be a better
Speaker 1: player than just working on your swing mechanics. And a
Speaker 1: lot of golf instructors have agreed with that. And as
Speaker 1: someone who's more of a student than an instructor, I'm
Speaker 1: not an instructor. I'm here to learn from everybody. I'm
Speaker 1: really excited to have you on the show today.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: So your work in mindfulness goes back decades and I'm
Speaker 1: just curious how it ended up with.
Speaker 2: Golf because people like you have called me. You know
Speaker 2: that you can do anything you're doing playing golf, eating
Speaker 2: a sandwich, doing a podcast mindfully or mindlessly, and the
Speaker 2: consequences of doing it mindfully as opposed to mindlessly are enormous.
Speaker 2: And so it's relevant to virtually everything. There are things
Speaker 2: about golf, you know. I use it as an example
Speaker 2: when I'm teaching often because when students or anybody doesn't
Speaker 2: successfully complete whatever they're trying to do, they often become frustrated.
Speaker 2: And so I raise the simple question of if you
Speaker 2: got a hole in one every time you swung the club,
Speaker 2: would that be fun? And just think about it for
Speaker 2: a second, people would realize, well, there's no game anymore.
Speaker 2: So that when you recognize you can either do things
Speaker 2: perfectly mindfully mindlessly or imperfectly mindlessly, I think then you
Speaker 2: go a little easier on yourself. It's also you know
Speaker 2: that I've done a lot of some writing and a
Speaker 2: lot of talking about all sorts of sports, not just golf.
Speaker 2: And the thing that people don't realize is there are
Speaker 2: two general aspects to what you need to do. One
Speaker 2: is off the course, the other is on the course.
Speaker 2: You know, so that if you didn't sleep well, if
Speaker 2: you had a fight with your spouse, all of those
Speaker 2: things are going to clearly affect your golf. And learning
Speaker 2: what mindfulness is all about will help you enormously off
Speaker 2: the court, and then of course, and then on the course,
Speaker 2: there are particular things one should be doing. You know,
Speaker 2: with any sport, people tend to think they should do
Speaker 2: it over and over and over again until they can
Speaker 2: do it perfectly and make it second nature. And whenever
Speaker 2: you hear yourself saying anything about second nature, recognize that
Speaker 2: means you're being mindless. And so I was on this
Speaker 2: television show decades ago with Tiger Wood's father, and so
Speaker 2: when he was asked how did Tiger Woods get so
Speaker 2: good that his father's practice practice practice, And then I
Speaker 2: get on, I say, well, you know, practice often makes imperfect,
Speaker 2: not perfect. If you're practicing to achieve the end of
Speaker 2: not having to think about what you're doing, you're going
Speaker 2: to lock yourself in and not be as good as
Speaker 2: you can be. If when you practice, your intention is
Speaker 2: each time to notice subtle difference is in what you're doing,
Speaker 2: the outcome and so on, then the practice will help.
Speaker 2: But sadly, when most of us are taught sports instruments
Speaker 2: had to study for a test, you know that what
Speaker 2: people think they should do is repeat it, repeat it,
Speaker 2: repeat it as is so that they don't have to
Speaker 2: think about it. And also, you know, why would you
Speaker 2: want to do anything if you don't show up for it.
Speaker 2: I gave a talk the other day. Then something occurred
Speaker 2: to me that after doing this for so long, it
Speaker 2: would surprise me that it took so long for me
Speaker 2: to come to this. But it was a talk on happiness,
Speaker 2: and what I realized was that can robots be happy?
Speaker 2: And of course not well when we're being mindless. We're
Speaker 2: no different from robots. So the answer to improved game,
Speaker 2: the answer to improved health and increased happiness is to
Speaker 2: be mindful. Now you should, now, Fred, ask me the question,
Speaker 2: so what do you mean by mindfulness?
Speaker 1: Actually I just wrote that down.
Speaker 2: Okay, that was my next question. When people think of
Speaker 2: mindfulness too often, they just think of meditation, and meditation
Speaker 2: is not mindfulness. Meditation is a practice you undergo in
Speaker 2: order to result in post meditative mindfulness. Mindfulness as we
Speaker 2: study it is very different. It's not a practice. Essentially,
Speaker 2: it's a way of being that follows almost directly from
Speaker 2: the realization that uncertainty is the rule, not the exception.
Speaker 2: Everything is always changing, Everything looks different from different perspectives,
Speaker 2: So you can't know now. Parents, teachers, golf instructors tend
Speaker 2: to speak in absolutes. Hold the club this way, do X,
Speaker 2: Y or Z, and that's fine in certain circumstances, but
Speaker 2: not in others. So one of the things the way
Speaker 2: I try to bring this home to people is the
Speaker 2: one thing I think everybody thinks they know is how
Speaker 2: much is one plus one? So Fred, how much is
Speaker 2: one plus one two? No, not always. If you add
Speaker 2: one pile of laundry plus one pile of laundry, one
Speaker 2: plus one is one. You add one cloud plus one
Speaker 2: cloud one plus one is one. The other day, somebody
Speaker 2: sent me something where if you have one pizza and
Speaker 2: you add one pizza, you have two pizzas. However, if
Speaker 2: you have one lasagna and you add one lasagna, one
Speaker 2: plus one is one. It's just a bigger lasagna. Now
Speaker 2: beyond me that when you add one plus one to
Speaker 2: get two, you're using a base ten number system. If
Speaker 2: you were using a base two number now you don't
Speaker 2: really have to understand anything deep about this, But if
Speaker 2: you're using a base two number system, one plus one
Speaker 2: would be written as ten. And what I'm fond of
Speaker 2: saying now is the next time somebody asks you how
Speaker 2: much is one plus one, you're going to know it depends.
Speaker 2: And now you have choices. When you're mindful, you have choices.
Speaker 2: When you're mindless, you don't. Again, you're responding more like
Speaker 2: a rather robot. So you know you could say one, ten, two,
Speaker 2: and probably other things as well. All right, So what
Speaker 2: I found over decades now, forty five years of research,
Speaker 2: sadly is that virtually all of us are mindless almost
Speaker 2: all the time. We're not there. But when you're not there,
Speaker 2: you're not there to know you're not there. But it's
Speaker 2: clear to me that this is sadly true, and the
Speaker 2: way to be there is very simple. So let's say
Speaker 2: you are going to visit me at my house right now.
Speaker 2: I'm in Dartmouth, mass You'd walk in, you wouldn't have
Speaker 2: to practice anything. You've never been here before, so you
Speaker 2: would notice things, right. You might notice a painting and
Speaker 2: wonder if I did it in some books, see some
Speaker 2: things that seem strange to you, say, you would be
Speaker 2: being mindful, right, So when you're mindful, you're actively noticing
Speaker 2: new things. Now when you think you know, So when
Speaker 2: I asked you how much was one plus one? You
Speaker 2: didn't do anything but just mindlessly answer to And now,
Speaker 2: knowing that things change, you take a little more time
Speaker 2: with it, only a few seconds more, and have a
Speaker 2: choice in what you're doing. So all of his research
Speaker 2: has shown me that by increasing our mindfulness, which means
Speaker 2: essentially becoming more and more aware that we just don't know,
Speaker 2: we don't have to feel bad about not knowing. Nobody
Speaker 2: knows because things are always changing. That when we increase
Speaker 2: this act of noticing, the neurons are firing, and it's
Speaker 2: literally and figuratively enlivening very early research, we make elderly
Speaker 2: people more mindfully, live longer. Everything is better. You know.
Speaker 2: We have people performing symphonies, whether they're mindless or mindful,
Speaker 2: record the piece, play it back for people who know
Speaker 2: nothing about the study. Everybody, not everybody, but over ninety
Speaker 2: percent of the people prefer the mindfully played piece. But
Speaker 2: I'll go back to what I said to you before,
Speaker 2: which is, if you're gonna be there, show up for it.
Speaker 2: And especially when we're talking about a sport that you're
Speaker 2: doing basically as recreation. You know, I don't think either
Speaker 2: of us right now we're speaking to the tiger woods
Speaker 2: of the world, and so if you're not going to
Speaker 2: play golf mindfully, why be there? Now?
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be careful. Every time you ask me a question,
Speaker 1: you already nailed me twice. So on the golf course,
Speaker 1: when we're talking about mindfulness and being aware.
Speaker 2: Of what, well several things. So when you hold that
Speaker 2: golf club, if you hold it exactly the way you
Speaker 2: did the last time, you're not taking advantage of the
Speaker 2: way your body has changed. You know, so that let's
Speaker 2: say you slept a little funny in your right shoulder
Speaker 2: hurts a tiny bit, but you're aware of it, then
Speaker 2: you should change the way you're standing, the way you're swinging,
Speaker 2: and so on. If you've played the course many times before,
Speaker 2: you may attempt to play it the same way you
Speaker 2: had the last you know, the last few times, but
Speaker 2: now you're different. The weather is different, the course is
Speaker 2: different because they're you know, even if they've just mowed
Speaker 2: it the last time you played it probably wasn't exactly
Speaker 2: the same. So you want to be present and notice
Speaker 2: these subtle differences. I think that you know, and then
Speaker 2: the game will of course be more fun. And when
Speaker 2: you hit that golf ball and it's not a perfect shot,
Speaker 2: so what you know that if it were perfect again
Speaker 2: each time, there'd be no game. There a way I
Speaker 2: explained this to people also. So remember you were a
Speaker 2: little kid and you get in an elevator and you
Speaker 2: try to press that button, you can't reach it, and
Speaker 2: then a parent or some adult picks you up and
Speaker 2: you press the button, and then the next time you're
Speaker 2: a little old that you still can. Eventually you're in
Speaker 2: the elevator, you press the button and you can reach it.
Speaker 2: That's the end, right, When was the last time you
Speaker 2: were excited about pressing a button in an elevator? All right?
Speaker 2: So you know, that's another example of how we should
Speaker 2: not be so frustrated with imperfection. And when you miss
Speaker 2: a shot, there's more in a stroke. There's more information
Speaker 2: there than if you hit it correctly. You know you
Speaker 2: hit it correctly, you don't know where You're just lucky
Speaker 2: that were you were aware of why you did what
Speaker 2: you did. But if you screw up in some way,
Speaker 2: there's lots to pay attention to, and that when you've
Speaker 2: screwed up and you're now going to try to improve
Speaker 2: the next stroke, you can't be sure why you screwed up,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't matter. You can still make corrections. So
Speaker 2: I'm not really a golfer I'm a tennis player, and
Speaker 2: so I hit the ball, and let's say that it's
Speaker 2: not a good it was a fine performance. Now, if
Speaker 2: I say to myself, remember to bend your legs, even
Speaker 2: if that bad stroke had nothing to do with whether
Speaker 2: or not my legs were ben I'm still going to
Speaker 2: set myself up to be better. And it's the same
Speaker 2: for all sports.
Speaker 1: Sure. Sure, And you kind of dropped the word in
Speaker 1: there in the last part of our conversation where you
Speaker 1: said intention and where does that fall?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, that's interesting. You know that when I say
Speaker 2: be there for the event. You know, when you're mindful,
Speaker 2: you are doing everything intentionally. You know, when you're a robot,
Speaker 2: the past is determining what your present performance is going
Speaker 2: to be. But I think you know, and I think
Speaker 2: another way to understand mindfulness, especially with respect to sports,
Speaker 2: is a soft openness. You know that you don't want
Speaker 2: to be focused tightly on any particular thing because then
Speaker 2: you're oblivious to everything else around it. So let me
Speaker 2: give a different sport as an example. I'm on horseback
Speaker 2: and I'm racing through the woods. If I say to myself,
Speaker 2: watch out for the branch, the branches you know, so
Speaker 2: I don't get knocked off the horse. So I'm vigilant.
Speaker 2: I'm focusing on those branches. Now as I ride through
Speaker 2: the woods, I may stumble over a boulder because I
Speaker 2: was not paying attention to anything but the branches. So
Speaker 2: my fullness is different from vigilance. When you're vigilant, you
Speaker 2: have a particular stimulus in mind. When you're mindful, you're
Speaker 2: just you know there in some sense.
Speaker 1: You've been doing this work for so many years, for decades.
Speaker 2: Since I was five, since five.
Speaker 1: It's actually when I started the podcast when I was fine,
Speaker 1: and you've earned the name of the Mother of Mindfulness,
Speaker 1: meaning I'm inferring that you were the first one to
Speaker 1: start talking about mindfulness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. What brought you to that point, Well,
Speaker 2: it's a funny story. Actually when I before I moved
Speaker 2: up to Cambridge to teach at Harvard, this was in
Speaker 2: its nineteen seventy seven, I had the stereotype that everybody
Speaker 2: in Cambridge was super smart if they were all at Harvard,
Speaker 2: and as if everybody at Harvard was smart. And I
Speaker 2: was coming from New York, where lots of people are
Speaker 2: street smart, and I would notice things that in New York,
Speaker 2: they just never happen. You know, how could these smart
Speaker 2: people do these things? So this was a time where
Speaker 2: banks closed at three o'clock and there were no cash machines. Okay,
Speaker 2: so here you have parking at the bank. Now at
Speaker 2: three o'clock, the bank isn't open, so it's okay to
Speaker 2: park there. In New York at three zho one, the
Speaker 2: spaces would be gone, but in Cambridge they were just open.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was, you know, silly things of this
Speaker 2: sort that said to me, this was something that was
Speaker 2: different from intelligence. And as I'm fond of saying, my
Speaker 2: first work in all this was studying mindlessness. And then somebody,
Speaker 2: and I keep trying to remember who it was, but
Speaker 2: I can I don't remember, said you know you are
Speaker 2: what you study, You're something mean of that sort. So
Speaker 2: then I said, okay, and I turned it around and
Speaker 2: started studying mindfulness. And it was at that time that
Speaker 2: I became more aware of Buddhism and the Eastern use
Speaker 2: of the term. And it was actually very exciting that
Speaker 2: through this Western scientific perspective I was coming to many
Speaker 2: of the same conclusions as the Eastern work would suggest.
Speaker 2: But again, most of that is based on meditation. And
Speaker 2: even though I studied meditation beginning and it's great practice,
Speaker 2: it's just different. The work that I do is mindfulness
Speaker 2: without meditation, just active noticing. When you're active, you know,
Speaker 2: it's very nice people say be in the present, it's
Speaker 2: meaningless because when you're not there, you don't know you're
Speaker 2: not there, so how can you call up the instruction?
Speaker 2: But when you know you don't know, then you naturally
Speaker 2: there to find out. And when you're noticing new things,
Speaker 2: that puts you in the present, which I agree is
Speaker 2: a good place to be. So it's easy to get there,
Speaker 2: but not get there by just deciding I'm going to
Speaker 2: be in the present.
Speaker 1: So I guess in the seventies that time was ripe
Speaker 1: for that. But being in an academic environment, especially when
Speaker 1: like Harvard, did you get pushback from this concept?
Speaker 2: Not really. I mean I started studying it at the
Speaker 2: Graduate Center City University of New York when I was
Speaker 2: there for a few years after I got my PhD.
Speaker 2: And at that time it was mindlessness, so there was
Speaker 2: no pushback. When I went up to Harvard, I was
Speaker 2: doing a meditation study and this was massive. I was
Speaker 2: doing it with Skip Alexander when he was alive. He
Speaker 2: brought me into the study, and basically it was the
Speaker 2: they believed that if you have people all over the
Speaker 2: world or meditating, that that would result in peace. You know,
Speaker 2: so meditators over there are going to influence people over
Speaker 2: here to be less aggressive. I said, okay, fine, you
Speaker 2: know I'm in Why not? I was pleased with myself, Fred,
Speaker 2: because this was the first time I was involved in
Speaker 2: something where if it worked, wouldn't you know, give me
Speaker 2: any applause? It was theirs. But what happened was at
Speaker 2: one point, so we're all over the Middle East, and
Speaker 2: a research assistant to a researchers system, to a research
Speaker 2: you know, did something that they shouldn't do. I don't
Speaker 2: remember what it was. It was minor, but that came
Speaker 2: back to me and I said, all right, this is
Speaker 2: is too complicated. I can how can I have control
Speaker 2: over all of this? So I slowly backed out. You know,
Speaker 2: when you ask about pushback, I don't read my own reviews,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't look I don't look at my
Speaker 2: own TV shows or podcasts. That way, I can remain
Speaker 2: a legend in my own mind. So there could be
Speaker 2: pushback out there. There probably is.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm a legend in my own room and
Speaker 1: a rumor in my own mind. How much of this
Speaker 1: came after the Summer of Love? I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we're talking mid seventies here, and I remember that time
Speaker 1: and the other peace, love everybody. Then the meditation was
Speaker 1: starting to happen, the people were looking into Buddhism and
Speaker 1: all that. Was there anything about timing of it?
Speaker 2: No, I don't think so, because remember I was studying
Speaker 2: mindlessness and.
Speaker 1: Which was the Summer of Love was?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well maybe, but it wasn't appreciated that way at
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So what are the components of mindfulness? Again, it
Speaker 1: can be used by golfers.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's not a matter of components. Mindfulness
Speaker 2: is the process of noticing, okay, And so you're going
Speaker 2: to notice when you don't know, right and you're in
Speaker 2: a situation, you're naturally going to sit up and take notice.
Speaker 2: And in addition to that, so that's top down. If
Speaker 2: you know you don't know, and how ubiquitous uncertainty is,
Speaker 2: then you naturally tune in when you think you know,
Speaker 2: and then all you need to do is notice three
Speaker 2: or four new things about this thing you think you know,
Speaker 2: and you come to see you didn't know it as
Speaker 2: well as you thought you did, so your attention that
Speaker 2: naturally goes to it. I mean you can do that,
Speaker 2: you know, with your spouse, a friend, Notice three new
Speaker 2: things about them. There's there are always new things, and
Speaker 2: then that's exciting. You know. This act of noticing is
Speaker 2: the essence of enjoyment. It's the essence of engagement. So
Speaker 2: we have a study we ran a long time ago.
Speaker 2: We'd have people doing they'd be listening to classical music,
Speaker 2: listening to loud music, which kind, looking at paintings, watching football,
Speaker 2: you know, all sorts of activities in one of three
Speaker 2: ways that we would tell them, just do it. So
Speaker 2: they just watching the football. These are women who hate football.
Speaker 2: Notice two new things about it, Notice four new things
Speaker 2: about it, Notice six new things. And it turns out
Speaker 2: the more you notice, the more you like the thing
Speaker 2: you're noticing. You know. So anybody can enjoy golf, anybody
Speaker 2: can enjoy anything by just doing this active noticing. And
Speaker 2: too many of us, you know, wait for something to
Speaker 2: grab us rather than actively. But you know, so we
Speaker 2: don't have nuggets of mindfulness or it's all just this
Speaker 2: process of noticing. One of the important ways I think
Speaker 2: that people can be more effective and happy in whatever
Speaker 2: they're doing is to reduce the stress they experience. And
Speaker 2: stress is mindless. And whether you're on the golf course
Speaker 2: or you're at a cocktail party, stress is not doing
Speaker 2: you a good service. So I just say to people quickly,
Speaker 2: you know, just ask yourself, is it a tragedy or
Speaker 2: an inconvenience because almost never, you know, I missed, you know,
Speaker 2: I hit the bowl in the sand. You know, so what,
Speaker 2: it's not a tragedy, and so you recover quickly, more quickly.
Speaker 2: But stress is mindless because stress is the view that
Speaker 2: something terrible is going to something's going to happen, and
Speaker 2: when it happens, it's going to be terrible. Now, it
Speaker 2: turns out that we can't predict what's going to happen.
Speaker 2: So if you just said to yourself, we give yourself
Speaker 2: three reasons why this thing probably won't happen. So you
Speaker 2: went from thinking it's definitely going to happen, you're going
Speaker 2: to miss the shot, you're going to make a fool
Speaker 2: of yourself, you're going to get fired from work, whatever
Speaker 2: it is, three or four reasons why it's not going
Speaker 2: to happen. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But now's
Speaker 2: the fun part. Turn it around, and let's say it
Speaker 2: does happen. How is that actually an advantage? People don't
Speaker 2: realize events themselves are neither good nor bad. It's our
Speaker 2: views of the events that make them good or bad. Now,
Speaker 2: the more mindful you are, the more choices you have
Speaker 2: for how to view situations. And if some of these
Speaker 2: views feel better, clearly those are the ones you're going
Speaker 2: to gravitate too. But when you think X is awful
Speaker 2: and you're about to experience it, you know you're setting
Speaker 2: yourself up. It's interesting. I think it was Mark Twain
Speaker 2: who said, you know, most of the things we worry
Speaker 2: about never happen, which is also true. So if you
Speaker 2: just thought about the last three times you were stressed
Speaker 2: and did the event happen, chances are not. But even
Speaker 2: if it did, then you see you got through it,
Speaker 2: so it all becomes less scary. And so once we're
Speaker 2: not and people in this world, I think, or at
Speaker 2: least in this country, believe that life is stressful. I
Speaker 2: don't think so, you know, I don't think it has
Speaker 2: to be, but certainly everybody if they employ the sorts
Speaker 2: of things that I talk about in The Mindful Body
Speaker 2: can reduce the amount of stress that they're experiencing.
Speaker 1: Amazing, amazing. I definitely need to thank Carl Morris for
Speaker 1: introducing us. This is a remarkable conversation. Your first book
Speaker 1: came out in the eighties, Problems in the seventies.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I wrote a book when I was in
Speaker 2: graduate school. But the book you're referring to is Mindfulness,
Speaker 2: which it came out nearly Yeah, that started the whole game.
Speaker 1: But you are still writing and you're still publishing books.
Speaker 1: Tell me about your latest book, please.
Speaker 2: Well, the latest book. I think the title says it all.
Speaker 2: It's called The Mindful Body, Thinking our way to chronic health.
Speaker 2: And what people don't understand, it's not just as we
Speaker 2: were just saying. I was just saying that stress is
Speaker 2: under our control. We don't have to experience stress. The
Speaker 2: more mindful we are of a less stressful experience. It
Speaker 2: turns out, for most of the disorders we experience, there
Speaker 2: are mindful solutions to it, and our thinking leads to
Speaker 2: very different health effects than most of us assume. I mean,
Speaker 2: and I'm not even suggesting which we have data that
Speaker 2: I told you, you make people more mindful, they live longer.
Speaker 2: But let me give you an example. So this work.
Speaker 2: A lot of the book, but not all of it,
Speaker 2: for sure, is about mind body unity. You know, I
Speaker 2: thought about it. I felt a mind body they're just words.
Speaker 2: And if you have a mind and a body, then
Speaker 2: you have to figure out how do you get from
Speaker 2: a thought to the body doesn't follow naturally and put
Speaker 2: them back together, and then it's one thing. Then wherever
Speaker 2: you're putting the mind, you're necessarily putting the body. So
Speaker 2: we have lots of I think, interesting studies testing this.
Speaker 2: The first one was the counterclockwise study. So we took
Speaker 2: old men and we had them live in a retreat
Speaker 2: that we retrofitted to twenty years earlier, and we had
Speaker 2: them live there as if they were the younger selves.
Speaker 2: So they would be talking about past events as if
Speaker 2: they were just unfolding and so on. And in a
Speaker 2: week these old men their hearing improved, their vision, their memory,
Speaker 2: their strength, and they look noticeably younger. Now in the book,
Speaker 2: I have many men these studies. I'm just let's see,
Speaker 2: I don't know trying to think of any particularly relevant
Speaker 2: to golf. But people can deduce whatever they want. The
Speaker 2: next study in the series with Ali Crumb was we
Speaker 2: took chamber maids and first asked them how much exercise
Speaker 2: do you get? Oh, it is relevant to golf, how much?
Speaker 2: And they said they don't get any exercise because they
Speaker 2: thought exercise is what they do after work, because that's
Speaker 2: what the surgeon general says, who sits behind a desk
Speaker 2: all day. So we simply had them change their minds.
Speaker 2: We taught them that work was exercise. That's all, just
Speaker 2: changing their minds. So working on at the gym making
Speaker 2: a bed is like working on this machine at the gym,
Speaker 2: and so on. So now we have two groups. One
Speaker 2: group that realizes they work is exercise, the other group
Speaker 2: that doesn't. We find the groups are not eating any differently,
Speaker 2: they're not working any harder. You know, either group is
Speaker 2: not spending more effort than the other. However, the group
Speaker 2: that now sees their work is exercise lost weight. There
Speaker 2: was a change in body mass index, wasted hip ratio,
Speaker 2: and their blood pressure came down just by changing their minds.
Speaker 2: So if you are a golfer, you know, I think
Speaker 2: that you should pay some attention to all the exercise
Speaker 2: you're getting, rather than assume because you're driving in the
Speaker 2: cart there's no exercise. There's still exercises. Can only take
Speaker 2: the cart so far, and there may be benefits to that.
Speaker 2: And another study, we had people in a sleep lab
Speaker 2: and they wake up. We have, without them knowing, change
Speaker 2: the clock. So one group thinks they got two hours
Speaker 2: more sleep than they got, one group thinks they got
Speaker 2: two hours fewer than they got, and one group the
Speaker 2: amount of sleep they got turns out on the measures
Speaker 2: we took, biological and cont a function follow perceived amount
Speaker 2: of sleep. The last most recent study with Peter Ungle,
Speaker 2: we inflict a wound minor wound, but a wound, and
Speaker 2: we put people in front of a clock and big
Speaker 2: on clocks. I guess and unbeknownst to them the clock
Speaker 2: is rigged. So for a third of the people, the
Speaker 2: clock is going twice as fast as real time, for
Speaker 2: a third of the people, half as fast as real
Speaker 2: time for a third of the people real time. Now,
Speaker 2: most people would assume that that wound is going to heal.
Speaker 2: When that wound heals, what's the difference with the clocks is.
Speaker 2: But it turns out that the clock time that your
Speaker 2: perceptions of perception of how much time has passed actually
Speaker 2: determines healing time. So so many of these sorts of
Speaker 2: studies that are fun and suggest the amount of control
Speaker 2: we have over our health is enormous. And in addition
Speaker 2: to that, we have a part of the book that
Speaker 2: deals with chronic illness. And most people, when they are
Speaker 2: diagnosed with a chronic illness, assume their symptoms are going
Speaker 2: to stay the same or get worse. They assume that
Speaker 2: there's nothing they can do about it. They feel helpless. Okay,
Speaker 2: so what we do is we have a treatment for
Speaker 2: people where basically what you're going to do is we're
Speaker 2: going to call you periodically and ask you how is
Speaker 2: a symptom now, is it better or worse than the
Speaker 2: last time? And why several things happen now? The first,
Speaker 2: because you're engaged in this, you don't feel helpless. Second,
Speaker 2: by us asking you to compare how it is now
Speaker 2: with before, you're going to recognize that it's not stable
Speaker 2: and sometimes you actually feel better, so that then you're going,
Speaker 2: in a larger sense, feel better. Third, and most important
Speaker 2: is that when we tell you ask you is it
Speaker 2: better or worse, we ask you why, and that instigates
Speaker 2: a mindful searche for why, and mindfulness itself is good
Speaker 2: for your health. And then, finally, I believe you're more
Speaker 2: likely to find a cure if you're looking for it.
Speaker 2: So make this simpler. Fred. Let's say you're lets you stress.
Speaker 2: Since we talked about it, you think you're always stressed.
Speaker 2: Nobody is always anything, okay, because when you're not stressed,
Speaker 2: you're not thinking about being stressed, okay, and then you're
Speaker 2: stressed again. So it seems like this is the way
Speaker 2: you willway. So we call you periodically and Fred, how
Speaker 2: are you now? Is it better or worse than before?
Speaker 2: And why we do this over time? It doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be very long, two weeks a week. And then
Speaker 2: what we find out is, and you're saying why now
Speaker 2: are you stress? You discover you're stressed when you're talking
Speaker 2: to Ellen Langer. Well, then the cure is easy, right,
Speaker 2: stop talking to me or talk to me differently, right.
Speaker 2: And this has been phenomenally effective. We've got positive of
Speaker 2: results using this attention to symptom variability with people at
Speaker 2: Parkinson's stroke, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, chronic pain, big things that
Speaker 2: were psychologically under their control. And then of course you
Speaker 2: have the thought part of this, that our thoughts, because
Speaker 2: mind and body is won that when we keep ourselves
Speaker 2: stress free and we keep ourselves happy, we're healing our bodies.
Speaker 2: So the book really is about how to tap into
Speaker 2: all of the control we have over our health and
Speaker 2: well being to which most people are oblivious.
Speaker 1: So much to process on this one. I'm just curious
Speaker 1: if there again, And I hate using the word pushback,
Speaker 1: but a lot of what you're talking about seems to
Speaker 1: go against Western medicine. That well, not if you're not there,
Speaker 1: then you got to take a pill for it.
Speaker 2: And you're saying, yeah, now, I think you know. I
Speaker 2: gave a talk a few years ago, about five years
Speaker 2: ago or so, and there were five thousand people. I
Speaker 2: thought I was talking to all people who are dealing
Speaker 2: with cancer, and only afterwards I found out there were
Speaker 2: lots of physicians in the room, and oh my goodness,
Speaker 2: because I wasn't paying attention whether I was sounding anti
Speaker 2: medical or what have you. But I spoke to many
Speaker 2: of them afterwards, and you know, they were very supportive
Speaker 2: because they know they don't know, and you know, and
Speaker 2: these are very smart, well meaning people. I'm not diminishing
Speaker 2: the effectiveness of medical intervention. What I'm saying is there's
Speaker 2: still a great deal we can do for ourselves, and
Speaker 2: even at the least, you know, if we go back
Speaker 2: to this attention to symptom variability. While you're waiting to
Speaker 2: find out the results for the biopsy, you know, you're
Speaker 2: waiting the three weeks to see the doctor, you certainly
Speaker 2: don't have to sit there being stressed. There are things
Speaker 2: you can do for yourself. You know. I think that
Speaker 2: the medical world, and for many of whom in it,
Speaker 2: I have an enormous respect. But I think that on occasion,
Speaker 2: maybe more of an occasion, not infrequently, they say things
Speaker 2: that they shouldn't say. You know, they might tell you
Speaker 2: have six months to live. There's no way they can
Speaker 2: know this. See. A piece of all of this that
Speaker 2: helps people understand the uncertainty that should be part and
Speaker 2: parcel of their existence in some sense is science doesn't
Speaker 2: give us absolutes. Science gives us probabilities that say, if
Speaker 2: we were to study this again in the same way,
Speaker 2: we're likely to still get an effect where most people
Speaker 2: respond in a particular way, not everybody. Okay, so let
Speaker 2: me go back half a step. It was a straight
Speaker 2: A student. I was the one. You hate it, okay,
Speaker 2: And I was at this horse event and this man
Speaker 2: asked me, can I watch his horse because he wants
Speaker 2: to get his horse a hot dog. Horses don't eat meat, right,
Speaker 2: I say sure. He came back with the hot dog
Speaker 2: and the horse ate it. And that's when I realized
Speaker 2: everything I thought I know could be wrong. You can't
Speaker 2: do an experiment that's going to prove horses don't eat
Speaker 2: meat because you're only going to be able to use
Speaker 2: so many horses, so much meat mixed with so much
Speaker 2: grain that can vary, how hungry the horse is, how big.
Speaker 2: All of this will determine, and so what you end
Speaker 2: up getting in such a study is most of the
Speaker 2: horses like this being fed in this way don't eat meat.
Speaker 2: That's very complicated. So it's just easier to say horses
Speaker 2: don't eat meat. It's like one in one is two, Yeah, right, Matt.
Speaker 2: What we're taught is an easy way of giving us
Speaker 2: science most of the time. But you know, I think
Speaker 2: that we would be better off if we were told
Speaker 2: most horses don't eat meat, or it seems that horses
Speaker 2: don't eat me, or one in one could be two
Speaker 2: rather than is. As soon as we have the is,
Speaker 2: we mindlessly accept it as true. We don't pay any
Speaker 2: attention to the times that it's not true.
Speaker 1: Well, it confirms the story for me of when the
Speaker 1: time I was at a ballgame with my friend and
Speaker 1: I said, I'm gonna go get something to you. Do
Speaker 1: you want anything? Goes yeah, get me a hot dog.
Speaker 1: And I said, wait, I thought you were a vegetarian.
Speaker 1: He goes, there's no meat and hot dogs.
Speaker 2: It's good.
Speaker 1: Let's go back to off the course, on the course
Speaker 1: and what we can do.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, it should be reasonably clear from all we've
Speaker 2: said so far. Off the course, if you exploit the
Speaker 2: power and uncertainty, if you are noticing, if you don't
Speaker 2: take single answers as the only way to answer whatever
Speaker 2: the question is, if you deal with all your you
Speaker 2: don't allow yourself to become stressed because you're aware, then
Speaker 2: stne cause stress. Yourself are causing the stress by the
Speaker 2: view you're taking. You do all of this, then when
Speaker 2: you're you know, on the knife hole, you're as good
Speaker 2: as you can possibly be at that time. And if you,
Speaker 2: in being mindful now are also paying attention to how
Speaker 2: you feel. The example I gave before, you're you know,
Speaker 2: you didn't sleep that well, so your shoulder hurts a little,
Speaker 2: so you change the way you're standing slightly. You make
Speaker 2: adjustments to take advantage of who you are right at
Speaker 2: this moment. So off the course is basically too. You know,
Speaker 2: if one reads the mindful body, they'll have a good
Speaker 2: sense of how to become more mindful off the course.
Speaker 2: And then you're on the course and the mindfulness is
Speaker 2: the same, but the things you're mindful of very slightly.
Speaker 2: You know, off the course you're not paying attention to
Speaker 2: the wind, you know, unless you're asking yourself should you
Speaker 2: put on a heavier sweater or jacket. But on the
Speaker 2: course you want to be actively noticing things about the
Speaker 2: course itself, things about your body itself, ways that you
Speaker 2: could vary the way you hold the club. You know,
Speaker 2: the five iron was good the last time, but now
Speaker 2: the seven iron might be a better choice for you
Speaker 2: because of whatever things have changed. So, you know, we
Speaker 2: want to understand that we should be guided by our
Speaker 2: rules and routines the way we've done things before, but
Speaker 2: they shouldn't govern how we do things, because right now
Speaker 2: is different from yesterday and we'll be different again tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And to me, there is no history in golf. The
Speaker 1: next shot has nothing to do with what your history
Speaker 1: is on the on the course.
Speaker 2: It should be that way, but typically not right, yeah,
Speaker 2: because it takes a lot for people that you're in
Speaker 2: the sand, you know, and how do you get out
Speaker 2: of that? Why'd you get yourself into that?
Speaker 1: Or I never hit that, I can never get out
Speaker 1: of the sand yet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but to also recognize, you know, I mean
Speaker 2: you're in the sand. Is this a tragedy? Are inconvenience?
Speaker 2: You know? It'd be great to be able to get
Speaker 2: out of the sand more easily. The only way you
Speaker 2: can get out of the sand more easily is if
Speaker 2: you get in the sand on occasion, you know, So
Speaker 2: there are opportunities to improve. Oh yeah. The main thing
Speaker 2: is that this act of noticing is what makes it fun.
Speaker 2: And even if you were a professional golfer. Look, I'm
Speaker 2: a professional psychologist and I still do my psychology mindfully.
Speaker 2: I enjoy it and if you're not enjoying it, then
Speaker 2: you're being mindless. So and if you're enjoying it, then
Speaker 2: the outcome will typically be better. But even if not,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter that much, you know, so to do
Speaker 2: it tense and follow all those rules that you mindlessly
Speaker 2: learned and then screw up. God, it's terrible. But if
Speaker 2: you're enjoying yourself and you screw up, at least you
Speaker 2: had a good day.
Speaker 1: And I've always felt like when I walk up to
Speaker 1: if this ball goes in the sand, when I walk
Speaker 1: up to it with the attitude of oh I love
Speaker 1: this shot, yeah so much, it's always I always seem
Speaker 1: to have a better result.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I think that people, you know, should pay
Speaker 2: attention to what we said. Where if you did get
Speaker 2: that hole in one every time you swung the club,
Speaker 2: there'd be no game there. So that needs that the
Speaker 2: shots that are harder provide an opportunity to learn something
Speaker 2: and also to test yourself. I mean, it's important for
Speaker 2: people to come to learn that they should take what
Speaker 2: they do seriously, but not take themselves so seriously. And
Speaker 2: you have these duffers who hit a bad shot and
Speaker 2: then they're destroyed by it. Why, I mean, it's kind
Speaker 2: of crazy. Why expect perfection.
Speaker 1: Right, because it doesn't exist, especially in golf and everywhere else, right,
Speaker 1: perfection does not exist. Well, again. The new book is
Speaker 1: called The Mindful Body by doctor Ellen Langer. And this
Speaker 1: has been so enlightening and so worthy of golf content.
Speaker 1: Whether you believe it or not, I firmly do and
Speaker 1: I just think this was phenomenal. I appreciate your.
Speaker 2: Time so much. Thank you, Fred, it was fun.
Speaker 1: Happy New Year. I hope you're doing well this winter,
Speaker 1: staying warm and healthy. It's been a few weeks since
Speaker 1: I've spoken to you, and i'd love your feedback on
Speaker 1: whether you prefer these little updates or would rather I
Speaker 1: just end the episode after the interview. Now. The reason
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