Welcome to Nobody Told Me. I'm Jan Black. And I'm Laura Owens. On this episode, we'll find out how so many aspects of our lives are greatly impacted by the way we think about ourselves.

Our guest is Dr. Catherine Sanderson, Amherst College Psychology Professor, an author of the wonderful new book, The Positive Shift, Mastering Mindset to Improve Happiness, Health, and Longevity.

Professor, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you so much for the invitation.

I'm so looking forward to our chance to talk.

Tell us what led you to write this book.

Well, it's a little bit of a funny story because I'm actually somebody who naturally does

not have a positive mindset.

I'm just not.

And I am a professor of psychology. I study and do

research on psychological issues. And over the last 10 years or so, there's been a growing

awareness within my field of the power of our thought and how much we actually can control them.

So as I started reading this research and teaching about this research, I started kind

of trying some of the strategies.

And I found for me, again, somebody who does not come by happiness naturally, that it just really made a difference.

And so I started writing and reading and talking more about it. And ultimately, there's a book.

And you talk about how people with a positive mindset live longer. And I'm wondering,

since you had a negative mindset a lot of your life, and I feel like maybe I did and a lot of other people did as well, can they expect to add extra years to their life if they change that mindset now or is it something you need to change very early on?

That's a super practical question.

Obviously, you can't like officially do the study and randomly assign some people

have a positive mindset moving forward and some not, but all indications from research

suggest that no, it's never too late, no matter your age, no matter your health condition,

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