Ellen Langer — Science of Mindlessness and Mindfulness

On Being with Krista Tippett

On Being Studios

Sociology, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Krista Tippett, Arts, Culture, On Being, Society, Society & Culture, Science, Social Sciences

4.7 • 10.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 November 2017

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Her unconventional studies have long suggested what neuroscience is now revealing: Our experiences are formed by the words and ideas we attach to them. Naming something play rather than work — or exercise rather than labor — can mean the difference between delight and drudgery, fatigue or weight loss. What makes a vacation a vacation is not only a change of scenery, but the fact that we let go of the mindless everyday illusion that we are in control. Ellen Langer says mindfulness is achievable without meditation or yoga. She defines it as “the simple act of actively noticing things.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Sometimes it seems we are more divided than ever before.
0:03.8	Unable to speak across the differences, we must engage to create the world we want for ourselves and our children.
0:11.0	OnBeings Better Conversations Guide is a free resource and reflection for beginning this adventure,
0:17.4	creating new spaces for listening, conversation, and relationship.
0:21.8	Because the point of speaking together differently is to learn to live together differently.
0:26.8	Go to civilconversationsproject.org and find the Better Conversations Guide in the Resources tab.
0:33.0	Again, that's civilconversationsproject.org.
0:37.5	UnBeing is brought to you by the John Templeton Foundation.
0:41.0	The Templeton Foundation supports academic research and civil dialogue on the deepest, most perplexing questions facing humankind.
0:48.5	Who are we? Why are we here? And where are we going?
0:52.3	To learn more, please visit Templeton.org. The Templeton Foundation. Stay curious.
1:00.3	We have these categories, work, life, and we have brains, brawn, you know, so on, all the different distinctions that we make.
1:09.3	We make them mindfully and then we start to use them mindlessly.
1:12.8	Forgetting that when we're at work, we're people. We have the same needs we had when we were on vacation.
1:20.3	And you should get to the point where you're treating yourself when you're at work or at play in basically the same way.
1:27.3	Ellen Langer is a social psychologist who some have dubbed the Mother of Mindfulness.
1:32.3	But she defines mindfulness with counterintuitive simplicity.
1:36.3	The simple act of actively noticing things with a result of increased health, competence, and happiness.
1:43.3	Her take on mindfulness has never involved contemplation or meditation or yoga.
1:48.3	It comes straight out of her provocative, unconventional studies, which have been suggesting for decades what neuroscience is pointing at now.
1:57.3	Our experience of everything is formed by the words and ideas we attach to them.
2:02.3	What makes a vacation of vacation is not only a change of scenery, but the fact that we let go of the mindless everyday illusion that we are in control.
	...

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