The Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health

by Ellen J. Langer

Learn how adjusting your thoughts can change your health—from the “mother of mindfulness” and first female tenured professor of psychology at Harvard.

“What matters mind or body? Filled with original research and thought-provoking insights, The Mindful Body shows that the two are not just connected but are actually one, opening us to vast potential for health and happiness.”—Dan Ariely, New York Times bestselling author of Predictably Irrational

When it comes to our health, we tend to live our lives as though our ailments—our stiff knees or frayed nerves or diminished eyesight—can change only in one for the worse. Award-winning social psychologist Ellen J. Langer’s life’s work proves the fault in this negative outlook as well as the healing power of its mindfulness—the process of active noticing where we are not bound by past experience or conventional wisdom.

In The Mindful Body, Dr. Langer unpacks her assumption-busting findings and outlines her bold new theory of mind-body unity, along the way clearly demonstrating how our thoughts and perspectives have the potential to profoundly shape our well-being. Whether it is hotel chambermaids who lost weight when they simply came to see that their work constituted exercise, or patients whose wounds healed faster in rooms with accelerated clocks, she shows how influential our thoughts are to the state of our bodies. Her work has likewise proven that discouraging health news can have negative effects. Learning you are prediabetic, for example—even if your blood sugar reading is only a fraction away from “normal”—may actually play a part in the development of the disease.

A paradigm-shifting book by one of the great psychologists of the twenty-first century, The Mindful Body returns the control over our bodies back to us and reveals that a true understanding of health begins with our minds.

Genres: Health, Psychology, Nonfiction, Self Help, Science, Audiobook, Mental Health

266 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 5, 2023

About the author

Ellen Langer, Yale PhD, Harvard Professor of Psychology, artist. Among other honors, she is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and three Distinguished Scientist Awards, the World Congress Award, the NYU Alumni Achievement Award, and the Staats award for Unifying Psychology, and has authored eleven books and over 200 research articles on the illusion of control, perceived control, successful aging, decision-making, to name a few of the topics. Each of these is examined through the lens of her theory of mindfulness. Her research has demonstrated that by actively noticing new things—the essence of mindfulness—health, well being, and competence follow. Her best selling books include Mindfulness; The Power of Mindful Learning; On Becoming an Artist: Reinventing Yourself Through Mindful Creativity; and her most recent book, Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility.

In addition to other honors, she has been a guest lecturer in Japan, Malaysia, Germany, Australia, Mexico, Switzerland, and Argentina.

The citation for the APA distinguished contributions award reads, in part, “…her pioneering work revealed the profound effects of increasing mindful behavior…and offers new hope to millions whose problems were previously seen as unalterable and inevitable. Ellen Langer has demonstrated repeatedly how our limits are of our own making.”

Reviews

[Hope · Rating 1 out of 5]

What appears at first to be an interesting book on how the mind-body connection influences health turned out to be a half lit review, half memoir. More problematically, the book’s ultimate recommendation is to embrace nihilism—quite literally. The end of chapter 5 reads:

“We have to choose to impose meaning ourselves. It is not extrinsic. A level 3 way of thinking would recognize that we can make changes at any point because nothing has inherent meaning . . . . The existential realization that there may not be any external meaning or purpose to anything can be devastating, but it can also be liberating. It can free us all up to enjoy whatever we are doing.”

From this nihilistic foundation, we end up with such gems as:

“When you understand someone's behavior from their perspective, there is no need to blame, and there is nothing to forgive.” Page 105 (these are not mutually exclusive concepts).

“Nevertheless, since 1978…to this day, I have believed that if our minds are fully healthy, so too will be our bodies . . . . If I am right and our minds have more control over our health than most people imagine, does that mean that people who succumbed to ill health and disease are to blame for their conditions? Of course not.” Page 152 (cognitive dissonance much?)

“In the absence of symptoms, aren’t we healthy?” Page 162 (glaucoma and coronary artery disease would beg to differ).

The end of the book has various suggestions for the author’s “mindful utopia” of a healthcare system where—gasp—doctors look into their patients’ eyes while treating them, recognize their patients to be fellow human beings rather than statistical data, and involve family members in care decisions. This is not a new way of providing healthcare. It’s a very *old* way of practicing medicine. Physician Victoria Sweet describes and explores this type doctor-patient relationship in beautiful detail in her books God’s Hotel and Slow Medicine. If you’re looking for a reflection on mind-body connection and its effect on overall health, either of Dr. Sweet’s books would be a far better read than this book.

[Jennifer Michaels · Rating 1 out of 5]

Waste of time and money

This book feels like what would happen if you told AI to write a bad satire of a mindfulness book. The author’s privilege was breathtaking. The name/place dropping stunning and the anecdotes were mostly ridiculous. Some of her ideas were interesting and out of curiosity I kept reading to the end to see how she was going to recommend implementing them. That part was missing. What a colossal waste of time and money.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really impactful book for me in terms of its argument that there aren’t “right” or “wrong” decisions to make but we make a decision right by how we think about it afterwards or what we do with it after. I’m compelled by this idea. She also provides loads of research about how we think about things impacting our healing and the role of our mental state or practices plays in our healing.

[Gloria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paradigm shift perhaps for many. Change your thoughts; change your life experience. Seems logical but this examines our conditioning, expectations and assumptions.

Favorite take-away: "Don't try to make the right decision, make the decision right."

Another is: "Too often we think we're doing the best we can. But we're not, not even close."

Much I would have already agreed with and it flows along with my own thinking. As always with any book that runs along medical issues, there are perhaps too many case studies and lab results. Alas.

This is about living authentically and intentionally. Aware and purposefully alive.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting points but it felt like it could have done with more editing (the narrative felt all over the place), and some of the conclusions were a little far-fetched (for me as a scientist anyway).

[Heather Frith · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book was very much focused on presenting research case studies, which I did find interesting to read the but I was hoping it would also cover more explicitly how to apply this to real life in a self-help way. Nevertheless there were some useful takeaways.

[Jon Larson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first encountered Ellen Langer's work through Jordan Peterson's podcast, and her exploration of mindfulness immediately piqued my interest and I was quickly intrigued by her research. I know this can be such a woo-woo topic, but there is a lot of merit to it.

Ellen describes mindfulness as "actively noticing". Which means noticing new things about things you thought you already knew. You will find out that you didn't know them as well as you thought you did and then your attention naturally goes to them. Secondly, she suggests that we need to adopt a mindset for uncertainty. Because everything is always changing.

By applying these principles to our health, we come to understand that conditions often deemed chronic, degenerative, or incurable may not be so immutable after all.

Drawing on four decades of research, Langer demonstrates the remarkable capacity of the mind to facilitate healing. With the right mindset, we can navigate towards healing paths, allowing the innate capabilities of our bodies to unfold.

The wealth of scientific evidence presented in the book is truly remarkable, showcasing the transformative potential of adopting a mindful approach. Personally, I found the book particularly compelling from Chapter 6 onwards, where Langer meticulously details numerous studies supporting her mindfulness methodology.

In conclusion, I found Langer's book to be a captivating exploration of mindfulness, supported by a wealth of scientific research. I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in understanding the power of the mind in fostering healing and well-being.

[Giulio Ciacchini · Rating 2 out of 5]

Be Mindful: the end
At its core, The Mindful Body argues that the way we think about our bodies and health can significantly shape physical outcomes. It extends Langer’s decades-long research into mindfulness, defined as active noticing and open awareness, into the realm of chronic health and aging.
In truth this essay is very similar to her "Mindfulness" published 1989, whereas I was expecting something slightly different after 30 years of reasearch.
As for her previous book, Langer’s claims, while backed by intriguing experiments, may seem overly optimistic about the mind’s influence on the body.
Where the book falls short is in its practical use: once we understand that mind and body are two faces of the same coin, there is no straightforward actionable insight that we can take home, but many experiments where this relation holds true.
Rather than treating the body and mind as separate systems, Langer insists they are deeply interconnected: how you interpret symptoms, diagnoses, and even aging itself influences how your body functions, heals, and ages.
People often assume health only gets worse with age, so they unconsciously adopt behaviors that reinforce decline.
Discouraging medical labels (e.g., “prediabetic”) can lead to poorer outcomes partly because patients internalize those expectations.
Langer shows through her own experimental work that shifting context and expectations can produce measurable physical changes. For example: Wounds heal faster when people believe time is moving quickly around them.
She suggests that beliefs can influence physical outcomes. If people are told the average healing time, they may unconsciously limit themselves to that expectation. But if they hear the fastest healing time, they might recover sooner because their mindset changes what they think is possible.
Another experiment shows that people often abandon their own judgment to follow a group, even when the group is clearly wrong.

What would happen if instead of being given an expectation for average healing time we were told the quickest known time someone took to heal? Would we heal faster? I believe we would. When I smashed my ankle, luckily I forgot that I was told that I would always walk with a limp. Whether I end up hitting the ball on the tennis court or miss it, there is no evidence of a limp.
Mindless conformity is behind many of the ways in which we give up free will. Take a famous example in social psychology called the Asch conformity experiment. People were shown three lines of different lengths and their task was to declare which of these lines was the same length as one of the other lines they were shown. Unbeknownst to the participants, accomplices working with the experimenter were planted to intentionally give an obviously wrong answer before it was the participants' turn to respond. Typically, the participants conformed and repeated the wrong answer that the person ahead of them had given rather than point out the error. We see this kind of thing all around us. Two of your friends refuse to take the Covid vaccine. While you thought the vaccine could be a good thing, do you now have second thoughts and delay getting it? Similarly, imagine you weren't inclined to get the vaccine but two of your good friends got it. Just as the participants in the Asch study went along with others despite what they initially saw, we too often conform.

Langer also argues that perspective is not just about seeing the same situation, but about the real conditions that shape how a person experiences it. The prince in The Prince and the Pauper cannot truly understand poverty because he always retains an escape route—he can return to privilege at any moment. The pauper cannot.
So the key insight is that context and constraints matter more than temporary perspective-taking. Real understanding requires recognizing the structural limits, risks, and lack of choice that define someone’s life.
This fits Langer’s broader theory of mindfulness: instead of assuming we fully understand another person's situation, we should stay aware of the limits of our knowledge and remain open to multiple interpretations.

The adage that we should not judge another person until we've walked a mile in their shoes would benefit from more thought. Consider the story of the Prince and the Pauper. The Prince wants to find out what it's like to be a pauper and so goes out from the kingdom donning clothes befitting an outcast. As I remember the story, living among the poor, he thinks he learns firsthand what life is like for those far less fortunate than he. Does the prince now have the perspective of a pauper? With this new wisdom, can he rule more justly? To my mind, the answer is no.
For me, the worst thing about being a pauper would probably be not knowing if I was ever going to have enough food to eat or to be safe. These are things that the prince, even when he is playing the pauper, can count on. All he has to do is stop trying to take the pauper's perspective and go back to being princely again. The pauper does not have the luxury of this choice.
Consider it this way. The advice we're too often given is that perspective is solely the result of being exposed to the same information given in the same way. If this were so, then all we have to do to understand how someone else might feel is to see the information "from their perspective.
(...)
Forgiveness is better than blame, but there is a better-than-better: understanding. When you understand someone's behaviour from their perspective, there is no need to blame, and there is nothing to forgive.
You invite a couple for dinner at seven o'clock, but they don't show up until eight o'clock. One option we have is to view their lateness as a disrespectful affront to the value of our time and dinner preparation, and we spend the hour stewing and blaming. Then, when they arrive, we give them a haughty look and wait. We wait for their prostration and judge the sincerity of their apologies. After a pause, we magnanimously for give. Was our evening well spent?
We have another option. Assuming we can dispel mindless worry about their whereabouts or anxiety about overcooking their meal when they don't arrive at seven o'clock, we can look at it as though they have given us a gift.

At last, Langer argues that if the mind and body function as a single system, then the same principles that help physical health may also help psychological conditions. One example is “attention to variability”—the practice of noticing small changes rather than assuming a condition is fixed.
In the case of Clinical Depression, people often hold a rigid belief: “nothing will change.” Langer challenges this by pointing out that emotions and symptoms always fluctuate, even if the changes are small. By paying attention to these variations—moments when mood is slightly better—people may start to see that their state is not completely static, which can open the possibility of improvement.
She also suggests that this approach might apply even to severe mental illnesses such as Schizophrenia. However, in those cases, the responsibility for noticing patterns and variability might fall more on clinicians, who can monitor changes and identify conditions or contexts in which symptoms improve.

Because mind and body are taken as one, mind-body unity predicts that what is true for our physical health is also true for our mental health. Attention to variability treatments, for example, also may be effective for people whose health issue is clinical depression. One of the stable beliefs held by people who are depressed is that their condition is not going to improve. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. But no one's depression is exactly the same from moment to moment nor from day to day. Noticing small improvements in how we feel may provide insights into our depression just as with physical symptoms. Attention-to-variability treatments may be useful for mental illnesses that the medical world may assume are intractable. With serious illnesses like schizophrenia, for example, rather than expecting the person suffering from symptoms to attend to their variability, perhaps the clinician can do the monitoring.

[Cav · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The word “mindfulness” has become ubiquitous since my early work in the 1970s. It’s hard to open a newspaper or magazine, or even listen to an interview, without the word “mindful” being used..."

The Mindful Body was a super-interesting read. The book is my fourth from the author, all of which I really enjoyed. I love the work of Ellen Langer. Her experiments and razor-sharp analysis are a breath of fresh air.

Ellen J. Langer is an American professor of psychology at Harvard University; in 1981, she became the first woman ever to be tenured in psychology at Harvard. Langer studies the illusion of control, decision-making, aging, and mindfulness theory. She is known as "the mother of positive psychology". She is also a member of the psychology department at Harvard University and a painter, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Ellen J. Langer:


Langer is a super thoughtful and intelligent mind. She brings a sharp set of analytical tools to bear in addressing many stories and assumptions that those in the public, as well as academic and medical fields hold. In a theme that Langer explores in her other work; mindsets play a central role in this book.

She drops the quote at the start of this review early on, and it continues:

"...Most of this usage presents mindfulness as a condition solely of the mind and often related to the practice of meditation. But mindfulness—as my students and I have shown—is instead the simple process of actively noticing things, no meditation required. When mindful, we notice things we didn’t notice before, and we come to see that we didn’t know the things we thought we knew as well as we thought we knew them. Everything becomes interesting and potentially useful in a new way..."

Interestingly enough, despite our advanced technology and scientific progress, we still have virtually zero understanding of many of the brain's complex processes. In this case; specifically how the brain and body interface.

The placebo effect is a well-known and well-evidenced phenomenon that appears throughout all medicine. Before a drug is approved for market, it must show efficacy above placebo. That's because placebo always demonstrates some efficacy. Conversely, there is something called the "nocebo effect," which is the inverse of the placebo. If you think the placebo will improve your health outcome, it will. If you think the intervention will have a negative effect on you (nocebo), it also will. This is a central theme of the book, and Langer spends most of her time here taking a deep dive into these unbelievable mechanisms. She tells the reader about some incredible studies that her lab has done in this emerging area of research.

She drops this quote:

"But my use of the word “mindfulness” also, importantly, refers to a condition of the body. Indeed, I believe our psychology may be the most important determinant of our health. I’m not just speaking of harmony between mind and body. I believe the mind and body comprise a single system, and every change in the human being is essentially simultaneously a change at the level of the mind (that is, a cognitive change) as well as the body (a hormonal, neural, and/or behavioral change). When we open our minds to this idea of mind-body unity, new possibilities for controlling our health become real. Making use of the power of a mindful body is well within our grasp."

And this one (one of my all-time faves), speaking to how the scientific community has received this research at large:

"Schopenhauer is presumed to have said, “All research passes through three phases: First it is ridiculed; then it is violently opposed; and third it is accepted as self-evident.”

The contents of the book are:

The Social Construction of Rules
Almost Counts: The Hidden Costs of the Borderline Effect
The Myth of Risk-Taking
Actor or Observer?
Risk and Prediction
The Arbitrariness of Interpreting Risk
The Illusion of Control
What Can We Control?
Mindful Optimism
Is “Normal Distribution” Normal?
Just Try Harder
Sorting Winners and Losers
Someone Else’s Shoes: The Problem with Perspective Taking
Decision Systems
Infinite Regress
Making the Decision Right
No Wrong Decision
When Decisions Matter
The Unreliability of Probability
Why Regrets?
No Right Decisions
Guesses, Predictions, Choices, and Decisions
Trying or Doing?
Blame and Forgiveness
Finding Meaning
Mind-Body Dualism
A More Complete Mind-Body Unity
Testing Mind-Body Unity
Powers of Perception
Embodied Cognition
The Mind and the Senses
Imagined Eating
Imaginary Exercise
Interesting Possibilities
Placebo Power
Strong Medicine
Who Do You Believe?
Spontaneous Remissions
Embodying the Mind
Attention to Variability, Uncertainty, and Mindfulness
Symptom Variability
Healing Is a Matter of Opportunity
Catching Mindfulness
Sensitivity to Mindfulness
Mindful Contagion and Health
Our Senses
Something in the Air
A New Approach to Health
Mindful Medicine
Mental Health
Mindful Hospitals
Unimpossible

********************

The Mindful Body was a another excellent work from the author. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested.
5 stars, and a spot on my "favorites" shelf.

[Natalie Fetzer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author seems to suggest that no one acknowledges the connection between the mind and the health of the body and vice versa. This doesn't seem like a disputed connection to me--that the human experience is equally psychological and physical-- but perhaps in the clinical, medical, diagnostic setting less attention is given to this connection than there should be.

Certainly the power of the mind over the health of the body receives less primacy than the author advocates.

Langer is a mindfulness researcher, and she demonstrates how mindfulness, embracing uncertainty, and viewing health good and bad as variable have potentially powerful effects on peoples health and ability to recover from illness or injury.

I'm a little skeptical about the extent of the power of the mind over the body. And even more wary of this possibility being used against sick people. (The author specifically eschews the idea that sickness is only a weakness of the mind and that every illness can be cured with the intention and attention of thought. However, it is easy to imagine her research being brandished about by careless and, ironically, thoughtless people who have reached just such a conclusion.)

The book is strongest in helping the reader to think about the illusion of certainty and the benefit of noticing that nothing, particularly like health, is static. Doubt and instability would not seem like the foundations of improving health, but in Langer's view they are.

Also bonus points for an unexpected Helen Hunt anecdote!

[basker ville · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have finished the book and let me tell you, the mind is a powerful tool. My biggest lesson from Dr. Ellen J. Langer is instead of trying to make the perfect decision, make the decision you’ve made right. I received this book as a gift because it was on my Goodreads list. My introduction to her was on Jordan Peterson’s podcast. She was ballsy and a straight shooter, and sounded like a true New Yorker. I liked her energy, so I decided to read it.

It was an arduous task. I gave this book 2 stars. It seems like the same information emulsified over and over again. This could’ve been a pamphlet. We didn’t need to drag it out to two hundred pages. She could’ve included a few more chapters on practical mindfulness.

I love that she mentioned Aristotle believed that a quiet and happy mind makes the body healthy. She also briefly mentioned the “I’ll be happy when” mentality, which isn’t healthy. As Dr. Langer said, a road colored with these beliefs is full of disappointment.

The best way to make a decision is to write out the options, advantages, and disadvantages, and then compare.

[Aneta · Rating 3 out of 5]

„Uważne ciało. Jak nasze przekonania pomagają nam wyzdrowieć” autorstwa Ellen J. Langer to inspirująca publikacja, która ukazuje, jak myśli, przekonania, a przede wszystkim nastawienie psychiczne, wpływają całościowo na zdrowie fizyczne. Pani Langer, profesor psychologii na Uniwersytecie Harvarda, prezentując wyniki swoich badań, zauważa, że umysł i ciało są ze sobą ściśle związane. Wpływ na to ma również emocjonalna uważność, która w codziennym życiu odzwierciedla świadome podejście do własnego ciała i zdrowia. Chodzi tu przede wszystkim o kierowanie myśli wprost na swój dobrostan. Świadome bycie tu i teraz, w swoim ciele, umyśle i działaniach. Nie skupianie się na chorobie, ale właśnie na zdrowiu.

Jest to książka, która w niepodważalny, naukowy sposób, wyszczególnia aspekty przemawiające za pozytywnym wpływem myśli i przekonań, na ogólne samopoczucie, a nawet zdrowienie. Autorka przytacza wiele badań, które pokazują, że poprawa jakości życia swoje źródło ma właśnie w odpowiednim nastawieniu. Bardzo spodobał mi się eksperyment z cofaniem wieku biologicznego. Udowodniono, iż u starszego mężczyzny przy odpowiednim psychicznym nastawieniu, fizyczność uległa radykalnej poprawie!

Lektura napisana przystępnym językiem. Czyta się ją lekko i z wiekim zaciekawieniem. Nie jest to poradnik w stylu filozoficznych rozważań, ale książka zachęcająca do konkretnych zmian myślenia. Duże zaplecze naukowych badań, nadaje jej miano praktyczności i konkretu. Skłania czytelnika do refleksji, dodając motywacji w zmianie myślenia. Często o tym zapominamy, a to właśnie odpowiednie nastawienie ma największe znaczenie.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked a lot of the ideas about mindfulness in this book, but some of the throwaway comments were a little frustrating. Like, if you break your ankle and never think about limping, you won’t! I’m not quite sure it works like that. It felt a little dismissive to people who deal with chronic illnesses. The power of mindfulness is clear, but that doesn’t mean you can think away every symptom.

[Bryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was more of a meta analysis than anything else which was a bit disappointing, but included some very interesting studies that demonstrated the kind-body connection well!

[Colleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the author that "created the concept of mindfulness" Dr. Ellen J. Langer wrote the book Mindfulness that changed the way doctors and therapists treatment of mental illness. The concept has helped innumerable people by improving their lives by looking at the world differently. She has now written this book "The Mindful Body" (Thinking your way to chronic health). This book made me realize I have been approaching my health/health care in a way that is going to shorten my life! I am so thankful for the opportunity to read this book. I feel this book will be helpful, and bring peace to anyone at any age regardless of your current health.

[Jess Depew · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the last few years especially, I think we've all been inundated with research on mindfulness and its benefits. This book focuses specifically on mindfulness and health and offers many scientific studies on the connection of the mind and body, resulting in the conclusion by the author (and many others) that the two cannot be separated. The studies in this are fascinating to read about! It certainly will encourage me to take a more active role in my health and not necessarily accept things as they are presented. Perception certainly is reality, but we have more control over all of it than maybe we've stopped to realize. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

[Div Manickam · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting idea and concept of connecting the mind and body..
Mind body unity

Thank you for your wisdom. The hypothesis and tests are not as easy to comprehend. I could not resonate with the clinical test samples.



A few highlights from the book

Why Decide? Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson

Working backward we see how it all makes sense; the dots are easy to connect.

every thought we have may affect our healthjust being in the presence of someone mindful increases our own mindfulness

mindfulness—as my students and I have shown—is instead the simple process of actively noticing things, no meditation required.

[Sarah De Beer · Rating 2 out of 5]

No real practical advice

Ordered this book after hearing the author on the zoe science and nutrition podcast as it sounded interesting. Interesting read however I felt like it was just a ramble about various studies that the author has done with a background theory of being able to think your way out of anything which is a nice idea but seems kind of fantastical.

I would have preferred the last part of the book to give some practical advice/tips on how to put it into practice in the real world. I don't feel like I really learned much from the book. It also feels slightly like a dose of toxic positivity.

[Lucian Daniliuc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the book.

It’s an east read (listen) and has plenty of examples that all point to the idea that our mind and our body are connected on a deeply intimate level, which brings up new potential for staying healthy and healing.

Here’s one interesting example: in an experiment, it turns out that a person’s wound heals as fast as the person perceives time, not how fast time actually passes.

That means that we are as healthy or sick as we believe to be. Very interesting.

[Jason Stiles · Rating 1 out of 5]

While the book has interesting points, I consider it dangerous. The concepts are weapons to be wielded against ill people. Diabetic? Heart disease? Depressed? That is because you're not thinking right.

Not only are we as a society dealing with 'holistic medicine' that has no efficacy being delivered to us by well wishers, now cancer patients will be told by those same people that they need to relax because maybe it's your mind.

[Lauren · Rating 1 out of 5]

For some reason, the more I read this book, the more uncomfortable I felt. It felt very pseudo-science and reminded me of Illness as A Metaphor (but in a bad way). While I think the premise is there, I wasn't able to finish this book. DNF at 15%

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some fantastic insights about mindfulness and how it affects our health and well-being. I think that this is an area that each of us should explore to help us heal, or to maintain and improve our health.

[Lisa D · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this after hearing the author on a Zoe podcast. There are many interesting examples of how our expectations shape our experiences and we get what we expect to get - not great if a doctor says you have an incurable illness. It’s a reminder to think more critically and question everything and to live more mindfully by noticing variation, the good and the bad, rather than mindlessly accepting that we are sick or incapable of changing things for the better. It’s a good book for people like me who are naturally conformist but would like to be less so!

[Leniwa Wenus · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title of the book is somewhat misleading. The author shares her research of so many different aspects, and the title doesn’t cover it all. Moreover, the expectation is that we’ll learn about meditation etc. and there’s literally nothing in meditation as the author sees the concept of mindfulness very differently. To me, her perspective is way too revolutionary even though it sounds simple.
I found it commendable that the author researched everything she questioned. I found the chapter on decision-making fascinating.

[VICTOR M · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great concept. I really like the idea of connecting mindfulness with the body — it’s powerful and relevant.

That said, the book feels too academic and dense. It drags at times, and I honestly think the main ideas could’ve been delivered in a much shorter format — maybe even a solid podcast series.

I also switched between the book and the audiobook, and the audio version was distracting. The narrator has a slight whistle on the “S” sounds, which made it hard to fully enjoy.

Overall: strong idea, but the execution made it less engaging than it could have been.

[Daniel Austin Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book doesn't focus on "mindfulness" in the way that we commonly see today, but in a way that is informed by social science and might better be described as 'intentionally' or 'thoughtfully'. It's a trade book, but builds on decades of Langer's important and rigorous research, adapted for a handy take-away style.

[Stephanie Sterling · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t think I wanted to read this book and couldn’t exactly remember why I picked it up but, in the end, it was full of weird little anecdotes and interesting ideas that I enjoyed reading. She presents concepts of mindfulness differently than I’m used to reading them and I bet she’s an interesting character to talk to.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this was a really good look into mindfulness - a term that’s become more popular in the last decade!

She uses research and studies to back up her thoughts and presents good ideas for making decisions and changing the way we think about our lives!

Enjoyed this one!

[Mr Henriquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book that explains the link between mind and boy. It explains what being 'mindful' is and how it can lead to better health. It left me with some interesting thoughts and I'm keen to investigate the concept of mindful teaching and mindful learning.

[Bertie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting and well written. However, I think I was probably hoping for a more practical book; this one posits that it is possible to heal with the power of thought, and shows how this is true in theory. Unfortunately, no actual guidance on how to put it into practice - basically if you are positive, you will be healthy. However, if life has given you certain negativities there is no guidance on how to get rid of them and become healthy!