BITESIZE | How to Stop Overthinking, Embrace Uncertainty & Enjoy Life More | Dr Ellen Langer #665

Many of us spend time agonising over decisions, regretting past choices or wondering what might have happened if we'd chosen differently. But today’s guest believes this way of thinking is based on a fundamental misconception. Today’s clip is from episode 537 of the podcast with Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, Dr Ellen Langer. Ellen has spent over 50 years conducting ground-breaking research into the power of the mind and how our thoughts can shape every aspect of our lives. In this clip, she shares a refreshing approach to decision making that could help us stop overthinking, let go of regret and feel more confident in the choices we make. Ellen is a wonderful human, full of knowledge, expertise and passion. She is the recipient of three Distinguished Scientists awards and the author of twelve books, including The Mindful Body: Thinking Our Way to Chronic Health. Thanks to our sponsor ⁠⁠⁠https://thewayapp.com/livemore Join my 21-day energy reset: https://drchatterjee.com/reset Show notes and the full podcast are available at drchatterjee.com/537 Support the podcast and enjoy Ad-Free episodes. Try FREE for 7 days on Apple Podcasts ⁠⁠https://apple.co/feelbetterlivemore⁠⁠ For other podcast platforms go to ⁠⁠https://fblm.supercast.com. DISCLAIMER: The content in the podcast and on this webpage is not intended to constitute or be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your doctor or other qualified health care provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on the podcast or on my website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rangan Chatterjee?

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• 1:20Rangan Chatterjee?

  See all details at drinkag1.com/livemore. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 537 of the podcast with Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, Dr Ellen Langer. Ellen has spent over 50 years conducting groundbreaking research into the power of the mind and how our thoughts can shape every aspect of our lives.

• 2:00Rangan Chatterjee?

  In this clip, she shares a refreshing approach to decision-making that could help us stop overthinking, let go of regrets, and feel more confident in the choices we make.

• 2:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  This idea that we don't know. I think this plays into your rather provocative section in your book on decision making, right?

• 2:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:24Rangan Chatterjee?

  I wonder if you could talk about decision making a little bit. It's so fascinating the way you look at it.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Thank you. It's interesting because people have trouble making decisions. And they think they should do what decision theorists tell them to do. And I think this is an instance where the experts are wrong and the people are right and should just know that what they're doing is fine. Essentially, rather than waste your time, the big words, waste your time, trying to make the right decision, what we need to do is almost randomly choose and make the decision right. Don't worry about making the right decision, make the decision right. What does that mean? When you're making a decision, you make a decision to take action.

• 3:12Speaker 01

  As soon as you take that action, there's no way to assess what the other alternative decisions would have been. So you can never know. Now, and we have lots of people who've suffered decision regret, which is kind of funny, because the presumption is that, you know, so you do something, it doesn't work for you, you say, oh, I should have done this other thing, as if the other thing would have been better. The other thing could have been the same, worse, you know, or better. But more important than that, the consequence of the decision is totally a function of the view you take of it. So interestingly, all of my decisions are good. You know, it's amazing. I just don't make bad decisions. Now, how could that be?

• 3:54Speaker 01

  Because whatever happens is the right thing. Now, the way people think they should make a decision is to do some kind of cost benefit analysis. That's nice if you live in the world where there really are good things and bad things. When you recognize that the things themselves are neither good nor bad, that means every cost is a benefit, every benefit is a cost, you add them up, they're not going to tell you what to do. Now, even beyond that, you have people telling you gather information. This sounds good, but it's ridiculous. Let me tell you. If there were only 10 pieces of information that could possibly be considered to make

• 4:34Speaker 01

  your decision, certainly having eight pieces of that information is more helpful than having two pieces of information. But the amount of information you could collect is almost endless. And if you think for, you know, let's say there are a million pieces of information, the difference between five and 15 is meaningless, right? Put it five over a million versus 50 over a million and, you know, you're talking about a tiny bit of information. And there's no natural endpoint to the information you could collect. Now, you're collecting the information and you say, okay, now I have enough. The next piece you could have collected could have changed it all. You know, should I buy the house?

• 5:19Speaker 01

  So, all right, I like the ceilings, there are enough closets, it's near the schools, you know, everything is wonderful, I'm gonna buy the house. And then you find out they're going to put a highway right in front of the house that the government has just decided on. You didn't know about it. And so then it's a bad decision. But actually, is it a bad decision? Well, maybe it's a good decision because then they'll pay you to get rid of the house so they can enlarge the...

• 5:43Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 5:44Speaker 01

  So the point is, there's no natural endpoint to the information to make the decision. There's no natural endpoint to an assessment of the advantages or disadvantages to any of those alternatives. And each alternative is simultaneously good or bad, depending on how you view it. So you can't do a cost benefit analysis. So what is a person to do? It doesn't matter. Now, it's one thing if you're deciding, should you get M&M's versus a Mounds bar. People will say, okay, yeah, why should I waste all this time? I'm suggesting that this kind of gets people crazed, that if you're deciding, should you

• 6:26Speaker 01

  get married, should you take the job, it's exactly the same thing. You cannot know.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  Should you take the job, let's say, well, you'd have to have an option of taking the job, seeing how it feels, taking a different job, seeing how it feels. But you can't even do that because once you've taken the job, you're already a different person. So when you start that second alternative, you can't adequately assess.

• 6:52Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, and this plays in, Ellen, to how I have changed my own relationship with regret. Okay, so I think in the past, I very much would regret a lot, and there would be guilt and shame and all kinds of things associated with previous decisions. But I, like you, believe that these mindsets are completely malleable and we can change them anytime we want to, once we are aware that we're choosing to take a particular mindset. And then when we go, I don't want to actually, I'm gonna, you know, live my life with a brand-new mindset, and it can take time to practice it. But the point I'm trying to get to is that for the last years, I actually don't believe in regret anymore. I think it's a pointless phenomenon.

• 7:37Rangan Chatterjee?

  I actually believe that regret is a form of perfectionism, this idea that actually there was a perfect decision. I think when we're regretting something, we're effectively saying, or certainly this is my interpretation of what I think many of us are saying, is I had the potential to make the perfect decision, and the fact that I didn't means I've somehow failed. Therefore, for the rest of my life, I'm gonna regret something that I did 30 years ago when I didn't know better. Or, as you say, and I really like this chapter, this whole idea on making decisions, therefore it sort of makes regret a little bit pointless because it's the mindset you choose to take over anything that happens in life.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  There's a step before that, which is when you choose whatever you choose, there's some good reason for it, or else you wouldn't have chosen it.

• 8:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  Exactly.

• 8:29Speaker 01

  And if you're aware of that, then you don't, you're less likely to have any regret. So let's say I decide, you know, today all I wanna do is, I've just been traveling, I just wanna relax, I want a very simple day, so I'm not gonna go to that big event tonight, whatever that big event is. And then I find out that that big event would have been spectacularly important for the rest of my life. Now, because I made the mindful decision to stay home, I know that what I need right now is just some peace and quiet to be by myself and so on. I'm not going to regret not having done that other thing.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  If I don't know why I'm doing what I'm doing now, and I find out the other option was a good one, of course, then I would experience regret. So the bottom line, if you know why you're doing what you're doing, you're not going to regret not doing something else.

• 9:29Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I love that. So if you're paying attention in the moment to what you're doing, then the decision makes sense because you were paying attention. But if you weren't, then yes, you set the scene.

• 9:40Speaker 01

  Right, it's like we're saying before that, you know, oh my gosh, how could I be so gullible? Well, that's because I'm buying somebody else's or my own after the fact interpretation of why I did what I did. But I did what I did going forward because I'm trusting. And if I'm oblivious to that, then I become a victim of every negative person's interpretation of my behavior.

• 10:06Rangan Chatterjee?

  The implications of your work and what you're talking about are so, so profound for people when they really understand how much our mindset influences every single aspect of our lives. And I think one of the reasons why I love this new book of yours so much is because I do believe, as I mentioned, that stress is a huge part of the way that we feel and our risk of getting sick in the future, et cetera, et cetera. I also believe, as I mentioned, that a huge part of stress is the way we look at the world. And as you said right at the start of this conversation, one of the most important mindset shifts is going from this idea

• 10:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  that we know everything that's happening and we can predict, so we have this element of control, and going, actually, I just don't know. It has lots.

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Well, it's more than that we don't know. It's that we don't know that we don't know. That's the bigger problem. Because then when we think we know, then we disparage other people, different ideas. We limit ourselves in so many ways.

• 11:13Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, and it makes me think of the two words, sort of, fixed view of the world, or a more fluid and flexible view of the world.

• 11:20Speaker 01

  I think it's realizing that uncertainty is the rule, not the exception. And when we know we don't know, then we naturally tune in. And what people need to realize is that everything is always changing. Everything looks different from different perspectives, so we can't know. But let me tell you a story that it's meaningful to make. I had experienced a major fire that had destroyed eighty percent of what I owned. The next day, I called the insurance company. The agent came and he said, my goodness, this was the very first time that the damage was worse than the call. Most people, oh, my God, oh, my God. And then he guessed, Eric, it's not so terrible.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  And that wasn't the way I was, because I had already lost everything. Throwing my sanity and sense of calm after that was just going to cost me more rather than less. I also realized that everything I had in that house represented who I was rather than who I am right now. And it was an opportunity to reinvent myself in some way, in a small way. Right after the fire, since I didn't have my house any longer, I moved into the Charles Hotel. And I was a sight to be seen. There I am with my two little dogs and whatever. It was Christmas Eve.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  I went out, I came back, and my room was full of gifts, not from the management of the hotel, not from the owner of the hotel, but from the so-called little people, the people who parked my car, the chambermaids, the waiters and waitresses. I can't tell you. It took me years to be able to tell this story without it bringing tears to my eyes, because it was just so sweet. Every Christmas, I am reminded of the basic goodness of so many people. So, you know, when you think about it, I don't remember what I lost. And I do remember the warmth that I experienced.

• 13:24Speaker 01

  It was actually, on whole, a positive experience. So I think that people need to understand that events themselves are neither positive nor negative.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  What makes them positive or negative is the way we understand these events. The more mindful we are, the more choices we have for how to understand the things we experience. You know, I'm curious about your view of this as an important physician. My view is that stress is the major killer. I think everybody these days knows that stress isn't good for you.

• 14:03Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, listen, I 100% agree with you that stress is the number one cause of symptoms, disease, no question at all. The longer I go on in my career, the more I think, actually, if I had to pick, I'd say it was stress. Yeah, it doesn't mean nutrition is not important. It doesn't mean that sleep is not important or exercise and movement. But I think when your stress response is activated chronically, as it is for so many people, we just don't realize that it impacts every single organ system in the body, including our immune system. And the other thing which I think really relates to your work

• 14:44Rangan Chatterjee?

  is this idea for me that stress is not just external, right? Which many people think it's to do with my workload, what my boss has me to do. The external events in my life will determine how stressed I feel. But as you just mentioned, and as I passionately believe, a huge part of stress, if not the vast majority of stress, is actually internal with how we view those external events.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  You know, and so stress is psychological. And so if disease is primarily a function of stress and we can control our thoughts that will control whether or not we're stressed, it means we have enormous control over our health.

• 15:28Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  Far greater than most people realize. You know, I have a few one-liners. I like after doing so many years of research, I'll see if I can capture some of the major thoughts very briefly. One of these is if people just ask themselves, is it a Tragedy or an inconvenience? Now, I'm not talking about the fire, you know, but most of the stress that we experience. I think people would realize, you know, so what? You know, it's really not such a big deal. And they'd immediately feel better. But also, stress requires two things. It requires a belief that something is going to happen and that when it happens, it's going to be awful. And it, you know, almost always, the things we worry about don't happen.

• 16:13Speaker 01

  So if you simply said to yourself when you were stressed, why, what are three reasons? Five, if you're interested, um, you know, that this thing might not happen. So you start off, oh, my God, it's gonna happen, realizing maybe it won't happen. But then the more interesting part for me is to say to yourself, let's assume it does happen. How might that actually be a good thing? And so even with that fire I mentioned, the negative effects of it are totally gone. And yet, every single Christmas, um, it brings me joy to reflect on it. Yeah. You know, uh, so, um, ask yourself, is it a tragedy or an inconvenience? We can't predict what's going to happen.

• 16:58Speaker 01

  But once we recognize that whatever happens, we get to determine how we respond to it. So it doesn't matter what's going to happen. Yeah. You're not a victim of these happenings. The world teaches people that life is stressful. Work is stressful. When you're young, school is stressful. I don't, uh, I think that's a major mistake. Work shouldn't be stressful. You know, so I talk in the book, you might recall, um, about better than better. You know, that lots of my colleagues and lots of the world, when they're experiencing something bad, find a solution that is better. But they don't come close to the better than better way of living, you know?

• 17:43Speaker 01

  So that, um, we have, stress is bad, so work, let's say, is stressful. So then people are told, uh, uh, to seek work-life balance.

• 17:55Speaker 01

  You know, which means this bad has to be bad. And now we need to have some fun in our lives. So we can tolerate all of these necessary bad things. And I think that that is totally mindless. That we shouldn't seek work life balance. Because that says the bad has to be bad. But rather, we should have work life integration. That no matter what we're doing, there's a way of doing it. That that can be interesting, if not simply fun. No matter what. And people are taught to accept it. And then, you know, they say, OK, well, I can tolerate it. Rather than no, there's a better than better way of dealing with things.

• 18:40Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, one of the key messages in your book is this idea that if we label something a certain way, then all our behaviors are predicated on the assumption that that label was correct. Right? So one thing I'm pushing back against at the moment is this idea that behavior change is difficult. If we keep saying to people, it's really difficult, but you can do it. We're prejudging the experience for that person. And we're saying, hey, this is going to be difficult. And so they then have a reason when they can't do it. It's go, yeah, I knew he said it was difficult. I found it, you know, I found it difficult. It confirms the belief that you already had.

• 19:25Rangan Chatterjee?

  But what would happen if you never believed that in the first place?

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Well, what people also don't realize, they think in some way that they want to be completely successful. And so sort of an example I often use, you're a little kid and you're in the elevator and you can't reach the button. And you're very excited, you just can't do it. And a parent picks you or whoever's with you, adult picks you up and you press the button. Then you're a little taller and you're trying to. And eventually, though, you're able to hit that button. And that's when the activity is over for you. When was the last time you got in an elevator and were excited that you hit the button? Or, you know, you're playing golf and, yeah, I wish I could just, you know, swing this better and get a. So eventually, you get, nobody has done this. But imagine that now you get a hole in one

• 20:13Speaker 01

  every single time you swing the club. There's no game there. So, you know, and there's something, I think I might be the only one who, I don't know where I learned this. But I learned it was called the Texas curse, which is, I wish you what you wish for yourself. And that the things we wish for, we shouldn't wish for. You don't want everything to be so easy, you know. I was doing this TV show forty years ago on my nursing home study. And I kept telling him, here's the way I would open it up. Nobody ever listens to me, just to, I still think it's a good idea. Which was, you know, you ask somebody, wouldn't it be wonderful if somebody, all of your meals were taken care of?

• 20:58Speaker 01

  And you didn't have to clean the house? And essentially, there was nothing you had to do? And then the camera should pan the nursing home. That's the life people are living. You know, that's not what we want. You know, it's the challenge. It's the possibility for mastering something, not having mastered it. That's the essence of everything.

• 21:21Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah, I love it. And it makes you think that next time I go into a lift, I'm gonna try and see if I can recreate some sort of excitement about pressing the button.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  But you can. I had this friend who lived in this very fancy building in New York, very, very. And in this, because the building was so exclusive, you'd go in the elevator, and there was actually an elevator operator. And I thought, my goodness, you know, what a job that, every day he's just going up and down the elevator. It was wonderful, because I watched how he actually did this. He, you know, I would go in, I'd say thirty-third floor. He would look at the numbers, turn around, and then turn his dial to see if he could get to the thirty-third floor. You know, he made it a game. And that's the way it stayed interesting.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  And I think that I make virtually everything a game.

• 22:18Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 22:18Speaker 01

  And that doesn't mean I don't take things seriously, but when you think you know, there's no reason to tune in. If you were going to come visit me right now, you'd come to my house and you'd pay attention. You'd see, you'd look at the paintings, you'd say, did she do that? What books am I reading? What is that? You'd be asking yourself questions and enjoying yourself without any effort. That's the important thing. So when we realize we don't know, life becomes interesting again and effortless.

• 22:51Rangan Chatterjee?

  Tell me about your experience in Australia when you were asked about your bucket list.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this is funny. So I go to Australia and I give a talk and a number of other people give individual talks. And then the surprise, we're all brought out on stage, all these big shots. And somebody asks the first person about their bucket list. And the next person, what's their bucket list? And I'm like, what's on my bucket list? I don't have a bucket list. And then, in my typical style, I say, well, if I don't have a bucket list, it's probably fine not to have a bucket list. And why is it fine not to have? So then she gets to me and I say, I don't have a bucket list. That if what you're doing is fun, enjoyable, and you're doing it fully,

• 23:41Speaker 01

  you don't need to be doing anything else. You know, a bucket list, it's like work, you know, where I need a vacation. And if you're working the right way, you should never need a vacation. It's different wanting a vacation. Like a glass and you're gonna pour water in it, and the glass is full, it's full.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  And it doesn't have to be full by going on a safari or whatever else might be on people's bucket lists. And I'm not speaking against travel, vacations, but you shouldn't need them.

• 24:14Rangan Chatterjee?

  Yeah.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  You know, as you said, you walk outside, all of a sudden you see new things. I mean, there are people, you know, when you're young and you go to Europe and you go to all of the cathedrals. If you ask any of those people, do we have any cathedrals back in the States? They wouldn't know.

• 24:31Speaker 01

  It's just something you do in this other location. But the more important part of it is that when the moment is full, it's full. And then you don't need anything beyond that. And the fullness can be garnered from very little, very small things. We don't have to be investing large sums of money and so on. You know, if you were very stressed and you asked me to help you, many things I could do. But one, I might say to you, you know, thread a needle. Here's a needle, uh, thread it. And you'd be threading that needle. And then afterwards, I say to you, so were you stressed when you were threading the needle?

• 25:12Speaker 01

  You say, no, you know, you're busy threading the needle. And so what happens is when, especially when we think we have big problems, we seek big solutions. And if you take care of the moment, then the end of the day is fine. It's all we need are these moments.

• 25:31Rangan Chatterjee?

  Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. And if you want more, why not go back and listen to the original full conversation with my guest? If you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my bite-sized Friday email. It's called the Friday Five. And each week I share things that I do not share on social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles of books that I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across, and so much more. I really think you're gonna love it. The goal is for it to be a small, yet powerful dose of feel-good to get you ready for the weekend.

• 26:13Rangan Chatterjee?

  You can sign up for it free of charge at drchattity.com/fridayfive. I hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long-form conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.