Dr. Alia Crum (@AliaCrum) is an Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of the Mind & Body Lab (MLB) at Stanford University. Her research focuses on mindset: how what we think and what we believe shapes the way our physiology reacts to the environment.
Andrew Huberman and Dr. Alia Crum discuss how mindset shapes how we interact and react to the world around us. They break down elements of mindset such as how the nutritional content and satisfaction of food changes, how mindset impacts the effects of exercise and weight loss, how to think about stress in productive ways, and much more.
Host: Andrew Huberman (@hubermanlab)
Note: For full access to publications that are behind a paywall, check out Sci-Hub
Mindset: core beliefs or assumptions we have about a domain or category of things that orient us to expectations, explanations, and goals
Assumptions you make about a domain – for example, do you view stress as debilitating and bad or motivating and good for you?
Mindsets help us simplify complex reality and distill down our core assumptions that shape and orient our thinking and action
If you have the mindset that intelligence is malleable, you will be motivated to grow and learn and build from
Do you have the mindset that healthy food is good for you and beneficial or disgusting and depriving?
Mindset shapes physiological mechanisms by changing what our bodies prioritize and are prepared to do
Mindset comes from four main sources: (1) upbringings; (2) culture & media; (3) influential others in our lives; (4) conscious choice
Do our beliefs about what we’re eating change our body’s physiological response to that food? (holding constant objective nutrients)
Taking into the consideration placebo effect, the idea that food could have a differential impact based on mindset is not as crazy as it seems
Design: participants were given an identical milkshake at two separate time points – once they were told the milkshake was healthy and full of good nutrients; the second time, they were told the milkshake was an indulgent, high-calorie treat
Results: when people thought they were consuming the high fat, high-calorie milkshake, ghrelin levels dropped 3x more – when participants believed the food was high calorie and indulgent, their bodies believed they were fuller and satiated
Ghrelin pathway is susceptible to thoughts: perceptions about a milkshake affected subconscious processing of the ghrelin pathway
This groundbreaking study showed two important things: (1) one of the first studies that showed any effect on belief about nutrition and physiology; (2) ghrelin has an adaptive component – if you believe you’re treating yourself and eating indulgently, you will feel more satiated  
Read more: Mindset Over Milkshakes: Mindsets, Not Just Nutrients, Determines Ghrelin Response by Crum, Corbin, Brownell. & Salovey
It’s possible that the nutritional diet that brings you the most benefit & nutrients is partly based on the belief that it’s the right way
Belief, social context, and the body’s natural ability to respond to something affects everything we do and consume
“When it comes to what diet you’re eating, it does matter what it is and it matters what you think about that diet – and what others around you and in our culture think about that diet.” – Dr. Alia Crum
Social contexts inform mindset, and our mindsets interact with our physiology to produce outcomes
Study question: is it possible that the results of exercise are in some part due to placebo?
Mindset and reorientation can help people reap the benefits of the exercise they’re already doing
Design: randomized hotel housekeepers into two groups – one group told the type of exercise they are getting is good and beneficial for their body & one control group
  • After 4 weeks both groups were surveyed as metrics taken such as weight, body fat, blood pressure
Hotel housekeepers are objectively very active (walking upstairs, pushing carts, changing linens, etc.) but don’t consider themselves as exercising – or at least don’t consider their fatigue to be beneficial exertion
Results: housekeepers in the group who were told their physical activity is beneficial lost weight, decreased blood pressure and started feeling better and more confident about themselves and their bodies
We have to be thoughtful in how we motivate people to exercise & the benefits of exercise – it needs to be beyond a handbook telling people the requirement of minutes (i.e., 150 minutes per week)
In another study, there was a strikingly higher risk of death rate based on a self-reported perception of amount activity (i.e., people with a low perception about how much exercise they’re getting (regardless of reality) had a higher risk of death)
Read more: Mind-set Matters: Exercise And The Placebo Effect by Crum & Langer
Does your perception of how you slept the night before impact how well you function the next day?
Study: Participants in a sleep study who were told they had gotten poor sleep performed worse on cognitive tasks than those told they slept well
There are important benefits of sleep we don’t want to compromise but it’s possible that mindset can help us cognitively and physiologically push through a bad night or a couple of bad nights of sleep
This could really impact your judgment of using a sleep tracker which tells you how you slept
Read more: Placebo Sleep Affects Cognitive Functioning by Draganich & Erdal
The public health message is that stress is bad and harmful for our health, productivity, relationships, fertility, cognition, etc.
The reality is that the body is designed to have an enhanced response to experiences of stress and encountering adversity in goal-related efforts
Benefits of stress: narrows focus, increases attention, speeds the rate of processing information, anabolic hormones which help the body grow muscle & learn
Stress can also enhance a sense of connection to values & connection to others
Stress is paradoxical and complex but we should question the role of mindset about stress in shaping a response to stress
If you view a stressor as more of a challenge and less of a threat, brain and body response is more adaptive
Ask yourself: at the core level do you view stress as something that’s bad and should be avoided or as natural and going to enhance us?
People who view stress as an opportunity for growth, experience better health outcomes, better well-being, higher performance
You can change your mindset about stress if you reorient your perception and change in mindset about stress, physiological symptoms related to stress, improved performance
Unsurprisingly, most Navy Seals view stress as a source of strength when studied
The key isn’t that you have to view stress as a good thing and embrace a cancer diagnosis, poverty, etc. – it’s that the experience of the stress can lead to enhancing outcomes
If you view stress as bad, you’ll be inclined to want to deal with it and get rid of it or just freak out – instead of using stress to realize enhancing outcomes (improved priorities, building strength, improved performance)
Clarify your definition of stress: decouple stress from its negative associations and realize it as a neutral effect of adversity in goal-related efforts
We only stress about things we care about so it’s two sides of the same coin – stress is connected to what we care about
Three steps to adoption stress as an enhancing mindset:
  • 1. Acknowledge that you’re stressed – own it, see it, be mindful of it
  • 2. Welcome the stress – in that stress is something you care about so use it as an opportunity to connect with what you care about
  • 3. Use the stress response to achieve the thing you care about, not spend your effort getting rid of the stress
We all have the stress response, what you do with it and how you leverage it is up to you
The reality of side effects can be linked to the body learning how to tolerate or manage allergens with positive orientation to symptoms of medication, treatment, allergy
In reading side effects, you are in part priming yourself to receive those side effects – people who read warning labels, side effects, packaging labels, etc. have a greater rate of experiencing those side effects
Medicine should consider the mindset instilled in the patient when saying something will or won’t work
1. Be aware that you have a mindset: your view of the world is filtered through your framework, interpretation, expectation, etc.
2. Think about the effects of mindset on life: is the mindset helpful or harmful?
3. Seek ways to adopt a more useful mindset: healthy foods are indulgent and delicious, stress is natural and can help you learn & grow