Those of you who follow me regularly know I’ve been struggling through a messy post series lately. The topic? Spiritual Enlightenment, and actual neurological changes in the brain that might go along with it.

I blame Oprah.

It all started with my attempt to review her multi-media marketing of Eckhart Tolle’s psuedo-Buddhism, ala A New Earth.

Then it snowballed into sharing my personal experiences and half baked hypothesis, which I’m afraid comes off like What-The-Bleep, Part Deaux. Still, I’m compelled to finish this series, trudging onward bravely…

First, a reminder of the science:

Modern neurological research has seriously shaken up our understanding of the mind/brain connection. Not only does the brain shape thought, but thoughts help shape the brain. Read the rest of this entry »

Ellen Langer is a Yale graduate, a Harvard psychology professor, an award winning researcher, and author of several interesting looking books on applied mindfulness. But it’s her study on hotel maids that’s gotten all the attention this year… hotel maids who apparently “thought themselves thin.”

(Yes, yes this is old news - but sometimes its fun to cover stories *after* the media frenzy dies down, dang nab it! Besides, it fits with the whole mindfulness craze that’s building from the Eckhart/Oprah thing)

Hotel maids are a busy and hard working group of people, lugging around heavy equipment, bending, turning, and scrubbing all day long. It’s a physically demanding and active job that burns a lot of calories.

But maids don’t typically see themselves as active, it turns out. When Langer and grad student Alia Crum surveyed 84 of these hard working women, two thirds of them said they didn’t regularly exercise. A full third said they didn’t get *any* exercise, inspite of their very active jobs. But what was really interesting is that when their fitness levels were measured - they matched their belief, rather than the reality. Their weight, blood pressure and other measurements were equivalent to people living a sedentary lifestyle.

“Given that they are exercising all day long,” Langer says, “that seemed to be bizarre.”

Read the rest of this entry »