Something You Should Know - Magic Words That Influence Others & How Feeling Healthy Makes It So

Starting point is 00:00:00 Canada's Wonderland is bringing the holiday magic this season with Winterfest on select nights now through January 3rd. Step into a winter wonderland filled with millions of dazzling lights, festive shows, rides, and holiday treats. Plus, Coca-Cola is back with Canada's kindest community, celebrating acts of kindness nationwide with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at canadaswunderland.com. Today on something you should know, how washing your hands at just the right time can change your whole outlook on life. Then how to choose and use words wisely, because the right words matter. Losing is bad. Being a loser is even worse, right? Cheating on a test is bad, but being a cheater is even worse. And so research shows that one way to get students to cheat less is just by telling

Starting point is 00:00:55 them, well, you know, cheating would make them a cheater. Also, there's an interesting. A interesting way walking can improve your sleep if you do it right. And you can be healthy even if you're sick. It's all about how you adapt to the situation. Healthy is really a judgment for yourself, right? Around 75 to 86% of people with a single disease, like diabetes or arthritis, actually consider their health to be positive. So do 50% of people with three diseases.

Starting point is 00:01:26 All this today on Something You Should Know. of the regency era you might know it as the time when bridgeton takes place or is the time when jane austin wrote her books the regency era was also an explosive time of social change sex scandals and maybe the worst king in british history vulgar history new season is all about the regency era the balls the gowns and all the scandal listen to vulgar history regency era wherever you get podcasts Something You Should Know, fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers. Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. I hope you're having a spectacular day. But if you're not, if you're having a crappy day, if nothing is going right, I have a really good suggestion for you. and that is to wash your hands.

Starting point is 00:02:32 It can actually make a difference and break a streak of bad luck. A study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that people who wash their hands for a full minute after making a mistake or experiencing some bad luck significantly increased their success rates. Washing your hands seems to send a subconscious message to the brain that you're ready to start over. Those in the experiment who washed their hands were then more likely to take chances now that they had clean hands, which increased their odds of good fortune. And that is something you should know. Whenever you talk to people, at home or at work, or in social situations,

Starting point is 00:03:21 the words you choose to use make a huge difference, a difference in how people perceive you, in how influential or persuasive you are, how people remember you. And that may seem pretty obvious that the words you use matter, but there's more to that statement than you may realize. But you're about to realize it as you listen to my guest, Jonah Berger. Jonah is a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He's written some really interesting books, and his latest is called, Magic Words, What to Say, to Get Your Way.

Starting point is 00:03:57 Hi Jonah. So I can imagine people hearing this and thinking, well, this is really about manipulation and trickery or clever little sales tactics to maneuver people in a way you want them. But this is clearly not that. So let's start with an example. You say, and I've done this many times with my two sons, you say that telling a kid that he or she is really smart is not a good idea. And I think this is a good example of what you're talking about. So let's say, start with this example. Why in the world would I not want to tell my son how smart he is? Yeah, well, taking a step back, I think there's a difference between traits and states. And what do I mean by that? Well, a trait is something that's who you are. It's a fixed thing. A state is something that happened, right? A state is something that occurred. And so when we tell kids they're smart, that sounds like a trait. That sounds like who they are. And while that's good in some ways, it's good to be smart. It suggests you don't, you don't have to work very hard, right? Because it's who you are. And so you didn't get here because of working hard. You got here because

Starting point is 00:05:05 you're just a smart person and you're always going to be a smart person. And so that's just great for you. The challenge there is when we say something like that, it can often undermine people's future efforts. They think, okay, I don't need to work hard. I've already got it. And so some very nice research shows that, you know, when we want to encourage people, and encourage them in a positive way. Sometimes it's better as parents or as, as loved ones or as colleagues to talk about states rather than traits, right? I can tell you worked really hard on this. I'm so proud of the effort you put in, right, recognizing that they did a good thing, but recognizing that the way they got there wasn't just who they are, it's the work they put in, which is going to encourage them to

Starting point is 00:05:50 put the work in next time rather than just assuming that it'll happen because I'm just great as is. You say the word because is very important that human beings like to hear what the reason is behind any requests that you make. And so when you're talking to people, the word because becomes very important. So explain what you mean. Yeah, there's a nice study that was done many years ago now in New York City where they went up to people at a library and they said, hey, I know you're in the middle of making copies. The person was in the middle of making copies. and they basically interrupted them and say, let me cut in line. Usually I would have to wait, but I need to go ahead of you to make copies.

Starting point is 00:06:28 And not surprisingly, most people said no, but they were interested in what would lead people to say yes. And so some people went up there and they said, hey, you know, I need like to make some copies. And most people said, no, a different group of people, approach them and said, hey, you know, I'd like to make some copies because and then listed a reason. And they found that the people who said because others were about 50% more likely to go ahead and say, yes to let this person cut ahead of them in line and you might say well yeah but that's because they gave a really good reason right i mean because here's a really good reason but there was a third set of people a third set of people were approached and they were said hey you know can i cut in line to make copies because and then they gave a really terrible reason because i need to make copies

Starting point is 00:07:10 now that's obvious right that me if i'm asking you to cut in line to make copies it's clear that i need to make copies yet even in that situation where the reason wasn't a very good reason people we're still around 50% more likely to say yes. And so it's not the reason itself. Yes, the reason itself matters. But even regardless of the reason, the word because can be quite impactful. So in other words, whenever you have a request to make explaining why you're making it, what the reason for it is really makes all the difference. Basically, yes. Because encourages us to give the reason. Hopefully it's a good reason. But even if it's not a great reason, having a reason is better than not having a reason, right? Understanding what, why someone wants something is usually a better way

Starting point is 00:07:56 to create influence. What are, and when you did the research for this, what are some of the words, some of the phrases, whatever, that came up that perhaps even surprised you that, like, wow, this is really powerful and I had no idea. Yeah, so I talk about six types of language. And to help people remember them, I put them in a framework. It's called the Speak Framework, and that's S, P, E, A, C. It wasn't clever enough to come up with a K, though somebody pointed out that K is really difficult in Scrabble, and so I don't feel so bad. But the S sounds for the language of similarity and difference. The P stands for the language of posing questions. The E is the language of emotion. The A is the language of agency and identity. One of the C's is the language of

Starting point is 00:08:40 confidence, and the other is the language of concreteness. And I'll pick just one, example from the language of agency and identity to talk about. And there was a study that was done many years ago where they're trying to get people to help. It's done in the classroom. People need to clean up. And so some of the students are asked to help. And other students are asked to be a helper. Now, the difference between help and helper is infinitesimally small. It's two letters different. It's not even a different word, really. It's in addition of two letters to the end of that word. Yet people who are asked to be a helper, right, rather than just help, were 30% more likely to help clean up. And it's not just kids in classrooms, a more recent study done with adults and voting, found that rather than asking people to vote, asking people to be a voter, led them to about 15% more likely to go ahead and vote.

Starting point is 00:09:28 And there, it's not even two letters, it's one letter, right? Vote to voter is just a single letter. And so what's the deal, right? why is is helper more motivating than help? Why is voter more likely to motivate folks than vote? And the answer is we all want to see ourselves positively. We all want to see ourselves as smart and efficacious and attractive and athletic and all these different things.

Starting point is 00:09:51 And so we engage in actions that help us feel that way about ourselves, right? If I want to feel I'm athletic, I've got to go for a run once in a while. If I want to feel like a nice person, I need to do nice things once in a while. And so we're also busy, and so we don't have time to do everything, but by turning actions into identities, we're more likely to take those actions as a way to claim the desired identity. If someone asks me to help, yeah, I know I should help, but maybe I don't want to or I'm busy. But if they ask me to be a helper, if I'm a kid, now helping is an opportunity to show everybody I'm a helper, I'm more likely to do it.

Starting point is 00:10:24 Similarly, in a voting context, I know I should vote, but maybe, you know, it's difficult to get to the polls. But if voting is an opportunity to see myself and show other people that I am a voter, well, now I'm more likely to do it. And so by turning actions into identities, we can make people more likely to take those actions. The same thing is actually true on the opposite side for negative things, right? There it works the same way, but in the opposite direction. Losing is bad. Being a loser is even worse, right?

Starting point is 00:10:51 Cheating on a test is bad, but being a cheater is even worse. And so research shows that one way to get students to cheat, less is just by telling them, well, you know, cheating would make them a cheater. There's the old littering campaign that says, don't be a litter bug. Same idea, right? If we want people to do something or not to do something, don't just think about actions, think about identities. We can use those identities to motivate people to behave in the way we're helping. I love how just a little shift in language, a little shift in a word, can make such a big difference because we don't really weigh that when we're talking or even when we're

Starting point is 00:11:29 writing, whether we should say it this way or that way, because it seems like it doesn't really matter and it really does matter. And talk about the difference between fix and solve. I'll stick with one thing you just said, though, that stuck out at me. You know, think about if there are two people. One person says, hey, I run or I run sometimes. And the other one says, I am a runner. I go running versus I am a runner. Well, if someone says they are a runner, you'd probably say, well, they run more often, right? A coffee, someone who drinks coffee, yeah, they like coffee. If someone's a coffee drinker, they must drink coffee a lot. And so we can even use this with ourselves, right? By describing ourselves as identities rather than actions,

Starting point is 00:12:12 it makes it seem more like a fixed thing. I think YouTube's done a great job of calling their audience rather than saying, you know, oh, these are people that create content. They're creators. Well, creators, it seems like a full-time job. If I want to show people I'm creative, don't just say I am creative. I am a creator. And so we can even use this on resumes and other places to shape how we're perceived. I'm speaking with Jonah Berger. He is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. And he's author of the book, Magic Words, what to say to get your way. Hi, I'm Adam Gidwitz, host of Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmist.

Starting point is 00:12:52 On every episode, we tell a grim fairy tale. Not the cute, sweet versions of the fairy tales that your children have heard so many times. No, we tell the real grim fairy tales. They're funny. They're weird. Sometimes they're a little bit scary. But don't worry, we rate every episode, Grim, Grimmer, or Grimmist, so you, your child, your family can choose the episode that's the right level of scary for you. Tune in to Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmist, and our new season, available now.

Starting point is 00:13:23 When they were young, the five members of an elite commando group nicknamed the Stone Wolves raged against the oppressive rule of the Crateroccan Empire, which occupies and dominates most of the galaxies inhabited planets. The wolves fought for freedom, but they failed, leaving countless corpses in their wake. Defeated and disillusioned, they hung up their guns, and went their separate ways, all hoping to find some small bit of peace amidst a universe thick with violence and oppression. Four decades after their heyday,

Starting point is 00:13:56 they each try to stay alive and eke out a living, but a friend from the past won't let them move on, and neither will their bitterest enemy. The Stone Wolves is Season 11 of the Galactic Football League Science Fiction series by author Scott Sigler. Enjoy it as a standalone story, or listen to the entire GFL series beginning, with Season 1, The Rookie.

Starting point is 00:14:17 Search for Scott Sigler, S-I-G-L-E-R, wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so Jonah, now talk about the words fix and solve. So we did a study a few years ago where we looked at the language of customer service. And customer service is, you got a tough job, right? You got people calling all the time. They're often unhappy. and you've got to figure out how to make them happy in a short period of time. And it's challenging to do, in part, because you only have so much control over your situation.

Starting point is 00:14:55 And so what you'd really like to do is show people that you listened and that you care, but how can you do that? And notice that's a problem that doesn't just happen with customer service folks, right? If I'm a leader, I want to show my team that I listen and I care. If I'm a spouse, I want to show my partner that I listened and I care. And so how can we show listening, right? We often think about listening as something that we do. How can we show it?

Starting point is 00:15:21 And so we did an analysis of hundreds of customer service calls. So we worked with a big airline, and we worked with a big online retailer, and we analyzed the language that their customer representatives used, as well as how satisfied people were at the end of those calls and whether people came back to buy something from that company. And we found something pretty powerful. So controlling for the issue people called about and whether that issue was solved and a variety of other things,

Starting point is 00:15:49 we found that using concrete language made customers more satisfied and made them buy more in the future. And what do I mean by concrete language? Well, if someone calls customer service, the representative could say, oh, I can help you with that. Or they could say, I can see if I can find a direct flight from Milwaukee to Kentucky, right? In a retail setting, someone can say, oh, yeah, I'll go look for that,

Starting point is 00:16:13 or I'll go try to find you a T-shirt in gray. Using concrete language is language that's touchable, feelable, perceivable through our senses. A table is really concrete. Strategy is pretty abstract, right? A word like soon is somewhat abstract. A word like tomorrow is really concrete, right? And so if I say, hey, we'll process your refund soon, well, it sounds a little bit concrete.

Starting point is 00:16:41 If I say, hey, your refund will be there tomorrow, it's a lot more concrete. And what we find is that concrete language, both includes customer satisfaction and makes people more like it returned to the retailer. And the reason why is that concrete language shows listening. Because if someone says something, you say, I can help with that. It's not clear to them whether you heard what they said and care about what they said, or it's just a phrase you use all the time. When we call customer service, you know, after we sat on hold for 15 minutes, they jump on and very nicely say, oh, we care about your business and then leave you to be on customer hold for another 20 minutes. And so just because someone says that they care doesn't mean that they do, but concrete language shows caring, right? Because for somebody to be able to use that language, they have to have heard what you said, understood what you said, and be able to show you that they listen.

Starting point is 00:17:33 And that's really key, right? Listening is not just about the actual act of hearing or understanding. It's also to get the benefit of it. It's about showing other people. And concrete language is really useful in showing others. It also seems to matter, too, although the emphasis is on the words here, but how you say it. You know, listening to you, for example, you could talk about anything. And the way you talk, you speak with confidence, you know what you're saying, you say it very well.

Starting point is 00:18:02 you don't um and i're not searching for answers that kind of delivery makes a big difference in whether i believe you or not thank you very much for the kind words i mean i'm not one of those people that everybody goes oh they're so charismatic or you know we all have folks in our own lives where we we think they're amazing communicators when they talk everybody listens um but one question is well why why do people listen when when that person talks right what does that person do that that makes people listen. And so I talk a little bit about the language of Donald Trump. And I don't want to get into politics here. But whether you like Trump or whether you hate him, you can't deny that he's been amazingly effective at selling his ideas. He's gotten a lot of people to listen. He's been

Starting point is 00:18:48 able to persuade a large swath of the American public about what he wants them to think about. And so something, whether you like him or not, he's doing is working. What is it? And so if you look at his language. It's actually pretty interesting, right? Consider, I think he gave a speech, for example, when he was announcing his presidential run a number of years ago, where he said something like, you know, look, America's not what it used to be. You know, I'm going to build a great wall, and I'm going to build it very expensively. And, you know, we don't win anymore. With trade deals, with China, for example, we're not winning. And, you know, I beat China all the time, all the time, and I'll do it here as well. And some people listen to that speech, and they said, you know, it's

Starting point is 00:19:30 empty, it's vacuous, it's overly simplistic. And yet, a year later, he was elected president. And so, again, even if he didn't like that speech, something he's doing is working. What is it? And it turns out, if you look at his language, he's doing the same thing that a lot of great salespeople do, that a lot of leaders like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk that gets a lot of attention, even gurus do, which is he does one particular thing. He speaks with a great deal of confidence. And what do I mean by confidence or certainty, right? The language of certainty. Certain words indicate certainty. This is absolutely the case. It's definitely true. Everyone agrees. The answer is obvious. I'm sure this will happen. All of those indicate a great degree of certainty. And not surprisingly,

Starting point is 00:20:21 certainty is quite persuasive. There's been research, for example, that looks at financial advisors. So they give people two potential financial advisors. They say, hey, which advisor would you want to work with, and they get some sense of what those advisors talk about. And this research finds that people are more likely to want to work with an advisor that seems more certain, even when that certainty doesn't lead to better performance, and even in some cases where that certainty is overconfident, right? They're so sure of things even though they end up being wrong. And why do people like others that seem certain? Well, very simply, you know, if they're so clear about the right answer, it's hard not to believe that they're right because they seem so sure of it themselves.

Starting point is 00:21:04 And so certainty is a great way to persuade others. Notice that's not what most of us do most of the time, right? Most of us, whether our personal or professional lives, we speak with a great deal of uncertainty. I am as guilty of this as anybody, right? When I work with consulting clients and someone says, hey, what do you think of this strategy? I might say, well, I think it's a good idea, seems like it might work, it's probably the best course of action, where it's like, seems, probably, might, could, I think, in my opinion, are all hedges. They all indicate uncertainty. And not surprisingly, that reduces persuasion. Because people are sitting there going, well, if it's not even clear, you're certain about what you're saying, why should I take your advice? And so I'm not

Starting point is 00:21:47 saying never hedge. There are certainly cases where we may want to communicate uncertainty, but at least in many situations, particularly when we're trying to persuade others, don't just hedge because it's inconvenient. Don't just hedge because it's a verbal tick that we do. Hedge because we're doing it on purpose. And if not, ditch the hedges, right? Ditching the hedges will make you seem more confident, seem more certain, which will make other people more likely to take your advice.

Starting point is 00:22:11 Or when we have to hedge, when we want to communicate uncertainty, own that uncertainty, right? Rather than saying, yeah, you know, I'm not sure of this strategy will work. say, hey, I think this strategy is really effective, but for it to work, these three things need to happen, right? You're not suggesting that it's necessarily going to work. You're suggesting it's going to work as long as these three things happen. And so by calling out where that uncertainty is, it not only helps your team and others figure out what they need to do, but it also makes it clear that you are very certain about certain parts of this, which makes people more likely to listen. Yeah, I come across this often, you know, when I interview people for the podcast here and people will equivocate. They don't want to say something that might later not be true or that somebody might fact check or something. So, you know, they'll start an answer with something like, well, there may be cases where this isn't true, but, you know, you just suck the life out of your own answer. Yeah. And in a better way, right, is to say in, you know, in situations

Starting point is 00:23:17 like this, this happens, right? You're not talking about when it doesn't happen. You're focused on when it does happen. And so I think even when you want to restrict what you're talking about to something, there are better and worse ways to do it. Talk about asking advice in order to look smart because I think that's counterintuitive to a lot of people. You want to look like you're the expert so you don't ask other people. You know everything. But asking, as you point out, asking can make you look smarter. So explain how that works. I think when we're stuck on a tough problem and this happens to me a lot. You're working on something, you're trying to figure out the answer, you need help. And we think about asking for advice, but we often don't do it, right, for a few

Starting point is 00:23:58 reasons. One, we're worried the person will be busy. Two, we're worried that even if they're not busy, they won't be able to help us, but most detrimental, we're worried to make us look bad. If we ask for advice, it'll make us look like we don't know what we're doing, and so people will think worse of us. But some very nice research shows actually the exact opposite is true. They had people have various social interactions, some people asked for advice, some didn't, and they found that people were perceived more favorably when they asked for advice, not less. They were seen as smarter and more competent. And the reason is that people are egocentric, right?

Starting point is 00:24:29 We all think we give good advice. We all think our advice is great. And so when someone asks us for our advice, we go, wow, this person was smart enough to ask me for my advice. They must be pretty smart, smart too. And so let's ask for advice a little bit more. Not only will it give us information that we need and help us out in that. capacity but it will also help us be perceived more favorably as well. Lastly, talk about the words could and should and why it's important to talk about those words. You know, we're talking a little

Starting point is 00:24:59 bit about solving problems. We often think about what we should do. And should is a good, a good way to think about it. But a subtle shift in the way we describe that problem solving approach can help us out a lot. Rather than thinking about what we should do, if we think about what we could do instead, research finds were much more likely to reach a good creative solution. And the reason why is that should is sort of restricting. We think about what we should do. It focuses on the only one right answer and we've got to figure out what it is. If instead I think about what I could do gives me a much broader vantage point, right? And think about the different possibilities and what might be out there. And even if I don't pursue all those those possibilities in the end, by thinking

Starting point is 00:25:39 in coulds rather than shoulds will help us get there. Well, what makes this so interesting is it's an important topic, but it's just not one we think about. We don't think specifically, you know, should I use could or should. Should I say help or helper? And it clearly makes a difference. Jonah Berger has been my guest. He's a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. And his latest book is called Magic Words, What to Say to Get Your Way. And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Appreciate it. Thanks for coming on, Jonah. No problem. Thanks so much for having me. Human beings have the ability to adapt.

Starting point is 00:26:25 Of course, so do most other creatures. We all adapt. That is how we survive. If we don't adapt, we don't survive. When we're faced with a health challenge, we adapt to it. As we age, we adapt to that. But actually, our ability to adapt is more than just about survival. in a really interesting way that you may have never thought about or considered. But you're about to.

Starting point is 00:26:50 Tamin Hadad Garcia is co-author of a book called Healthy No Matter What, how humans are hardwired to adapt, which she co-wrote with her father, Alex, who is a medical doctor. Hi, Tamin, welcome to something you should know. Hi, I'm really happy to be here. Love the show. Thank you. So explain in just in broad strokes to start here, what you mean about our health and how we adapt?

Starting point is 00:27:16 So we have a flawed understanding and a harmful understanding of our health. We sometimes associate health as being the absence of disease, but it's actually our inability, right? Rather than it being a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, like the absence of disease, we can see health as the ability to adapt to the inevitable challenges of life. For example, data from around the world who's shown, consistently that around 75 to 86 percent of people with a single disease, such as diabetes

Starting point is 00:27:49 or arthritis, they consider their own health to be positive. And so do 50 percent of people who live with three diseases. Right. So if we focus on the ability to adapt as our understanding of health, then we can live a healthier and longer life no matter what, really. So you know what thought you were going to say was people with diseases like diabetes identify themselves with their disease like they're a diabetic. That's what I thought you were going to say rather than what you just said, which is more or less the opposite. Yeah. And I mean, that's what's really interesting with this perspective of health is that when you separate health from your disease and you focus it more on your ability to assess it, that's where there's so many opportunities to thrive.

Starting point is 00:28:39 And I mentioned positive, like rate their health as positive. And the reason why I'm saying that is because there is, you can ask people how they rate their health. And that is a super powerful question. It has a predictive power, like an internal sense of what's happening in your body and the world around it. It's like a sensitive barometer and it can actually be more sophisticated than many clinical tests. So you're not necessarily your disease. Like, sure, you can have that disease, but you can still be healthy. And one way to assess your health and the best way of doing it is by asking the question of

Starting point is 00:29:16 self-rated health, self-reported health. So the question is very simple. In general, how would you rate your health? Excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor. I mean, you can answer now if you would want even. And I mean, I would invite the listeners to. do the same thing. And essentially, you can divide the answers, like the answers have different implications. If you answer excellent, very good, or good, that's considered positive. So that's what

Starting point is 00:29:50 I was talking about before, that people can have these diseases and maybe identify themselves with these diseases or the healthcare system can say that they're ill, but they can still say that their health is excellent, very good, or good. But then at the same time, there's the group of fair or poor. And this is what we call negative health. And rating your own health is negative can actually indicate that you have a triple higher risk of dying earlier than your peers who say that their health is positive. And I mean, it's really shocking that there's actually evidence from a study from 2022 from the U.S. that showed that people who rate their own health is poor, are likely to live 23 years less than those who consider their health as

Starting point is 00:30:36 excellent. So it's really important to remember that you have a lot of power in terms of understanding your health and rating your health, and that actually matters a lot. And it's separate from whether you have a disease or not. So how does that work? How can believing that you have positive health, even if it's not so positive, objectively speaking, but believing in your health and believing it's positive, how can that improve your health and longevity? It's almost like asking yourself, do you like this restaurant, or did you enjoy this restaurant, or how would you rate this restaurant? You wouldn't say that your rating is wrong, right? It's your evaluation. It's your sensation. It's up to you to decide

Starting point is 00:31:25 whether you would rate it as such or not, right? And sometimes people bring up the question like, well, what if your doctor tells you you're not healthy? This is where we bring up to the point that making a decision with your health care professional is really important, that it's important to take into consideration what your health care professionals and what people around you are telling you. But at the same time, you need to decide what role and how much of a role you play in your health. There's actually a really significant association between levels of positive health

Starting point is 00:32:01 and active involvement in the decision-making process regarding your health. So you can't actually be wrong, but you should definitely pay attention to what your health care providers are saying and play an active role in what you do after that. When I think of my health, it isn't a constant. sometimes I'm healthy sometimes I've been quite sick it's not like and if you were to if I were to ask myself your question at that time I would rate my health negatively because I'm quite sick and other times I'm feeling great and we've actually asked this to millions of people and so we've asked them this question and then we have a couple follow-up questions that have been really illuminating and the first question that you should ask

Starting point is 00:32:50 after you assess your health is, why do you consider your health to be at that level, right? And many times when you're sick, your answer could actually be, well, I don't consider myself to have very positive health right now because my energy levels are low or because I have a headache or because, you know, it could be for more specific reasons. And then, and then the follow up question is, what do you need to do to maintain or improve your level? of health, right? So from then, you can start to, that starts to help to parse out, what are the actual challenges, what is actually making you rate your health as poor or fair, so that you can then take steps to improve that, right? And it is, it does fluctuate, as you're saying.

Starting point is 00:33:38 What about people, if this ever happens, what about people who are not healthy but claim they are, who believe they are, but aren't? And it's actually really interesting because, Healthy is really a judgment for yourself, right? You can have diseases but still feel healthy. Data from around the world have shown consistently, actually, that around 75 to 86% of people with a single disease like diabetes or arthritis actually consider their health to be positive. And so do 50% of people with three diseases.

Starting point is 00:34:16 So saying that somebody is healthy or not is not really. really something that we should say, but it's more something that everybody needs to decide for themselves. And that's a really important finding and life-saving insight that we should take with ourselves on a daily basis. Well, I don't want to beat this to death, but you know, you could, you could say you're healthy and smoke a pack of cigarettes and drink a quart of scotch and, you know, lay around the house eating bonbons all day. You're not really healthy. I mean, there's not too many people that would agree with you that that's a healthy way to live, but you could say you are, you could believe you are.

Starting point is 00:34:59 Well, that's the thing. Health, if we understand it as the ability to adapt to the inevitable challenges that life presents us, if they're adapting to the challenges and if they're able to feel that they feel healthy, then that's up to them, right? Because if we focus it on solely disease or biomarkers, then most of us would actually be ill, right? So you could have somebody who runs Ironman and who trains for every single athletic competition and his peak performance and eats incredibly well, sleeps well, has low stress, but they wear glasses. That would then deem them as ill, right? because they have an eye condition.

Starting point is 00:35:48 How can we say that somebody who has glasses, right, is healthy, but somebody who has an unhealthy or harmful behavior is not healthy. So I probably should have asked you this earlier on, but how do you know this? Is this a theory? Is there research? Who did the research? How do we know that your foundation here is real science?

Starting point is 00:36:13 There is the definition of health. That was put forth by the WHO and which has been the main definition of health for decades, which is health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. And this is clearly false, right? Then none of us could be healthy based off of this premise, right? If you have cavities, if you wear glasses, if you're a little bit stressed, if you need to go to the bathroom, you're no longer healthy.

Starting point is 00:36:45 can't be healthy. So Alex, Dr. Haddad, my co-author, he challenged this definition and put out a call to redefine and reconceptualize health with the British Medical Journal. And he gathered the best minds, the top experts, the top academics and scientists and communities around the world to challenge this definition and propose a new one. And that's this one. And this is the one that has been that is being championed and that's being pushed more and more so that we can actually be healthy, something that's a definition that is helpful to us rather than already setting ourselves up for failure. So that definition is the ability to adapt to the inevitable challenges that life presents us, right? So with this perspective, if you have an eye condition and you're not able to see far or near,

Starting point is 00:37:41 but you wear glasses, you can then be healthy, right? if you have cancer and you are dealing with the symptoms or you're getting treatment and you're, you know, keeping up with everything that your physician is telling you to do and you're staying active and eating well, you can still be healthy within your, within your constraints. So that's what this definition of health does and why this new perspective that is backed by many scientists, academics and institutions around the world. Like why that is the one that we should actually embrace. How much of this, though, could be, if you believe you're healthy, you're probably going to live a life that promotes that, as opposed to believing you're unhealthy and you're kind of powerless. And so you would lead a life that, well, I don't care anymore, kind of. And the results are the results of that, you know, if you lead a healthy lifestyle, you're more apt to be healthy. you're absolutely spot on and that's that's essentially thanks to something we have which shows like self-perception right and and our ability to perceive our behaviors and then interpret who we are from that right and it's kind of a feedback loop essentially so if we believe we're healthy and if

Starting point is 00:39:03 we identify ourselves as healthy then we make more healthy choices and we behave healthier but what's beautiful is that a lot of studies show that the opposite is true too. If you behave healthier and you make choices that are healthier and you just act like a healthy person, essentially, you start to believe yourself as being a healthy person. And the whole, the role of the mind is actually massive in this sense, right? And this sense of optimism, which is really what you're kind of talking about here. And study after study has shown that that actually has a big benefits when it comes to dealing with diseases. For example, a longitudinal study on 22,000 Americans found that optimism actually has

Starting point is 00:39:48 protective benefits against stroke. So there are many things that how our mind and how we perceive ourselves and how we perceive what's possible can actually shape our health outcomes. This is really interesting because, you know, people don't, I guess, don't really stop and think, am I healthy or am I unhealthy? And yet some of those definitions that you gave, well, you're never 100% healthy. It's kind of the way you look at the world. It's kind of the way you look at your place in the world and the challenges you have

Starting point is 00:40:24 and how you adapt to those challenges that determines a lot. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's exactly that. It's if you feel that you are able to overcome these challenges, this is a huge role in feeling healthy. And precisely when we did a study on millions of people, we actually asked them why they rate their health as positive. And the top five reasons that they gave us was having a good mood or feeling good, having a strong family life and support from loved ones, being physically fit, enjoying a rich. spiritual life with meaning and purpose and the absence of symptoms or diseases.

Starting point is 00:41:10 So those were the top five reasons. And it really, it's really interesting how most of them don't have to do with, with illnesses, right? It's about, it's about your outlook on life. It's about what you have around you that can help you be healthy, right? And when you, and when we ask people what they need to maintain their health as such, It's also beautiful to see that it's all, a lot of it is actually within our control, right? And a lot of it is actually within our, within our surroundings, right?

Starting point is 00:41:47 Most people say that they just need support to increase their levels of physical activity, right? Or change their dietary habits, deal with family issues, improve their financial situations, and handle some difficulties at work. So it was really beautiful to see how our conversation. of health, when we focus on it as an ability to adapt to challenges, we start to go wider than expected, beyond the medical system, and start to see our work, money, families, our mood, our sense of purpose to start playing a role in our, in our health, rather than fixating on diseases.

Starting point is 00:42:28 Well, as I listen to you talk, I think to, like, for example, for example, example, if you're an able-bodied person, as I am, and you see somebody in a wheelchair, you instantly identify that person as disabled, handicapped, they're in a wheelchair. And I think you kind of make the assumption that that's how they think, too. And yet what you're saying is there's a pretty good chance if you were to ask that person, they don't identify themselves and think of themselves as a handicapped person stuck in a wheelchair. that's just something they've had to adapt to and otherwise they might be just

Starting point is 00:43:09 consider themselves fine. That's exactly it. That's absolutely it because if you replace a wheelchair for glasses, that's essentially the same thing. For them, they've now been able to adapt. They can now live life well. They've overcome that challenge

Starting point is 00:43:27 and now they're able to thrive. A study in Australia showed that two-thirds of patients with cancer that had spread to different parts of their bodies still assessed their health as positive, even when they knew that their disease was incurable. We have so many things around us that can help us feel better and can help us push through our challenges and still live as fully as possible. Well, it's such a hopeful message that, and it has been proven time and time again, that we have the ability to adapt to circumstances, to health challenges, to whatever life throws our way,

Starting point is 00:44:09 and adapt to it and continue to thrive. And it's a very optimistic and powerful message. You're absolutely right. And we can really be astounded by how much we can handle and thrive through. I've been speaking with Taman Hadad Garcia, who along with her father, Dr. Alex Hadad, I've written a book called Healthy No Matter What, how humans are hardwired to adapt. And there is a link to that book in the show notes. If you're having trouble sleeping or you would just like to sleep better, you might try taking a walk.

Starting point is 00:44:47 Researchers at the University of Arizona say those of us who walk every day sleep better at night. Try for at least the equivalent of six city blocks, three blocks out, three blocks back. That six-block distance could add 15 to 60 minutes to your deep sleep cycle. Walking reduces stress and will lessen any anxiety or restlessness that prevents you from getting to or staying in that valuable deep sleep mode. So if you want to sleep, take a walk. And that is something you should know. If there is anyone in your life, anyone you know who you think would enjoy this podcast as much as you do,

Starting point is 00:45:28 I hope you will pass along the information and suggest they listen. I'm Mike Herr Brothers. Thanks for listening today to something you should know. Do you ever find yourself lying in bed and your brain then decides this is the perfect time to remind you of everything? And then your brain starts racing and you start thinking and sleep seems impossible. This is why I really like Catherine Nikolai's podcast called Nothing Much Happens. It's simple. It's soothing. and it works. Each episode is just a calm, cozy bedtime story. There's no drama, nothing intense, nothing to follow, you don't have to write anything down. It's just simple repetition

Starting point is 00:46:10 and these really peaceful sensory details that give your brain permission to settle down and go to sleep. Millions of people use it as part of their nighttime routine, and I totally get why. They recently did a story I love called The Guest Room. It was all about, you know, sheets and fresh towels and those things I love that help me sleep. You really should try it tonight when you go to bed. You really should try it tonight when you go to bed. You can listen to nothing much happens wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes every Monday and Thursday. The Infinite Monkey Cage returns imminently. I am Robert Inns and I'm sat next to Brian Cox who has so much to tell you about what's on the new series. Primarily eels. And what else? It was fascinating,

Starting point is 00:46:57 you know, the eels. But we're not just doing eels, are we? We're doing a bit. Brain computer interfaces, timekeeping, fusion, monkey business, cloud, signs of the North Pole, and eels. Did I mention the eels?

Starting point is 00:47:07 Is this ever since you bought that timeshare underneath the Sagas O.C? Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Something You Should Know - Magic Words That Influence Others & How Feeling Healthy Makes It So

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