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Writer's pictureMary Maciel Pearson

Mind over milkshake

Updated: Jan 6, 2021

Can our thoughts alter our physical reality?

Does our psychology truly become our biology?

In this post I will share evidence that shows thoughts really do matter. Habitual thoughts become beliefs. I will focus on thoughts and beliefs about money, aging and food.


Life is a journey and “When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”  (Abraham Maslow)


When I became a nutritionist I thought I could fix all that ails one with good food.  When that didn’t work, I became a personal trainer, setting S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time based) goals, relying on willpower and compliance.  But when even that proved insufficient, I became aware of the “social determinants of health” – in simpler terms meaning that health starts where we live, learn, work and play – our community.


Where we live, has a lot to do with how much we earn and our earning potential.  Believe it or not we have a financial set point based on our beliefs about money?  We embody those beliefs; feel whole with them, kind of like the weight set point that the body works so hard to maintain.  Did you know that the vast majority of lottery winners end up broke a few years after winning?  Even high paid celebrities and athletes often lose it all.  Why? Because of self-limiting beliefs, thoughts and habits.  If you believe that “Money is the root of all evil.”  Or that “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer”, you will attract like-minded people, and you will act in such a way that you become‘the average of the people you hang with most’  (Jim Rohn). That is where you will feel most at home. It's within the comfort zone.


Now I am fascinated by the placebo effect on health, or the power of an inert substance or therapy to help a person based on thought alone.


What are your thoughts on ageing? Do you believe it is possible for men in their late seventies and early eighties to suddenly improve their memories, hearing, eyesight, dexterity and appetite without any pharmaceutical intervention? Ellen Langer, a Harvard psychologist has shown it is, via her now famous study “Counter Clockwise”.   Her experimental group spent a week surrounded by paraphernalia from twenty years past, listening to radio shows and discussing news from that era. By “acting as if” they were in their late fifties and early sixties, the men in the experimental group actually changed their performance on benchmark tests. At the end of the study, the experimental group demonstrated marked improvement in their hearing, eyesight, memory, dexterity and appetite.  Some who had arrived using canes, dependent on the help of their children, walked out under their power, carrying their own suitcases. Langer concluded that by expecting them to function independently and engaging with them as individual minds rather than as old people, she and her students gave them the opportunity to see themselves differently. This, then, altered their physical health.


With regard to food, could our thoughts about what we’re eating alter the way our body responds to that food? Alia Crum, a clinical psychologist from Columbia Business School conducted a fascinating experiment.  She had people come in to drink either a milkshake labeled SensiShake, 140 calories, Fat Free, Guilt Free or one labeled Indulgence – Decadence you deserve, 620 calories.  Before and after the milk shake was consumed nurses measured blood levels of grehlin, the hunger hormone. The ghrelin levels dropped about three times more when people drank the indulgent shake, compared to the people who drank the sensible shake.  But both shakes were identical – 380 calories each.  Yet those consuming the SensiShake were left feeling hungry, while those consuming the Indulgent shake were satiated. The power of thought!


Within our mind and body there is infinite pharmaceutical potential. As one of my greatest influencers, Joe Dispenza, taught me, thoughts are the language of the brain. Feelings are the language of the bodyChange our thoughts. Change our physical reality.


Thoughts - matter. 


Think healthy thoughts.

Eat well. Live well. Feel better

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