1: Two-thirds of the housekeepers in Stanford Professor Alia Crum‘s study believed they weren’t exercising regularly.  One-third said they got no exercise at all.  

“Their bodies reflected this perception,” Kelly McGonigal notes in The Upside of Stress.  “The average housekeeper’s blood pressure, waist-to-hip ratio, and body weight were exactly what you’d expect to find if they were truly sedentary,”

Their perception was their reality.  

2: Four weeks later, Alia checked … continue reading

1: Do people who have a positive attitude about aging live longer?

The short answer?  

Yes.  More than seven years longer, according to researchers at Yale University who followed middle-aged adults for twenty years.

“Those who had a positive view of aging in midlife lived an average of 7.6 years longer than those who had a negative view,” writes Kelly McGonigal in her terrific book The Upside of Stress.  

“To … continue reading

1: Many people believe they are the only ones who feel like they don’t fit in. 

“Feeling like you don’t belong can change how you interpret everything you experience,” writes Kelly McGonigal in her powerful book The Upside of Stress.  “Conversations, setbacks, misunderstandings—almost anything can be viewed as evidence that, in fact, you don’t belong. 

“The belief that you don’t belong also feeds into many destructive states of mind, … continue reading