Mind over milkshake?

Not that long ago, a group of ravenous people took part in a special study at the Stanford Mind and Body Lab.

The first session involved the participants fasting all night, then drinking a milkshake in the morning. The milkshake had a label on it: “Indulgence: Decadence You Deserve”, along with nutritional info: 620 calories and 30 grams of fat.

In their second session, a week later, under the same fasting conditions, they were given another milkshake. However this milkshake had the label: “Sensi-Shake: Guilt-Free Satisfaction” and the nutritional info: 140 calories and zero grams of fat.

Both sessions saw the participants hooked up to an intravenous catheter to analyse the levels of ghrelin in their blood during and after their drink. Also known as ‘the hunger hormone’, ghrelin tells our brain when we are hungry or satisfied (when levels of ghrelin go down you feel full, when they go up you feel hunger). In other words, a big juicy burger and fries plummets our ghrelin, an angelic watermelon salad – not so much.

So it makes sense that the “indulgent” milkshake and the “guilt-free” milkshake would have very different impacts on the participants’ ghrelin levels. And they did. As you’d expect, the indulgent milkshake caused ghrelin to drop fast, while the guilt-free one only caused a mini decrease.

So what’s interesting about that?

Well, it turns out both milkshakes were actually the exact same 380-calorie drink. Despite the words and info on the label they were the same in every way, the participants had been totally hoodwinked! So, in theory, there should have been no difference in how much hunger hormone was produced. And yet, simply believing they were indulging themselves with a decadent treat caused their ghrelin levels to drop three times more (so they felt three times fuller) than when they believed they were drinking the “diet” drink.

Amazing.

But before you start trying to convince yourself that celery is made of ice cream like I did, may I invite you to think about the bigger picture of this? About the power of belief on our biology. How being mindful and aware and questioning our beliefs is healthy in so many ways.

The above is just one study of many by American Psychologist Alia Crum and her team that consider the link between belief and biology. From how long we stay full to the physical benefits we gain from believing any exertion is important exercise, they’re proving our minds are fully involved.

But it’s more than this, Crum and her team have looked deeply into stress too – and it’s not what you might “think” – I’ll share this next week 🙂

Happy Monday 🙂

Jo

Ref: The Shake Testing Study, Stanford The Upside of Stress by Kelly McGonigal