Can You Lose Weight Just by Changing How You Think?

Mr. Wiseman points to an experiment that monitored the health and activity of two groups of hotel attendants (that is, housekeepers) with roughly equal workloads and lifestyle habits. One group was made constantly aware of how many calories it burned by simply doing its labor-intensive work—implanting the idea that “wow, your job involves lots of exercise.” Over time that group (and not the other) saw improvements in its body mass index and blood pressure even though it was doing nothing differently.

Mr. Wiseman concludes: “By reminding the attendants of the amount of exercise that they were getting on a daily basis, the researchers altered the attendants’ beliefs about themselves, and their bodies responded to make these beliefs a reality.” The larger lesson is that being aware of an effort may help to bring about its effect.

Full review of Richard Wiseman’s new book, 59 Seconds.

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