Dr. Ellen Langer

And nothing always moves in one direction.

It's not it gets bad and worse and worse.

You know, with the stock market, if the stock market is going up, it doesn't go up in a straight line.

It goes up, down a little, up, down.

And, you know, we draw a line through all those curves, it's tending to go up.

Same thing with any of our symptoms, right?

Okay, but people hold it still and think it's just getting worse because you get whatever you're looking for.

That's why I said before, don't be a pessimist because if you're looking for negative, you're going to find negative.

If you're looking for positive, just look without the evaluation at any rate.

We did a lot of studies on what I call

Attention to symptom variability.

It's a mouthful.

It just means being mindful.

Being mindful is noticing change.

Attention to the changing of your symptoms.

So we call people periodically throughout the day, throughout the week.

Who have a chronic illness.

Who have a chronic illness.

Okay.

And we simply ask them, how is the symptom now?