Meditation Might Change Your Surroundings
Recently, I was listening to Dr. Ellen Langer on an episode of the Rich Roll Podcast. She is a distinguished psychology professor at Harvard, and the first ever tenured female psychology professor at Harvard. The entire episode was an interesting meandering of various topics related to mindfulness. Dr. Langer has done several studies that would cause anyone to pause, scratch their heads, and think How is that possible?
One of the most interesting studies she notes is where 3 different groups of participants were led into an empty room, but for each group, something different happened in that room 45 minutes prior to them entering. Here are the scenarios:
A group of people meditated for 45 minutes and then left
A group of people watched a stressful video for 45 minutes and then left
Or the room was just empty for 45 minutes
This all happened before any participants walked in, so as far as participants understood, they were just entering an empty room.
Each group of participants were given a mindfulness test sometime before entering the room and again while in the room, but only the group who followed the meditators actually improved their scores.
This led Dr. Langer to hypothesize that mindfulness practices may affect our physical surroundings in some way, such that others can even benefit from its effects later. Pretty wild.
Obviously, there is much more to research here, but it should be another powerful reminder to us that mindfulness and meditation are worth our time. You might even be able to leave helpful vibes behind for other people’s benefit!
Happy to be in your corner,
Tom Page, LCPC
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