[Music]
hi everyone I’m a little excited to be
here and I can see some sparks of
excitement in your faces as well that’s
not quite lowering the pressure though
so when I received the invitation to do
the TEDx talk my first thought was wow
how cool is that I always admired the
speakers who could get up on stage and
deliver an intellectually challenging
topic in an entertaining way so as my
flattered brain slowly made space for a
second thought my mind went uh-oh
because that was the moment I realized
that that flattering speaker would need
to be me and what idea was spreading can
a miserable student in his mid-20s
possibly share so that led me to a third
thought which was you’re gonna embarrass
yourself you’re gonna embarrass yourself
in front of a lot of people and there’s
likely going to be footage of that in
the Internet that sounds like the
straight way to the American presidency
so let’s let’s get this started
I’m a medical student and a doctoral
candidate a doctoral candidate that
sounds like when you go to kindergarten
you see the big kids play high on top of
a climbing frame only you’re not that
kid you’re the one sitting down there as
a doctoral candidate eating the sand
that falls from the big kids shoes and
out of that situation try to create a
scientific paper so the area of science
that I’m interested in is human
cognition basically our thought process
and specifically the thought models we
develop around illness which are called
illness perceptions in my research we
investigated to what extent illness
perceptions influenced handicapped as an
outcome in patients with vertigo and
dizziness vertigo and dizziness
meaning the feeling that everything
around you is turning or shaking so as
we in
gated this association we controlled for
the severity of symptoms anxiety and
depression your first thought might be
well of course a person is more
handicapped the more severe their
symptoms are sounds logical secondly you
might also know that anxiety is a state
where people don’t feel well they feel
shaky so it makes sense that people with
anxiety are more handicapped and lastly
you might know that depression is a
state where people have absolutely no
motivation to feel good or work for a
positive outcome so it makes sense that
depressive people are more handicapped
than happy ones interestingly though
what we found is that symptom severity
anxiety and depression only explained 40
percent of the variance in handicap
forty-two percent of the variance in
handicap were explained by illness
perceptions mostly by perceived
consequences perceive consequences
meaning the patient’s concept of how the
illness affects their life physically
socially and so forth so to sum this up
what we found is that illness
perceptions better explained handicap
then did the severity of symptoms
anxiety and depression together these
results are also reflected in daily
patient care I remember being at the
outpatient clinic assisting an expert
neurologist to see patients one patient
came in barely able to walk she had to
use walking sticks and was still heavily
handicapped she was known to the
neurologist for having benign paroxysmal
positional vertigo and don’t worry were
not gonna go into detail on this the
only thing I would like you to know is
that the cause for this illness lies in
the inner ear in the vestibular organ
where balance is measured in this organ
there are little crystal stones that
help to measure head position and
movement so in our patients some of
these little stones had fallen out of
position rolling around disturbing her
balance measurement so what do you think
she had in her ear the Rolling Stones
the Rolling Stones can be repositioned
by a maneuver which we performed
however the patient still couldn’t walk
even though the stones should have been
back in position she couldn’t get no
satisfaction so the cost could have been
that she had developed such strong
beliefs she couldn’t walk that she
actually couldn’t walk so what we did is
we encouraged her to try and walk
without her sticks with our support she
could next we tried and motivated her to
walk without our support and to take her
attention away from the negative beliefs
the neurologist
drew numbers on the patient’s back and
asked the patient to guess these numbers
the patient started walking slowly
steadily guessing the numbers and
step-by-step went more upright straight
without shaking how can this be possible
the answer is simple by distracting the
patient from her negative beliefs with
the humble trick of drawing numbers on
her back the patient could walk so why
would you care what happens inside the
minds of dizzy patients we like to look
at the outside we like to fly to the
moon dream about living on Mars we like
to go big but what happens when you look
at the inside what do you know about
yourself you most likely know your
weight you might also know your height
because that’s important on tindr but
what do you know about your perceptions
about your cognitions about your beliefs
sometimes I feel like we know more about
Lucy which is a 10 quintillion carat
diamond planet 38 trillion centimeters
away from Earth then we know about the
15 centimeters between our ears and just
imagine if a person who has an illness
making them feel constantly shaky and
unstable can walk by being distracted
from her negative beliefs then what can
young healthy and talented individuals
like you do when changing beliefs
research suggests that you can perform
better at your jobs you can have better
relations and you can lead a happier
life so yes
believes matter to healthy persons as
well it is as simple as how you perceive
the situation you are in rory sutherland
once compared two groups pensioners and
young unemployed on the first side they
don’t seem to have a lot in common
and indeed penned in your show to be
much happier however at a closer look
both find themselves in quite a similar
situation both have too much time at
their hand no idea what to do with it
and no money so Generation Y our
generation we figured out an amazing
trick for that situation we call too
much time absolutely no idea what to do
with our lives and no money gap here it
sounds great and it feels great but more
importantly what this tells us is that
believes about certain situations can be
changed by playing simple tricks and
what I want to do with you now is I want
to introduce you into two concepts that
can help us to change our perceptions
first don’t forget the positive most of
the people focus on the negative the
experience just as our patient from
before focusing on the negative
consequences of her illness she might
have taken herself the ability to walk
especially in academia we are trained
for negative bias if you come to a
doctor with one health problem we’ll
find 10 more for you you come with a
cuff we’ll make sure you leave knowing
that you also have diabetes a high blood
pressure and mobile Schlotter
because we want you to come back for
another appointment in the next quarter
that’s our business model however in
everyday life it’s not the negative that
increases productivity and for sure it’s
not the negative that increases
happiness
Seligman Adele did a study where they
evaluated behaviors that they thought
led to a happier life and what they
found is that writing down three
positive things every day for a week
will make you significantly happier even
after six months now that’s what I call
effective therapy on a side note if you
want to boost your happiness even more
you express your gratitude to
deserves it and I don’t mean the
gratitude you expressed when typing
thank you so much for that message at
the beginning of an email answer
I mean you truly and personally express
your gratitude because research suggests
that this makes you even happier and
because sadly enough it’s usually the
ones we love the most we show the least
gratitude second mind the mind and it’s
connection to the body we are used to
the idea that our gestures support and
reflect our speech and thoughts but a
growing number of studies suggests that
there is also an inward influence of our
body position and movement on our
cognitions this concept is called
embodied cognition so just as our mind
can trick our bodies into not walking
our bodies can also trick our minds and
you might have experienced this
yourselves you might have set up
straight when facing a difficult task or
you might have experienced a boost of
thoughts as you went for a walk Brunell
petyon Wagner did an experiment where
they had one group of college students
write down three positive character
traits and the other group of students
three negative traits in each group half
of the students said bent down with a
curved spine and the other group said
straight up chest out as they noted the
answers and you might already guess what
they found not only did the ones in the
straighter posture show more positive
believed they were also more confident
about what they had written down so if
we take this idea in general as it it
suggests that certain body positions and
movements can make us more positive in
our beliefs and more confident about our
ideas now I know that everybody’s
different which is why I would suggest
that you do your own research maybe
instead of sitting with a curved spine
as you wait for your next job interview
you sit straight up chest out or you
even get up and walk a little I’d be
curious how that job of interview felt
finally
these were two very simple maybe even
obvious ways to change our cognitions no
rocket science but you and I know that
sometimes it’s the little things that
mattered just as much I’m not standing
here because I built a successful
enterprise not because I developed
Hyperloop I’m not standing here because
I achieved anything big but because I
strongly believe that if we think more
positively are more confident about our
ideas and show gratitude to the people
who deserve it we all can achieve
something big and that is an idea worth
spreading thank you
[Applause]
hi everyone I’m a little excited to be
here and I can see some sparks of
excitement in your faces as well that’s
not quite lowering the pressure though
so when I received the invitation to do
the TEDx talk my first thought was wow
how cool is that I always admired the
speakers who could get up on stage and
deliver an intellectually challenging
topic in an entertaining way so as my
flattered brain slowly made space for a
second thought my mind went uh-oh
because that was the moment I realized
that that flattering speaker would need
to be me and what idea was spreading can
a miserable student in his mid-20s
possibly share so that led me to a third
thought which was you’re gonna embarrass
yourself you’re gonna embarrass yourself
in front of a lot of people and there’s
likely going to be footage of that in
the Internet that sounds like the
straight way to the American presidency
so let’s let’s get this started
I’m a medical student and a doctoral
candidate a doctoral candidate that
sounds like when you go to kindergarten
you see the big kids play high on top of
a climbing frame only you’re not that
kid you’re the one sitting down there as
a doctoral candidate eating the sand
that falls from the big kids shoes and
out of that situation try to create a
scientific paper so the area of science
that I’m interested in is human
cognition basically our thought process
and specifically the thought models we
develop around illness which are called
illness perceptions in my research we
investigated to what extent illness
perceptions influenced handicapped as an
outcome in patients with vertigo and
dizziness vertigo and dizziness
meaning the feeling that everything
around you is turning or shaking so as
we in
gated this association we controlled for
the severity of symptoms anxiety and
depression your first thought might be
well of course a person is more
handicapped the more severe their
symptoms are sounds logical secondly you
might also know that anxiety is a state
where people don’t feel well they feel
shaky so it makes sense that people with
anxiety are more handicapped and lastly
you might know that depression is a
state where people have absolutely no
motivation to feel good or work for a
positive outcome so it makes sense that
depressive people are more handicapped
than happy ones interestingly though
what we found is that symptom severity
anxiety and depression only explained 40
percent of the variance in handicap
forty-two percent of the variance in
handicap were explained by illness
perceptions mostly by perceived
consequences perceive consequences
meaning the patient’s concept of how the
illness affects their life physically
socially and so forth so to sum this up
what we found is that illness
perceptions better explained handicap
then did the severity of symptoms
anxiety and depression together these
results are also reflected in daily
patient care I remember being at the
outpatient clinic assisting an expert
neurologist to see patients one patient
came in barely able to walk she had to
use walking sticks and was still heavily
handicapped she was known to the
neurologist for having benign paroxysmal
positional vertigo and don’t worry were
not gonna go into detail on this the
only thing I would like you to know is
that the cause for this illness lies in
the inner ear in the vestibular organ
where balance is measured in this organ
there are little crystal stones that
help to measure head position and
movement so in our patients some of
these little stones had fallen out of
position rolling around disturbing her
balance measurement so what do you think
she had in her ear the Rolling Stones
the Rolling Stones can be repositioned
by a maneuver which we performed
however the patient still couldn’t walk
even though the stones should have been
back in position she couldn’t get no
satisfaction so the cost could have been
that she had developed such strong
beliefs she couldn’t walk that she
actually couldn’t walk so what we did is
we encouraged her to try and walk
without her sticks with our support she
could next we tried and motivated her to
walk without our support and to take her
attention away from the negative beliefs
the neurologist
drew numbers on the patient’s back and
asked the patient to guess these numbers
the patient started walking slowly
steadily guessing the numbers and
step-by-step went more upright straight
without shaking how can this be possible
the answer is simple by distracting the
patient from her negative beliefs with
the humble trick of drawing numbers on
her back the patient could walk so why
would you care what happens inside the
minds of dizzy patients we like to look
at the outside we like to fly to the
moon dream about living on Mars we like
to go big but what happens when you look
at the inside what do you know about
yourself you most likely know your
weight you might also know your height
because that’s important on tindr but
what do you know about your perceptions
about your cognitions about your beliefs
sometimes I feel like we know more about
Lucy which is a 10 quintillion carat
diamond planet 38 trillion centimeters
away from Earth then we know about the
15 centimeters between our ears and just
imagine if a person who has an illness
making them feel constantly shaky and
unstable can walk by being distracted
from her negative beliefs then what can
young healthy and talented individuals
like you do when changing beliefs
research suggests that you can perform
better at your jobs you can have better
relations and you can lead a happier
life so yes
believes matter to healthy persons as
well it is as simple as how you perceive
the situation you are in rory sutherland
once compared two groups pensioners and
young unemployed on the first side they
don’t seem to have a lot in common
and indeed penned in your show to be
much happier however at a closer look
both find themselves in quite a similar
situation both have too much time at
their hand no idea what to do with it
and no money so Generation Y our
generation we figured out an amazing
trick for that situation we call too
much time absolutely no idea what to do
with our lives and no money gap here it
sounds great and it feels great but more
importantly what this tells us is that
believes about certain situations can be
changed by playing simple tricks and
what I want to do with you now is I want
to introduce you into two concepts that
can help us to change our perceptions
first don’t forget the positive most of
the people focus on the negative the
experience just as our patient from
before focusing on the negative
consequences of her illness she might
have taken herself the ability to walk
especially in academia we are trained
for negative bias if you come to a
doctor with one health problem we’ll
find 10 more for you you come with a
cuff we’ll make sure you leave knowing
that you also have diabetes a high blood
pressure and mobile Schlotter
because we want you to come back for
another appointment in the next quarter
that’s our business model however in
everyday life it’s not the negative that
increases productivity and for sure it’s
not the negative that increases
happiness
Seligman Adele did a study where they
evaluated behaviors that they thought
led to a happier life and what they
found is that writing down three
positive things every day for a week
will make you significantly happier even
after six months now that’s what I call
effective therapy on a side note if you
want to boost your happiness even more
you express your gratitude to
deserves it and I don’t mean the
gratitude you expressed when typing
thank you so much for that message at
the beginning of an email answer
I mean you truly and personally express
your gratitude because research suggests
that this makes you even happier and
because sadly enough it’s usually the
ones we love the most we show the least
gratitude second mind the mind and it’s
connection to the body we are used to
the idea that our gestures support and
reflect our speech and thoughts but a
growing number of studies suggests that
there is also an inward influence of our
body position and movement on our
cognitions this concept is called
embodied cognition so just as our mind
can trick our bodies into not walking
our bodies can also trick our minds and
you might have experienced this
yourselves you might have set up
straight when facing a difficult task or
you might have experienced a boost of
thoughts as you went for a walk Brunell
petyon Wagner did an experiment where
they had one group of college students
write down three positive character
traits and the other group of students
three negative traits in each group half
of the students said bent down with a
curved spine and the other group said
straight up chest out as they noted the
answers and you might already guess what
they found not only did the ones in the
straighter posture show more positive
believed they were also more confident
about what they had written down so if
we take this idea in general as it it
suggests that certain body positions and
movements can make us more positive in
our beliefs and more confident about our
ideas now I know that everybody’s
different which is why I would suggest
that you do your own research maybe
instead of sitting with a curved spine
as you wait for your next job interview
you sit straight up chest out or you
even get up and walk a little I’d be
curious how that job of interview felt
finally
these were two very simple maybe even
obvious ways to change our cognitions no
rocket science but you and I know that
sometimes it’s the little things that
mattered just as much I’m not standing
here because I built a successful
enterprise not because I developed
Hyperloop I’m not standing here because
I achieved anything big but because I
strongly believe that if we think more
positively are more confident about our
ideas and show gratitude to the people
who deserve it we all can achieve
something big and that is an idea worth
spreading thank you
[Applause]
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