What Are You Adding to Your Milkshake?

Can your mindset about food impact how your body reacts to it? In a fascinating study, participants were given a milkshake for breakfast and told that it was a high-calorie, indulgent treat. Two weeks later the same participants were given another milkshake and told that it was a low-calorie, healthy drink. While drinking the shakes, participants had their ghrelin levels measured. Ghrelin is the hormone responsible for making you feel full. After consuming the shakes in the first trial, ghrelin levels were high, and people felt full quickly. During the second trial, ghrelin levels were low, and people felt unsatisfied. What’s interesting is that the milkshakes in both trials were exactly the same. The only difference was how participants thought about the shakes. 

In the book The Upside of Stress, Kelly McGonigal uses this experiment and others like it to show that when there are two or more outcomes possible, in this case feeling full or feeling hungry, our mindset plays a significant role in shaping how things turn out. 

This week I invite you to ponder: 

What is a challenge I am currently facing? What different outcomes are possible for this challenge? What is my current mindset about this challenge? Which possible outcome is this mindset likely to foster? What new mindset could I adopt that would be conducive to a more favorable outcome?

God bless,
Dan