Our brains are prediction machines: How we frame everyday tasks and the challenges of our lives can have a profound impact on their outcomes. In this episode, we learn about new discoveries in science that reveal the many ways our expectations shape our experience.

Author and science writer David Robson is our guest. His latest book, "The Expectation Effect" cites findings from well-over 400 "robust experiments" and takes readers on a tour of cutting-edge research that uncovers new techniques to improve our fitness, productivity, intelligence, health, and happiness.

We learn why people who believe aging brings wisdom live longer. Reappraising stress as something that's energizing increases your creativity under pressure.

Cultivating an indulgent attitude to food may help you lose weight. Taking a placebo, even when you know it is a placebo, can still improve your health.

"What the latest research has just done is to tell us that if the placebo effect is happening in a doctor's office or hospital maybe it's happening all the time in everyday life," David tells "How Do We Fix It?". "Our expectations are shaping our life every minute of every day."

Unlike many best-selling self-help books, David's writing and reasoning are based on years of careful research. David was surprised by what he discovered. You cannot think your way into a pile of money or out of a cancer diagnosis. But just because magical thinking is nonsense doesn’t mean rational magic doesn’t exist. Pointing to accepted psychology and objective physiology, Robson gives us practical takeaways that may well improve our fitness, productivity, intelligence, and happiness.

Recommendation: Jim is reading "Land: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World", by Simon Winchester.

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