The Mel Robbins Podcast

#1 Mindset Expert: Simple Mindset Shifts That Transform Your Body, Energy, & Life

December 20, 2025

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  • The belief that healthy foods are depriving or disgusting is a mindset, often set by external forces like food marketing, which can be shifted by reframing healthy options as indulgent and pleasurable. 
  • Mindsets directly influence physical outcomes; for example, adopting a mindset of capability can make a heavy weight feel lighter, demonstrating that thoughts shape physical reality. 
  • Trying to suppress a thought (like avoiding cake) can ironically increase its presence due to ironic mental brain processing (the white bear effect), suggesting that choosing a positive or neutral mindset is more effective than prohibition. 

Segments

Defining Mindset as Settings
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(00:07:30)
  • Key Takeaway: Mindsets are defined as the settings or frames of mind, rooted in core beliefs, that orient us to specific experiences.
  • Summary: Mindsets are the settings in the mind, acting as lenses that orient individuals toward particular experiences based on core beliefs. These settings influence attention, emotional expectations, motivation, and physiological responses. Understanding these settings allows for the possibility of consciously changing them to achieve desired outcomes.
Milkshake Study Reveals Biology Link
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(00:12:54)
  • Key Takeaway: Beliefs about a milkshake’s caloric content, even when the actual calories were identical, caused a threefold difference in the drop rate of the hunger hormone ghrelin.
  • Summary: In the milkshake study, participants were given the same 350-calorie shake but told it was either 620 calories (indulgent) or 140 calories (sensible). Ghrelin levels dropped three times faster when participants believed they were consuming the indulgent shake. This demonstrates that mindsets directly change measurable biology, challenging the simple ‘calories in, calories out’ equation.
Mindset Shift Overcoming Fear
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(00:19:34)
  • Key Takeaway: Awareness that a fear response is driven by an ‘old setting in my mind’ can sometimes be enough to release the associated physical symptoms and anxiety.
  • Summary: A listener’s success in overcoming a decade-long fear of flying by labeling the anxiety as ‘just an old setting in my mind’ illustrates the power of reframing. This old setting, often rooted in past experiences, creates a reality where the body pays attention to symptoms, feels anxiety, and behaves in ways that perpetuate the fear. Recognizing the setting as outdated can allow the mind to let it go.
Four Mechanisms of Mindset Impact
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(00:26:21)
  • Key Takeaway: Mindsets impact behavior by systematically influencing attention, emotional experience, motivation for action, and underlying physiology.
  • Summary: A fear-based mindset, such as distrust in one’s body during a flight, dictates what physical sensations are noticed (attention). This fuels anxiety (emotion) and may lead to avoidance behaviors (motivation). Physiologically, the anxiety response itself creates physical symptoms, creating a feedback loop that confirms the initial negative belief.
Mindsets on Health and Catastrophe
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(00:51:34)
  • Key Takeaway: For serious health issues like cancer, the most useful mindset is that the condition is ‘manageable’ and that the body remains ‘capable,’ rather than adopting a mindset of denial or catastrophe.
  • Summary: Denial, such as believing one does not have cancer, is not the optimal mindset; rather, adopting the belief that cancer is manageable is profoundly transformative. This mindset shift improves quality of life and reduces physical symptoms like nausea during chemotherapy. These beliefs are hypothesized to influence immune markers associated with cancer outcomes.
Indulgence Mindset vs. Restriction
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(00:54:28)
  • Key Takeaway: The mindset of indulgence—allowing oneself to enjoy the pleasure of food—is physiologically superior for hunger regulation than a mindset of restriction or scarcity.
  • Summary: The speaker’s personal struggle with dieting stemmed from a restrictive mindset that signaled scarcity to the body, counteracting dieting efforts. The new, effective mindset focuses on eating in a state of indulgence, defined as allowing oneself to enjoy the pleasure of whatever is eaten, which signals satiety (ghrelin drop) more effectively than restraint.
Placebo Effect and Mind-Matter Interaction
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(00:38:06)
  • Key Takeaway: The placebo effect demonstrates that belief in a treatment releases real neurobiological responses, meaning the total effect of any intervention is the sum of the substance and the belief in it (mind and matter).
  • Summary: The placebo effect shows that believing one is taking a pain reliever can release endogenous opioids, proving that belief creates measurable biological changes. A migraine study confirmed that a real drug (Maxalt) worked significantly less effectively when the patient was told it was a placebo. This proves that mindsets can modulate the effectiveness of physical treatments.
Indulgence Mindset for Food
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(01:07:20)
  • Key Takeaway: Shifting the mindset about healthy food from deprivation to indulgence primes the body to desire and process it better.
  • Summary: Eating dessert should be approached with permission in a mindset of indulgence, pleasure, and sufficiency. The belief that healthy foods are depriving is a mindset often set by external forces like food companies. By reframing healthy options, like a salad, to look indulgent (adding dressing, nuts, etc.), the body prepares itself to consume it, aiding healthier eating goals.
Mindset Shift with Weightlifting
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(01:13:09)
  • Key Takeaway: Negative self-talk triggered by physical challenges, like lifting a heavy weight, reinforces a mindset of weakness that hinders performance.
  • Summary: Lifting a 30-pound weight triggered Mel’s mindset settings of being weak and not strong enough, leading to self-destructive thoughts. Adopting a mindset of capability, such as believing ‘I’m strong’ or ‘I’m doing enough,’ makes physical tasks feel easier and can actually change the physical perception of the weight’s heaviness. Research suggests the feeling of a weight differs based on the mindset adopted.
Mindset and Indulgent Foods
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(01:19:07)
  • Key Takeaway: The language used to describe food (luscious, delicious) reflects pre-set mindsets, and conversely, framing food negatively (stale, processed) reduces its appeal, even if it is the same item.
  • Summary: The initial reaction to chocolate cake was driven by indulgent settings associated with pleasure, potentially linked to family history like a grandparent owning a bakery. Trying to actively avoid thinking about something, like cake, triggers the brain to focus on it more (the white bear effect). Changing the mindset about the source or quality of the cake (e.g., stale vs. homemade) can immediately decrease its appeal, proving mindset controls desire.
Mindset and Financial Beliefs
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(01:25:21)
  • Key Takeaway: Core beliefs about money, such as scarcity or abundance, dictate feelings and behaviors that can either perpetuate financial stress or support financial capability.
  • Summary: Objective reality (four dollars) is separate from the core belief or mindset about that money, which can range from scarcity (‘I better hold on to this’) to abundance (‘I am capable of figuring this out’). A scarcity mindset can lead to behaviors that actually make money more scarce, while believing in one’s capability to manage or earn money changes actions around it. These powerful beliefs apply to categories like self-worth, fitness, and overall life creation.
Actionable Steps for Mindset Change
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(01:29:25)
  • Key Takeaway: To implement mindset shifts, identify a problem or goal and then consciously adopt a supporting mindset, such as viewing stress response as supportive or reframing healthy eating as indulgence.
  • Summary: Listeners should start by acknowledging their problems and goals, then ask what mindset would best support achieving them. For stress, adopt the mindset that the body’s response is designed to support you toward what you care about. For weight struggles, focus on the mindset of indulgence while eating nutritiously, rather than deprivation. Mindsets are controllable and research proves they lead to better physical outcomes.