The Wine Challenge

Our mindset is so important that it can even change how we experience the taste of a wine. You can prime your brain to look for the best part of any situation

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Gratitude Diaries, a production of My Heart Radio. Hi.
I'm Janice Kaplan. Thanks for joining me for more practical
ideas on how to be happier. Today's tip have a
glass of wine and realize how much your mindset determines

(00:23):
how it tastes. I talk all the time about how
it's not events that make us happy or not, but
our responses and attitudes toward them. I got an email
from one listener who said he liked that concept, but
it seemed to him that events are pretty important. Did
I have any examples that could make him really believe

(00:43):
that how we think about things changes them. It's a
great question, and I agree that events are often a
strong force in our lives, but so is our mindset.
What we expect to happen often becomes how we experience it.
When we believe some thing, we virtually make it true.
Do I have an example of that. Well, here's one

(01:05):
of my favorites, because dozens of studies have been done
with wine drinkers, and virtually all of them show that
if you think you're drinking something expensive and highly rated,
you'll enjoy it more. In one study, wine experts were
given bottles with the labels changed, and then they were
asked to rate them. Some of the experts who got

(01:27):
the wine with a cheap label thought it was worth drinking,
but three times as many approved when it had a
fancy label. All of the wines were exactly the same. Apparently,
all the area dyite opinions about a wine tasting oaky, earthy,
or silky are affected at least in part by labels

(01:48):
as much as by taste buds. Actually, it's even more
subtle than that, because how you view the experience or
event actually changes it. In one really impress of study,
people agreed to have their brains scanned in m r
I machines while they sipped wine through straws okay anything

(02:09):
for science I guess. Screens set up in front of
the volunteers provided information about each wine, including where it
came from and what it cost. And here's what's amazing,
the pleasure centers of the volunteers brains lit up when
they believed they were tasting and expensive or rare wine,
and didn't light up in pleasure when they thought the

(02:31):
wine they were tasting was not so fancy. Once again,
every wine and every sip was really the same. That
experiment is truly stunning to me because it shows that
when we think we like something, we actually experience it
in a more positive way. Remember, the brains were actually

(02:51):
lighting up differently, responding differently to what the people thought
they were drinking. When I was writing The Gratitude Diary
and first heard about these experiments, I tended not to
be a lot of fun at dinner parties. One night,
as friends could over a Napa Valley CHEBLI, I suggested
they were drinking the label rather than the liquid. They

(03:13):
shot back that I just didn't know how to appreciate
a great wine. It could be that all of us
were right with different expectations. Our pleasure centers fire different messages.
We all like to think that we are the one
having the truly authentic experience, responding to the event or
the wine as it actually is, But it's possible that

(03:34):
there's no such thing. A couple of years ago, my
husband and I took a trip to South Africa and
we visited the wine country there. It was a glorious trip,
and now I'm convinced that South African wines are the
very best in the world. At least they're my favorites.
Whenever my husband brings out a bottle of wine, he
knows I'm going to rave about how good it is.

(03:57):
Fortunately he hasn't tried switching labels on me, but I'm
pretty sure that if he did, I'd love whatever he
labeled as being from the region where I have such
fond memories. What works for wine can be expanded to
a general view of life. If you're expecting an event
to be good and positive and make you happy, the

(04:17):
actual details of it don't matter nearly so much. Your
brain is primed to look for the best of the situation.
Expressing gratitude and finding the good in any situation is
like amending a nice label to a cheap bottle of wine.
It doesn't change the day, but it does change how

(04:37):
you experience it. Putting a positive spin on an event
means that you make it easier to light up your
brain's pleasure centers. You are truly experiencing the event with
pleasure and gratitude. So today realize that whatever events occur
will have an influence on you. But how you are

(04:58):
primed to experience the event and the perspective your mind
brings to it are equally or probably more important, all
the experts in the world can tell you that you're
drinking a not so great model of wine, but if
you're prepared to love it and enjoy every sip, you
probably will. Thanks for joining me, I'll be back tomorrow

(05:19):
with more ideas on how your mindset can change your
day and your life and make you happier and more grateful.
Have a great day. The Gratitude Diaries is a production
of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

(05:39):
you get your favorite shows.