Clean Dancing

My elderly client scoffed, “People who go to the gym or run are ridiculous. I get all the exercise I need from cleaning house.”

I had never thought of that, but the cognitive psychologist Ellen Langer (the first tenured, female, Harvard psychology professor) thought of that. In one study, Langer worked with housekeepers. She started by asking them how much they exercised. To Langer’s surprise, these housekeepers thought they got little exercise. They viewed exercise as what you do after work, which they didn’t have time for.

In her research study, Langer explained to half her housekeeper subjects that what they were doing was exercise, likening making beds, washing windows, and so on, to the use of various exercise machines at the gym. No other changes were made. The housekeepers were not instructed to work harder or eat differently.

In Langer’s study, the control group were given no instructions or explanations.

The group given the explanation that they were, indeed, working out, lost weight, experienced a positive change in waist-to-hip ratio and body mass index, and a reduction in blood pressure.

The control group experienced no changes.

You may not have heard of Langer, but you have heard the term “mindfulness,” which Langer coined as it’s currently used independent from its origins in Eastern philosophy and accompanying meditation. Langer turned work into healthy exercise using a change of mind. I found a way to turn clean-up into dance with a change of mind.                  

My husband and I live with our two-year-old granddaughter. Scattered about are toys for climbing, toys for building, tools for drawing, a little tykes car, a bike, a mini grocery cart, and a toy kitchen where she prepares vegetarian (if wooden food replicas are vegetables) meals for anyone nearby. In other words, the living room is an obstacle course.

The living room also happens to be my favorite place to dance, so to use it, I have to change her play area into an environment for my play. But girls just wanna have fun, so I make the clean-up part of the dance. I put on my favorite dance music, and in rhythm, put her toys away. With my clear space, I dance ecstatically.