Search the internet for “the power of the mind,” and you’ll find some strange things: a program that promises to show you how to attract success simply by focusing on it, a great many nutritional supplements and a video purporting to show a Shaolin monk breaking things with his head. But beyond the hucksters and the hype, the mind actually can do some remarkable things, including shaping our health and well-being.

“Our minds aren’t passive observers, simply perceiving reality as it is. Our minds actually change reality,” said Alia Crum , an assistant professor of psychology and director of the Stanford Mind and Body Lab . Crum and other Stanford researchers – including many who recently took part in a World Economic Forum IdeasLab panel and Stanford Worldview’s Power of Minds meeting – are bridging medicine, psychology, education, business and more to understand not just what our minds can do, but also how they do it.