Eudemonology (HAPPINESS) Encore with Laurie Santos

HAPPINESS RESEARCH, straight up. What is happiness? How do our circumstances affect happiness? Why is the word “gratitude” kinda cringey? What can we do to feel better? Should we feel guilty for feeling happy? When is positivity “toxic?” In this encore of an episode favorite, Yale cognitive scientist, Eudemonologist, and host of The Happiness Lab podcast Dr. Laurie Santos chats about how scientists measure human happiness and what their research has shown helps achieve it, even during the worst of times. Also: silver medal face & countering counterfactuals, which will make sense when you listen.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alie Ward?

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• 0:44Alie Ward?

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• 1:28Alie Ward?

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• 2:13Alie Ward?

  Oh, hello. 2024 Ally here. This is an encore while I am napping in a human-sized dog bed in front of a fireplace for the holidays. What a way to start 2025, folks. I wanted you to have this episode at the beginning of January. This is a reminder of scientifically what actually makes us happy and keeps us happy. We all need this one. Please enjoy. I love it. I'm happy to have you listen.

• 2:39Alie Ward?

  Oh, hey, it's that guy who saw you see him bump his head and then you smiled at each other like, that's okay. Ally Ward, back with an episode of Ologies. It's gonna fix your whole life. Just kidding. Actually, maybe not. It very well might fix your life. I love the Life Fixer episodes and this ologist is someone I've had in my sights for a few years. We mentioned her work in the Osmology episode with Neil Pazricha. And instead of just citing her, we're essentially interrogating her now to shake her for brain science. So she got her bachelor's in psychology and her master's and PhD in cognition and brain behavior from Harvard University and is now a cognitive scientist and a psychology

• 3:20Alie Ward?

  professor at Yale, where she has taught the course Psychology and the Good Life. Oh, she's been a TED speaker. She was named one of Time Magazine's leading campus celebrities. And she hosts a podcast called The Happiness Lab. So it's been a wonky few years. We all know. And as one person who wrote a review this week of Ologies said, "It always brings a smile to my face when I hear people talk about their passions. I'm grateful every day for Ologies and giving me my life back." AJ Buxton, who left that review, I'm very glad you're here. Thank you for leaving that fresh one. And a 2024 reviewer, V Farm, who wrote that, "Without fail, my favorite episodes are those on topics I had no interest in. Y'all, vampires, trees, gar, brilliantly unenthusiastic

• 4:03Alie Ward?

  sounding crab experts. There's nothing quite so wonderful." Thank you, V Farm, for getting it. And thanks, everyone who leaves me reviews. They keep the show up in the charts. They keep me from crying on days that are challenging. Also, heads up, if you prefer podcasts without swearing, we have a slew of them. They're called Smologies and you can subscribe to Smologies now. Wherever you get podcasts, they're in their own separate feed in case you need to listen while you carpool to school. Okay. Thank you to all the patrons who left questions for this ologist. You too can join that club. It costs 25 cents an episode at patreon.com. Okay, so let's get into it. Eudemonology. Will I say it right even one time this episode? Stick around to find out. So this is the science of happiness. And it's been on the ology books a long

• 4:48Alie Ward?

  time. It comes from eudamon, which is Greek for a benevolent demon, or a good spirit. And it was a term used by 19th century humanistic philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer. And he called eudemonology, "The art of ordering our lives so as to obtain the greatest possible amount of pleasure and success." But we're talking about the science of this art. So how to shed the very comfortable crusty shell of dissatisfaction and anxiety with some good steps that have been proven by research people to make your brain less of a miserable bummer. So press pause on your sad inner goblins and open your ears to hear about wanting versus craving,

• 5:29Alie Ward?

  being happy in your life, being happy with your life, how happiness is even measured, lottery winner statistics, the wealth of free time, the power of a walk, wheelbarrows of distractions, when does positivity become toxic, how to get around the ickiness of the word gratitude, and some practical tips to enjoy life on planet Earth before you're a pile of forgotten bones with cognitive scientist, psychology professor, happiness lab host, Yale researcher, and eudemonologist, Dr. Laurie Santos.

• 6:23Alie Ward?

  Hello, Dr. Santos. How are you?

• 6:25Speaker 01

  I'm great, thanks.

• 6:27Alie Ward?

  I'm sure as a happiness doctor, as a professor of happiness, you probably are inclined to say, "I feel great," more often than most of us.

• 6:38Speaker 01

  You'd think. I'm inclined to be honest because one thing the happiness science shows is that being honest about our negative emotions is important, too. So when things are tough, I'm like, "You know, it's tough." But, you know, but today's been a good day.

• 6:50Alie Ward?

  That's great. So I'm already learning so much. Can I have you say really quick your first and last name and your pronouns?

• 7:00Speaker 01

  Sure. I'm Laurie Santos, and my pronouns are she/her.

• 7:03Alie Ward?

  You have been on my radar for years, actually. And so I'm really stoked to talk to you because this is an ology that I've wanted to do for, I think, since before I even started the podcast. Do you, are you familiar with this, that word? Uedem- Wedemology?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  No, maybe.

• 7:21Alie Ward?

  You know that word? It's U-E-D-E-M.

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Oh, sorry. Yes, Udemology, maybe.

• 7:28Alie Ward?

  Udemology, yes.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Like eudaimonia is the word, yeah.

• 7:32Alie Ward?

  So I guess this is a study of that feeling or that state. And you're the perfect person to talk to you because, obviously, you have your podcast and you teach courses at Yale about this. So can you tell me a little bit about your background? How did you start studying cognition and feelings? Where did it start?

• 7:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I've been a psychologist, you know, forever. I think I've always been interested in the human mind and how it works and things. But, you know, before I got into the study of happiness specifically, I was really interested in the origins of cognition, so the origins of how we think. And I studied that by looking at non-human animals. I studied how monkeys and dogs think about the world. And that was kind of my day job until I took on a new role on Yale's campus where I became what's called a head of college. And so Yale's kind of like one of these weird schools like in Harry Potter where there are like colleges within a college, you know, like kind of Gryffindor, Slytherin sort of thing. I'm head of Siliman College and that means I live on campus with students. And when I started the role, I was expecting it to be, you know, like, you know, rainbows and parties and just like happy students

• 8:41Speaker 01

  all the time. But when I got there, you know, I was really seeing the college student mental health crisis up close and personal, you know, with so many students reporting feeling depressed and anxious. And, you know, even if they weren't, you know, at clinical levels of mental health dysfunction, they were just kind of feeling stressed and sort of fast forwarding their life, you know, and just feeling overwhelmed and really busy. And so I kind of wanted to do something about it. You know, I didn't like being in this culture where so many students were stressed and depressed and just kind of not enjoying their time in college. And so I thought, well, let me, you know, figure out what my field of psychology says about this. And psychology gives us so many tips that we can use to feel better. And so I thought, all right, great. I'll, you know, I'll do what professors do. I'll make a whole class on this. So, you know, I prepped this class

• 9:24Speaker 01

  that I christened Psychology and the Good Life and, you know, slapped it together thinking, you know, 30 or so students would take it. And you can imagine my surprise when a quarter of the entire campus enrolled the first time I taught it. Yeah, we couldn't, we couldn't fit the class anywhere. We had to teach it in a concert hall on campus because that was the only place it would fit. But, you know, that showed me students are voting with their feet. They don't like this culture of feeling so overwhelmed and stressed. And I think they really wanted, you know, science-based strategies they could use to feel better.

• 9:55Alie Ward?

  Yeah. Much different, I think, than just Instagram quotes on a page. Here you've got someone who studies the brain, who studies psychology. You're probably, people go into it with a little bit of faith that you'll have some evidence-based information, right?

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Exactly. And I mean, I think, you know, the what one of the things that's interesting is we learn, as you look into the science, you learn that, you know, some of those ancient pieces of wisdom were quite accurate, you know, some of the platitudes we see are quite accurate, you know, but some not so much, right? And I think that's why we need an empirical approach, right? We can just ask scientifically, okay, if we find happy people, what are they doing differently? What are their strategies? How are they spending their time? And then we can let the not so happy people copy that and really test, you know, are they feeling happier? Are they feeling less depressed? And, you know, these days, we have almost, you know, two decades worth of scientific work that's done that in this field of positive psychology. And, you know, we've learned a lot. There's lots of evidence-based tips out there for what you can do to feel better.

• 10:56Alie Ward?

  Okay, so the term positive psychology was popularized by Dr. Martin Seligman, who felt that the contemporary psychology was just too deeply focused on what's fucked up about us, not how can we live better? So it focuses on things like self-discovery and a sense of purpose and expressing yourself through creativity and authentically. So we're going to get to more of that in a bit. But first, from small hairy primates to larger, slightly less hairy primates like us. And, you know, where did you make that jump from non-human primates and dogs into humans? Did you find that a lot of the research just correlates based on what our brain structures are, how our neurons work?

• 11:39Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting. And the work I was doing with dogs and monkeys was more kind of figuring out, you know, how they decide, what they know about the world. But there was a rich similarity, which is that when you start looking into the happiness science work, you quickly realize a big way that we get things wrong, which is that we have some really bad theories about the kinds of things that make us happy. You know, when I talk to my students and on my podcast, I often say, you know, our minds are lying to us about the sorts of things that will make us happy. You know, we think it's money and changing our circumstances and, you know, getting the perfect accolade or the perfect grade, but those things seem not to work. And, and that tied really nicely to some of the work we were doing in animals, where we showed that some of the deepest irrationalities we have And our species might be evolutionarily old.

• 12:24Speaker 01

  They're kind of built in. And I think the same thing about some of the things we get wrong about happiness. Like even knowing these studies, it's hard for me to change my intuitions. You know, I still think, well, if I, you know, hit Powerball today, oh, man, I'd be so much happier. Or, you know, if it just wasn't raining today, I'd be so much happier. If, you know, we could change my circumstances drastically, that would really improve my well being. But I know the scientific work that suggests that's probably not the case.

• 12:50Alie Ward?

  Okay, so I looked into some data on if Powerball winners are happier. And it's a mixed bag of money. So one thing for sure, people do take more vacations when they win the lottery. And by contrast, 60% of Americans take zero vacations a year. And apparently, one thing that pleases us so much about vacations is just having something, anything to look forward to. So just start peppering your calendar with any excursion you can, even if it's just like a nice bowl of soup next Wednesday or a hike next weekend. Pack a picnic. Leisure time on any scale is apparently worth a million bucks and tax free. So, hey. Is happiness more about being happy with ourselves and accepting ourselves

• 13:35Alie Ward?

  or external circumstances? Or is it mission based? Like you're on the right path to doing something that you believe in?

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a few of all of those things. I mean, I think one thing in terms of our circumstances, you know, it's worth noting that if you're in really dire traumatic circumstances, yes, getting different circumstances will really, you know, improve your well being. You know, if you're living below the poverty line or if you're in an abusive relationship, you do want to change those circumstances. But for many of the people privileged enough to listen to this podcast, who can, you know, put food on the table, you know, has a roof over their head and so on, you know, changing your circumstances might not affect your happiness as much as you think. For many of us, circumstances isn't the, changing our circumstances isn't the fastest path to feeling a little bit happier.

• 14:23Alie Ward?

  So is it mind over matter? This is where you ask smart persons doofy questions.

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Often, it's more about changing our mindset, which incorporates a lot of the things you mentioned. You know, it's about changing the way we see the world, changing the way we see our circumstances, changing the extent to which we're present with our circumstances and our emotions. And it's also tapping into things that give us meaning in life, you know, giving us a sense of purpose. So all of those things seem to matter a lot more than what our salary level is, or for my students, the last grade they got on their midterm and things like that.

• 14:58Alie Ward?

  Backing up a little bit, what is happiness? How do you even define it?

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, tricky. I mean, we could take many, many podcast episodes of fighting over a definition of happiness. You know, social scientists tend to try to be simpler than philosophers. So they go for a definition of happiness that's pretty easy to measure. And so most social scientists think about happiness as sort of being happy in your life and with your life. And so being happy in your life is just having lots of positive emotions, right? You know, like you have experienced joy and laughter and fun and less often, things like sadness and anger. Not that those aren't there at all, right? Because a full and complete life includes some negative emotions. But you know, the ratio is pretty good. That's sort of being happy in your life. Being happy with your life is that meaning, that sense of purpose. It's the answer to the question,

• 15:47Speaker 01

  all things considered, how satisfied am I with my life? And those two constructs are ones that scientists measure separately. And it's worth noting that they do sometimes dissociate. You know, that I think if you go on Instagram, there are a lot of people who are happy in their life. They're eating these hedonistic meals on some plane somewhere. But if you look at how they're feeling with their life, I bet they're feeling pretty empty. And you can also have cases of the opposite. My dean, who I live with here in the college, you know, she and her wife recently just had a baby. And newborn baby, you know, you're really happy with your life. Oh, my God, this rich sense of meaning, being a mom. But in your life, dirty diapers and not sleeping. And so they can dissociate. But best case scenario is that you're feeling pretty high on both of those.

• 16:31Alie Ward?

  So I'm going to pause us for a second just to ponder. How do you feel in your life? How are your days to days? Maybe some nice tea in the morning, some supportive coworkers, maybe some evening knitting or a walk with a friend? Or do you hate your coffee maker? And you don't know why you started rewatching The Big Bang Theory from episode one? You're tired, go to bed. Now, what about with your life? Do you feel a sense of purpose? Are you proud of your life? Do you feel authentic? Just think about it for a second. It's totally okay if you're like, some of it's good, some of it sucks eggs. Or I'm very fortunate. Why am I such a grumpy walrus?

• 17:06Speaker 01

  And there are lots of different hacks that we can do to improve both of those constructs.

• 17:11Alie Ward?

  In terms of emotions themselves, is happiness an umbrella for things like joy and relief and satisfaction and contentment? Or are those all individual, separate emotions?

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it kind of depends. I think, you know, we, we and sometimes scientists, philosophers, you know, all of us, you know, we can get really kind of tied up on the specifics, right? You know, is, is joy a subcomponent of happiness? Or is it bigger than happiness? What about contentment and things like that? I'm more of the opinion of you kind of know them when you see them, right? You know, I want a construct that's easy enough that if I give people some sort of self-report measure, that they can tell me about it. But beyond that, I don't want to get into a big fight about, well, is it joy? Is it contentment? Is it 45% or is it 50%? You know, I think you kind of know it when you see it. But, but we could probably dig in. I mean, there's nuance there. You know, the kind of calm contentment feels different than a kind of manic, excited happiness than, you know, a deep sense of joy.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  You know, these, these are different constructs and maybe importantly so. But overall, what we're going for is as many of those as possible.

• 18:15Alie Ward?

  And what about you in particular? I know that you said you can read the studies and understand and know, but sometimes it's, it's hard to do. You know, how has your life changed since you switched a little bit of your career focus on this?

• 18:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's definitely, statistically speaking, made me much happier. You know, I'm a nerd, right? So I take these surveys myself about, you know, how satisfied are you with your life on a scale of 1 to 10 and stuff like that? And on most 10-point scales of both happiness in my life and happiness with my life, I've gone up at least a point since focusing on this stuff. But it's not like magic, right? It's in part just because I'm doing the things that I keep telling my students to do. You know, I'm practicing gratitude. I'm improving my social connection. I'm meditating more. I'm exercising. Like, I'm doing all this stuff in a big list of, hey, if you do these things scientifically, seems like you'll feel better. And now I'm doing those and I'm feeling better. So it kind of makes sense. There's also something wonderful about being the happiness professor,

• 19:15Speaker 01

  because I have a whole host of students and podcast listeners who, if I'm not doing the right thing, will probably call me out. You know, my students see me, oh, how's it going? Like, oh, I'm so frustrated. And they're like, oh. You know, my students call me Head of College Santos. So it's Hox Santos. It's what it's abbreviated to. And they'll be like, Hox Santos, aren't you supposed to be practicing gratitude? You know, and it's like, oh, OK, yes, you're right. You know, so I will get called out if I'm not practicing this stuff.

• 19:43Alie Ward?

  Do you feel like your friends come to you for more pep talks? Or fewer because they just look at your published work instead?

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, I think my friends are my friends, right? You know, they don't necessarily see me as a happiness expert. If anything, I think the happiness expert thing can become a little bit annoying at times of like, well, you know, I have a podcast on that. You know, it's like, no, they just want me to be their friend. And so try to separate the two a little bit.

• 20:08Alie Ward?

  Shit, am I not supposed to talk about podcast episodes with my friends? Because I've told a lot of people about wildfires and how lizards have two dogs. Let's change the subject. Well, let's get into some of those factors, because I know that you rattled them off. And it's a lot of things that we feel like we know, but we don't necessarily know why or the mechanisms of how that works. You know, exercise, practicing gratitude. Can you run me down those things? And in a nutshell, tell me, why do they work?

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, there's different kinds of categories of them. You know, one whole set of categories are, there's a whole host of things that make us happier that are about connecting with other people, right? Literally, being around other people is considered a necessary condition for high happiness in a lot of studies. And that's true even for introverts. So just literally connecting with and being around other people, super useful for happiness. But another way that you connect with other people is to focus on what makes them happy. Lots of evidence that doing random acts of kindness, spending money and time on other people, that makes us feel happier. And in some cases, especially with spending money, you're happier spending money on others than you even are spending on yourself. You know, so this, this attitude of social connection and doing for others, you know,

• 21:24Speaker 01

  a powerful set of practices to make us feel happier. Another set of practices really has to do with our mindset. You know, do we have a mindset of kind of griping and complaining? Or are we focused on things we're grateful for? You know, are we paying attention to the negative things in life? Or are we focused on delights? Are we present enough to savor some of the good things? And just, you know, present in general to notice our emotions and notice things. There's evidence suggesting that a wandering mind is an unhappy mind. So just the act of, a mindset of being present can be really powerful for happiness.

• 21:57Alie Ward?

  So for more on a daily practice of looking for things that aren't the fucking worst, I linked the osmology episode in the show notes. Also, learning this next term killed me. I'm dead, I'm a fungus now.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  And then there's just a whole host of things that I think we kind of know are good for our physical health, but we forget can be so important for our mental health. You know, things like taking time to exercise, taking time to sleep, which is a huge one. And just having like some time off. There's lots of evidence that something called time affluence, the subjective sense that you have some free time, is much more critical for happiness than we, than we realize. And so, you know, all of those things, as I say them, you know, we can go through the scientific studies and so on. And, you know, your listeners might be thinking like, well, I kind of know that. And what I like to say is it's, you know, it's common wisdom, but it's not common practice. You know, how many of those things that I just? Rattled off aren't things that you're doing right now, you know, that and then that's

• 22:53Speaker 01

  why I think it's really critical to know the science because as you hear the science of say nutrition, you think like, oh, maybe I should eat healthier. I think as you hear the science of how things like social connection and exercise work, you start thinking, oh, maybe those are things I really do need to get in more of, you know, I kind of knew it, but now that I see the evidence, this does seem really important.

• 23:14Alie Ward?

  So connecting with people, talking face to face is better for us than just text. The phone works too. Face time is even better than the phone. Also, helping others when you can, looking for lovely shiny things amid the compost pile that can feel like life. Also, sleep and exercise. It can be immediate, or like exercise, it can be a few weeks before these habits really take root and you start to feel better. So don't give up. Give it a few weeks, especially since it's free. Are you feeling lazy and annoyed? Don't worry. A lot of us feel that way when we start doing something that will keep us alive and happy. So I asked Dr. Santos for us, why am I like this? Why do you think from some sort of evolutionary standpoint, when we're bummed out, it's harder

• 23:57Alie Ward?

  to do the things that would make us less bummed out?

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, super frustrating. Like, the mind is designed in like a really stupid way. You know, I mean, we, we knew this, you know, from other evolutionary studies, but definitely when it comes, when it comes to happiness, that's the case. In, in one of my upcoming episodes of the Happiness Lab, I talk about this really stupid design feature of the brain where there's just a different, like a whole different brain system that codes for what we like, you know, so the things we really enjoy versus the things that we want, the things that we're motivated to go after or that we crave. The simplest example is like, you know, sometimes when I'm having a bad day at work, I just like crave, like plopping down and watching Netflix, or like eating a cupcake, or having like a huge glass

• 24:43Speaker 01

  of wine. But like, if you actually look at how much I would like that, the Netflix is going to make me apathetic, and the cupcake is going to give me the jitters, and the wine, I'm not going to sleep very well. Like, ultimately, the liking has this disconnect from the wanting, and you get it in the Reverse direction too, like I don't after a long day at work crave a really hard Peloton ride, or like, you know, like a really hard yoga class, or like taking a long walk with a friend. I don't, I don't have like the same motivation I have for that that I do for like the cupcake, or the boring relaxing thing, or a hit of social media. But even though I don't have the wanting, if I actually engage in that practice, I'll feel so much

• 25:25Speaker 01

  better. And so this is a dumb way to design a brain. You think that wanting would kind of go with liking, but it, it just sort of doesn't. And that means we spend a lot of time craving and easily going after things we won't really like. And it means we don't have mechanisms, except for a kind of rational, you know, push ourselves. We don't have these kind of low-grade craving mechanisms to go after things that really will benefit our happiness, but, but we don't realize we want them.

• 25:52Alie Ward?

  How do we hijack that? Like, how do we trick ourselves into doing the thing that we don't think that we want to do, but we like doing and is good for us?

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, there's, you know, there's two ways to do it. You know, one is this very rational force yourself way, which, which I harness a lot, which is like, okay, even though I don't really feel like calling anyone right now, I know the science. And if I talk to someone, I'll feel better. Right? You know, so you kind of the force yourself approach, right? But the force yourself approach works best if it's paired with the second practice, which is forcing yourself to notice what you like. Cause the wanting system can update. It just doesn't do it naturally. But after a really hard yoga class, or after calling that friend when you didn't feel like it, take time to notice, like, does this feel good? And you're like, yeah, this actually, this actually feels nice. I had this, you know, pre-COVID, when I was going to a yoga studio, this wonderful yoga instructor,

• 26:44Speaker 01

  right at the end of a hard class would have you take this moment, like, okay, now take a moment to notice, notice how you feel after this class, like notice how this made you feel. And afterwards, you're like, damn, that was great. Like, I want more of this feeling, you know?

• 26:56Alie Ward?

  So when you pick the salad and stop pretending that diet coke is water, and you go for the slowest, sweatiest shuffle around the block, but you do it, take a minute, and absolutely relish how wonderful and brave and heroic your efforts were and how you feel. We deserve this.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  But we tend not to be present. We tend not to mindfully notice. And that's true for the stuff you really crave, but you might not like. After you like, you know, opened the fridge four times and grabbed that thing to eat that you didn't really feel like, take a moment to be like, am I satisfied now? Not really. You want to grab something else. And once you notice that, your wanting system can be like, okay, kind of duly noted.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  You got it?

• 27:35Alie Ward?

  Got it.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Let's take note of that for next time. So kind of forcing yourself to ignore your wanting system and just act through this very rational path, but then also mindfully noticing what you really like. Those things can start to update your craving system at least a little bit. But the systems are always going to be disconnected, unfortunately. It's just our minds are not really designed that well for wanting all the things that we like.

• 28:00Alie Ward?

  What about like our self-image? How much does that play into our happiness? And how much does monitoring our likes and our social media and, you know, looking at pictures of our face through a distorted camera lens? How much is that affecting our happiness and how we see our lives?

• 28:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, one, another dumb feature of the way our minds work when it comes to happiness is the fact that we don't necessarily think of the good things in our life in objective terms. We think of them in relative terms. And that means that seeing ourselves on social media, seeing what's going on with other people on social media, that can really affect our happiness in some dumb ways. Take your body image, for example, right? You know, you might objectively think you have a certain, you know, body that's good or not so good or whatever. But we don't necessarily think in terms of our objective sense. We think relative. And so as soon as you go on Instagram and you look at, you know, the bikini pictures of someone else, or take your objective sense of how good your vacation was, or how rich you were, or how nice your house is, then, you know, you watch the celebrity, you know,

• 29:01Speaker 01

  TikTok feeds and you're like, oh, like my house isn't that good, or my vacation sucked, and things like that. We're really susceptible to social comparison when it comes to evaluating anything in our life, our abilities, our amount of money, our salary, our house, whatever. And that means that we can easily start feeling bad, even when we're in objectively a good situation. My favorite extreme example of this was a study that looked at the emotions of different Olympic medalists. So probably gold medalists probably feeling pretty happy, like, you know, makes sense. They just want a gold medal. Yeah. But what about silver medalists? You know, maybe slightly less happy. But what researchers find is that if you look at the emotional expressions that silver medalists show on the stand.

• 29:48Speaker 03

  Atona Mayol has won the gold and backstage Nancy Kerrigan and Chen Lu exchanged congratulations and consolations for silver and bronze.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  They're not just slightly less happy. They're actively feeling awful. They're showing signs of extreme sadness, contempt, anger. Like, it's not just like slightly less happy, it's actively negative.

• 30:10Alie Ward?

  Wow.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  If you think about what I just said, it sort of makes sense, right? Because the silver medalist isn't thinking, I'm objectively the second best in the world. I objectively beat like the other seven billion people, like, whatever my sport is. They're just thinking about one reference point that makes them feel awful, the gold. They were almost there and they didn't get it. So they feel like a loser. But what's striking is if you look at the bronze medalist, you see something completely different. Because their reference point isn't the gold, right? Like, they were, I don't know, like, you know, 30 seconds off, or they like lost two matches or something. Their reference point is like, if I would just messed up a little bit more, I would go home completely empty handed, right? Like, I wouldn't even be on the stand at all, right? And so they're showing signs of true ecstasy. In some cases, they're showing expressions that are even

• 30:55Speaker 01

  happier than the gold medalist. Because their reference point is like, phew, look how lucky I am. Like, I almost totally screwed up.

• 31:02Alie Ward?

  So Nancy Kerrigan displayed a famously sour face receiving the silver in 1994. And then in 1995, a study was published in the Journal of Personal and Social Psychology titled, quote, "When Less Is More: Counterfactual Thinking and Satisfaction Among Olympic Medalists." Counterfactual thinking? Huh.

• 31:22Alie Ward?

  That is the sinking gnawing feeling of what could have been. Oh, wow, I fudged it up. So, one researcher, Dr. Andrea Lewingrath, a University of Iowa Marketing Assistant Professor, did follow-up studies on medalists to confirm that first study. And recently said in an interview that you don't have to be the second best out of 8 billion. There are always going to be people who we can compare ourselves to that are better, faster, smarter, or whatever, and that can make us feel relatively bad. So what is the lesson here? Think twice before you get a no regrets tattoo and maybe consider a counter your counter factuals tattoo instead. And once the sting wears off, celebrate your silvers. You did it.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  And I love this metaphor because it shows us that it doesn't matter what's going on objectively, it matters who we're comparing ourselves against. And that means sometimes we can be objectively a really good spot, but feel kind of awful about it.

• 32:20Alie Ward?

  And what about chemicals? Where are just the chemical hands that we were dealt? When do those have the reins on the amount of happiness we feel?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  So we could think about the chemicals we're dealt in a couple ways. Often, we think about it in terms of our genetic lottery, right? Are you naturally a happy person? Are you naturally a down in the dumps person? And just like circumstances, what we find is that there is a genetic component to happiness. If you're born from a long line of overly optimistic people, you're more likely to be overly optimistic. But the amount of that heritability is tiny.

• 32:57Alie Ward?

  What?

• 32:58Speaker 01

  It's probably tinier than something like height or weight in the US. And especially with like weight, we know that that's something that obviously your environment can shape a lot. And so while there is some heritable component to happiness, it's much tinier than we think. And this is really good news, right? It would suck if you're like, hey, you're just born to be happy or born to be not so happy and that's it. What the science is really telling us is that there's some heritable component, but there's a lot of action that we can take through our mindsets, through our behaviors to change things around. And that's great because putting this all together, it means our genetic Don't predict our happiness that much and our circumstances don't predict our happiness that much. Like, we don't necessarily get to control whether we're born into, you know,

• 33:41Speaker 01

  complete luxury or born into poverty. We don't necessarily get to control what our genetic heritage is, but we all can completely control our mindsets and our behavior. So it's good news. The bad news is that changing those mindsets and behavior, as you probably guessed, takes a lot of work.

• 33:56Alie Ward?

  Yeah. Do you ever have students who either come to you or who you hear about who aren't quite sure if it's time for medical intervention, or is it time for just trying to hack their habits? How do we, as individuals, make that call?

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think I'm glad you brought this up because I think this is really important. You know, so many of the hacks, you know, we are talking about today are ones that really can improve your well-being. But, you know, there's some points when you need to hack, and there's some points where you, you know, need something, you know, that's much deeper. And the analogy I like to use is, you know, imagine you go into your doctor and you say, "Hey, doctor, I have high blood pressure. You know, what should I do?" Your doctor might say, "Hey, you know, get on the treadmill and exercise a little bit more. You know, eat, you know, eat these fruits and vegetables every day," or something. But if you walked into your doctor's office and you're saying, "Doctor, you know, I'm having chest pains. I'm having acute cardiac arrest right now," your doctor wouldn't be like, "Well, get on the treadmill, you know, for a half hour day." Like, your doctor would, you know, an emergency intervention would take place. And I think it's worth recognizing that our

• 34:56Speaker 01

  mental health works the same way. The kinds of things I'm talking about are, in some sense, preventative medicine. You know, they're there so that you don't wind up in a state of kind of acutely feeling clinically depressed, or suicidal, or something worse, right? You know, you, they're there so that you can protect your mental health so you don't get to that point. But if you're experiencing true depression, you know, hard for you to do your daily activities, or anxiety so powerful that you're experiencing panic attacks, that's a sign that you might need professional help. All the hacks I mentioned are good, you know, once you get out of that acute state, just like the heart attack person, as soon as you get out of experiencing cardiac arrest, the next step is going to go be to go back to some of those preventative measures, once you kind of get out of the hospital. And I think the same thing is true for clinical parts of the

• 35:41Speaker 01

  These diseases, you might also want to go back to experiencing gratitude and meditating in these things. But it is important to get acute care if the mental health situation you're in is acute.

• 35:51Alie Ward?

  Okay, that's great to know for people. You may know when you hit this level because your friends will say, I think you should see a doctor, dude, which is what happened to me when I was going through the hardest parts of my life and also had a couple of medical conditions that turned my brain into bees. The doctor was like, well, shucks, you need more than a car wash. Let's check under the hood there, buddy. But yes, what is the technique for sloughing off persistent crusty muddy feelings? When it comes to things like gratitude and meditation, how much is effective? Like, how much can we get away with if we're feeling real down in the dumps, but we're low on motivation? How much gratitude is enough? How much meditation is enough? How much exercise is enough?

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, one of the nice things about this being, all of this stuff being evidence-based is that it allows you to kind of do your own experimentation, right? The answer of how much meditation you, you know, particular podcast listener need, might depend on all kinds of things, right? And so the key is to sort of try it out. One thing we know, though, is that sometimes it takes less than you really expect. Take something like gratitude. There's evidence that just scribbling down three things that you're grateful for every day, that can be enough to significantly boost your well-being in as little as two weeks. Like, doesn't take that much time. There's evidence, for example, from Hedy Kober's lab at Yale, that even as little as 10 minutes of meditation a day can really start to improve your well-being and some mental health symptoms, right?

• 37:13Alie Ward?

  For more on this, feel free to peruse papers such as Brief Mindfulness Meditation Improves Attention in Novices and Let It Be: Mindful Acceptance Downregulates Pain and Negative Emotion, both published by Dr. Hedy Kober. So scientists in lab coats have dedicated their research and their grant money budgets to proving that, yes, meditation does help. It's free, it takes less time than making a sandwich. We can do this. Let's do this.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  And so it doesn't take long. What it takes is some consistency. And so my instinct is like, because sometimes we hear these tips like, all right, I'm going to drop everything and do, you know, like 70 hours of meditation. It's like, no, no, no, just start really small. Allow yourself to do these baby steps and test it out. How are you feeling? Are you feeling better? Is it making, is it making things better or is it making things worse? And so allowing ourself the self compassion to engage in these baby steps, I think is really important.

• 38:09Alie Ward?

  I think that's so true. Whenever I get out of the habit of running, which is now, I'll go do a lap at the reservoir, but I'll have to just tell myself the first couple of times I do it, the first month even, as long as I just get around the reservoir, even crawling is fine. You know, like expecting yourself to get back into running at a certain pace or doing things, you know, whole hog can be so intimidating. You just want to give up right away.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I think, you know, we're not good at understanding the amount of self compassion we need to motivate ourselves. I think, again, this is a spot where I think our minds get it wrong. We think the right way to motivate ourselves is to become these horrid drill instructors and like yell at ourselves in our head in a way that we'd never speak to a friend or a child or someone we cared about, hopefully, right? But that kind of just doesn't work. That convinces us that it's not good to try. We end up setting our standards lower. We end up procrastinating more. Self compassion, it turns out, can actually allow you to engage in new habits better and more effectively and with less procrastination. That's not our theory. We like go for the drill sergeant approach.

• 39:12Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  But we'd be better off kind of, you know, mindfully paying attention to what's going on and recognizing that we're just human and giving ourselves a little bit more of a benefit of a doubt.

• 39:22Alie Ward?

  Yeah, like I never want to obey a dick who's yelling at me. So why do I do that to myself?

• 39:29Speaker 01

  And we're like, you know, the dickiest of dicks is often the person in our head, right? You know, it's like, wait, I would never say, you know, that, that thing I just said to myself in my head, I would never say that to another human. Why am I talking to myself that way?

• 39:40Alie Ward?

  Yeah, I would, I would want to slap my own self for saying that to me. You know, like I'm, yeah, I'm the, the hardest on myself. More than I would ever tolerate in somebody else, which is so funny that we do that. But you know, you mentioned the term positive psychology before, and I'm so curious about that because I feel like I can't tell if it's flim flam or not, that positive psychology is totally like a legit practice, or is it something along the lines of like toxic positivity at all costs? What is positive psychology? What do scientists think of it?

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, the term positive psychology began when scientist Marley Seligman, who kind of invented the field, or is thought that the founder of the field, you know, really had this intuition that so much of psychology is about, you know, what he called kind of below baseline, right? Like, I'm trying to cure depression, I'm trying to cure anxiety, or something like that. But he realized that we didn't have, as he called it, a good science of kind of going above baseline. You know, there's baseline, and then there's feeling like you're flourishing, you know, then there's getting social connection in life, feeling really present, experiencing joy. And so he really christened this name of this field, positive psychology, in order to focus on those things. But I think positive psychology gets the wrong rap. I think there's this idea that like, well, you have to only be

• 40:56Speaker 01

  positive. But you know, if you look at what this research is really showing, there's a lot of evidence that a real, true, happy life, a successful life, a healthy life, involves experiencing negative emotions, allowing those, not running away from them. There's, you know, lots of evidence suggesting that there are different techniques you can use to navigate those emotions and sort of feel them without getting like destroyed by them. And so I think, you know, when you hear these terms, positive psychology, positivity, they can kind of feel a little cheesy and get a bad rap, that it's like, positive, positive, positive, all the time. But that's not really, when you dig into the field, what it's showing. My sense is that, you know, the whole goal is to get to, you know, this idea of eudaimonia, this rich, meaningful life. And you do that not through, you know,

• 41:41Speaker 01

  putting blinders on and being a Pollyanna, and like, you know, trying only to experience happy, happy, happy, no matter what. You do that by having a full life, which is rich with lots of emotions and experiences.

• 41:52Alie Ward?

  Yeah, that's such a good point about letting yourself feel those negative emotions, but not necessarily succumbing to them, you know?

• 42:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:02Alie Ward?

  Not letting them win all the time.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I think we get that wrong. Like, I think our instinct, again, is this idea that while there's some negative emotion, I should run away from that, or the right move would be to suppress it, stiff upper lip. But there's evidence from James Gross at Stanford that the act of suppressing our emotions can lead to things like increased cardiac stress, or even can cause us to have some problems with memory and decision making. You do worse on a memory test when you're trying to suppress some negative emotion. So it has negative costs. We're much better off if we can find ways to regulate and allow those emotions, right? To experience them, give them some time, and then be self compassionate and nurture ourselves through them.

• 42:44Alie Ward?

  Are there any myths about happiness that you find yourself constantly having to bust?

• 42:49Speaker 01

  All the time. I mean, you know, as we've been talking about, our minds lie to us all the time about this stuff. I mean, the biggest one, the one that my students fall prey to so much, is that happiness is about circumstances. You know, that happiness is about money in particular. My Yale students were all thinking about what job they want to get when they get out of this Ivy League university, and what salary they're going to get and things. You tell them that after a certain reasonable middle-class income, money doesn't matter for happiness anymore. And they want to fight you on it. They're like, "Well, what if I spent it differently? Or what if I went on vacation to these places over and over again?" You're like, "Nope, doesn't count." Like, or at the very least, it's not so much that money doesn't matter for happiness. It's just, there are so many other things you could focus on that matter much, much more. You know, maybe, yeah, if you go up like that miniscule amount, if you put all this

• 43:32Speaker 01

  work in and all this time in to earn more, maybe you get a teeny bump, maybe, maybe not. But like, if you just wrote down three things you're grateful for, that would work way more effectively. Like, we know that empirically.

• 43:44Alie Ward?

  Is there a test where people can go figure out how happy am I?

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's also different spots online where you can do that. In fact, Marty Seligman, who we mentioned, this founder of positive psychology, has a website called Authentic Happiness. If you kind of Google the Authentic Happiness test.

• 44:00Alie Ward?

  So yes, I checked this out. And if you Google Authentic Happiness, you can help fellow eudemonologists by taking scored questionnaires. They have Authentic Happiness Inventory, the General Happiness Scale, Positive and Negative Effect Questionnaire, the Four Dice Emotions Questionnaire. I myself opted for the classic, the Authentic Happiness Inventory. And on a scale of one to five, Jared, what do you think I got?

• 44:27Speaker 04

  Three.

• 44:29Alie Ward?

  You know me too.

• 44:30Speaker 04

  Did I?

• 44:30Alie Ward?

  Yeah, 3.08. So maybe I'll meditate a bunch and then I'll take it in a few months. Also, I have no idea what all those different tests do, but I'm sure that the scientists know, and that's all that matters.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  You know, you don't need a fancy test. It's really kind of all things considered, how happy are you with your life? And this is the beauty. There's not, for better or for worse, there's not a thermometer that we can use for happiness as scientists, where we put it in like, boop, you're 98.6, you know, happy. You know, you just have to answer it for yourself. And that kind of feels, you know, a little bit not as legit scientifically. But in practice, that's what we're really trying to get at. We're trying to get at your own perception of how things are going. And if things are going well, then they're going well.

• 45:13Alie Ward?

  Can I ask you some listener questions?

• 45:15Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 45:15Alie Ward?

  But before that, let's aim a money cannon at a worthy cause. This week, Dr. Santos chose donorschoose.org, which lets teachers list their classroom needs, and then regular jabronis like you and me can make their dreams come true. So Donors Choose has fulfilled 1.7 million classroom projects, from butterfly cocoons to robotics kits to pencils and paper and books with diverse characters. OK, so modern day Ali here, saying that when this first aired, we funded a few classrooms, and this time around, we picked a few new ones to fund. Mrs. Alvarado's classroom at Mainz Elementary School in Calexico, California, needed funding to purchase some reading comprehension passages. To motivate students to read and write. She also needed new chairs for the classroom,

• 45:59Alie Ward?

  for which apparently the United States does not have enough money. So teachers have to buy these things. So happy to fund that for Mrs. Alvarado. Another classroom project funded was Mrs. Myers at Thurgood Marshall Elementary School in Moro, Georgia, who says that research has shown that hunger has a variety of detrimental effects on kids and that some of her students come from less fortunate homes and require additional resources and support. And we also tossed in a donation to Mrs. Perez, Copperfield Elementary School in Converse, Texas, for snacks for her students that may have financial barriers that limit their access to food. And the snacks will provide them with brain power to focus while also removing the social stigma of going without a snack during the day. So thanks for Dr. Santos for the heads up on donorschoose.org

• 46:43Alie Ward?

  and to sponsors who made this round of donations possible. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. If you haven't heard me gushing about Squarespace for years, it's an all-in-one website platform. Whether you're trying to grow a business you have or if you're just a baby business getting started, it has everything you need. That's where I secured my domain name. It helped me build a professional site. I can update it so easily. I've been using Squarespace since before Ologies existed. After procrastinating for years, I literally built my website in one evening. They have templates. They have flexible editing tools. Squarespace also makes it easy to share your work. You can book clients. You can get paid. They have built-in tools for scheduling and invoicing and email all in one place.

• 47:28Alie Ward?

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• 48:13Alie Ward?

  For me and Jared, we are eating more plant-based meals. Jared is also dairy-free. So it's been really helpful to take the guesswork out of mealtime and also learn more recipes that maybe we hadn't tried before. I also like that we're not spending time meal planning or grocery shopping, because it just shows up for us. Some of my favorite recipes for Hungry Root, they have a lot of really great curry bowls and stir fries. I signed up for snacks, too, because I'm a human being. So explore my digital cookbook, Pod Mom and Dad's High Protein and Low Dairy Menu, for free at hungryroot.com/ologies. And for a limited time, you can get 40% off your first order, plus a free item in every box for life with Codeologies. Let's have dinner. Supplement this, supplement that.

• 48:58Alie Ward?

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• 49:43Alie Ward?

  Use our code OLOGIES for a free welcome kit, five free travel sachets, plus 10% off your order. So that's code OLOGIES at imhealth.com/ologies. It's code OLOGIES at imhealth.com/ologies. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. We have to say that. Peppa Pig is your preschooler's best friend. Give the gift of bike riding confidence this year and help Peppa learn to ride her bike. Kids can imagine learning to ride a bike with the Ready Pedal Go Peppa Bicycle Playset. Put Peppa's helmet on, attach the push stick to her bike, and push to make her pedal.

• 50:26Alie Ward?

  Ready Pedal Go Peppa and more from Peppa Pig are now available at all major retailers this holiday season.

• 50:36Alie Ward?

  Every time I record a Quince ad, I'm like, look at me wearing head to toe Quince. I feel like this is enough of an ad, I can just stop here. But if you're like, huh, what is that? Quince sells clothes and shoes and bags, even stuff for your house that are classic, well-made, and priced at 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they cut out the middleman. They work directly with ethical factories. So you have luxury quality pieces without a luxury price tag. Perhaps this holiday season, do you know what it feels like to get a cashmere sweater as a gift? I don't, because I'm the one getting them for people, and so can you, and they're affordable too. They also have 14 karat gold earrings, high-quality down outerwear, cozy gloves made of cashmere, leather bags, they have great bedding, cookware luggage.

• 51:20Alie Ward?

  So whether you're giving that to you or to someone else, you can give the gift of quality this holiday season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers, or you can go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks you where you heard about them, just let them know it was Ologies. It's the best way to support the show. Okay, happy to ask your questions for Dr. Santos. Okay, Ariel Reagan wants to know, do animals experience happiness? Are they happier than people?

• 51:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's really hard to ask animals about their happiness because, you know, I can do the self-report measure with you. It's harder to do that with a banana slug or a bonobo or something. Physiologically, we know they go through a lot of the same states as humans, but it's hard to know for sure if those physiological states correlate with this subjective state. I only know that you have the subjective state because you tell me. And so even though everything we can objectively look at, like suggest that it, you know, we're feeling the same thing, subjectively, it's really hard to know for sure.

• 52:27Alie Ward?

  So one thing some scientists try to observe is play behavior, like hopping around and running, chewing on stuff. My tiny poodle angel, she rubs her butt against stuff, like a tire or my shoe. That's her version of typing hashtag blessed. Courtney Graziano wants to know, can anxious people be happy?

• 52:46Speaker 01

  I think anxious people can definitely be happy. I think there are a lot of strategies we can use to regulate and allow our anxiety. I think part of the problem with anxiety is that we try to run away from it, that we like, you know, try to avoid it at all costs. But that's yet another emotion that I think we can kind of sit with, like feeling really anxious right now. It's an eight out of 10. You can sort of surf that anxiety urge and get to the other side and then do some work to sort of nurture yourself. So I think you can be anxious and happy, just like you can be sad and happy and you can be angry and happy. You know, to have a truly happy life requires experiencing all those emotions, but finding ways to kind of navigate them so they don't take over.

• 53:24Alie Ward?

  Mm hmm. Oh, that's really well said. Aiden Patko and Meg G. want to know, is it flim flam that smiling actually makes you happier? Or is that a true fact? Meg says, and laughing and a lot of other folks. Looking at you, patrons, Say, C demos 101, Alexis Wallach and Ashley Herbl. Want to know, can you fake it till you make it?

• 53:46Speaker 01

  There's a lot of feedback that we get from other people's emotions, from like our own feedback, from our own like actions. You know, so pretending you're happy, acting like you're happy can often put you in a happy state, in part because it puts the people around you in a happy state. And we know that there's a lot of evidence for what's called emotional contagion, right? Just like if I'm around happy people, I'm just going to catch the emotions of that happy person. And the reverse, right? If I'm around those negative Nellies, like that's gonna, I'm going to catch that too. And so there is a kind of fake it till you make it. There's associate with the people who have the emotions that you want to experience. It's a powerful way to kind of use your situation, your social environment to build in wellbeing.

• 54:29Alie Ward?

  Is there anything you can do for a friend who is feeling really unhappy to help them out as well?

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, you know, the way to do it, I think, really is to try to bring some of these practices in naturally, right? I mean, first of all, give that friend some social connection, right? Just the very act of you talking to them, being around them, spending time with them, is going to improve their wellbeing. I think you can also bring your attitudes that are positive, right? You know, if you're expressing things that you're grateful for, you know, if you're savoring things and feeling a little bit present, you know, that that kind of thing is naturally going to rub off on them because of emotional contagion, because of behavioral contagion. But the biggest thing you can do is, I think, check in. You know, check in and allow yourself to be present and be there for someone who needs you. Really powerful way to use your happiness to positively affect others.

• 55:20Alie Ward?

  So if you ever think, why would I check up on someone? I don't know how to fix things. Don't worry, just be alive and in their orbit and listen. Or tell them about how lizards have two dicks. That's what I do. Patrick Javroni says, first time question asker, wants to know, happiness and the microbiome connection? What can we do to improve our microbiome? Is there a connection? What's the deal?

• 55:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, great, great question. And it's something that we don't have that much good data on yet. You know, everything we know suggests that microbiome affects all kinds of stuff. It would be surprising, I think, in some ways, if it didn't affect our wellbeing and our happiness. But, you know, this is just a new area of work where we're learning new things all the time, and we don't really have a great verdict yet. But, you know, if you want to throw research money onto something that I think will be really telling in the next 10 years of happiness science, I think microbiome might be a spot to do that.

• 56:13Alie Ward?

  Nice. You can just get in on poop on the ground floor.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 56:16Alie Ward?

  Let's ride this thing to the top.

• 56:17Speaker 01

  Poop samples from very happy people. I'm in.

• 56:21Alie Ward?

  I think that you literally can buy poop, like, on the black market for your own at-home, like, fecal transplants. P.S. Of course, I looked this up. And getting an enema with someone else's poop, it's called fecal microbiota transplantation. And in the microbiology gut biome episode from November 2018, we go into detail about how our microbiomes are suffering from processed foods and artificial ingredients and Overuse of antibiotics for things like viral infections that don't need antibiotics. So given that up to 90% of our serotonin is synthesized in our simmering poo-filled guts, DIY FMTs, do-it-yourself fecal microbiota transplantations, as they're called,

• 57:05Alie Ward?

  they're getting more and more common as doctors are still reluctant to shove poo up our butts, even when we ask nicely. So according to an American Journal of Gastroenterology article called "Understanding the Scope of Do-It-Yourself Fecal Microbiota Transplant", 82% of folks who tried it felt better afterwards and 92% of those knew their stool donor, who I don't know, I guess you find by asking your friends, who seems chill and has good poops. So you can ask a doctor to screen a donor's sample and see if they'll do it. Otherwise, there's plenty of instructions on the internet. Apparently you buy a blender at Goodwill or something and then you maybe burn it later. None of this is my beeswax. Ask your doctors. Don't sue me or make me a smoothie later. I'm good.

• 57:49Alie Ward?

  Rahala wants to know, first time question asker, is there any truth to the notion that people who are generally happy tend to live longer? And I want to say my dad has cancer and his oncologists were saying just positivity is really helpful for patients in general. Okay, 2024, Ally here. And my dad did pass away in the summer of 2022. And I talk about hospice tips and getting through grief in an episode from July 2022. We'll link that in the show notes for anyone who's going through something similar. But I will say that my dad outlived his prognosis by eight years and he stayed absolutely boldly optimistic throughout all of his treatment. And we all tried to buoy his spirits in that direction. Do we find that statistically sound?

• 58:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, there actually is some strong evidence that happiness seems to affect our longevity in super interesting ways. One of the most famous studies on this looked at a group of individuals that had really similar lifestyles. Because if you think about it, this is a hard study to do, right? We want to ask, like, are happier people living longer? But of course, there's lots of things that affect whether you live longer. And so the researchers tried to find a population that had reasonably low Risk factors and a really similar lifestyle. And they hit upon studying nuns. The way they did this was that they went back to nuns' journals that they had in their twenties. I guess nuns, at least in one of these convents, kind of did some journaling when they first joined the nunnery. So you go back when the nuns are in their twenties and you look at their journals and

• 59:16Speaker 01

  you do like a text analysis, like, you know, you run the text of their journals through something that pulls out all the happy words and pulls out all the kind of negative words or just like any emotion words whatsoever. And then you use those textual analyses to predict how many of the nuns live into their eighties and nineties. And what you find is that the happier nuns are just living surprisingly longer, you know, in some cases like decades longer than the nuns on average who are just sadder, which is really quite striking. It suggests that happiness, right, might really be affecting like how long we live. So yeah, important, important to focus on, not just because happiness feels good, but it might make you live longer, too.

• 59:55Alie Ward?

  Patron Annika Callen asked, why are feelings of happiness stronger when you're younger? And RL, Shaul Peleg, Paige, and RJ Doyge wanted to know if happier people tend to be of a certain gender or age. RJ wants to make sure they don't become a grumpy crank who hates everyone. Yeah, I wondered, do, do we find that people get happier as they age or crankier as they age?

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, on average, the data really suggests happier. There's some interesting like lifespan work on happiness. You know, you're kind of happy when you're young and then as you become like an adult in middle age, especially after you have children, in fact, you know, happiness tends to dip. But then as soon as you kind of go back to empty nesting, you know, and the kids go off to college, then the slope of happiness kind of goes back up. And so it's something to look forward to as you age. On average, older people tend to be happier.

• 1:00:45Alie Ward?

  Wow, you know, I wasn't sure about that and kids, and I hadn't thought to ask that. But I have friends who have kids, I have friends who don't have kids. I myself have a daughter, she's a dog, and that's, she's probably the only... A kid I'm gonna have and she's an animal, but I don't know. Like, in general, is that the case? It's just the stress of having kids, but then the satisfaction that you did it later? So it's kind of like, like it balances?

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think this is one of the spots where those two constructs of happiness can be so powerful. The sort of happiness in your life and happiness with your life. Lots of evidence that kids kind of boost the happiness with your life. You know, you get the sense of meaning and so on. But if you look at people's time budgets in terms of what they spend their time on, the thing that often feels the most miserable is spending time with your kids. Like, in your life, you know, when you're picking up, you know, the toys and dealing with the dirty diapers and things. That is the thing that people seem to, on average, enjoy kind of the least.

• 1:01:42Speaker 03

  No offense.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  It ranks up there with like commuting and like shopping for groceries, you know, not like a heavy endorsement. But that's kind of complicated. I think that's one of these reasons that, you know, these constructs are kind of helpful. There are certain things that you do for meaning that in the moment don't feel great. But they wind up giving you meaning. And I think the tips are powerful too, because they're hacks you can do to enjoy your time more with your kids. Right? If you have strategies for managing stress and negative emotions, that can probably make your time with your kids even happier.

• 1:02:12Alie Ward?

  Right. Yeah, I'm so in awe of people who do have kids, just because it seems so challenging. And I know myself, I'm like so scatterbrained that I feel like I just don't necessarily feel like that would be my strong suit. But there are some people who love kiteboarding and others who are like, no, thank you. Like, I would rather be on the beach reading a book. So it really depends on what you like, you know?

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  And I think you're doing it right, because there's a lot of evidence that the furry babies, especially dogs, there's more research on dogs, really do have a significant effect on happiness. But again, that research is interesting, because it's not the dogs per se. It's kind of the benefits that we get from dogs. So dogs get us out exercising. Dogs allow us to make more social connections. They are a social connection, but then they also let us socially connect with people. They make us more present. You know, when you're with your dog and you're playing fetch with your dog, it's hard to like be distracted or checking your email, right? And so it seems like dogs don't necessarily inherently make us happier, but they make us do a lot of the practices I've mentioned that lead to higher happiness.

• 1:03:13Alie Ward?

  First time question asker Alana Rickman asks, "Has the rapid development in technology in the last few years had an overall increase or decrease in people's happiness?" And patrons Diana, Ash Gelhaus, Jenna Mandola, Lucas O'Neil, Nicole Kleinman all echoed that. And yeah, I wonder too, in terms of being in the moment, is being on our phone, does that take us out of the moment? Is that take us into a kind of another like universe or galaxy of what's happening in this digital realm versus what's happening around us?

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, when you think about technology, it's worth remembering, we can do technology for, we can use technology for all kinds of things, right? You know, we could use technology to scribble in a gratitude journal, or I could pick up a phone and call my mom, right? And have a social connection. Often, we're not using our technology in ways that boost happiness. We could, but often we're checking social media, you know, getting this sort of nutrisweet social connection, but not real stuff. I'm distracted and not paying attention to the real things in life. I could be present, looking at the trees or talking to the people around me, but you know, I'm scrolling through, you know, some dumb thing on the internet. And so it's not that technology in and of itself is bad. It's just that the way we use it often is bad.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  And it's kind of built to make it harder for us to use it well. You know, every app is in some ways competing for your attention, right? They want to notify you of stuff and have the dings that sort of give you a little burst of reward every time you get some new piece of information. And that means that our apps and our technology is kind of constantly competing with real life, you know, for our attention. Sadly, I think there's domains in which the technology is sort of winning, you know, which, which makes sense. You know, at my podcast, I talked to the University of British Columbia researcher, Liz Dunn, and she had this lovely quote where she's like, you know, "Imagine if to your next, you know, like dinner date with your husband, like you took a big wheelbarrow and in the wheelbarrow,

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  it was, you know, DVDs of every movie you've ever seen, you know, a big pile of CDs of every song in the universe, like printouts of every family reunion ever, like, you know, printouts of..." All your emails, like, you know, big piles of porn, right? Like, you know, if there was a wheelbarrow with all that stuff next to you, you'd be distraught, you'd want to be going through it the whole dinner, right? Be like, oh, let me go back to my family reunion.

• 1:05:34Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  But like, what she says is like, your brain isn't stupid. Like, your brain knows that on the other side of your iPhone is all that stuff.

• 1:05:41Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:42Speaker 01

  So there's something constantly in your brain that has to be like, no, no, no, pay attention to this conversation because, you know, don't check your email, don't check your email. And that kind of is constantly a little bit depleting. It's definitely distracting, but it's a little bit depleting as well.

• 1:05:57Alie Ward?

  Just this weird wheelbarrow.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  I mean, when you think about what's on the other, you know, like weather predict, you know, like printouts of weather predictions.

• 1:06:06Alie Ward?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:06:07Speaker 01

  Every TikTok video and the history of the internet, right? I mean, it's a huge, huge slot machine. And sadly, you know, I mean, I love my husband. We have some great conversations, but is every conversation with my husband more interesting than literally everything on the internet? Like, you know, not necessarily. And what that means is we're so tempted by that stuff over in real life social connection, even though we know that the in real life stuff is going to make us so much happier.

• 1:06:34Alie Ward?

  Yeah, that's such a good way to look at it is to understand just what our brain is sort of grappling with there, why it's difficult. It's not like a personal failing that we sometimes look to that. But, um, but yeah, I definitely find that when I'm looking for something to sort of boost my dopamine or happiness, I'll go to my phone and then I'll, after an hour, I'll go like, I don't think that really did the trick. If I had practiced some things I knew might be longer lasting, but at least I can't blame myself for, for why I was looking. Anthony had a great question, asked, what if certain aspects of your happiness or the pursuit of your happiness cause others you care about to be unhappy, thereby making you unhappy? What about those circumstances where you're worried that your happiness might make other people dislike you?

• 1:07:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I think, again, you know, if we're really going for true happiness, my guess is that those cases are occurring probably less often than you think. And by that, I mean, you know, the real happiness seems to come from doing acts of kindness for other people. Real happiness seems to come from focusing on the happiness of others. Right? You know, so already, you know, we're kind of in a bind of like, well, if other people aren't happy, then that's probably going to mean we're not happy. Right? Because we've talked about happiness doesn't seem to come from our circumstances. So it's not like we're trying to be other people or go after these accolades. Right? Happiness comes from being grateful and present from what you have. And so my guess is that more often than not, if you're pursuing happiness correctly, right? You know, based on what the science suggests, you're just not going to run into

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  situations where you're sort of competing or hurting other people's happiness because other people's happiness is part and parcel of getting true happiness.

• 1:08:15Alie Ward?

  And if you're worried someone in your life will be upset at your happiness, just know it's your life and it's okay to feel good. If anyone has a problem with it, that is their own baggage to address. I highly suggest some of Melanie Beatty's writings about codependency. Just going to leave that suggestion right there for you. Ben Dewer says, "I'm just finishing up my MBA and in one of my classes, they talked about how optimism is actually an attribute of emotional intelligence and can be learned. As an optimist myself, I'd always considered it more of a part of my personality, like extroverted or introverted and unteachable. So how would someone go about learning and training to be an optimist? And what's the relationship there?

• 1:08:53Alie Ward?

  Also, is there a relationship between happiness and emotional or just like IQ intelligence? I feel like there's some badge of like, if you're unhappy, it must mean that you know more and therefore you're smarter."

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  That's interesting. I don't, I don't know of any data that I've looked specifically at IQ and happiness. My guess is there's probably not the relationship that you're looking at. But there is definitely a relationship between happiness and optimism, obviously. I think optimism is sort of part of our general happy life. And the good news, according to, based on this question, is like you, you can in fact learn these kinds of things. You know, the fastest thing to do is really try To just train your brain to pay attention to good things out there. Our minds are naturally tuned to negative things, you know, the yucky stuff out there, the griping, but we can tune our minds towards positive things. You can focus on what you're grateful for. Another practice that I've been into lately, which I talk about on the podcast, is focusing on delights.

• 1:09:50Speaker 01

  Sometimes gratitude can feel sort of cheesy, but you can just focus on like, things that are delightful out there, you know, like, you know, the sunshine, like, that's delightful. The fact that coffee exists, that's delightful, you know? I don't know, some funny video on the internet, that's delightful, right? Like, training your brain towards things that you really enjoy, that kind of cause delight.

• 1:10:09Alie Ward?

  Okay, so if the term gratitude journaling conjures up visions of sickly, sweetened chamomile tea, just opt for the term delights, which is just like a straightforward, good cup of coffee. Actually, for years, my husband, Jarrett, has cited a short tally of favorite things. His are lavender soap, coffee, and sandwiches. And he says, "Just thinking of those three things and letting his mind wander to more helped him during a really deep depression." So gratitude journaling, delights, whatever you want to call it, Jarrett calls his, his do not kill yourself list, which is kind of like the Miami Cola Bang Energy Drink of a gratitude practice branding. Would you agree?

• 1:10:50Speaker 04

  That's my favorite Bang flavor.

• 1:10:52Alie Ward?

  Is it really?

• 1:10:52Speaker 04

  Miami Cola?

• 1:10:57Speaker 04

  That's on the list?

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  Again, your, your brain is going to focus on whatever you give it data for. So if you give it data about things that you're feeling really grateful about or that are really delightful, that's what your brain's going to start noticing.

• 1:11:10Alie Ward?

  I love that you just are, you're constantly filling evidence folders for like, things are shitty and things are good. It's like, what, what are you putting in your evidence folder, pretty much?

• 1:11:19Speaker 01

  And, and, and it's not just like, you know, what you're picking. It's like, you're, you're training your brain to look for that stuff. In my podcast, I, I interview this fantastic guest, Ross Gay, who's a poet and an essayist, who has this book called The Book of Delights. And he decided that for every day for a year after his birthday, he would write an essay about something that delighted him. And he talks about how At first, he was like really worried, like, am I really gonna find things that really delight me? And he said that, you know, even just a week in, like, he'd kind of tuned his mind to find these things. You know, so walking down the street, he'd be like, oh, that dude's t-shirt is delightful. Like, oh, that, like, cat on the street is delightful. Like, he just, he just kind of shifted his perception and tuned his mind more towards the good things than the bad things.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  Our brains, evolutionarily, are naturally tuned towards the bad things. Makes sense. You want to see the tiger that's gonna jump out at you. But we can control that tuning. And just by, you know, like, taking some explicit work to pay attention to the things we're grateful for, to the things that delight us, to the good stuff out there.

• 1:12:19Alie Ward?

  So, yes, Ross Gay, The Book of Delights. And again, check out Neel Pesri's work and his Ossimology episode. Another fun project? Start a private Twitter, just for yourself, and chronicle delights of your own, or a private Instagram account, or something. Also, I should note that in recording this episode, the internet dropped out a few times, so I had to email Dr. Santos a new link during it. And she has an auto reply message explaining that she may not write back. And it explains that she gets more than 100 emails a day. And it reads in part, quote, "Keeping up with that many questions/requests meant that I was hurting my own time affluence and having less time for the important projects I really should be prioritizing. And so I am currently trying my own personal well-being experiment.

• 1:13:03Alie Ward?

  I'm gonna try to practice what I preach and reduce the amount of time I usually spend on email. Thanks for your understanding, as I try not to overcommit and protect myself from burning out." Oh, I love her. Totally solid. Major props for walking her talk. She is the best. And in respecting her time, we wrapped it up. Last listener question, I saved it because it was juicy. Oh, it's so juicy. Bailey Ricketts wants to know, "How do we find a balance between being happy and living in the moment while acknowledging all the hurt and suffering going on in the world? Essentially guilt over being happy when you know that there's a lot of bad shit out there. How do we do it?"

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, tough. I mean, this is like a really real one, right? Because there's a lot of bad stuff out there right now. You know, structural racism, horrible global pandemic, you know, like, the list goes on. So, I mean, I think one thing that helps me is recognizing that if I want to be the kind of person who's an ally for all that stuff, all the yucky stuff in the world, who wants to have the resilience to fix it, I'm not going to be able to do that if I'm incredibly anxious and overwhelmed and burnt out. I'm going to be able to do that best if I'm really in a happy state, if I'm really kind of feeling good, like, if I kind of have put my own oxygen mask on first, right? And in fact, there's evidence that so many of the things we were talking about that are parts of a happy life help for doing hard things.

• 1:14:22Speaker 01

  My favorite one is that people who are grateful are better at what's called self-regulation. They're better at, you know, doing the hard thing today to help their future self, whether that's, you know, saving for retirement, or eating healthier, or, you know, putting work into hard, scary problems, like, that just require a lot of hard, scary work. And so, for me, it's made me feel like if I want the world to be a better place, I can't afford to be down in the dumps, you know, freaking out about it. I really need to put energy into doing these practices for myself, so that I'll be, you know, hopefully, one of the people that has the bandwidth to help with some of this stuff. So, far from feeling guilty, I feel like we might want to feel guilty for the opposite thing, right? You know, do what we can to kind of fix things.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  It really does require not just working on these structures, but working on our emotions, so that we have the bandwidth to fix those structures that might be messed up.

• 1:15:11Alie Ward?

  Oh, that just, I'm sure, gave so many people permission to pursue happiness, who feel maybe guilty about it. And by so many people, I mean me, specifically, but, no, that's really helpful. Last two questions I ask before we go. Worst thing about your job? Worst thing about being a uterodontologist? And the best thing?

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  There's lots and lots of good things, but if I have to shift towards negativity, I would say the hardest thing is that they're... One of the things I really try to pay attention to is this phenomenon of time affluence, this subjective sense that I have a lot of free time. And being a happiness guru, especially in an age where there's a lot of bad stuff going on and a global pandemic, it keeps me pretty busy because a lot of people want advice, a lot of people want help, and that means I have to put a lot of work in to protect my time. So the hardest thing is protecting my time in the midst of everything else going on.

• 1:16:09Alie Ward?

  I can totally understand that. I just got your auto applied. It was like, yo, I get like 100 emails a day. Thank you so much, but I gotta stick to my principles.

• 1:16:19Speaker 01

  And that's hard, right? Because I get into my inbox, I'm like, oh, that listener has this really cool thing to say, or that student has this really cool question. But I also know that if I answer all those, that means I'm not spending time with the people I care about, and I'm not just having time to meditate and exercise. So it's hard prioritizing the right stuff, but time affluence is definitely something I need to work on prioritizing.

• 1:16:40Alie Ward?

  I've never heard those words before, but I love them. Best thing about your job, best thing about your career.

• 1:16:46Speaker 01

  Oh, man, there's so many best things. I mean, I honestly think the best things are my students. I love them so much. I love interacting with them. They teach me so much, and I'm so privileged to get to work with them.

• 1:16:58Alie Ward?

  That's great. I am so happy to talk to you. I have been a fangirl for years. So ask smart people happy questions or bummer questions. They are wonderful, and they're great at sharing their knowledge. Obviously, get more of Dr. Laurie Santos with her podcast, Happiness Lab. Her socia ls are linked in the show notes. She is great. If you can take her course, take it. It's also available on Coursera for free, so look for that. I will link all of those on my website, too, which is at alieward.com/ologies. We are at @AllyWard with one L on Twitter and Instagram. We're also @ologies on Instagram and Twitter. Find us there, be our friends. Thank you to Erin Talbert, who moderates and admins the Ologies podcast.

• 1:17:43Alie Ward?

  Facebook group and is excellent at that. Also, now we have Smologies episodes up in their own feed. Just look for Smologies wherever you get podcasts and subscribe and spread the word. You'll find this new green logo and Smologies are all swear free. They're safe for all ages. It's S M O L O G I E S for your small ones. Thank you, Emily White of The Wardery. She is a professional transcriptionist who makes transcriptions available. She's great. Hire her. She's wonderful. Caleb Patton bleeps our episodes. Those are available on our website for free. The link is in the show note. We also have Smologies, which are episodes we put out once every two weeks. They are cut down versions of classic ones that have already ran. They are cleaned up and kid friendly. They're ready for the classroom.

• 1:18:27Alie Ward?

  So look for Smologies too, if you have Smologites. Thank you to Noelle Dilworth and Susan Hale for helping me take care of all the Ologies business behind the scenes. Thank you to Stephen Ray Morris and Zeke Rodriguez Thomas, who are also working on Smologies and wonderful. Thank you to editor Jared Sleeper. And also, thank you to Grammy. We are actually recording this in the car as I'm on my way up to see my pop for his birthday. And I recorded this at five in the morning this morning before I hit the road. And then I realized that my mic gain was all the way down. So I had to re-record it on the side of the road, which is what we're doing. That's one secret of the episode. The other secret is you know how sometimes it'll be like, if you need to clean a screen, just use a microfiber cloth. And you're like, yeah, well, what do I use to clean it with though?

• 1:19:12Alie Ward?

  Like Windex? What are we talking here? Water? What do I use with the microfiber cloth? So I just tried just the microfiber cloth, like you're supposed to use, and it cleaned the shit out of my laptop. Like, my monitor's never been so clean. All I did was use one of those microfiber, too soft on your hands cloths. And apparently, they're good at what they're supposed to be used for. So, go figure. Okay, bye bye.

• 1:19:59Alie Ward?

  This is the sound of my dog drinking water in the car.

• 1:20:07Alie Ward?

  Okay, 2024 me, thank you for listening. Back next week with a very fresh new episode about something in your bed. Trust me, it's good. Okay, goodbye for real.

• 1:20:22Alie Ward?

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• 1:21:05Alie Ward?

  Their proactive safety features help keep you more aware, connected, and engaged during every drive, which means your car does more than help protect you. It makes you a safer driver, which helps protect everyone. That's why Mazda has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. To learn more, visit MazdaUSA.com. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services.