Why Thinking Is Not All In Your Head & Secrets From the Longest Study of Happiness - SYSK Choice

We humans love novelty. We seek it out. While that can be good, it can also get us in trouble. This episode begins by exploring why we seek out new things, places and experiences and what happens after we do. Source: Winifred Gallagher author of the book New (https://amzn.to/3XsAxRb) Did you know that one of the reasons we gesture with our hands when we talk is to help us figure out what to say next? That is just one example of how thinking isn’t all about what goes on in the brain, according to my guest Annie Murphy Paul. She is science writer whose work has appeared in the Boston Globe, Scientific American, Slate, Time magazine and she is author of the bestselling book The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain (https://amzn.to/3Hp3k3R) Imagine if you followed and studied a group of people for decades and watched how they lived? You would discover a lot about what makes people healthy and happy over time. That’s what The Harvard Study of Adult Development is all about. Researchers have followed the lives of two generations of individuals from the same families for more than 80 years. Listen and you will be amazed by what they found. My guest is Robert J. Waldinger, who directs the study and is author of the book, The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness (https://amzn.to/3HpbFVc) Where are you on the introvert/extrovert scale? Listen as I explain the difference between extroversion and introversion and how to tell which one you are. You will also discover the difference between being shy and being introverted. And it’s a big difference. Source: Susan Cain author Quiet (https://amzn.to/3XQUH7d) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Mike Carruthers?

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• 1:27Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, why human beings have an insatiable appetite for novelty and the consequences that result. Then, thinking outside the brain. There are interesting ways you think you may not have noticed. For instance...

• 1:43Speaker 01

  If you've ever had the experience of not quite knowing the right word, it's on the tip of your tongue, but you just can't seem to remember exactly what that word is, your hands will often be giving you hints, and that can help you locate that word.

• 1:58Mike Carruthers?

  Also, are you an introvert or an extrovert? I'll tell you how to tell. And the best advice to create a fulfilling life and great friendships, from an 80-year study.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  If you see the same people casually, over and over again, you're more likely to start to have conversations with them, and then develop friendships that last.

• 2:22Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 2:27Mike Carruthers?

  I imagine most of us shop for clothes online, at least some of the time, and there's always that little mystery. Is what shows up at your door actually going to look like what you think you ordered? We've all had that experience. I know my wife has ordered dresses that look beautiful in the pictures, but when they arrived, eh, not so beautiful. Cheap-looking, disappointing, and that's one of the reasons we've become such big fans of Quince. When we order from Quince, we are confident we're going to get something really nice. The quality is consistently good, and the prices are surprisingly reasonable. I've bought their cashmere sweaters, which are gorgeous, and they start at just $60

• 3:12Mike Carruthers?

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• 3:57Mike Carruthers?

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• 4:22Mike Carruthers?

  Hi, welcome to Something You Should Know. Have you ever noticed how human beings have this tendency to seek out novelty and then relatively quickly become bored with it? And what I mean is, for example, if you've ever moved into a new home or an apartment, just a beautiful home that you've always wanted, and then before too long, it just becomes your home. This human quest to seek out new things, novelty and change, it dates back to early human history, when we were forced to cope with huge upheavals in weather and environment. In order to survive, we had to adapt to those changes.

• 5:03Mike Carruthers?

  Now, we adapt to those changes and we become bored with it. Winifred Gallagher, author of a book called "New," says, "If you show a newborn baby a picture, the child will stare at it for about 40 seconds and then become bored and will seek something else to look at." Our level of desire for change is, really, it's programmed into us. We know instinctively that reward comes from trying new experiences. Rewards seldom come from the same old thing. Research has found that about 15% of us like a lot of change. These are the real thrill seekers with a huge appetite for new experiences. 15% of us are cautious and tend to like just a little bit of change.

• 5:47Mike Carruthers?

  And 70% of us are somewhere in the middle. It's good to know where you are on the scale and realize it's neither good or bad, it's just who you are. And that is something you should know.

• 6:02Mike Carruthers?

  When you think, you think with your brain. Thinking is all in your head, right? Well, maybe not. You can think in other ways, and in fact, those other ways can improve your overall thinking. This is according to Annie Murphy-Paul. She's a science writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Scientific American, Slate, and Time Magazine. She's author of a book called The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain. And she's here to explain how outside-the-brain thinking works and why it's so powerful. Hi, Annie. Thanks for coming on.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Hey, Mike. It's great to be here.

• 6:45Mike Carruthers?

  So, first of all, explain what you mean by thinking outside the brain.

• 6:51Speaker 01

  Sure. Well, what I mean by thinking outside the brain is that we usually imagine that thinking does go on inside the brain. That's kind of our assumption as a society, as a culture. But an idea borrowed from philosophy says that actually, no, we think with all these resources that are available to us outside the brain. And by that, I mean things like the movements and sensations of your body, or the physical surroundings in which you're doing your thinking, or your relationships with other people, or even your tools, like your devices, or a pencil, or a piece of paper. All those things can be considered part of the thinking process, and that gives us a lot of additional ways to improve how well we think.

• 7:35Mike Carruthers?

  So, give me like a practical example of one of these things and how it works.

• 7:41Speaker 01

  So, in a practical sense, Mike, one way that I end up applying The Extended Mind an awful lot in my work as a writer is that instead of doing all my thinking inside my head when I'm laying out a chapter or an article, for example, I try as much as possible to get those ideas and that information out of my head and spread it out on physical onto physical space. So, for me, that's a big bulletin board that I cover with Post-it notes that I can then move around and rearrange. And I find that getting information and ideas out of my head and seeing it spread out that way and being able to manipulate it allows me to think differently and better than if I were trying to do all of that inside my head.

• 8:26Mike Carruthers?

  Well, there has been, you know, a lot of talk about the brain is not a good place to store stuff. It's not a good place to do a lot of things. And that getting, even getting your problems out on paper, out of your head and onto a piece of paper, is a better way to go than to try to keep it all floating around in your brain.

• 8:45Speaker 01

  That's right. And what you're saying there, Mike, brings out the point that we're already extending our minds. This isn't something that we need to start doing so much as something that we need to be more thoughtful and intentional about what we're doing already. So we want to think, for example, about the point that you just made, that the brain is not a great place to store information. It is a great place to do higher level cognitive activities like planning and creating and imagining. So the more we can intentionally use our devices and other tools and outside the brain resources to take care of the more mundane and routine tasks that we might usually lean on our brain for,

• 9:30Speaker 01

  like remembering things and keeping things in order. If we can bring in outside the brain resources to do that for us, then we free up mental bandwidth to do the things that only human brains can do.

• 9:44Mike Carruthers?

  So you said, and you write about thinking with your body. So explain what that means.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, so one of my favorite lines of research about how we think with our bodies concerns how we think with gestures. And a lot of us, if we think about gestures at all, which mostly we don't, but if we think about gestures at all, we think about them as communicative devices, you know, like they're a way to communicate what we're trying to say to another person. And they do play that function, but they are also a part of our own thinking. And what research shows is that our hand gestures are actually a few milliseconds ahead of our verbal expression and even of our conscious thought. So before we even are saying something in particular, and before we even know that we're going to say something in particular, our hands are actually beginning to express that for us.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  And if we pay more attention to our own gestures, and if we allow ourselves to gesture freely instead of, you know, inhibiting our gestures, as many of us do, then that can feed into our thinking process such that our gestures are actually helping us to think more fluently and more coherently.

• 10:53Mike Carruthers?

  But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. How can, how can my hands know what I'm going to do before I know what I'm going to do?

• 11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, the funny thing is that we we associate mental activity with our conscious minds, but in fact, there's a huge amount of activity that's going on nonconsciously, and a lot of that gets expressed through our bodies. So if you've ever had the experience of of not quite knowing the right word, it's on the tip of your tongue, but you just can't seem to, you know, remember exactly what that word is, your your hands will often be giving you hints and trying to sort of, in their own way, express and capture what that word is, and that can help you locate that word that is just just outside of of your conscious awareness.

• 11:41Mike Carruthers?

  And so what would be a hand hint? What would be a hint that my hand would give me, for example, to remember a word, to pull a word up?

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Well, let me tell you about a line of research that gave rise to this understanding of of the function of gestures. So children, when they are trying to understand how the material world works, there are there psychologists give them a set of challenges that involve, say, for example, pouring some water from a tall skinny glass into a wide shallow glass. And then the scientist, the researcher asks the child, is is the amount of water still the same? And of course, older children will say, yes, that's that's still the same amount of water. It's just sort of changed its its form. But younger children are still grasping that concept. And a lot of them will say, no,

• 12:34Speaker 01

  there's there's less water now in the in the wide glass, because the level of the water is lower. But in children who are just about to grasp that very important conservation principle, their hands will be forming the you'll you'll watch the the videos of these children explaining their reasoning, and you'll see that they're starting to Form with their hands, the shape of the glass and and sort of um working out with their hands what their minds are just beginning to grasp. And scientists have figured out that children and adults also who are in that kind of transitional period where their hands are expressing something different from what they're they're saying verbally, they're that they're

• 13:17Speaker 01

  just about to get a big insight. And that's a moment when um they're particularly receptive to instruction and a teacher or a parent can step in and say, oh, I think what you might mean is this. And they're ready for that insight, ready to take that on.

• 13:30Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, well, you know, it seems right. It sounds right that because when you're trying to explain something and you're having trouble explaining, doesn't it seem like you gesture more that that you're that you're using that as like almost like a second language to try to explain yourself when you're having trouble like there is something there?

• 13:51Speaker 01

  That is absolutely true, Mike. Actually, research shows that we gesture more when we're trying to figure something out, when we're trying to explain something that we don't quite understand yet. And that's because that activity we're engaging in is so mentally burdensome and taxing that we offload some of that labor onto our hands. And that gives us more bandwidth to think about and solve the problem.

• 14:13Mike Carruthers?

  So when you talk about thinking with movement, do you mean like sometimes you think better when you go for a walk kind of movement?

• 14:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and one of the best ways to get our thinking moving is by going outside. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One is that we get our blood pumping, more blood flows to the brain. But also, there's the fact that our brain tends to think in metaphors, you know, and if you think about um if you're not if your work isn't going so well, you might say something like, well, I'm really stuck in a rut, you know, or things are really stalled for me here. And if things are going well, you might say, wow, this is I'm really on a roll here, you know, or things that my ideas are really flowing. So we really uh understand things in terms of metaphors that tie back to our bodies. So when we move our bodies in ways that uh sort of prime those metaphors.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Force for us when we're actually moving through space and seeing, you know, things flow past our, our eyes and feeling that dynamic sense of, of new vistas coming into view, that really primes us to think in that same way. And if you think about how most, how most of us try to do our thinking, sitting still, you know, seeing the same stuff around us all the time. That's not going to be an ideal setting for us to have the best kinds of thoughts that we could be having.

• 15:34Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I have that experience often when I like, when I do interviews and I'm sitting, I'm sitting in a room and I'm surrounded by equipment and monitors and stuff. And later I'll be like out in nature and, and I'll, I'll think much of, I'll think of much better, much better questions I could have asked. Or, or taking the conversation in a different direction. But I, I didn't think of it at, at the time. In fact, I often will just, when I'm trying to come up with ideas or whatever, sitting here is like the worst place. Going outside or sitting on the couch or laying down, doing something other than sitting here trying seems to yield better results.

• 16:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's why I think the kind of cultural assumption that if you want to get work done, you really have to just bear down and kind of power through and, and keep your, keep yourself in your seat until it's done is really counterproductive. And I'm, I'm glad that you mentioned getting out into nature, Mike, because that is another way of thinking with our, thinking outside the brain, thinking with our surroundings. And in fact, nature is one of the most generative and fertile kind of places, no pun intended, for us to think, to do our thinking. Because the kind of stimuli that we encounter when we're outside

• 16:59Speaker 01

  tends to naturally kind of relax the brain and put it in a very sort of easeful state where new ideas can occur to us, new sort of combinations of ideas can occur in a way that won't happen when we're engaged in very sharp edged focus inside or looking at our computers.

• 17:21Mike Carruthers?

  We are discussing thinking outside the brain, which sounds weird, but the more we talk, the less weird it sounds. My guest is science writer Annie Murphy-Paul, and she has a book out called The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain. This episode is sponsored by Vinted. You know, I remember interviewing an organizing expert who offered this really clever trick for figuring out which clothes you should get rid of. You go to your closet and you look at the clothes hanging there. And chances are, the ones toward the middle are the clothes you wear most often. But the clothes pushed way over to the left or the right, some of those you probably haven't worn in years,

• 18:06Mike Carruthers?

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• 18:51Mike Carruthers?

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• 20:16Mike Carruthers?

  Only available while flavors are in stock. With this incredible discount, that means you'll pay just 83 cents per night for the best sleep of your life. So seriously, think about it. I mean, how much would you pay for a truly great night of sleep? Beam is just 83 cents per night. So go to shopbeam.com/sysk now. That's shopbeam.com/sysk. So Annie, we discussed how being out in nature can help you think. But I also find that different rooms in the house or different rooms in other buildings, the inside surroundings can also make you think differently.

• 20:59Mike Carruthers?

  Like I think better in a less cluttered environment than in a cluttered environment. And did you look at that?

• 21:08Speaker 01

  Yes, and you know, that's another way in which that sort of brain-as-computer metaphor falls down because a computer does its job just the same way, whether it's next to a window or in a dark basement, or whether it's, you know, outside on a park bench or inside on your kitchen table. But the human brain isn't like that. You know, we are exquisitely context-sensitive. We really are affected by where we are at a given moment. And so that really tells us that we need to pay very close attention to the place where we're doing our thinking. You know, one of my Favorite ways to improve the the place where we do our thinking involves what researchers

• 21:48Speaker 01

  call evocative objects. And that just means filling your space, the space where you work or or think or create with objects that are inspiring to you, you know, that remind you of of your aspirations, that remind you of the groups that you belong to, that you feel a kinship with. And having those objects, those material things around you can really shape and prime your thinking.

• 22:13Mike Carruthers?

  I've always noticed how there are certain people in my life that when I speak with them, I feel smarter. And and there are other people that I know that make me feel really stupid. And and so I imagine that has something to do with what you're talking about, that that the people that we talk to, that we relate to, affect how we think.

• 22:37Speaker 01

  Absolutely, Mike. And this is a really common phenomenon that you're mentioning. I tell a story in the in the book about a researcher who said that when he met with his graduate advisor in psychology, you know, his psychology PhD program, this advisor was a very intimidating, very kind of scary figure. And and he he felt that this researcher felt that his IQ dropped by 20 points whenever this guy entered the room. And he started calling it conditional stupidity, you know, because he wasn't stupid, he was a very bright guy. But he, under certain conditions, as you say, he felt really stupid. I think that has a lot to do with the sense

• 23:19Speaker 01

  of psychological safety that we feel with certain people, but also their openness, their curiosity, their ability to ask good questions. You know, some people are just going to bring out the best in your own thinking, and other people are going to shut it down.

• 23:34Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, well, and I think that's exactly right, is when you're with somebody who thinks they know everything and won't shut up, it doesn't inspire you to think it just you're just listening to somebody drone on versus somebody who is inquiring about what you think, it goes, hmm, well, yeah, let me think about that. And it seems to inspire a better conversation.

• 23:57Speaker 01

  Sure, and it's nice to think too about whether we can be that kind of resource for other people as well, you know, whether we are a good conversational partner and are asking them questions or being open or being curious about what they have to say because that's sort of the essence of being a good colleague or even a good friend or a good parent.

• 24:18Mike Carruthers?

  And is this, is this research ongoing? Is there more to come? Is the, is, are we learning or do we, is it pretty much nailed?

• 24:27Speaker 01

  No, this is a really dynamic area of research and one of the sort of most exciting areas of research is pinning down exactly how we use our technological devices to extend our minds and as we all know, you know, our, our devices don't always make our thinking better. There's lots of opportunities to make our thinking worse when we're engaging with, with, with our devices. But again, if we're intentional and thoughtful about how we use our technological devices, they really can expand and, and extend our thinking. And so that's, that, that's sort of the latest frontier of extended mind, extended mind

• 25:07Speaker 01

  research is how our devices either extend or contract our thinking and how we can make sure they do the former and not the latter.

• 25:16Mike Carruthers?

  But they do, they do ruin our thinking. I mean, when you think about, you know, just the idea of a calculator, I mean, so you don't have to know how to add or subtract anymore. I used to remember people's phone numbers. I don't, I don't remember anybody's phone number because you don't have to anymore. There's so much you don't have to remember and so much you don't have to think about all because of those devices. And I'm not sure that's a good thing.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, it's, it's somewhat inevitable at this point. So again, the, the key is to be intentional about it. I mean, there is the danger that some of our native abilities will atrophy if we become too dependent on our devices. For example, there's research showing that people's ability to navigate through space really does decline if they become too dependent on GPS and those kinds of. Those kinds of technological solutions. On the other hand, there's so much that we're able to do because we delegate, you know, routine mental tasks to our devices. Like, you don't have to remember phone numbers anymore. And so you have more space in your mind to do, you know, the higher level things that only Mike's brain can do, you know?

• 26:28Speaker 01

  So we need to think of our devices as helpers, but not as replacing the mental activity that is really best suited to human intelligence.

• 26:41Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, but see, I sometimes think that, you know, doing things like remembering phone numbers and knowing how to add and subtract is foundational to other things. And if you don't know how to do basic memory of numbers, that you may not be able to do other things very well.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Well, it definitely is the case. You know, sometimes you'll hear in education, people saying, "Well, kids don't need to learn facts anymore because they can just Google that." But that is absolutely wrong, as you're saying. We need a foundation of knowledge and skill that is stored in our minds to become, you know, masters of any kind of domains. But the fact is that the human brain isn't really that good at remembering basic information like phone numbers. We forget things, you know, or we mess them up. And in computers are better at that. They don't, once we enter something into a computer, it usually doesn't change the way our minds can sort of betray us. So it's really a matter of learning to think with machines,

• 27:43Speaker 01

  learning to think with our technology and letting them do what they do best, and then reserving for our own brains what our own brains do best.

• 27:51Mike Carruthers?

  Well, I know I've never, I've never thought about this before or discussed this before about thinking outside the brain. And what I like is it makes you think. It's an exercise in getting you to think about how you think, which I think is pretty useful. I've been speaking with science writer Annie Murphy-Paul, and she has got a book out called The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain. And you'll find a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Annie.

• 28:23Speaker 01

  Well, thank you, Mike. It's been a real pleasure talking to you today. I really enjoyed it.

• 28:28Mike Carruthers?

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• 29:12Mike Carruthers?

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• 29:54Mike Carruthers?

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• 30:42Mike Carruthers?

  Happiness is a big topic, as you know. We've discussed happiness here several times, from different angles and with different guests. And a lot of those discussions are about some interesting, often helpful and unique ways to find happiness. Of course, a lot of it is subjective. What makes one person happy may not make another person happy. So what I like about my next guest is rather than talk about ways and ideas that might make you happier, this discussion is about a happiness study of the same people over a long period of time, and the results of that study, and how we can use those results in our own lives. Joining me is Dr. Robert Waldinger.

• 31:25Mike Carruthers?

  He is a psychiatrist, part-time professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and he directs the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest-running studies of adult life ever conducted. The name of his book is "The Good Life: Lessons From the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness." Hi, Robert, thanks for being here.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  I'm really glad to be here.

• 31:48Mike Carruthers?

  So explain a little bit about this study and how it came to be.

• 31:52Speaker 02

  So this study is the longest study of the same people that's ever been done. It's an 85-year-long study of over 2,000 people from 724 families. It was started in 1938, almost certainly could never be repeated again, the longest study of adult life that anybody has done.

• 32:18Mike Carruthers?

  And in a very sweeping, big-picture way, what's the secret of happiness?

• 32:25Speaker 02

  So the big takeaway is about relationships. We found that the people who were happiest and also who stayed the healthiest as they went through their lives were the people who had good, warm connections with other people. And the surprise was not that it made us happier to have better relationships, the surprise was that relationships could make it less likely that we would get coronary artery disease, or type 2 diabetes, or dementia. I mean, this was the thing that at first we didn't believe until other researchers began to find the same thing.

• 33:05Mike Carruthers?

  So define some things here for me. So when we talk about warm relationships, what does that mean? Does that mean love relationships? Does that mean friendships? Does that mean? And how warm and how close and how much and all that?

• 33:22Speaker 02

  It means all kinds of relationships. So you don't have to have an intimate partner. You don't even have to live with anyone to get these benefits. What we're talking about are relationships that could be anybody. Family, friends, work relationships, and even casual relationships. Even the little hit of well-being you get from the barista who makes your coffee for you in the morning, or the mail carrier, or the person who checks you out at the grocery store, that all of these give us a sense of connectedness. And then, you know, to your question, we feel that everybody needs one secure relationship at least in their life.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  And what we mean by that is something we studied. We asked our original participants to tell us, who could you call in the middle of the night if you were sick or scared? And most of our people could list a number of other people who they could call if they really needed help. Some of our folks couldn't list anyone. And a few of those folks were married, and they didn't list anyone. So what we think we need is at least one person who we feel will have our back when we're in trouble.

• 34:45Mike Carruthers?

  So, you know, I've heard this before, that having good, strong relationships in your life is good for your health, but I don't really understand how. Like, what's the mechanism? How does having people in your life translate into good health? What's the, what's the magic?

• 35:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we've been spending the last 10 years of our research lives studying exactly the question you just asked. The best hypothesis we have, and there's good data from other studies as well as ours. The best hypothesis is that relationships help us manage stress. So, you know, stress is a part of everyday life. It happens to all of us. And, you know, if something happens to me that's upsetting, I can feel my body rev up. My heart rate increases, all kinds of physical changes happen, and that's good. That's what we call the fight or flight response. That's normal.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  And then when the challenge is removed, our bodies are meant to go back to baseline equilibrium. And so what I find is that if something upsetting happens to me, at the end of the day, if there's someone I can call, or if I can talk to my wife and I can really vent, I can feel my body literally calm down, go back to equilibrium. The best hypothesis is that the people who don't have good relationships don't have anyone they can do that with. And that therefore their bodies stay in a kind of chronic fight or flight mode with higher levels of circulating stress hormones, with higher levels of inflammation.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  And we think that those are what break down different body systems. And so it's not magic at all. That's how chronic stress could break down your joints or your coronary arteries.

• 36:42Mike Carruthers?

  I had someone on recently, and they said something about happiness that I really liked, and I'd like to get you to comment on it. That happiness isn't like a thing you do, or a thing you try to get. Happiness is a consequence of how you live your life. That you do other things, and if they make you happy, then you feel happiness. But you don't go out and try to be happy. That doesn't work.

• 37:11Speaker 02

  Yes, I love that, actually. One of the ways that I've thought about it is happiness is kind of an accident. It happens to us moment to moment or not. But we can build our lives to make ourselves more accident prone, to make moments of happiness more likely to happen. And so what I would say is that we know now that there are certain conditions we can build into our lives that make it more likely that we will feel content or happy more of the time.

• 37:44Mike Carruthers?

  And what are some of those things?

• 37:46Speaker 02

  Well, one thing will not surprise you. It's that if we take care of our health, it really makes a difference in our well-being. So, literally, eating right, not abusing drugs or alcohol, getting regular exercise, getting that preventive healthcare, that all of those things make a huge difference in how we feel and in how long we live. But then in addition to that, building this, this network of good relationships is a really good investment in making it more likely that you'll be happy more of the time. And so what we think we'd like,

• 38:30Speaker 02

  what we would like people to do is see relationships as a kind of living, breathing system that needs caretaking and that we can take care of every day.

• 38:43Mike Carruthers?

  Another thing that, that this person talked about was the, the importance of not just the people in your life, but what you do, the fun things you do, the, the pleasurable things you do. That brings happiness, not just the people, the people are important, but it's also what you're doing.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  Yes, I agree. That's absolutely right. And so we want to try to build in things that we enjoy and also things that we find meaningful. So, so yes, fun is hugely important for all of us. But in addition, in addition to what's sometimes called hedonic well-being, hedonism, like, am I having fun now? There's also what's called eudemonic well-being, and that's that sense of meaning and purpose in my life. So the other thing we want to build in besides fun is activities that make us feel that our lives matter and that they are worthwhile. It's both kinds of activities that we want.

• 39:50Mike Carruthers?

  And that that includes things like what? Like, what do you mean make your life worthwhile?

• 39:57Speaker 02

  Well, it could, it could be anything. It could be, it could be raising good children, healthy children. It could be working to prevent climate change. It could be joining a bowling league and being with people you love to hang out with, not just for the fun of it, but because you love those friends and you want to connect with them. It could be being involved in a religious or spiritual practice. There's so many things that can make life feel worthwhile, and it's highly individual.

• 40:30Mike Carruthers?

  It does seem that there are people who this, all the things you're talking about, friendships and meaningful life, comes easy, it comes natural, and other people struggle with it. And I wonder why the difference?

• 40:44Speaker 02

  That's a wonderful question, and I think the answer is undoubtedly going to be complicated. But I think many of us have been raised not to listen to ourselves, not to listen to our guts when they tell us, oh, I care about this. And when they tell us, I don't really care about that. You know, we're given so many messages about what we ought to think is important and meaningful. And sometimes it can be very hard, given all that messaging and all that training as kids, to pay attention to what's energizing for us, what lights us up, what makes us feel like we want to get up in the morning, and then also to pay attention to those things that

• 41:28Speaker 02

  just aren't that, aren't like that for us. Even if other people care about something, we may not care about it. It's very important to listen to those messages that we, that we can tune into if we just let ourselves.

• 41:44Mike Carruthers?

  You know, there's this saying about, you know, when people are depressed, they want to do exactly the things that they shouldn't do. They want to stay at home, they don't want to, and people get stuck in their ways. So it's great to hear that you should have more relationships and have a more meaningful life. But I know people struggle with, so like, so what do I do now? What do I do different? What, what does that mean to do what he's talking about?

• 42:12Speaker 02

  Well, you're exactly right. And one of the awful things about depression is it makes us hide. It makes us want to withdraw. It makes us believe that other people don't want us around. And so how do we overcome that when we're depressed? It's very, very hard. And I think in some ways, the remedy can be for other people to pay attention. So if you notice that someone in your life seems depressed, it would be such a blessing if you could be the one to, to be active and say, hey, I want to connect with you. I want you around. I want to know how you are. I want to help, right? Because the depressed

• 42:52Speaker 02

  person is handicapped in a way. It's almost like if we've broken a limb or we're in some other way disabled. Depression is very disabling. And so I think what you're pointing to is one of the scarier things about depression. And it's one of the reasons why we need help. We need a village. We need other people to notice and then to lend their energy to us and help us, help draw us out.

• 43:23Mike Carruthers?

  There are people who we would classify as introverts and who might say, you know, I don't need a lot of people. I don't need all this closeness. I'm fine by myself. Are they?

• 43:36Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, absolutely. So what we know is that we're all on a spectrum from being introverted, shy, or being extroverted. And we're all somewhere in between. And, and many of us have both, both qualities in us. We're, we're kind of shy and we also like being out there with people. There's no right way to do this life in that way. We all have different temperaments. What we find is that everybody, even the shyest people, need somebody. Maybe just one or two of those warm relationships, those middle of the night calling relationships. You know, people who have our back.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  But that beyond that, it is just fine not to need a lot of people. One of the things we know about introverts is that they find having a lot of people around exhausting and depleting. They get re-energized by having alone time. And with extroverts, it's often the opposite. Extroverts get energy from other people. And so, you know, when you study thousands of lives, the way we have, the first thing you realize is that one size never fits all. There's no right way to have relationships. There's no correct number of relationships. It's a highly individual matter.

• 45:01Mike Carruthers?

  For a lot of people, I think the how is difficult. It's, and, and I'm wondering if, obviously, friends come in all different ways and sizes and, and happenstance and all. But when people decide, okay, well, I, I, it would be great to have more people. They don't know how to draw them in. So how, how did the people in this study, if you looked at this, how did they, how, when they made friends and when they made connections, how did they do it?

• 45:33Speaker 02

  There are some fairly tried and true ways. So the first step might be to think about what you love to do. And see if there's a way to do that alongside other people, to do that in a group. That could be anything. You know, it could be a gardening club. It could be a bowling league. It could be a church group. It could be working for a political cause. Because what happens is that if you're doing something you care about, first of all, it feels meaningful or fun. If you're doing it alongside other people, you instantly have one thing in common, which is you both like this thing you're doing or care about it.

• 46:17Speaker 02

  And that that is a natural opener for beginning conversations. And one of the things that we know from research is that if you see the same people casually over and over again, you're more likely to start to have conversations with them and then deeper conversations and then develop friendships that last. So the bottom, you know, the, the, the instruction is figure out what you care about, what you love, what you enjoy, and try to do that with others.

• 46:52Mike Carruthers?

  I guess it's hard for a lot of people because we see other people where it just seems to happen. They, they have all these people in their lives and it, it, it looked pretty effortless. And so you think, well, that's how it should be. It should, people just come into your life and yet they don't. And then people think, well, see, I, I don't know how to do this.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I'm so glad you raised that point because it does look effortless. It looks like other people have it figured out. I mean, think about how we curate our lives for each other. Look at social media. I mean, think about what we post for each other about our lives. I mean, I don't post the mornings when I wake up feeling awful. Feeling like, you know, my life is a mess and I don't know what I'm doing. You know, nobody posts their hangover pictures, at least most people don't, right? So we curate our lives and, and even though we know that, when, when we look at each other's Facebook posts or Instagram feeds, you can imagine that everybody's having an easy life. Everybody's got it figured out.

• 47:57Speaker 02

  Everybody's got people in their life except me. And that, I can tell you, is not the truth of life, having studied thousands of life stories. That's just not the truth. And so I think part of it is trying to remember that nobody has it all figured out ever, and that every life has difficulty and struggle.

• 48:20Mike Carruthers?

  You know, I like what you said a moment ago, that friends, friendships develop when you see the same people and then you, you have, you know, fairly surfacy conversations and then they, and then the more you see them, the more the conversation deepens. And that's how it really is. And yet I, I think when people decide, I want people in my life, I want them now. I want, I want to go make a, will you be my friend, you kind of thing?

• 48:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:48Mike Carruthers?

  And, and that's probably not the best way to go and do it. It, it does take time.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  Well, that's, that's important to point out. It takes time. Also, it's not going to work every time. So you may reach out to some people and they really don't reciprocate. I think of it more like, you know, a basketball game or, or baseball, you know, where you have certain tries at bat, or you try to make a basket. It's not going to happen every time, but it doesn't happen for anybody every time. That's okay. Expect that there will be some people who just don't respond, or don't respond very warmly, and try again. Keep trying, because if you keep trying, you will find there will be people who do respond.

• 49:35Mike Carruthers?

  How much does family count in this? Or, I mean, do family members count as those kind of relationships that you need or not?

• 49:44Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Family members count hugely. Many of the people we're closest to can be family. So, for example, I have two first cousins who are more like sisters to me. And I don't know why. It's just that we happen to have cultivated particularly strong relationships, more than I might have with other relatives. Right? And so, even within our families, we choose to be closer to some people than others. That's natural. But families can play a wonderful role in that network of good connections.

• 50:24Mike Carruthers?

  Well, and I imagine, too, that it ebbs and flows. I mean, who hasn't had a friend, a good friend disappoint and not be your friend anymore? Or, you know, that there's satisfaction and dissatisfaction because people are flawed and relationships come and go. And so, it isn't always rosy, even the people that do it well.

• 50:48Speaker 02

  That's right. That's right. And in fact, one of the dangers of presenting these ideas in the way that I am is that I could give the impression that it's all got to be rosy all the time, that relationships have to be smooth. They're not. Relationships of any significance have difficulties, have differences. We disagree with each other. We disappoint each other. And I think what we find is that the people who worked at resolving differences, at mending fences, were the people who were the happiest and most secure in their relationships. It turns out that if we can work out our differences, that the relationships get stronger and more stable.

• 51:32Mike Carruthers?

  Well, it's amazing what a few friends can do. I appreciate you sharing the information about your study. I've been speaking with Dr. Robert Waldinger. He's a psychiatrist and part-time professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. And the name of his book is "The Good Life: Lessons From the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness." And there's a link to that book in the show notes. Thanks, Robert. Good conversation.

• 51:58Speaker 02

  Well, you're a really good interviewer, and I love the questions. You took me to places I wouldn't have otherwise gone, you know?

• 52:07Mike Carruthers?

  Do you know the difference between an introvert and an extrovert? Well, according to Susan Cain, who is author of a book called Quiet: The Power of Introverts, which was a big, big bestseller. Introverts prefer quiet, minimally stimulating environments. Extroverts need higher levels of stimulation to feel their best. That stimulation can range from things like light and sound to social and physical stimulation. If you prefer a quiet glass of wine with a friend, you're probably an introvert. If you love a wild party full of strangers, you're an extrovert. Susan also points out that if you're the shy type, you're not necessarily an introvert. There is a real big difference between the two.

• 52:51Mike Carruthers?

  You see, shyness is the fear of negative judgment, while introversion is simply the preference for less stimulation. Shyness feels uncomfortable. Introversion does not. And that is something you should know. And we're out of time. Hey, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to this. If they have a place where you can leave a rating and review, take a moment and do that for us if you don't mind. I'm Mike Herrothers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.