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BITESIZE | 3 Simple Science-Backed Ways to Boost Your Happiness | Professor Laurie Santos #523
00:19:23
We all want to be happy, but what truly brings us happiness is often not what we think.
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- [00:00]
A
Today's Bite Size episode is sponsored by AG1. One of the most nutrient dense whole food supplements that I've come across and I myself have been drinking it regularly for over five years. It contains vitamins, minerals, probiotics, prebiotics, digestive enzymes and so much more and can help with energy, focus, gut health, digestion and support a healthy immune system. If you go to drinkag1.com livemore they are giving listeners a very special offer. A free one year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first order. See all details@drinkag1.com LiveMore welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 151 of the podcast with Laurie Santos, professor of Psychology at Yale University. Lori's Science and Wellbeing course has developed into a global phenomenon with over 4 million people signing up to study her evidence based strategies for happiness. In this clip she explains that our intuition is often wrong when it comes to happiness and shares the results of some surprising research that could help us live happier lives. Let's go through what really matters when it comes to happiness. Are there some universal practices that without knowing an individual circumstances, you can say with a high degree of certainty that if you do this you are likely to improve your wellbeing score and your happiness?
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B
Yeah, I mean we know this now. We know lots of these practices for exactly that, with the idea that these are things that won't just help a few people, but that really pretty much universally are going to help if you engage with them the right way. Like it'd just be nice if our brain was like pointing us towards the things that were really going to make us happy. But the data suggests that that's just not the case. There are all these domains where we think if I could only get X then I would be happy. But then we get that X and it just doesn't work. Many of us think, oh, if I could just get that beach house or that new car, even just at a local level, I'm just going to buy these new shoes. It'll make me happy. The data suggests that yeah, it makes you happy for, you know, a split second, doesn't kind of give you lasting happiness. It doesn't even give you happiness that lasts for as long as we think. And so there's all these ways where we think that changing our circumstances is going to boost happiness, but in fact it just doesn't work. The flip Side though is there's all these different interventions we can do to boost our happiness. One of the biggest behaviors that works super well for improving well being is social connection. One of the most famous papers in positive psychology by the psychologist Marty Seligman and Ed Diener say that social connection and feeling socially connected is a necessary condition for very high happiness. You just simply don't find highly happy people who don't also feel socially connected. But we also know from the intervention work that improving your social connection, making new social connections, even talking to strangers on your commute, can actually boost up your well being in ways we really, really don't expect. And these types of effects hold across personality variables. So you get the same sorts of boosts of happiness for social connection, for introverts and for extroverts. It seems to work in ways we.
- [03:31]
A
Don'T research, say about talking to strangers and talking to people we don't know. Because I think there's some quite nice research there, isn't there? Showing us just how impactful those interactions are.
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B
Yeah. And just how wrong we are about those interactions. You know, this is another domain where at least my intuition is that, yeah, maybe it'll make me feel okay, but like, you know, it's not a major force in our happiness. In fact, if you, you know, plot me on a train, you know, going to work in the morning, you know, maybe I'd talk to somebody, but usually I'd put my headphones on or get some work done or try to get through some email. And it turns out that this is a mistake when it comes to maximizing your happiness. There's some lovely work by the University of Chicago psychologist Nick Epley, who did direct studies on this where he found some subjects who are about to do their daily commute on a train. What he tells subjects is either for the rest of the train ride, don't talk to anybody, please try to enjoy your solitude, or for the rest of the train ride, just do what you'd normally do. It's kind of the control condition. Or for the rest of the train ride, I want you to try to make a meaningful social connection with somebody, like talk to someone. And don't just talk about the weather, like really try to get to know them. What do people predict? Because he has one group of subjects predict ahead of time which is going to make people feel happy. And people predict that the enjoy your solitude condition is going to feel awesome. Right. They predict that that's going to maximize their happiness. And they don't just predict that the Social connection condition is going to feel neutral. They predict that it's going to actively suck, that it's going to take them down from baseline. And what Nick finds is just the opposite. It's that solitude condition that feels yucky. The social connection condition makes you feel great. And I think this is a problem, right? This is another domain where we have these bad intuitions about what makes us happy. Like the simple kinds of interactions we have with the grocery store teller or the person who works at the coffee shop. Even those weak ties, the research show, matter for happiness. Those things we forget really kind of build up our happiness. I think this is another big misconception we have about happiness, is we think, think of happiness as sort of a destination. You know, you get there and you're sort of happily ever after. But that's not the right metaphor for happiness. Happiness is more like a leaky tire, right? You know, it's going to kind of go flat a little bit, but then, you know, you chat with the barista at the coffee shop and that, you know, kind of makes you feel a little good. And then you go about your day and, you know, chat with someone else or have another joyous moment. You know, we kind of can use these moments of joy to sort of boost up our happiness over time. And a lot of those moments were social moments. We assume all these technologies are there, you know, to make us happy. And I mean, we both have podcasts where happy podcast technology exists and people can listen to us. But it's also worth recognizing that there's an opportunity cost, right? If you're listening to your podcast instead of talking to your family at dinner, that might not be necessarily the best way to boost your well being. And this is the kind of thing I see all the time with technology with my students, who I know are lonelier than they've ever been in college history. And I think a lot of that has to do with, ironically, has to do with technology. These devices that they're using to connect are actually leading them to not form connections in real life. And the students think they're being social. You know, they're probably scrolling through their Instagram feed or like, you know, like, you know, using one of these weird new social media apps to kind of talk to one another, but they're not physically talking to one another in the way that primates are used to. And I think it's in part because, you know, the technology is easier. You know, I remember what it was like to be a new college student and to walk to the dining hall for the first time with your tray, and you have to, like, talk to somebody. There's like an awkward startup cost with that. And I think technology just gives us an easy way to kind of do something else, right? You know, not going to avoid that anxiety. But it means, because we don't ever get over the startup costs, we never develop these kind of weak ties with people where we just chat and get that little enjoyment. It means my college students are less likely to make these close friendships. My colleague Liz Dunn, who's a professor at UBC and studies the impact that technology has on happiness. She does this lovely study where she has people sitting in a waiting room and they can either have their phones out with them or. Or not, right? Their phones are away in another room. And what she finds is that people smile 30% less when they just have their phones present. And I think this makes sense, right? Like if you got your phone there, you're just going to be tempted to look at it. It's kind of drawing your attention. You're just naturally less inclined to look at the people around you. And if you multiply that 30% effect by, say, walking around on the tube in London or just walking around any major city and everyone has these phones, what is that doing to our social connection? I think we simply don't understand the magnitude that we're kind of getting our attention stolen by these devices.
- [08:08]
A
Yeah, it's insidious. And I think it's an experiment that I don't think any one of us has consciously signed up for. You know, I feel sometimes when I talk about these things that you're literally, you're going up in the face of the direction that society is going. And I think that makes it really challenging. I know you talk about when the phone's not there. Some of my happiest moments, moments recently when I've lost my phone or it's been in my car, I left it at my mom's house and I thought, ah, screw it, I'll get it tomorrow. And just there's this lightness around because.
- [08:43]
B
You'Re noticing you're like trees, like the sun, you know, or just like people. I smile at people. No, it's really profound. I think one of the ways to deal with it, because it's not going away, right? This stuff is going to stick around. We just need better strategies to engage with our technology in more intentional ways. And one of my favorite pieces of advice comes from the journalist Katherine Price. She has this lovely book called how to break up with your phone where she doesn't really advise you to break up with your phone, but just to develop a more mindful relationship with it. And she has this acronym that she uses called www. Whenever you pick up your phone, think www, which stands for what for why now? And what else? What did I pick this up for? Was I going to do something with I was going to check my email or I was going to look at the weather, or was I just like bored or anxious or something? What was happening and then why now? What that caused you to do it? Was it just like, you know, rote and you're just kind of anxiously picking it up? Or was it really like to do something at that moment, you know? Or is there something else you could be doing at that moment? And that gets to the sort of what else? Which is like, what's the opportunity cost? Even if you're bored and you're gonna pick up your phone to like, you know, play a game or check your email, what else could you be doing during that time that might make you happier? And the what else is often a social what else? You know, when I'm picking up my phone, it's often like I could go into the other room to talk to my husband and check in how he's. I could look up at the sky, I could take a mindful breath. What are you missing out on by using your phone? And that has kind of caused me using that sort of WWW strategy myself. It's made me realize a lot why I pick up my phone, which is often out of boredom and anxiety. But also sometimes when it's useful, there's times I need to check my email or look at the weather or something. It's when it's kind of not mindful or not intentional and just kind of yanking my attention and when there's a real opportunity cost on other sorts of social interactions. Even with weather app, sometimes I've been like, I could just walk to the window and take a little walk around the block and look at the clouds and get a sense of probably what's going to happen. Right?
- [10:49]
A
It's funny you say there's little micro moments where you could look up at the sky or have a little conversation with one of your flatmates or one of your family. I bet that time adds up in that moment. We might think, oh, it's just a couple of minutes there, a couple of minutes there. But if you look at your phone and some of the stats on how many times we look at our phone are really quite worrying. But let's say you look at your phone 40 times in the day and let's say each time that's two minutes that you could have been doing something else. Well, that's 80 minutes, potentially that's nearly an hour and a half of your time. And again, I think the question, as you say, is intentionality. And so I wonder what does the research say about mindfulness and happiness? And then what does mindfulness really mean? Because again, that's a term that can mean so many different things to different people.
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B
Yeah, I mean, I think one thing we know from the research is taking time to be mindful, taking time to sort of be in the present moment in a very particular way, which is with a particular kind of attitude, an attitude of sort of non judgment. So you're not kind of in the present moment noticing this sucks. And I'm judging it the whole time, but in the present moment allowing it to be just as it is. The research suggests that that kind of practice can really improve our well being. And it seems to improve our well being for a particular reason, which is the opposite of being present. When we're kind of, you know, not in the present moment, we're kind of mind wandering and thinking about the future and worrying about things and ruminating. That has a really negative hit on our happiness. Right. And so just the act of being present, where you sort of shut off that kind of mind wandering to yucky other things, can really make us feel better. Now it too is the kind of thing that requires some work. This is being present is not the natural state of the human mind. But yeah, but the research really suggests that practices that allow us to improve our mindfulness, to improve our presence, can really improve our well being. So practices like meditation, even more spiritual practices like prayer and so on, even just the act of like taking three deep belly breaths where you're kind of noticing what it feels like. All of these kinds of things really can allow us to be a little bit more present. And just the act of being present means we notice. We were talking before about one reason that technology is messing with us is that we miss the like looking at the trees or looking at our partner's smile or seeing the sunshine. Being present means we're there to notice the stuff that really matters. And so it really can allow us to have these little, you know, filling our leaky happiness tire moments of joy that we otherwise would have missed because our minds were kind of going off in all these directions in terms of.
- [13:24]
A
Other things that can influence our happiness. A lot of spiritual practices A lot of religions talk about doing things for other people and there's a lot of research on that, isn't there?
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B
Yeah, this is yet another spot where our minds lead us astray. And we know this because again, first move in happiness research is to look at the happy people. Look at the happy people. What are they doing? Happy people are disproportionately other oriented. They matched for a salary level, give more of their money to charities than people who are not so happy. They give more of their time, they volunteer. They just tend to be more focused on helping other people than in kind of doing selfish pursuits. And the research shows that then if you go and do an intervention where you force people to do nice stuff for others, that will actually improve people's well being more than they think. This is actually a study by Liz Dunn, who we mentioned earlier. She goes up to people on the street and hands them some money and says, okay, you just got this money, here's how you have to spend it. One group is told, you have to spend this on yourself. Do something nice, treat yourself. Another group is told, the way I want you to spend this money is to do something nice for someone else. Then she has has subjects agree that they can be called later in the day or later that week. And what she finds is that subjects who spend the money on other people tend to be significantly happier than those who spend the money on themselves. Now, this is not again what we think, right, but it's what the data show. And again, I teach this class, but I get this intuition wrong. If I'm having a crappy day, be like, I'm going to go out and get myself a latte or I'm going to get a manicure, right. I don't think like I'm going to go buy my co worker a latte right now or I'm going to get a little gift card from my friend to get a manicure. I think, me, me, me. But the data suggests that just sort of switching gears, spending our money and our time on other people is a way to bump up our happiness. Again, it violates the intuitions, but it's a powerful way to do that.
- [15:15]
A
Yeah. What strikes me, Laurie, is that a lot of the things you're talking about are very simple philosophically. When I think about happiness, I think about these phrases that are there in the vernacular, the pursuit of happiness, the things you can do to create happiness. And then I came across this quote by Krishnamurti which I've got here, which says, happiness is strange. It comes when you are not seeking it, when you are not making an effort to be happy, then unexpectedly, mysteriously, happiness is there. And that really speaks to this wider point. That is what I sort of feel, that happiness is already there inside us. You see this in a child when they're just playing with their Lego, they're just happy, calm, content with life. And my feeling is that a lot of these practices, they're not necessarily creating happiness. I feel society has moved us away from our innate happiness and all these practices are doing are helping to turn that ship around and just return us back. So the happiness that already naturally exists within us. I wonder what your view is on that.
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B
Yeah, I mean, I think you're right. I mean, I think one thing that we know about happiness is that when we try to pursue it, we get it wrong. Right. You know, when we try to pursue it, we go after the money and the fame and the accolades and we end up, you know, spinning our wheels. Because those are not the kinds of things that will allow us to feel happy. What will let us feel happy is kind of in some ways going back to our natural state. Right? Being present, you know, being challenged by a particular activity. Right. Having fun. You know, you mentioned kids running around and doing things like, you know, those are kind of being in the present moment. Those are cases where you're being social, Right? I think that's right. That our natural state is doing the kinds of things that would make us happy. But the modern world tends to lead us away from that. Right. It's hard to get back to that natural state in a lot of ways. And I think, you know, for all the reasons we've talked about, from technology to busyness to the wrong theories about the sorts of things that will make us happy. And that's why I think right now there is a way to pursue happiness. What we need to pursue is getting that to that natural state. It's not going to take the form we're used to where we're buying ourselves something or trying to get that next accolade on our cv. But it's about putting into effect intentional practices that let us go back to the more natural state. So if we were in a different environment, if we were plopped on a desert island and there were no smartphones and no things to do for work and no emails, we might naturally get back to that state of playing around and being present and enjoying ourselves. But in the modern world, I think we have to kind of fight against the tendencies that are natural. And those that are natural are not kind of evolutionarily natural. You know, there's the kind of cultural tides that might be taking us in the wrong direction. So I do think right now it works like a pursuit because you do have to put a little bit of work in, but what that work is doing is kind of getting us back to the natural state that we should have been in anyway. Everything I just said might be, you know, 20 minutes more of work in your day, you know, like connecting with that friend, doing something nice or whatever. But that simple 20 minutes will be a way to boost up your well being in this really evidence based way.
- [18:31]
A
Hope you enjoyed that Bite Sized clip. Do spread the love by sharing this episode with your friends and family. And if you want more, why not go back and listen to the original full conversation with my guest. If you enjoyed this episode, I think you will really enjoy my Bite sized Friday email. It's called the Friday five and each week I share things that I do not share on social media. It contains five short doses of positivity, articles or books that I'm reading, quotes that I'm thinking about, exciting research I've come across, and so much more. I really think you're going to love it. The goal is for it to be a small yet powerful dose of feel good. To get you ready for the weekend, you can sign up for it free of charge@drchattery.com free Friday 5. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. Make sure you have pressed subscribe and I'll be back next week with my long form conversational Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.