Speaker 1: Pushkin. When you think of living in the big city
Speaker 1: and what do you fear a size about. Is it
Speaker 1: endless happy hours in Chica, cocktail bars or branch at
Speaker 1: fancy restaurants, in invitations to gallery openings. It's possible that
Speaker 1: Carrie Bradshaw haskewed a lot of our expectations, but also
Speaker 1: brought into that fantasy of the city life and sex
Speaker 1: in the city, but relocated to Britain. This is Helen Russell,
Speaker 1: a fellow budding Carrie Bradshaw. I was living in working
Speaker 1: in London for twelve years as a journalist. I was
Speaker 1: editor of mary Clad UK and I had no intention
Speaker 1: of leaving my busy city life until one day out
Speaker 1: of bloom, my new husband came home and told me
Speaker 1: he'd been offered his dream job working for Lego. The
Speaker 1: problem was that the dream job was a rather long
Speaker 1: way away. It wasn't just a few subway stops from
Speaker 1: Helen's London apartment. The job offer required that the couple
Speaker 1: pick up their lives and move to rural Denmark. We
Speaker 1: couldn't have pointed out Denmark to you on a map
Speaker 1: of Denmark. But as well as sort of feeling like
Speaker 1: we were living this glossy, glamorous life. We were just
Speaker 1: tired and stressed and burnt out. Helen wasn't exactly living
Speaker 1: the sex in the city life. London was filled with
Speaker 1: bustling clubs and bars and restaurants, but Helen wasn't getting
Speaker 1: to enjoy them much. It felt like she and her
Speaker 1: busy friends never had time to connect. Helen also kept
Speaker 1: getting sick. She had recurrent headaches, She suffered from insomnia,
Speaker 1: and self medicated with more white wine than she was
Speaker 1: proud of. Despite her fantasies of an idealized London life,
Speaker 1: she had to admit she wasn't all that happy. So
Speaker 1: when this other life possibility was sort of dangled in
Speaker 1: front of us, we were intrigued. But Denmark. As a
Speaker 1: brit Helen didn't really know anything about Danish life. I
Speaker 1: started researching and looking into it and learned that Denmark
Speaker 1: had been voted the happiest country in the world and
Speaker 1: studies going back to the nineteen seventies. Take, for example,
Speaker 1: how Denmark did in the prestigious United Nations World Happiness Report.
Speaker 1: The World Happiness Report began back in twenty twelve and
Speaker 1: ranks over one hundred and fifty countries based on factors
Speaker 1: like healthy life expectancy, livable incomes, trust, and generosity. In
Speaker 1: the decades since the report started, Denmark has repeatedly topped
Speaker 1: the happiness chart, which is pretty impressive. I mean the
Speaker 1: United States. In the UK, where Helen lived, they never
Speaker 1: made it into the top ten. And I became fascinated
Speaker 1: by this. How had a tiny country of just five
Speaker 1: point six million people managed to pull off the happiest
Speaker 1: nation on Earth title? For a stress journalist like Helen,
Speaker 1: the possibility of moving to the happiest country on the
Speaker 1: planet sounded better than she initially thought, And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I can't get happier there where can I? Like Helen,
Speaker 1: many of us have fantasized that a healthier, happier life
Speaker 1: might be just around the corner if we could only
Speaker 1: get away from our current environment, that if we just
Speaker 1: up and moved somewhere greener or sunnier, or less traffic
Speaker 1: filled or beachier, that we'd finally be able to drop
Speaker 1: all the bs and live the good life. But is
Speaker 1: the hope that a new place can fix everything just
Speaker 1: a fantasy, or could being in a fresh spot actually
Speaker 1: cause us to form healthier habits could a drastic decision
Speaker 1: like Helen's to uproot your life and move to a
Speaker 1: country you've never visited before make you magically eat better
Speaker 1: and get fit and stay off social media? And if
Speaker 1: a new environment can actually make you happier, should we
Speaker 1: all start packing our bags pronto? Or are there ways
Speaker 1: we can get the same happiness benefits that new surroundings
Speaker 1: afford without the moving van. Our minds are constantly telling
Speaker 1: us what to do to be happy. But what if
Speaker 1: our minds are wrong? What if our minds are lying
Speaker 1: to us, leading us away from what will really make
Speaker 1: us happy. The good news is that understanding the science
Speaker 1: of the mind can lead us all back in the
Speaker 1: right direction. You're listening to the Happiness Lab. Would meet
Speaker 1: doctor Laurie Santos at an age when you were off
Speaker 1: Laurie doing useful and productive things with your lives. I
Speaker 1: bicycled from Alaska, Argentina, around the world and across Africa.
Speaker 1: But it turns out that was a very good foundation
Speaker 1: for later career as an explorer. I'm chatting with Dan Butner,
Speaker 1: an adventurer, a best selling author, a documentary filmmaker, a
Speaker 1: national geographic expedition leader, and a triple world record holding
Speaker 1: endurance cyclist and otherwise a professional truant. But Dan's favorite
Speaker 1: thing to do is to figure out the solutions to
Speaker 1: big scientific questions. He even founded a company that sends
Speaker 1: out teams of experts to solve such puzzles. And every
Speaker 1: year we were striking off somewhere in the world to
Speaker 1: solve some mystery. So we were actively looking for mysteries
Speaker 1: to solve. And in two thousand I came across a
Speaker 1: World Health Organization report showing that this archipelago in Southeast
Speaker 1: Asia add the longest disability free life expectancy in the world.
Speaker 1: The surprising archipelago was in Japan, about a thousand miles
Speaker 1: south of Tokyo. It's the Okinawan Islands. The residents of
Speaker 1: Okinawa live a really long time. In two thousand, the
Speaker 1: islands boasted three times more centenarians, that is, people who
Speaker 1: live past a hundred years than North America. And the
Speaker 1: islanders didn't just live for a long time, they remained
Speaker 1: surprisingly healthy well into old age. Relative to Americans, older
Speaker 1: Okinawans had four times fewer breast and prostate cancer diagnoses,
Speaker 1: a five times lower rate of heart disease, and nearly
Speaker 1: a third the ray of dementia. So why were the
Speaker 1: residents of this chain of islands, often in the Pacific
Speaker 1: Ocean living such long and healthy lives? I said, Aha,
Speaker 1: Now that's a good mystery, and so Dan was on
Speaker 1: the case. Working with National Geographic and the National Institute
Speaker 1: of Aging. He assembled a team of demographers, doctors, and
Speaker 1: scientists to travel to Okinawa. But the project got Dan
Speaker 1: wondering whether there were other places in the world that
Speaker 1: enjoyed similar longevity centenarian hotspots that hadn't yet been identified,
Speaker 1: and if so, whether he could use what the residents
Speaker 1: in those places were doing to reverse engineer the factors
Speaker 1: that lead to a longer, healthier life. And thus was
Speaker 1: born this whole idea of blue zones. Blue zones are
Speaker 1: what Dan calls places on the planet where people are
Speaker 1: statistically likelier to live healthily well past a hundred years.
Speaker 1: Dan's team wound up identifying a few such blue zones,
Speaker 1: like the island of Sardinia off of Italy, one small
Speaker 1: peninsula of Costa Rica, and the town of Lomo Linda
Speaker 1: and California, And despite being thousands of miles apart, Dan
Speaker 1: found that the daily lives of the people living in
Speaker 1: these longevity blue zones had some striking similarities. They mostly
Speaker 1: a plant based, whole food diet. They did not exercise
Speaker 1: in the way we think of exercise, but rather they
Speaker 1: lived in environments where they were nudged into moving every
Speaker 1: twenty minutes or so. They had strong social life, very
Speaker 1: little loneliness. They had intentional social circles, they curated the
Speaker 1: four or five people they surrounded themselves with, and they
Speaker 1: had strategies to keep from overeating. As you might guess,
Speaker 1: all of these tendencies are great strategies for avoiding disease.
Speaker 1: They're the kinds of behaviors that we make New Year's
Speaker 1: resolutions about, or that our doctors plead with us to prioritize.
Speaker 1: But the blue zone dwellers didn't seem to be working
Speaker 1: hard to achieve these healthy behaviors. The resident's biggest secret
Speaker 1: was that they seemed to engage in all these positive
Speaker 1: habits naturally. Dan found that the key to the blue
Speaker 1: zone residents success was simply location, location, location. The real
Speaker 1: aha here was that longevity seemed to ensue from the
Speaker 1: right environment. In other words, these people had no special
Speaker 1: discipline or no special regimen. They weren't conscious of their
Speaker 1: behaviors and weren't trying to restrict them or amp up
Speaker 1: their physical activity or diet or any of the things
Speaker 1: we do to pursue health and longevity. It ensued, you
Speaker 1: don't need to force yourself to get to the gym
Speaker 1: when you've got start Indian hells to keep your cardio up,
Speaker 1: and you don't need a meatless Monday when literally everyone
Speaker 1: you know is eating a healthy, plant based diet, as
Speaker 1: the Seventh Day Adventist community of Lomo, Linda does Dan's
Speaker 1: Blue Zone Project had discovered that the key to longevity
Speaker 1: is the environment and community we find ourselves. In his
Speaker 1: book The Blue Zones, Lessons for Living Longer from the
Speaker 1: people Who've lived the longest was a bit of a
Speaker 1: shock to scholars who'd long invested in the idea of
Speaker 1: personal improvement that we could each individually live longer no
Speaker 1: matter where we are, if we just committed to the
Speaker 1: right gym, workout, or healthy diet. That's right. I'm a
Speaker 1: heredtic in that I think trying to modify behavior for
Speaker 1: the long term is a bad investment. If you look
Speaker 1: at the recidivism curves of diets and exercise programs. There's
Speaker 1: some pretty good research that suggests they work for weeks
Speaker 1: or months, but when you start looking out more than
Speaker 1: a year, it's very hard to find anything that works
Speaker 1: for more than single digit percentages of people that tried it.
Speaker 1: So we live in a country where seventy percent or
Speaker 1: a beast or overweight. We spend billions, hundreds of billions
Speaker 1: of dollars a year on diets and exercise and supplements
Speaker 1: and all these sort of proactive gimmicks and regimends, and
Speaker 1: they've been on the aggregate and unmitigated failure. So I've
Speaker 1: made my professional lights work focused on optimizing the environment.
Speaker 1: Are surroundings, the equal system around us. But it's one
Speaker 1: thing to optimize environments that promote a healthier life, should
Speaker 1: we also be optimizing environments that promote feeling happier too.
Speaker 1: I've found that people were really interested in living a
Speaker 1: long time, but then you get to thinking, well, what's
Speaker 1: a long life worth if you're not enjoying the journey?
Speaker 1: So I got very interested in happiness. Dan began the
Speaker 1: hunt for happiness hotspots, the places in the world that
Speaker 1: ranked highest on four distinct aspects of well being. Lots
Speaker 1: of instances of positive emotions, relatively few instances of negative emotions,
Speaker 1: a high level of purpose, and a rich satisfaction with life.
Speaker 1: The first spot on his happiness Blue Zones list, it
Speaker 1: was Denmark, But the other two countries Dan identified we're
Speaker 1: far from the Scandinavian nations that usually top happiness lists.
Speaker 1: Costa Rica and Singapore both scored highly on Dan's scale.
Speaker 1: When I first tried to write about Singapore for National Geographic,
Speaker 1: the n editor rejected it because she didn't believe Singapore
Speaker 1: could be a happy place. But the biggest surprise wasn't
Speaker 1: where the happiness blue zones were. It was just how
Speaker 1: much of a person's well being sprung from where they lived.
Speaker 1: Something as a lucif his happiness could be determined by
Speaker 1: the zip code you call home, His new happiness findings
Speaker 1: mirrored exactly what Dan had learned about longevity. I look
Speaker 1: at this pursuit of happiness a lot like a game
Speaker 1: of black jack. You get to stack the deck. You
Speaker 1: can have a deck full six and sevens, or you
Speaker 1: can stack that deck with aces and jack's. And there's
Speaker 1: now a big enough body of evidence that tells exactly
Speaker 1: what those aces and jacks look like, and if you
Speaker 1: want to get happier, don't waste your time changing your behavior,
Speaker 1: change your surrounds. For someone who teaches a class promoting
Speaker 1: individual positive psychology interventions, chatting with Dan was a wake
Speaker 1: up call. It's not that the happiness strategies I share
Speaker 1: with students don't work, it's just that you don't need
Speaker 1: them if you live somewhere where those well being boosting
Speaker 1: behaviors are just part of the shared culture. I just
Speaker 1: think so many of the things that are marketed to us,
Speaker 1: it just makes my eyes roll, all these apps and
Speaker 1: coaches and there's just not good evidence. But there's great
Speaker 1: evidence for the environmental factors that seem to be producing
Speaker 1: higher levels of well being and experience happiness, and we
Speaker 1: ought to be paying more attention to them and less
Speaker 1: attention to the marketers. Dan thinks we ought to consider
Speaker 1: the same drastic strategy that Sad London or Helen Russell chose.
Speaker 1: If you're not living a happy life where you are,
Speaker 1: then it might be time to move. People kind of
Speaker 1: pooh pooh, this oh, I can't move. But actually, if
Speaker 1: you look at census data, the average American moves ten
Speaker 1: to eleven times after age eighteen every time they move
Speaker 1: or provide, it's another opportunity to pick a neighborhood that
Speaker 1: will produce higher levels of happiness. Helen had picked what
Speaker 1: many say is the most happiness inducing place on Earth
Speaker 1: as her new home, but she quickly learned that swapping
Speaker 1: a great metropolis for the unfamiliar Danish countryside might not
Speaker 1: immediately be a perfect recipe for joy. We moved to
Speaker 1: Denmark in the middle of winter, and I didn't know anyone.
Speaker 1: I didn't speak the language. We had no friends, no family.
Speaker 1: Then I certainly worried to begin with that I'd made
Speaker 1: the biggest mistake of my life. The happiness lab will
Speaker 1: be right back. I thought maybe I could give it
Speaker 1: a year. I told him this year of seeing if
Speaker 1: I could learn what it was that Danes did differently
Speaker 1: and change my life as a result. When Helen Russell's
Speaker 1: husband was offered his dream job at the birthplace of Lego,
Speaker 1: the tiny town of bill It in rural Denmark, she
Speaker 1: was excited to find out what it'd be like to
Speaker 1: live in one of the world's east countries. So I
Speaker 1: quit my job and people said terms like career suicide.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we packed all of our belongings into one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty two boxes and shipped them across the
Speaker 1: North Sea. Helen's happiness quest didn't get after the best start.
Speaker 1: She arrived in the dead of a snowy Scandinavian winter.
Speaker 1: It was the coldest I have ever been. You know.
Speaker 1: I came from the city, so there's always that nice
Speaker 1: insulating layer of smog, and you're always dashing between buildings,
Speaker 1: so you never get that kind of cold to your bones.
Speaker 1: And also I came from working in glossy fashion world magazines,
Speaker 1: so I didn't have any practical clothes at all. I
Speaker 1: was soaked my core from the near constant rain. The
Speaker 1: sky was perpetually slate gray, and it was just freezing.
Speaker 1: It was so cold at first winter that the Fiord
Speaker 1: Froze was just like something out of the beginning of
Speaker 1: a film before things go very badly wrong. But as
Speaker 1: a writer, she figured she could at least get a
Speaker 1: good story out of it, so Helen decided to chronicle
Speaker 1: her experience in a memoir entitled The Year of Living
Speaker 1: Danishly and the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country. As
Speaker 1: she dove into the book, she came to admire Danish
Speaker 1: culture more and more. It was just a very very
Speaker 1: different way of life. I had to completely reassess my priorities. Take,
Speaker 1: for example, the importance of free time. You've probably heard
Speaker 1: me talk about the concept of time affluence, that subjective
Speaker 1: sense that you have the free time you need. Countless
Speaker 1: studies show that feeling famished for time is a recipe
Speaker 1: for reduced well being, and this is something that Danes
Speaker 1: try to avoid at all costs. So I think in
Speaker 1: the UK and the US we have fought for more money,
Speaker 1: whereas in Scandinavia they have fought for time. In Denmark,
Speaker 1: the official working week is thirty seven hours, but the
Speaker 1: average Dane is only putting in. I discovered thirty three
Speaker 1: hours a week, so far fewer than I was used
Speaker 1: to back home for Helen workweeks that short took a
Speaker 1: while to get used to. Coming from London and having
Speaker 1: grown up in Margaret that she's Britain, you know. In
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan era, I was very much of the mindset
Speaker 1: that all this is great for these little mystical Scandinavians,
Speaker 1: but product ativity can't be very high. I presumed that
Speaker 1: this made Dane's vasset slackers, but no. In fact, a
Speaker 1: study from Warwick University shows that workers are twelve percent
Speaker 1: more productive when they're in a more positive frame of mind.
Speaker 1: Denmark has the happiest workforce in the world and as
Speaker 1: a result is the second most productive country in the EU.
Speaker 1: So they are working less, but they're getting more done.
Speaker 1: Many companies in the US have a need those of presentism.
Speaker 1: There's an expectation that the bars will be thrilled to
Speaker 1: see you in the office working well, passed closing time well.
Speaker 1: In Denmark, the opposite is true. I heard of a
Speaker 1: colleague who was still at their desk at around seven
Speaker 1: pm and got given a lecture about time management and
Speaker 1: a leafless about efficiency. There's this assumption that you should
Speaker 1: be able to get your work done within the working day.
Speaker 1: Danes also think very differently about how to balance your
Speaker 1: career and family life. There's this assumption that family comes
Speaker 1: first before your work. So it's perfectly acceptable for both
Speaker 1: men and women to leave a meeting at say four pm,
Speaker 1: because they have to go and pick up their kid
Speaker 1: from daycare and then make dinner. It's perfectly normal to
Speaker 1: expect balance of work life and home life, and everybody
Speaker 1: does it. But it's not just family that takes precedence.
Speaker 1: Dane's value all forms of social connection. There's this idea
Speaker 1: that stopping together to have a cup of coffee and
Speaker 1: a chat is valued. It's not just a frippery, it's
Speaker 1: an integral part of life. And with their extra free time,
Speaker 1: Danes also have the bandwidth to invest in hobbies. The
Speaker 1: average Dane is a member of two point eight clubs
Speaker 1: I discovered, and this will range from everything from rollerblading
Speaker 1: to running club or cycling. And because people aren't so
Speaker 1: defined by their work status in Denmark, the club aspect
Speaker 1: becomes really important as well, because it could be that
Speaker 1: Olas he's a cyclist rather than O Lars is a CEO.
Speaker 1: You are what you care about, what you love, rather
Speaker 1: than your job title. Club culture keeps Dan's physically active
Speaker 1: and socially connected, but it also encourages Dans to prioritize
Speaker 1: something else we know as critical for happiness and stress reduction. Play.
Speaker 1: And it should be no surprise in the country of
Speaker 1: Lego and Hands Christine Anderson, but play is considered a
Speaker 1: worthwhile occupation at any age, experiencing lots of playful connection
Speaker 1: with the people they care about It's also how Scandinavians
Speaker 1: make it through the coldest, darkest months of the year.
Speaker 1: So the Danish winter is not something to be trifled with.
Speaker 1: It reliably lasts from around October to March, and to
Speaker 1: get through that you do need some coping strategies. And
Speaker 1: I think the Danish huga, this word that has become
Speaker 1: known around the world in recent years, is this idea
Speaker 1: of having a warm, cozy time with people that you
Speaker 1: care about, often with cake or coffee or beer involved,
Speaker 1: and it's really about togetherness. This concept of huga is
Speaker 1: deeply woven into all parts of Danish society. You hear
Speaker 1: the term used in every second sentence that a Dane
Speaker 1: will say. They'll say tech phone, hugli tea, thank you
Speaker 1: for a huga time. And when I first started writing
Speaker 1: about huga, many Danes were perplexed. They just couldn't understand
Speaker 1: why this was of interest, or that other countries might
Speaker 1: not have an equivalent. These days, you see Huger talked
Speaker 1: about everyone in Instagram posts and magazine articles about self care.
Speaker 1: But Helen worries the americanized version is missing many of
Speaker 1: the critical elements. I think around the world, it's been
Speaker 1: co opted for commercial gain a little bit. You see
Speaker 1: huga candles or Huga blankets. It shouldn't cost anything. Unlike
Speaker 1: trendy Americans, the Danes don't spend their time trying to
Speaker 1: out hugo one another. In fact, the very idea of
Speaker 1: social comparison works differently in Denmark. I think in Denmark
Speaker 1: there is something called Yante's law, but the main tenets
Speaker 1: I guess is that you're not to think you're special,
Speaker 1: You're not to think you're better than anyone else. And
Speaker 1: this sort of runs like a red thread through all
Speaker 1: areas of Scandinavian life, and in Denmark in particular, So
Speaker 1: showing off or being too flashy is very much round
Speaker 1: on the Jante's law ethos don't imagine you're better than
Speaker 1: other people. Fits well with the fact that inequality is
Speaker 1: so much of a thing in Denmark, which is also
Speaker 1: important for happiness, as research shows that unequal societies tend
Speaker 1: to be unhappier and less cohesive. Inequality even makes it
Speaker 1: harder for you to trust your fellow citizens, and the
Speaker 1: Danes are amazingly trusting. Take for example, Danish childcare. You
Speaker 1: see all these enormous Mary Poppins esque prams outside coffee
Speaker 1: shops and there are babies in them asleep. And this
Speaker 1: is because Danes trust each other so much they're happy
Speaker 1: to let their babies sleep outside. That's right. Danish mothers
Speaker 1: are totally cool leaving their babies on the street, completely unprotected,
Speaker 1: where any freak could just show up and snatch them away.
Speaker 1: But infant snatching isn't something that trusting Danes spend much
Speaker 1: time worrying about. Helen says. There's even a common national
Speaker 1: saying nobody steals babies in Denmark. This is because seventy
Speaker 1: nine percent of Danes trust most people, a statistic I
Speaker 1: found extraordinary. I don't trust seventy nine percent of my
Speaker 1: immediate family in London. Helen would probably get reported to
Speaker 1: the police or social services if she abandoned her babies
Speaker 1: on the street. I wonder now that she had become
Speaker 1: a mother of twins herself, if she'd picked up on
Speaker 1: this Danish habit of trusting strangers. Did start leaving your
Speaker 1: pram outside with the twins and things? I did? Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean honestly terrifying to start with. And a twin stroller.
Speaker 1: I mean you're not getting that through any doors, So yes,
Speaker 1: I left it outside in the cold, and they are
Speaker 1: healthy and have some good lungs on them, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I am a fan of that. Now Helen's now a
Speaker 1: fan of lots of Danish customs, which fits with what
Speaker 1: the science shows. There's evidence that simply by moving to Denmark,
Speaker 1: Helen probably couldn't help but absorb the ways of her
Speaker 1: new home. Studies have shown that people arriving from low
Speaker 1: trust countries quite swiftly within just a few years, end
Speaker 1: up taking on the Danish levels of trust, which I
Speaker 1: found fascinating. But it's the same also true for happiness.
Speaker 1: Researchers at the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia studied
Speaker 1: what happens to immigrants when they moved to a happier nation,
Speaker 1: like going from the UK to Denmark. According to Dan Butner,
Speaker 1: the results were striking. Within one year they start reporting
Speaker 1: the happiness level of their adoptive home, which in some
Speaker 1: place just can mean almost a doubling of their level
Speaker 1: of happiness. So there's no positive psychology intervention that's anywhere
Speaker 1: near as powerful as that. By immersing herself and the
Speaker 1: happiness inducing Danish lifestyle, Helen hardly had to think about
Speaker 1: altering her own behaviors. She didn't decide to reduce her
Speaker 1: work week or prioritize socializing. She just had to go
Speaker 1: with the flow and reap the happiness benefits. And she
Speaker 1: didn't stay in Denmark just for that trial year. Her
Speaker 1: family found real happiness there, so they made it their
Speaker 1: permanent home. When we talked over Zoom, she was still
Speaker 1: sitting in the same home she'd found that cold winter
Speaker 1: over a decade ago, which looked very stylish and hugo
Speaker 1: to me. I mean, don't judge my background here, but
Speaker 1: it looks very Danish to me, honestly. But yeah, but
Speaker 1: what does Helen's success mean for those of us horrified
Speaker 1: by the prospect of a Danish winter who can't move
Speaker 1: across the world to a happiness hotspot anytime soon? When
Speaker 1: we get back from the break, we'll meet someone who
Speaker 1: argues that we don't need to pack our bags. If
Speaker 1: we're committed to changing the home we have now for
Speaker 1: the better, the happiness lab will return in a moment.
Speaker 1: Visitors to Paris are often delighted by the food or
Speaker 1: mesmerized by the grand architecture it. Consultant and lifelong Texan
Speaker 1: Jason Roberts was struck by something else. These little small
Speaker 1: shops and the little bakers, and the cafes, and the
Speaker 1: string lights, and the and the fruit and vegetable stands,
Speaker 1: and young people and old people, and the bicycle infrastructure
Speaker 1: of people riding bikes everywhere. Jason's European honeymoon was an
Speaker 1: eye opening experience. I would see, you know, ladies that
Speaker 1: were like in their seventies or eighties, and they'd have
Speaker 1: a bicycle, and they'd have a baggett sticking out the
Speaker 1: back and then puppy in the front, and so just
Speaker 1: that idea of traversing through space seemed so beautiful and
Speaker 1: so life affirming. It was also different from Jason's back home.
Speaker 1: Everyone was out in the streets. The streets were alive
Speaker 1: and just the opposite of what I saw where I
Speaker 1: lived in Dallas. Jason City had miles and miles of
Speaker 1: hideous strip malls. Bikes weren't a possibility on the huge,
Speaker 1: multi laned concrete freeways that he drove on to get
Speaker 1: to his windowless I office. Shopping for groceries back home
Speaker 1: didn't involve smiling elderly ladies with baguettes, chatting and enjoying
Speaker 1: the sun a tiny fruit stands. Eventually the honeymoon ended,
Speaker 1: Jason flew home and went back to work in his lonely,
Speaker 1: cinder blocky office, but he couldn't stop thinking about the
Speaker 1: lifestyle he witnessed back in Europe. I was frustrated with
Speaker 1: the idea that we'll spend fifty weeks out of our
Speaker 1: lives working and they will spend two weeks flying to
Speaker 1: go somewhere we would rather be, you know, So I thought, well,
Speaker 1: how do you transform that and flip that on his
Speaker 1: head and they maybe make it to where, you know,
Speaker 1: the place that you are is the place you want
Speaker 1: to be at all times. Jason had just moved to
Speaker 1: the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas. The area was unloved,
Speaker 1: shabby looking, not the sort of place you'd happily hang
Speaker 1: out in, you know, empty buildings and boarded up here
Speaker 1: and broken lights. And I'm trying to figure out, well,
Speaker 1: where do you start on something like that? And I
Speaker 1: think that's where a lot of us begin. We look
Speaker 1: and we're like, well, you know, I don't have the money.
Speaker 1: I'm just you know, a person in my neighborhood, you know,
Speaker 1: with the little kids, and just trying to struggling to
Speaker 1: pay my mortgage like everybody else. Jason spoke with lots
Speaker 1: of people about improving the area, but many weren't that optimistic.
Speaker 1: First of all, people said, that's crazy. These things are
Speaker 1: too expensive and problems too large, and it's going to take,
Speaker 1: you know, decades. The conventional wisdom was that oak Cliffe's
Speaker 1: only hope would be to entice a big restaurant chain
Speaker 1: to open there, but Jason thought the answer should come
Speaker 1: from inside the community, not outside. But how Jason decided
Speaker 1: to hit the books. I called myself an amateur historian.
Speaker 1: I love to go to the library and look at
Speaker 1: the old photos and you know, look up what were
Speaker 1: the old kind of you know, markets and farmer's markets
Speaker 1: that we had, and just kind of discovering those things
Speaker 1: and then telling people about what that was. And that's
Speaker 1: what led to a radical idea. Jason's attention was drawn
Speaker 1: to one of oak Cliffe's most historic buildings, the Texas Theater.
Speaker 1: The theater had been a huge deal back in the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, but it's better known nowadays for being the
Speaker 1: spot where Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested after JFK's assassination,
Speaker 1: and so it had this very infamous history. The theater
Speaker 1: had been shuttered for over ten years, but Jason had
Speaker 1: a plan to bring it back to life. Why don't
Speaker 1: I just do a big event in the theater. I
Speaker 1: want to throw a big show. He gathered a bunch
Speaker 1: of musicians and local artists, and one Friday night, his
Speaker 1: crew descended on the building, cleaned it up, and set
Speaker 1: out some easels, turning the interior into a studio space,
Speaker 1: already for a charity art auction. Before we about to
Speaker 1: open the doors, we started thinking, man, this is a
Speaker 1: horrible idea. But when we opened the doors, we had
Speaker 1: seven hundred people show up. They just kind of flooded
Speaker 1: in the building. We had people saying like, man, we
Speaker 1: were waiting for someone to open this old building, And
Speaker 1: I thought, man, I was waiting for someone to open
Speaker 1: the old building too. Jason's ragtag event raised over ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars for good causes, and it was the first
Speaker 1: step in a successful effort to revive the defunct theater. Today,
Speaker 1: it's a spot where Oak Cliff residents of all ages
Speaker 1: can meet up and hang out. It even hosts its
Speaker 1: own film festival. We went from this thing being an
Speaker 1: eyesore that nobody wanted to pay a talk about, even
Speaker 1: city was avoiding to. Now, if you go to City Hall,
Speaker 1: there's a mural of the Texas Theater in City Hall,
Speaker 1: which is amazing because we were literally told, why would
Speaker 1: we want to fix that area? Just a place where
Speaker 1: a crazy guy got arrested. The project proved to Jason
Speaker 1: that his community could come together to improve their neighborhood.
Speaker 1: It was emblematic, and it also laid the pathway for
Speaker 1: everything else I did afterwards, which follow a similar formula.
Speaker 1: Next came a bigger transformation. Jason knew that parts of
Speaker 1: Dallas did look in function more like the streets he
Speaker 1: loved in Europe, little corners with a good bookstore and
Speaker 1: a cute cafe. They weren't big. They were often like
Speaker 1: maybe a block or two, and I thought, it's interesting,
Speaker 1: you can just have this great block that people love
Speaker 1: to go to. So Jason found an abandoned block in
Speaker 1: oak Cliffe to revive a one way street with a
Speaker 1: few abandoned storefronts, and he soon discovered why it had
Speaker 1: become so neglected. His city had tons of weird zoning
Speaker 1: rules that made setting up businesses difficult. Think parking regulations
Speaker 1: or ordinances prohibiting crowds gathering or flower planting, or creating
Speaker 1: bike lanes. And the thing is that nobody knew all
Speaker 1: these rules when I started asking people about that, and
Speaker 1: nobody knows zoning, and so I said, well, to go weekend.
Speaker 1: We broke all of these rules because nobody knows these
Speaker 1: rules exist. The locals spent two days transforming the block.
Speaker 1: They painted bike lanes and open pop up cafes with
Speaker 1: outdoor seating. They added flower pots, string lights, and fun
Speaker 1: games for kids. Jason's crew had made the block so
Speaker 1: attractive that huge crowds turned up, including the mayor and
Speaker 1: city leaders, who wanted to make the transformation permanent. When
Speaker 1: Jason explained that what they'd done was technically illegal, the
Speaker 1: town's council members agreed to adjust the zoning laws to
Speaker 1: attract real business. Soon, the block had permanently transformed from
Speaker 1: yet another isore to a social anchor for Jason's entire neighborhood.
Speaker 1: It's now Jason's mission to help other communities retrofit They're
Speaker 1: not So Happy spaces. His new nonprofit, the Better Block Foundation,
Speaker 1: helps local residents to collaborate and build similar pop ups
Speaker 1: any neighborhood that wants to can receive a shipping container
Speaker 1: filled with outdoor seating, lights, kids, games, and other stuff
Speaker 1: to make their block feel more inviting. His goal is
Speaker 1: to help communities transform their outdoor spaces in ways that
Speaker 1: convince local governments to make those happiness inducing changes permanent.
Speaker 1: Fixing up one tiny part of town won't address all
Speaker 1: the things that make some places unhappier than others. Viclanes
Speaker 1: and cafe tables won't challenge wage inequalities or cut people's
Speaker 1: working hours. The small changes made in oak Cliffe certainly
Speaker 1: didn't immediately shoot Dallas onto the list of Happiness Blue Zones,
Speaker 1: but Jason still believes that small improvements are worth trying
Speaker 1: since they bring local people together to help other people
Speaker 1: on the outside of things this crazy, This will never work,
Speaker 1: and that almost inspired the neighborhood even more and me
Speaker 1: as well, because I thought, well, I don't care if
Speaker 1: I fail. I'm going to meet my neighbors, I'm going
Speaker 1: to learn some stuff, I'm going to get involved. In fact,
Speaker 1: becoming part of a community so committed to helping one
Speaker 1: another was quite literally a lifesaver for Jason. In twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: I was diagnosed with the stage three cancer, and when
Speaker 1: I was at my absolute worst and chemotherapy and can
Speaker 1: barely move, the neighbors that I had brought together to
Speaker 1: do better blocks started knocking on my door and saying like, Hey,
Speaker 1: can I take your daughter to go shopping at the
Speaker 1: mall or take your son to go fishing. Jason credits
Speaker 1: his recovery, at least in part to the social support
Speaker 1: he received from the other residents of oak Cliffe, who
Speaker 1: we got to know through his campaigning. What I got
Speaker 1: out of all of that was a neighborhood, and I
Speaker 1: think that's what I was looking for. I think that's
Speaker 1: what we're all looking for. We like to believe that
Speaker 1: we're individually in control of our own happiness, that with
Speaker 1: the right level of effort, we can work to develop
Speaker 1: better habits, and we can do this. But the science
Speaker 1: shows that being in the right environment can make those
Speaker 1: changes much much easier, and so Blue Zone discoverer Dan
Speaker 1: Butner says, if you're unhappy, it's a no brainer. Just
Speaker 1: pack your bags. If you want to get happier, don't
Speaker 1: waste your time changing your behavior, change your surroundings. But
Speaker 1: projects like Jason's show that if our spaces aren't as
Speaker 1: happiness inducing as we like, then we can change them.
Speaker 1: We can fix the environment around us so that it
Speaker 1: helps rather than hurts, our enjoyment of life. I hope
Speaker 1: these stories have given you some idea about ways you
Speaker 1: can make all your zones a little bluer, and I
Speaker 1: hope you'll come back again. For the next episode of
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab would be Doctor Laurie Sandos. The Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab is co written and produced by Ryan Dilley, Emily
Speaker 1: Ann Vaughan, and Courtney Guerino. Joseph Fridman checked our facts.
Speaker 1: Our original music was composed by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring, mixing,
Speaker 1: and mask dring by Evan Viola. Special thanks to Milabelle
Speaker 1: Heather Fame, John Schnars, Carli Migliori, Christina Sullivan, Maggie Taylor,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, Nicole Morano, Royston Preserve, Jacob Weisberg, and my agent,
Speaker 1: Ben Davis. The Happiness Lab is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries and Nate Doctor Laurie Santos. To find more
Speaker 1: Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your podcasts.