Speaker 1: Pushkin. This is our final show of twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: and it's a good opportunity for me to thank you
Speaker 1: for listening to and supporting the Happiness Lab. Your support
Speaker 1: means a lot. But you don't have to wait long
Speaker 1: until we're back. On January first, we'll be launching a
Speaker 1: new series for the new year. I'll be doubling down
Speaker 1: on the practical happiness advice. I know you all appreciate.
Speaker 1: We're making a series of how to guides to help
Speaker 1: you joyfully navigate things like relationships, stress, and the messiness
Speaker 1: of our daily lives. By the end of each show,
Speaker 1: you'll have heard at least five tips that you can
Speaker 1: put into action right away, direct from the mouths of
Speaker 1: some of the smartest well being scientists and thinkers. All
Speaker 1: that starting January first. I know you'll love it. But
Speaker 1: right now, the holiday season is here. It's supposed to
Speaker 1: be a time of joy, but way too many of
Speaker 1: us are feeling rushed, stressed, lonely, and even hopeless. What
Speaker 1: are some scientific strategies we can use to have a
Speaker 1: happier holiday season? And can we also get some happiness
Speaker 1: insights from the traditions of the past. These are the
Speaker 1: questions I had a chance to explore with my good
Speaker 1: friend Dave Distello. Dave's a psychology professor at Northeastern University.
Speaker 1: He also hosts a podcast called How God Works, an
Speaker 1: entire show devoted to looking at the wisdom we can
Speaker 1: get from ancient traditions no matter what our own beliefs are.
Speaker 1: Dave and I had a super fun chat on his
Speaker 1: show about how he can put psychological science and ancient
Speaker 1: wisdom into practice this holiday season to feel happier and
Speaker 1: less stressed. So I decided to share that episode with
Speaker 1: you today. It's my holiday gift to you. I hope
Speaker 1: you enjoy it.
Speaker 2: You know that turn of phrase, the dead of winter,
Speaker 2: Well there's a good reason for it. In the northern climes.
Speaker 2: This is the season of death, dark, and dormancy. All
Speaker 2: the color and bounty of the fall harvest is gone.
Speaker 2: Even the sun is disappearing earlier and earlier, and the shorter,
Speaker 2: colder days we're facing lead to a drop in serotonin
Speaker 2: levels and changes to our circadian rhythms. The result feelings
Speaker 2: of stress, gloominess, anxiety, and isolation for many people. And
Speaker 2: as much as we might like to hibernate and sleep,
Speaker 2: away these dark cold months. For us humans, life goes on,
Speaker 2: which is one reason why many northern cultures have come
Speaker 2: up with some of the most festive, cozy, and celebratory
Speaker 2: winter holidays to help get us through. From lighting candles
Speaker 2: to reciting communal prayers and songs, to giving gifts and
Speaker 2: aid to others. Many of these traditions are rooted in religion,
Speaker 2: but there's also reason to believe that these traditions can
Speaker 2: bring comfort and happiness regardless of faith, if you do
Speaker 2: them right. By that, I don't mean reciting the prayer
Speaker 2: correctly or lighting the candles just so, but rather by
Speaker 2: focusing on the heart of the traditions and advice they give,
Speaker 2: which is why I'm so thrilled to have my friend,
Speaker 2: podcast hosts and happiness expert Lori Santos joined me today
Speaker 2: to talk about how and why these time honored holiday
Speaker 2: traditions work on our brains and bodies. And for those
Speaker 2: of us who find the traditions themselves the source of
Speaker 2: worry and stress, we'll find ways to reconnect with the
Speaker 2: good stuff to make this holiday season a brighter, happier
Speaker 2: one for all of us. Hi, Laurie, thanks for coming
Speaker 2: on the show again. Thanks for having me back, and
Speaker 2: happy holidays.
Speaker 1: Happy holidays, Dave, Did you not I don't actually like
Speaker 1: I'm not that into the holidays? Did you know that? One? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I did.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you because actually you and
Speaker 2: I have been friends for a while, but I didn't
Speaker 2: think I ever asked you for you doing Christmas as
Speaker 2: a child something else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I grew up with Christmas a little bit Thanksgiving,
Speaker 1: although that wasn't really a big holiday. But my favorite
Speaker 1: one was Halloween. So I'm really into Halloween. You know,
Speaker 1: the costumes, the candy, all the spooky stuff. And when
Speaker 1: November first comes around, I have to work really hard
Speaker 1: to not wind up in a deep depression because, like,
Speaker 1: my favorite holiday is done. When they take off all
Speaker 1: the Halloween stuff and they move the candy out and
Speaker 1: they put the Christmas lights in and the decorations, it's
Speaker 1: a little period of morning for me.
Speaker 2: Well, I think you're not that alone. I mean, the
Speaker 2: surveys show that for a lot of people this time
Speaker 2: of year, even though many say they're looking forward to
Speaker 2: the holiday, is they're also feeling a good bit of stress, sadness, fatigue,
Speaker 2: and even loneliness. So given that you are in some
Speaker 2: ways one of those people. What do you think leads
Speaker 2: to that what makes this time so hard?
Speaker 1: I think part of it is our expectations. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're literally songs jingling on the radio claiming it's the
Speaker 1: most wonderful time of the year. So if you're thinking like,
Speaker 1: this is the kind of time of year when I
Speaker 1: feel little bit lonely, or this is a time of
Speaker 1: year when I feel super whelm because there's just like
Speaker 1: a lot on my plate, you can start to feel
Speaker 1: like you're doing it wrong, there's something wrong with you.
Speaker 1: And so I think that this expectation that it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be the most wonderful can lead us astray. I mean,
Speaker 1: as you know from so much work in behavioral science,
Speaker 1: it's really not the objective way that a situation plays out.
Speaker 1: It's really our expectation that affects how we think about it.
Speaker 1: So if our expectations are really high, even a reasonably good,
Speaker 1: just fine holiday, it can make us feel kind of crappy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like we're not doing it right. But I recently
Speaker 2: saw a study that piqued my interest, and it was
Speaker 2: looking at people during the holiday season, and what it
Speaker 2: showed is that people who celebrated in the more traditional
Speaker 2: way actually ended up having more positive emotions, higher satisfaction
Speaker 2: with their lives, in greater well being. And so that
Speaker 2: led me to the question of why, what parts of
Speaker 2: these traditions boost happiness and what can we learn from that,
Speaker 2: whatever our beliefs might be. And that my friend is
Speaker 2: where you kind of in.
Speaker 1: Its not my deep patriot of the holiday season. It's
Speaker 1: my deep knowledge or real science.
Speaker 2: And yeah, yes, yes, but sometimes coming from a place
Speaker 2: where it wasn't working and learning how to put it
Speaker 2: into practice along with that science is really important because
Speaker 2: as we all know, having the goal is important, but
Speaker 2: understanding how to actually make it a practice and not
Speaker 2: just a goal is what really matters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is actually something that I've been putting
Speaker 1: into effect in my own life. Given that I don't
Speaker 1: like the holidays, what can I do to make them
Speaker 1: a little bit happier? Find my own rituals and so on.
Speaker 2: Let me start with one thing that often I think
Speaker 2: gets in my way in the holidays, all the rushing
Speaker 2: that we do. No, it almost feels like a frenzy
Speaker 2: to prepare. It's like shop, cook, write cards, and then
Speaker 2: wrap and shop some more. And even though I know
Speaker 2: I'm supposed to be enjoying the season, I'm not really
Speaker 2: doing it. As I go along, I keep saying, when
Speaker 2: this is done, I will have time to be happy.
Speaker 2: When this is done, I'll be happy, And then it's
Speaker 2: like the day after Christmas, and I'm like, where did
Speaker 2: it all go? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's lots of studies on this,
Speaker 1: just broadly in the field of happiness science. This bias
Speaker 1: that researchers called the arrival fallacy. It's kind of like,
Speaker 1: I'll be happy when, right, I'll be happy when I
Speaker 1: just get through all the shopping and we can get
Speaker 1: to the actual day where we open the Presence, Or
Speaker 1: I'll be happy when New Year's rolls around and I'm
Speaker 1: through all the work parties. Right, We're kind of constantly
Speaker 1: sort of fast forwarding like this moment where we can
Speaker 1: take a breath and stick around and safer and notice
Speaker 1: all the good stuff. And of course, as you might imagine,
Speaker 1: that arrival fallacy messes us up for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 1: One is that we're not enjoying the journey as we
Speaker 1: go through. So these moments that could be kind of
Speaker 1: fun when you're shopping and hearing the cool music and
Speaker 1: seeing people and enjoying the bustle. There's a kind of
Speaker 1: really richness to that that we could get into. We're
Speaker 1: not doing that because we're just like fast forward until
Speaker 1: we get that done and go on to the next thing.
Speaker 1: And so it means that we're missing these moments of
Speaker 1: joy along the way that we're not paying attention to.
Speaker 1: But the second reason that falling prey to this arrival
Speaker 1: fallacy is so bad is that we tend to get
Speaker 1: these predictions wrong. Christmas morning, with my family sitting under
Speaker 1: the tree, we think when I get there, I'll be
Speaker 1: so happy, But we're forecasting that that's going to feel
Speaker 1: really awesome, and in fact it's going to have its
Speaker 1: problems too, Right, maybe it's kind of cold out, or
Speaker 1: I didn't get the gift. I like, very few people
Speaker 1: have the privilege of having a holiday that goes swimmingly
Speaker 1: across all those expectations. It's going to actually have its
Speaker 1: like little bumps, and so inevitably we wind up kind
Speaker 1: of fast forwarding to this time that we're forecasting is
Speaker 1: going to be super perfect but might not be as
Speaker 1: perfect as we think, And then we wind up having
Speaker 1: missed out on the stuff we should have been enjoying
Speaker 1: along the way.
Speaker 2: But when I was a kid, and I see this
Speaker 2: in lots of young kids, it's what's the next present?
Speaker 2: And I open it and I look at it and
Speaker 2: I'm like thanks, and I throw it to the side,
Speaker 2: and then what's the next present? Do you have any
Speaker 2: advice for getting really excited kids to savor during the holidays?
Speaker 1: Well, in some ways, you're like asking the wrong person,
Speaker 1: because when I was a kid, and even in my
Speaker 1: family now, you get the presence and everybody just like
Speaker 1: rips them open like you're in your own little me,
Speaker 1: me me world. And when I first went to the
Speaker 1: holidays at my in law's family, which you go to
Speaker 1: my husband Mark in Iowa, they had this tradition that
Speaker 1: was so incredibly foreign to me where they waited and
Speaker 1: went around the room and everybody opened one present at
Speaker 1: a time. And it was so funny to me how
Speaker 1: like I was like ready to rip in and he
Speaker 1: was kind of looking at you, like, Laurie, like Mom's
Speaker 1: opening your present, just wait, and I'm like oh, And
Speaker 1: it winds up being a very long procedure, which kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, was really hard for my normal temporal discounting
Speaker 1: where I kind of wanted to open my presence right away,
Speaker 1: but they turn it into like a really day long
Speaker 1: event and we kind of open present, so we talk
Speaker 1: about each present and we go through. But for kids,
Speaker 1: I think you need to get creative about the rituals
Speaker 1: of this right and so that can be having something
Speaker 1: that happens in between every present. Maybe people have to
Speaker 1: comment on presents, you have to say one thing you're
Speaker 1: grateful for in between every present, or you know, you
Speaker 1: need to share a delight that you have at the
Speaker 1: end of the day throughout the holiday season, and sometimes
Speaker 1: you'll find that even when you're struggling to figure this
Speaker 1: stuff out, if you give them a new tradition, especially
Speaker 1: little kids, they sometimes really get into it. And for
Speaker 1: many parents, I think seeing the holiday season through the
Speaker 1: eyes of a kid, if you can help that kid
Speaker 1: articulate the things that they're savoring, that can be so
Speaker 1: good for your own positive emotion.
Speaker 2: But that's a really important point that I didn't think of,
Speaker 2: because if you do it that way, and if you
Speaker 2: reflect on it that way, that's the opportunity for the
Speaker 2: savoring and for the gratitude.
Speaker 1: Exactly and so I think whatever you can do to
Speaker 1: sort of extend it out can be really powerful.
Speaker 2: It's interesting because when I look at many of the
Speaker 2: traditional celebrations, they were usually multi day. In the Christian tradition,
Speaker 2: there's Advent, you know, four weeks before when people come together,
Speaker 2: do crafts together, pray together, eat together. And Hanukkah there
Speaker 2: are eight days of families coming together, and Mule it's twelve.
Speaker 2: I think they just give you more opportunities to savor.
Speaker 2: And right now in the US, at least, we've kind
Speaker 2: of made Christmas one day and it's the be all
Speaker 2: and the end, all right, So if we're trying to
Speaker 2: think this season about how to take more time to
Speaker 2: save her, to not fall prey to the arrival fallacy,
Speaker 2: what should we do?
Speaker 1: So one of my favorite suggestions, which I actually learned
Speaker 1: from Liz Dunn, she's a professor at the University of
Speaker 1: British Columbia. She actually suggested harnessing our pro social emotions
Speaker 1: to save her more. One of the things she suggests
Speaker 1: is to give your savoring as a gift to someone.
Speaker 1: So what does she mean, Let's say it's a holiday event.
Speaker 1: I'm making genderbread houses with my niece and it's messy.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling a little frustrated. But if I was thinking
Speaker 1: pro socially about what I would want to give my niece,
Speaker 1: I would say, let me try to be fully present
Speaker 1: and have a really good time. This is going to
Speaker 1: turn into a fun memory that she's going to look
Speaker 1: back at later. Right. In some ways, I'm not savoring
Speaker 1: for me because it's going to help my journey in
Speaker 1: the holiday season, I'm savoring for my niece, or you know,
Speaker 1: a different holiday version. Sometimes family tensions can come off,
Speaker 1: but it's like, you know what, I'm going to engage
Speaker 1: in this holiday event with no tension. I'm just going
Speaker 1: to shut all that off so that we can have
Speaker 1: a good time. And that's the gift to my mom.
Speaker 1: Even when savoring is hard for us, if we're setting
Speaker 1: this up as a gift for somebody else, help.
Speaker 2: What that suggests in some ways is that presence is
Speaker 2: a shared experience. And what we're learning more and more
Speaker 2: from behavioral science is that experiences in some ways matter
Speaker 2: more than material goods for happiness. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, And I think this is something we
Speaker 1: can really get wrong, especially in the holiday season. We
Speaker 1: get obsessed with kind of giving a particular thing. But
Speaker 1: what we know from a lot of the behavioral science
Speaker 1: and happiness field, does material possessions just don't really increase
Speaker 1: our happiness as much as we think, or definitely for
Speaker 1: as long as we think, we'd be much better thinking
Speaker 1: about gifts of experiences, whether that's something we literally give somebody,
Speaker 1: you know, give somebody a gift card for going to
Speaker 1: a cool new restaurant, or a gift hard to take
Speaker 1: a course online, but it can also be the experiences
Speaker 1: we give people during the holiday season when we're present
Speaker 1: with them. One of the cool things about the holiday
Speaker 1: season that we forget is it's one of the few
Speaker 1: times of year that we kind of all are in
Speaker 1: the same groove. People have time off for the major
Speaker 1: holidays and New Years and so on. It's a time
Speaker 1: that we can kind of like connect together even though
Speaker 1: we're all busy, like we're all sort of going through
Speaker 1: it together. And so I think it's really a time
Speaker 1: where we can harness social connection to feel a little
Speaker 1: bit healthier.
Speaker 2: But I want to get back to the gifts because
Speaker 2: in some ways that is such a big part of
Speaker 2: the holiday season. You know, you and I can talk
Speaker 2: about this and people can say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: where's my present? For many people, as you said, this
Speaker 2: can seem like one of the most stressful parts of
Speaker 2: the holidays. I've got to get this from my kids,
Speaker 2: I've got to get this from my coworkers, my great
Speaker 2: aunt Jenny, she hates everything. What am I going to get?
Speaker 2: Hur But in reality, you know, I think the reason
Speaker 2: many of these traditions remind us to give gifts isn't
Speaker 2: just to make other people happy, but to let us
Speaker 2: realize that the act of giving itself brings us joy
Speaker 2: and happiness. So what does the science of happiness tell
Speaker 2: us about giving to other people, whether it's spending money
Speaker 2: on them or giving them our time.
Speaker 1: Well, the evidence here is super clear, which is that
Speaker 1: doing for others is one of the fastest ways to
Speaker 1: make ourselves happy. And I think this is something our
Speaker 1: culture gets wrong a lot. It shifts a little bit
Speaker 1: in the holiday season where it's the sort of season
Speaker 1: of giving, but even in the season of giving, and
Speaker 1: definitely for the rest of the year, it feels like
Speaker 1: we're not in the season of giving, We're in the
Speaker 1: season of self care or treating ourselves right.
Speaker 3: Treat yourself in a time that you gave yourself to
Speaker 3: break your head, trade yourself.
Speaker 1: I mean even in the holiday season, you can look
Speaker 1: to these sort of self help books, which is like
Speaker 1: how to get self care during the season of giving right,
Speaker 1: it's all about us. So controlled for the amount of
Speaker 1: income people have, people who donate more money to charity
Speaker 1: or happier than those that tend to not do need
Speaker 1: as much money to charity. Controlled for the amount of
Speaker 1: free time people have, people who volunteer their time to
Speaker 1: support others wind up being happier than those that keep
Speaker 1: their time to themselves. And in studies where you force
Speaker 1: people to do nice stuff for others, you wind up
Speaker 1: finding that even forcing somebody to do nice things for
Speaker 1: others makes them feel happier. One of my favorite of
Speaker 1: these studies is based on some of the work of
Speaker 1: Liz done She and Lara Acknin. They just walk up
Speaker 1: to people on the street and hand them twenty bucks. Here,
Speaker 1: I want you to spend this twenty bucks to do
Speaker 1: something nice to treat yourself, that's one condition. Or here
Speaker 1: I want you to spend these twenty bucks to do
Speaker 1: something nice for somebody else. You could donate this money
Speaker 1: to charity, you could buy something nice for a friend.
Speaker 1: And what Liz finds is at the end of the
Speaker 1: day and even later on when she surveys people, people
Speaker 1: who spend the money on others are happier. Now, this
Speaker 1: is an effect that really violates our intuitions. I think generally,
Speaker 1: anything we can do that has a positive effect on
Speaker 1: other people winds up increasing both their happiness and our
Speaker 1: happiness more than we expect. Nick Epley, who's a professor
Speaker 1: at the University of Chicago, has this great term for this.
Speaker 1: He calls it under sociality or alternatively, he sometimes calls
Speaker 1: it the pro sociality paradox. We kind of know that
Speaker 1: doing nice stuff for others is going to be good,
Speaker 1: but we completely underestimate how good it's going to feel
Speaker 1: both for the other person. Nick has at least all
Speaker 1: this evidence showing that, like if you predict, say how
Speaker 1: good a compliment will feel to a stranger on the street,
Speaker 1: or kind of you know, giving a like little gift
Speaker 1: of coffee if you're the coffee shop buying the coffee,
Speaker 1: you know, for the person behind you, we predict it's
Speaker 1: gonna be good, but we consistently super underestimate how good
Speaker 1: both for the other person but also for us. And
Speaker 1: those biases are really problematic because if you think about
Speaker 1: when do we make these decisions to do nice things
Speaker 1: for other people, it's usually because we have a prediction
Speaker 1: about them, right. You know, my brain has this little
Speaker 1: mental calculator that's assessing, like, well, should I buy the
Speaker 1: latte for myself or should I give the latte to
Speaker 1: the person behind me? And if you're predicting like well,
Speaker 1: for myself, it's going to feel great, You're usually going
Speaker 1: to act on the basis of that false prediction. And
Speaker 1: that's why I think these religious traditions can be so
Speaker 1: helpful because they force to develop habits of doing that.
Speaker 1: You know, you just kind of build in charity etched
Speaker 1: into the belief system that you're working with, or they
Speaker 1: allow us to form habits where we get some experience
Speaker 1: with this, right, so we get practiced with it over time.
Speaker 1: I mean, we can learn like, well, even though my
Speaker 1: intuition says this, you know, last time I donated the
Speaker 1: money to charity when I had a little extra and
Speaker 1: I was feeling bad, it felt kind of nice. So
Speaker 1: maybe I should do that again. And so I think
Speaker 1: it's helpful to have these structures to help us.
Speaker 2: One thing that I learn is that the fifth night
Speaker 2: of Hanukkah is focused on giving to others outside of
Speaker 2: the family. And actually children are encouraged to give gifts too,
Speaker 2: So it's not only that they're receiving, but whether they're
Speaker 2: given money or they buy toys, they're encouraged to basically
Speaker 2: give it to other people, other children and buy that
Speaker 2: act they're basically less done study in some way exactly
Speaker 2: and learning that. And again, right, here's where I think
Speaker 2: we see some of the wisdom of these spiritual traditions
Speaker 2: and these holidays that are all about giving. I think
Speaker 2: part of it is sometimes you have to actually have
Speaker 2: the experience to realize that that all the data we're
Speaker 2: talking about actually is true and means something to you.
Speaker 2: But it's not just money, right, it's giving of yourself, time, care,
Speaker 2: reaching out, whatever it might be. Is it true that
Speaker 2: engaging in service to others outside of the giving of
Speaker 2: money has the same effect for sure?
Speaker 1: And I think when you see the phrase service to others,
Speaker 1: it almost feels like, well, I got to pack my
Speaker 1: bags and go to the soup kitchen for like ten hour.
Speaker 1: You know, no a service to others can look like
Speaker 1: texting a friend you haven't talked to in a while
Speaker 1: and just saying, hey, thinking of you. It can be
Speaker 1: giving a compliment to someone on the street. It can
Speaker 1: be expressing gratitude to someone in your workplace who did
Speaker 1: something really great. It can even be, and I think
Speaker 1: this is super important to remember in the holiday season,
Speaker 1: it can even be asking for help, because the act
Speaker 1: of asking for help often let somebody do something nice
Speaker 1: for you. One of my favorite examples of this is
Speaker 1: think to the last time you're walking around and someone
Speaker 1: asked you for directions, especially directions to somewhere you knew.
Speaker 1: How did you feel about that. You're like, yes, I
Speaker 1: get to do this nice thing. I get to show
Speaker 1: my knowledge, like I'm helping this person. Like you got
Speaker 1: asked for something, but you felt great. And that's typically true.
Speaker 1: When people ask us for stuff, especially stuff that's pretty
Speaker 1: easy for us to do, it winds up making us
Speaker 1: feel really good. And so during the holiday season, when
Speaker 1: you're feeling overwhelmed, think about the possibility of, like asking
Speaker 1: a family member for help. It's such a simple action,
Speaker 1: but it makes other people feel competent and gives them
Speaker 1: the benefit of helping you, and then everybody kind of
Speaker 1: winds up feeling happier. It kind of boosts the overall
Speaker 1: pie of good cheer in the holiday season in ways
Speaker 1: we don't anticipate.
Speaker 2: As Laurie said, every active giving doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: a major project. In fact, when time is short, like
Speaker 2: it often is at the holidays, finding simpler ways to
Speaker 2: help others might be what makes those good deeds not
Speaker 2: just more possible, but also more enjoyable. And that idea
Speaker 2: of scaling down, of not being the person who's got
Speaker 2: everything together and does everything perfectly can apply in other
Speaker 2: ways too.
Speaker 1: We recently just talked to the writer Oliver Berkman for
Speaker 1: my podcast, who has a really great new book on
Speaker 1: the idea of imperfectionism, where what would it look like
Speaker 1: to kind of do things a little bit less good
Speaker 1: in ways that allow you to not feel so overwhelmed
Speaker 1: so you can be present and happy during the season.
Speaker 1: And he had this notion that I loved of scruffy hospitality,
Speaker 1: where the ideas like if you go to the holiday
Speaker 1: party and the cookies really done yet, and like everything's
Speaker 1: kind of a little bit of a mess, and the
Speaker 1: host is like, hey, can you kind of help frost
Speaker 1: those little sugar cookies because I need some help. You
Speaker 1: feel like you're seeing a vulnerable side of the people
Speaker 1: you're interacting with, and you are comfortable. But you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you go to that holiday dinner party and it's
Speaker 1: like perfect, It's got the kindles and everything set up,
Speaker 1: and how do you interact if you're a guest there,
Speaker 1: you kind of feel a little maybe on edge or
Speaker 1: should I hit my shoes off? Like I put my
Speaker 1: napkin in the right spot. If you go with the
Speaker 1: scruffy version, you personally don't feel as overwhelmed when you're
Speaker 1: running your own dinner parties and so on.
Speaker 2: You are absolutely I've had this experience with people I know,
Speaker 2: and I've gone to these parties and not eve only
Speaker 2: have I felt like, Okay, which fork do I use?
Speaker 2: But I also feel like, oh my god, I can
Speaker 2: never have them to my house. I can't reciprocate me
Speaker 2: because I'll never be able to pull this off.
Speaker 1: And I you know, and one of the things we
Speaker 1: know from the work from the research is that you know,
Speaker 1: social connection is such a huge part of our happiness,
Speaker 1: but I think some of us shy away from social connection.
Speaker 1: Especially during the holiday season where we feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe I don't have enough money for presents, or I
Speaker 1: don't have you know, the time or the bandwidth to
Speaker 1: decorate my house. We can get kind of messed up
Speaker 1: about how much we have to do, and so I
Speaker 1: think resetting those perfectionist expectations, giving yourself permission to do
Speaker 1: it eighty five percent, eighty nine percent, just that permission
Speaker 1: can be really powerful.
Speaker 2: This brings up the second point I wanted to talk
Speaker 2: about about gift giving and getting. It's sometimes I get
Speaker 2: a gift and I'm like, oh God, now I got
Speaker 2: to get this person something, and I'm not proud of
Speaker 2: that response, but it feels like an indebtedness, right. I'm
Speaker 2: not feeling gratitude for it. I'm feeling like it's another responsibility.
Speaker 2: And so the question that I have is how do
Speaker 2: we cultivate more of a sense of gratitude and not like,
Speaker 2: oh great, now I owe you something at the holiday season.
Speaker 1: It's interesting gratitude. It's a complicated, positive emotion, right, because
Speaker 1: it makes me feel good that someone thought about me,
Speaker 1: But it does have this kind of sense of indebtedness,
Speaker 1: like I kind of want to give back and that
Speaker 1: kind of motivation. And this is kind of the getting
Speaker 1: to the pro social emotions that you've talked about. In
Speaker 1: the kind of ways that gratitude motivates us to be
Speaker 1: good people. It can be the little juice we need
Speaker 1: to do that nice, good act to somebody else, which
Speaker 1: winds up making us feel better. Right, And so one
Speaker 1: of my favorite strategies for this is to commit to
Speaker 1: being a good gift receiver. Sometimes we think that the
Speaker 1: way to be a good gift receiver is to like
Speaker 1: give materially the same kind of financial transaction back, right,
Speaker 1: you know, if you get the socks, is like, well,
Speaker 1: I have to get something equivalent for the socks to,
Speaker 1: you know, Aunt Joline, who I didn't think was going
Speaker 1: to get me anything. A different way we can be
Speaker 1: a good gift receiver is to really verbally and clearly
Speaker 1: express our gratitude about the gift. And I think best
Speaker 1: expressions of gratitude are ones that are specific. So, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, I really like these socks. They are a
Speaker 1: particular color that goes with my suit. I can see
Speaker 1: myself wearing them, So you're kind of simulating the specifics
Speaker 1: of why that thing is really helpful. For you. But
Speaker 1: even better way to be a good gift receiver is
Speaker 1: to thank people not just at the moment where you
Speaker 1: rip the present open, but when you're actually using them later.
Speaker 1: So I've committed to trying to do this with gifts
Speaker 1: that I've got. Like I have this wonderful Dutch oven
Speaker 1: that my dad and my stepmom gave me at this
Speaker 1: point many years ago. But Dutch ovens, you know, live on,
Speaker 1: and there's moments when I, like, you know, I'm just
Speaker 1: making some cast role or something, and I think this
Speaker 1: is so cool that they gave me this gift, and
Speaker 1: I'll just like a quick text of like I was
Speaker 1: still using your Dutch ovens still around, I'm still enjoying it.
Speaker 1: Another great thing gratitude can do is it can get
Speaker 1: rid of what's called hetonic adaptation, which is like you
Speaker 1: just kind of get used to stuff that it's good
Speaker 1: stuff in your life, but you kind of stop noticing
Speaker 1: that it was really awesome. Tage my Dutch oven, for example,
Speaker 1: right when I'm thinking about, man, I'm so grateful that
Speaker 1: my dad got me this thing. It makes the Dutch
Speaker 1: oven kind of feel a little bit more exciting when
Speaker 1: it could have just been this pot, you know. And
Speaker 1: again it's just a boost for all of us and
Speaker 1: a boost to the relatedness relationship, right, because that's what
Speaker 1: the gifts are really about. It's not like well, financial
Speaker 1: transaction and now I'm in dead and know the goal
Speaker 1: is to create more of a connection, and ideally one
Speaker 1: that lives, you know, past December twenty sixth too.
Speaker 2: And I think one thing that we learn from the
Speaker 2: spiritual traditions is when they talk about gratitude, it's not
Speaker 2: so much focused on the object, it's focused on the
Speaker 2: effort and the cost to the person to do it.
Speaker 2: Maybe they knit in be a hat, and maybe it's
Speaker 2: a hideous hat, but they put their heart and soul
Speaker 2: into that thing, right, And in some ways that means
Speaker 2: more to me than a beautiful hat that somebody got
Speaker 2: me at Macy's on their way out of the store
Speaker 2: as an extra, you know, gift topper. And so I
Speaker 2: totally agree that we need to thank them for it
Speaker 2: and keep those relationships going. I think, you know, part
Speaker 2: of what we need to do more is to appreciate
Speaker 2: the intention behind the gift.
Speaker 1: And I think it can help if you try to
Speaker 1: think about that intention in terms of their relatedness, right,
Speaker 1: you know the hat that wasn't it, or maybe you
Speaker 1: don't love the hat, you're not going to use the
Speaker 1: hat like you can think back to like Derek moments
Speaker 1: where you know that cousin was sitting there, you know,
Speaker 1: knitting this wonderful thing for you, thinking about you enjoying it.
Speaker 2: I often talk about gratitude related to how it makes
Speaker 2: us more virtuous people, more generous people. But what does
Speaker 2: it do just for our health and happiness?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it has so many positive effects that
Speaker 1: are like kind of striking when you read the literature.
Speaker 1: So individuals who are generally just you know, personality wise,
Speaker 1: a little bit more grateful wind up sleeping better. There's
Speaker 1: evidence from folks like Bob Emmon's lab that it can
Speaker 1: reduce things like inflammation. How does gratitude reduce something like inflammation?
Speaker 1: When you're more grateful, you're more future oriented, you need
Speaker 1: a little bit healthier, you go to the gym a
Speaker 1: little bit more. That by itself is going to reduce inflammation.
Speaker 1: So has this cascade of tiny positive effects both physically
Speaker 1: and I think mentally that allow us to engage in
Speaker 1: the right behaviors and motivations that wind up making us
Speaker 1: healthier and happier over time.
Speaker 2: So if for celebrating traditionally we're doing gratitude prayers during
Speaker 2: Advent and Christmas, during the eight days of Hanukkah, if
Speaker 2: we're kind of celebrating in a secular way, what are
Speaker 2: the ways that you encourage people to cultivate gratitude.
Speaker 1: There's lots of secular gratitude practice does at work pretty well.
Speaker 1: The simple act of writing in a gratitude journal every
Speaker 1: day you know three to five things you're grateful for
Speaker 1: that can wind up making you feel happier. If that
Speaker 1: feels a little bit onerous, one of my favorite alternative
Speaker 1: versions of that practice is something I've done with Catherine Price,
Speaker 1: who's a journalist. She actually talks about developing a delight
Speaker 1: practice where if you just see something delightful in the world,
Speaker 1: you just text each other I saw this ridiculous thing.
Speaker 1: Delight you know. The normal bias we have is a
Speaker 1: negativity bias right where we're out seeking the tough stuff,
Speaker 1: and I think in a holiday season where our expectations
Speaker 1: are I that negativity bias can be on like you know,
Speaker 1: high alert. But a gratitude practice or a delight practice
Speaker 1: trains your attention to find the delightful things, and like religions,
Speaker 1: it's ideal if you do it with somebody else. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons religious traditions work so well is most
Speaker 1: religious traditions aren't you know, you and your house all
Speaker 1: by yourself, you know, engaging in something. It's doing something
Speaker 1: with other people. Like if you're doing a delight practice
Speaker 1: with other people, you got to find the delights because
Speaker 1: you know they're going to take you three times with
Speaker 1: delights and you're gonna feel like, oh man, gotta find something.
Speaker 1: But then your attention is out there looking for the
Speaker 1: good things in the world, looking for the nice stuff.
Speaker 2: And I think back about the holidays that I did
Speaker 2: throughout my life. Some of the ones that seemed most
Speaker 2: rich and brought me the most joy involved doing the
Speaker 2: traditional things for Christmas, and one of those was going
Speaker 2: to Mass Christmas services. I was raised Catholic, I was
Speaker 2: an ultra boy. I have none of those things now.
Speaker 2: I'm a good old agnostic scientist, but I still like
Speaker 2: going to those services with the majesty and the music.
Speaker 2: And this got me thinking about your friend and mine.
Speaker 2: Dak Or Keltner's work on awe, And it seems like
Speaker 2: during these holidays, there are these times when you can
Speaker 2: experience awe the art, the music, the beauty, even lighting
Speaker 2: your first Christmas tree at home with your family. And
Speaker 2: so what do we know about how those experiences of
Speaker 2: awe affect happiness?
Speaker 1: Research shows that experiencing awe winds up having these very
Speaker 1: important positive consequences. One of them is that it winds
Speaker 1: up making us feel more socially connected. This is some
Speaker 1: of my favorite of dak Or Keltner, who you mentioned work,
Speaker 1: where he does these studies where he puts people in
Speaker 1: a really awe inspiring situation. He doesn't use the Christmas
Speaker 1: trees or the holidays. He brings people to these kind
Speaker 1: of places like Yellowstone and where you can kind of
Speaker 1: experience this sort of awe and nature. And he says, hey,
Speaker 1: you look at this little map of you and your
Speaker 1: community and show me how much overlap there is. Is
Speaker 1: there kind of a lot of overlap or less overlap.
Speaker 1: And what he finds is that people self report experiencing
Speaker 1: a lot of overlap with their community, right, which is
Speaker 1: kind of striking because they're again, they're not in front
Speaker 1: of a Christmas tree with their family. They're looking out
Speaker 1: at this vast landscape with nobody in it. They're feeling
Speaker 1: really socially connected. And I think that's what aw does
Speaker 1: in the holiday season too, right. One that Daker talks
Speaker 1: about a lot is the sort of awe that we
Speaker 1: get from moral actions. I think the holiday season is
Speaker 1: one of the only times of the new cycle where
Speaker 1: we can see people doing really wonderful good things in
Speaker 1: the world. It's also a moment where we get off
Speaker 1: from collective effervescence. You know, why does the music at
Speaker 1: a church resonate with you if you don't believe any
Speaker 1: of that stuff. It's because we're all kind of saying
Speaker 1: it together. When you're in the middle of a Hallelujah chorus,
Speaker 1: you know, you could be the biggest atheist in the world,
Speaker 1: but something's pumping through your brain that's making you feel
Speaker 1: really socially connected.
Speaker 2: The holidays are supposed to be a time for rest
Speaker 2: and renewal, too, right. If we're going to be happy,
Speaker 2: we need that downtime, that time to disconnect. And so
Speaker 2: whether it's prayer or simple contemplation, these holidays build those
Speaker 2: moments in And it's interesting because it's often around the
Speaker 2: idea of candles and candle flames right, which is an
Speaker 2: ancient technique for focusing the mind. So Christians focus on
Speaker 2: candles that they light in the Advent wreath. Many Jewish
Speaker 2: folks often focus on the candles and the menora. There's
Speaker 2: even some Jewish traditions that emphasize focusing on the candles
Speaker 2: of the manora as a way to meditate. And even
Speaker 2: in the old celebration of Pagan Yule around the Solstice,
Speaker 2: there was this idea of the Yule log. And I
Speaker 2: don't know if you had this, because I grew up
Speaker 2: in New York and New York there's something called the
Speaker 2: Yulog TV show.
Speaker 3: This Christmas Eve when all the wonderful old traditions of
Speaker 3: this special night, as so much in our hearts. WPIX
Speaker 3: Television and one o two WPIX.
Speaker 2: Channel eleven in New York on Christmas Eve would all
Speaker 2: night show a picture of a log and a fire
Speaker 2: and for those of us who didn't have fireplaces that
Speaker 2: are we would sit there and we would look at it,
Speaker 2: and it was soothing and it would lead to contemplation.
Speaker 3: We empt at all regular programming and commercial to bring
Speaker 3: you the warmth, good cheer, and friendliness of a u
Speaker 3: log fire accompanied by the most beautiful and familiar Christmas gals.
Speaker 1: I'm laughing at you, But actually, when I first moved
Speaker 1: into the house that my husband and I lived in
Speaker 1: New Haven, we bought the house because it had this
Speaker 1: nice fireplace. But it turns out we didn't look into
Speaker 1: the fireplace, and it turns out it's bricked off at
Speaker 1: the top. It's just like a fake fireplace. And so
Speaker 1: I actually bought like a little DVD of flaming fireplace
Speaker 1: that you ali. I didn't know this was like an
Speaker 1: old school thing. I thought it was DVD technology, but no.
Speaker 1: But the reason we like looking at it is that
Speaker 1: you get back from that you know, trafficky moment of
Speaker 1: shopping and so on, and you look at the flame
Speaker 1: and your breath kind of entrains to it. And working
Speaker 1: on their breath is a really powerful way to hack
Speaker 1: the relaxation system that we experience. You know, a lot
Speaker 1: of the holiday season activates what's called our fighter flight,
Speaker 1: our sympathetic nervous system, which is we're kind of on
Speaker 1: high alert. We're incredibly vigilant, our hearts beating fester. What
Speaker 1: we really want to do is to activate the kind
Speaker 1: of sister system to our fighter flight, which is what's
Speaker 1: called the rest are est or the parasympathetic nervous system.
Speaker 1: And when you look at a flame and you're just
Speaker 1: kind of watching it over time, your breath kind of
Speaker 1: entrains to the slow movement of the flame. So I
Speaker 1: think the fire is a really great way to do that,
Speaker 1: and maybe one of the best ways to do it,
Speaker 1: you know, in the holiday season. Plus, it's light when
Speaker 1: you're on your intro. You talked about this is the
Speaker 1: time that's dark and our serotonin's going down, and so
Speaker 1: something that gives us light in a way that also
Speaker 1: entrains our breath and gets us kind of a little
Speaker 1: bit meditative. It's a super great practice, especially for secular folks.
Speaker 2: And you know, speaking of secular folks, it's true that
Speaker 2: a lot of people celebrate holidays like Christmas, even if
Speaker 2: they aren't very religious. It's more about Santa than the
Speaker 2: birth of Jesus, right, But there's probably still ways they
Speaker 2: can practice elements of the holidays to find that joy
Speaker 2: connection and all the other good things we're talking about.
Speaker 2: But that makes me wonder, is there a way that
Speaker 2: we can create our own rituals and traditions, ones that
Speaker 2: don't have anything to do with the existing holidays, but
Speaker 2: still allow us to celebrate them in a way that
Speaker 2: feels meaningful.
Speaker 1: This is the time when you can kind of create
Speaker 1: these traditions and you'll be surprised at how many of
Speaker 1: them kind of stick. My mom has one, and she
Speaker 1: was very close to her godmother, who has now passed
Speaker 1: a long time ago, and her godmother really enjoyed lobster.
Speaker 1: It was her favorite thing. And so my mom, kind
Speaker 1: of in honor of my godmother for the holidays, will
Speaker 1: purchase a live lobster. My mom doesn't eat shellfish though,
Speaker 1: so she doesn't like to eat the lobster. What she
Speaker 1: does is she takes this live lobster to the beach
Speaker 1: and she sort of releases the lobster to the beach.
Speaker 1: And the idea is it's just, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: way of kind of thinking about her godmother and sort
Speaker 1: of giving back. It's very funny if you watch the ritual,
Speaker 1: it's really fun for the lobsters because the lobster's kind
Speaker 1: of get the little lobster clothing he's taken off, and
Speaker 1: they're on the beach and they're like a little confused,
Speaker 1: but they're like great and they just dive into the ocean.
Speaker 1: One of the things I think we forget about rituals
Speaker 1: is that, like Mom's case, you's buying and slapt there,
Speaker 1: but like they don't have to cost any money, they
Speaker 1: don't have to make sense, right, they can be kind
Speaker 1: of dumb, like even sometimes absurd, and at least for
Speaker 1: you know that a more atheist, secular person like me,
Speaker 1: the kind of absurdity is sort of fun in rituals.
Speaker 1: But these are the things we can we can embrace,
Speaker 1: and I think especially if you feel frustrated by holiday traditions,
Speaker 1: you maybe you're grieving the old holiday tradition. You're looking
Speaker 1: for something. This is a spot where building new stuff
Speaker 1: can feel really good. This is something we've done in
Speaker 1: my own family. I have, you know, a family where
Speaker 1: you know there's there's divorce, and there's lots of families
Speaker 1: vying for our attention. And in the Christmas season, you
Speaker 1: know there's there's somebody who's gonna get you on Christmas morning.
Speaker 1: But it's really hard to be in all the places
Speaker 1: on Christmas morning. And so our family has developed a
Speaker 1: new tradition of celebrating around the Solstice, which is not
Speaker 1: as busy a time. You know, flights are a little
Speaker 1: bit cheaper, so everybody can get together. And it's like
Speaker 1: we just developed all these dumb rituals of the Solstice,
Speaker 1: these Solstice cake watch, some Carl Saga and these kinds
Speaker 1: of things, and so it's like you just make stuff up,
Speaker 1: but really it winds up feeling a lot better.
Speaker 2: But it's bringing you together. You're having those experiences of
Speaker 2: gratitude and sharing. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: Like turn these things into rituals as though they were
Speaker 1: sort of blessed by some religious authority, and you have
Speaker 1: to do them every year, and those kinds of rituals
Speaker 1: will wind up making you feel a lot better.
Speaker 2: The doing is the point. Listeners. Right now, as Laurie
Speaker 2: and I are going to be leaving, it is cold
Speaker 2: and dark in Boston, and I will say that I
Speaker 2: can attest to this because my holiday season is already
Speaker 2: feeling better because I have social connection with my good
Speaker 2: friend Laurie, who I haven't seen in a while. I'm
Speaker 2: incredibly grateful that she's so busy that she made time
Speaker 2: to come on this and so thank you, Thanks Dave,
Speaker 2: and happy holidays, Happy Holidays. That's it for season seven
Speaker 2: of How God Works. If you enjoy today's episode, please
Speaker 2: leave us some comments or stars wherever you listen. We'll
Speaker 2: be back in the spring with new episodes that explore
Speaker 2: more of life's big questions and what advice science and
Speaker 2: spirituality has to offer. In the meantime, we'll be sharing
Speaker 2: some special surprises as well as some of our favorite
Speaker 2: episodes from the archives. For now, all of us here
Speaker 2: are wishing you and yours a truly happy holiday season
Speaker 2: and all the best for the coming year. How God
Speaker 2: Works is hosted by Me Dave Disteno. This episode was
Speaker 2: written by Josie Holtzman and Me. Our senior producer is
Speaker 2: Josie Holtzman. Our producer is Sophie Eisenberg. Our associate producer
Speaker 2: is Emmanuel Disarme executive producer is Genevieve's sponsoror. Merrit Jacob
Speaker 2: is our mix engineer and composed our theme, which was
Speaker 2: arranged by Chloe Disteno. The executive producer of perr X
Speaker 2: Productions is Jocelyn Gonzalez. This podcast was also made possible
Speaker 2: with support from the John Templeton Foundation. To learn more
Speaker 2: about the show and access episode transcripts. You can find
Speaker 2: our website at how Good Works all one word dot org,
Speaker 2: and for news and peaks at What's Coming. Feel free
Speaker 2: to follow us on Instagram at how God Works pod
Speaker 2: or me on exer Blue Sky at David Disteno