Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, Happiness Lab listeners. I hope you're doing the
Speaker 1: best you can to stay physically and mentally healthy during
Speaker 1: the time of COVID nineteen. For today's episode, I wanted
Speaker 1: to switch it up a bit, and so I partnered
Speaker 1: with one of my favorite behavioral scientists, doctor Katie Milkman
Speaker 1: from Warton Business School. You may remember Katie from one
Speaker 1: of our New Year's episodes where we focused on the
Speaker 1: fresh Start effect, but Katie also hosts a fantastic podcast
Speaker 1: called choice Ology, which is all about the ways our
Speaker 1: minds lead us astray during decision making. Katie wanted me
Speaker 1: to be a guest on choice Ology so that we
Speaker 1: could chat about strategies for protecting our collective well being
Speaker 1: during this challenging time. This was a bit of a
Speaker 1: change for me, since, as you know, I'm usually the
Speaker 1: one asking the questions, and so I decided to share
Speaker 1: that episode with you. I hope you enjoy it. Laurie,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. I mean, this is important stuff to
Speaker 1: be talking about today. I actually wanted to start by
Speaker 1: asking if you could tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: what originally inspired you to create a course on the
Speaker 1: science of happiness. I know, it was a somewhat unusual
Speaker 1: career move for an expert on canines and primates. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a little strange. About four years ago, I
Speaker 1: took on a new role as a head of college
Speaker 1: on campus. So Yale's one of these strange schools like
Speaker 1: Hogwarts where it has Griffin door and slitherin, like these
Speaker 1: weird colleges within a college. I became head of Silliman College,
Speaker 1: which is one of the residential colleges, and it was
Speaker 1: in that role that I started really being in the
Speaker 1: trenches with college students. My house is in the middle
Speaker 1: of their dorm. I ate with them in the dining
Speaker 1: hall and hung out with them in the coffee shop.
Speaker 1: And it was then that I really started to see
Speaker 1: this mental health crisis that I'd kind of heard about
Speaker 1: on the news, but I hadn't really seen up close
Speaker 1: and personal. I mean, I was dealing with students who
Speaker 1: were suicidal, students who were just like incredibly depressed or
Speaker 1: often just really really anxious and just kind of stressed
Speaker 1: out about the future all the time, and it just
Speaker 1: made me sad. I mean, this was like my community
Speaker 1: of students who I was really close with, and so
Speaker 1: the class started as an attempt to give them actionable
Speaker 1: tips for how they could do something about this. And
Speaker 1: so I slapped this class together like a new professor,
Speaker 1: does you know, thinking like, oh, fifty students or so
Speaker 1: we'll take it because it's kind of this new class,
Speaker 1: and was completely blindsided by the fact that over a
Speaker 1: thousand students at Yale wanted to take it. We had
Speaker 1: to figure out how to teach the class in a
Speaker 1: concert hall because that was the only spot on campus
Speaker 1: where all the students fit. And it was all a
Speaker 1: little surreal to realize how much students were excited about
Speaker 1: learning this content of what they could do to feel happier.
Speaker 1: On that note, I actually wanted to just start by
Speaker 1: asking you a little bit about what our listeners should
Speaker 1: know if they're trying to figure out how to improve
Speaker 1: their own emotional well being at this very scary and
Speaker 1: uncertain time. What insights from that class do you think
Speaker 1: are most important to the current crisis. Yeah, well, lots
Speaker 1: of things. I mean, I think the first most important
Speaker 1: insight is just that this science gives us interventions we
Speaker 1: can do to improve our well being in any time,
Speaker 1: but especially in a time that's as stressful as what
Speaker 1: we're going through in COVID nineteen. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: know about you, Katie, but I'm watching my anxiety levels
Speaker 1: shoot through the roof. I'm dealing with lots of uncertainty,
Speaker 1: Like I'm constantly trying to figure out if my chest
Speaker 1: is tight because I've developed symptoms of COVID nineteen, or
Speaker 1: if I'm just incredibly anxious and feeling stressed right now.
Speaker 1: I think so many of us are just kind of
Speaker 1: realizing that unless we do something, our mental health is
Speaker 1: going to really suffer. And I feel like that can
Speaker 1: be really frustrating because we know exactly the things we're
Speaker 1: supposed to be doing right now to help our physical health,
Speaker 1: right you know, we wash our hands, you know, stay
Speaker 1: six feet from everybody, you know, shelter in place kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But I don't think the CDC and the
Speaker 1: government and all these folks are giving us strong things
Speaker 1: we can do to protect our mental health right now.
Speaker 1: And I think that's why droves of people are coming
Speaker 1: to this course now. They're like they want actionable tips
Speaker 1: that they can do to make things better. And so
Speaker 1: I think one good thing is that the science really
Speaker 1: shows us. There are actionable tips you can do. There
Speaker 1: are simple interventions that all of us can be doing
Speaker 1: right now to feel better, but they take some intention
Speaker 1: and they take some work, just like you know, washing
Speaker 1: your hands a little bit more than you normally would,
Speaker 1: or washing them more carefully or for longer than you
Speaker 1: normally would. I think that science gives us tips about
Speaker 1: what we can do to improve our well being, but
Speaker 1: you know, you have to put some work into them,
Speaker 1: and it could feel foreign when you start these new habits.
Speaker 1: But the biggest thing I think that the science suggests
Speaker 1: is that we have to be taking care of our
Speaker 1: social connections right now. And I think that's for two reasons.
Speaker 1: One is, you know, we have to worry about our
Speaker 1: immune function, and we know if there's one thing scientifically
Speaker 1: that completely takes immune function, it's feeling lonely and feeling
Speaker 1: socially isolated. But the one thing we have to do
Speaker 1: to protect our physical health right now is to socially distanced.
Speaker 1: It's like not to go do what we normally do
Speaker 1: when things feel threatening and scary, which is like go
Speaker 1: to the pub with our friends, or like go to
Speaker 1: our mom's house and get a hug. Like what we
Speaker 1: have to do is just like shelter in place and
Speaker 1: kind of be by ourselves. So I think being socially
Speaker 1: connected right now means being very intentional about it. It
Speaker 1: means using the technologies we have, from phone to FaceTime
Speaker 1: to Zoom to actually get those informal interactions that we're
Speaker 1: all missing right now. And that can look like checking
Speaker 1: in on your elderly parents, you know, once at night.
Speaker 1: It can look like, you know, calling friends more often
Speaker 1: than you would normally. But it can also look like
Speaker 1: doing the fun things we do socially together just over
Speaker 1: these technologies, which has been really fun for me. I've
Speaker 1: reached out to a number of friends I haven't seen
Speaker 1: in a while, Like I did a spa and night
Speaker 1: with my college roommates where we all did mud masks
Speaker 1: on Zoom. You know. I've been getting dinner with friends
Speaker 1: across different time zones. I did a dinner with a
Speaker 1: friend in Seattle who I hadn't seen in a long time.
Speaker 1: And even just like silly things that you'd never do
Speaker 1: socially over technology before, like share a yoga class online
Speaker 1: with a friend at the same time. You know, we
Speaker 1: wouldn't do that normally, but right now we need to
Speaker 1: be doing those things to have the same social connection
Speaker 1: we normally would. So advice I'd gave to my podcast
Speaker 1: folks is think about the social connections you had, you know,
Speaker 1: a month ago before all this started, and figure out
Speaker 1: how you can build exactly those same things in with
Speaker 1: these technologies. My research team is doing virtual water cooler
Speaker 1: meetings at noon every day to sort of try to
Speaker 1: simulate that experience. And Angela Duckworth and I were just
Speaker 1: talking and she told me that they're having family dinners
Speaker 1: with a guest every night propped on the table, a
Speaker 1: family member who can't be with them, like an uncle
Speaker 1: or an aunt or a grandparent. So I love all
Speaker 1: the ideas you had and curious about the various ways
Speaker 1: that your listeners and our listeners are coming up with
Speaker 1: creative solutions to this. I love that you use the
Speaker 1: water cooler example, because I think those are the things
Speaker 1: we need to replicate right Like we know how to
Speaker 1: formally have like a conference call over zoom, we do
Speaker 1: that for work all the time. Well, we don't know
Speaker 1: how to replicate well yet. Is the informal things you know,
Speaker 1: like Joe was dropping by the house and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: stay for dinner like that kind of simple thing we
Speaker 1: don't know how to replicate. Or I'm walking by your
Speaker 1: office and I just want a chit chat for five minutes.
Speaker 1: We need to find ways to do those intentionally over
Speaker 1: these technologies too, and I think that's going to make
Speaker 1: or break our feelings of social connection. I'm actually hopeful
Speaker 1: that this COVID nineteen crisis and the ways we're using
Speaker 1: technology right now might form new habits that end up
Speaker 1: helping us even when this whole crisis is over. Because
Speaker 1: that's another thing to remember is that it feels like
Speaker 1: this is going to go on forever, but in fact,
Speaker 1: you coronavirus is going to go away, will go back
Speaker 1: to normal life. But I'm hopeful that some of these
Speaker 1: social things we're doing now I can do later when
Speaker 1: all this is over. I hadn't seen my college roommates
Speaker 1: all in the same room in like years, right, but
Speaker 1: now because of COVID nineteen, I'm having the spawn night
Speaker 1: with them and catching up with them and seeing their
Speaker 1: kids over zoom, Like I kind of want to do
Speaker 1: that when things go back to normal, like that would
Speaker 1: help my normal social connection and to help me feel
Speaker 1: less lonely in like the normative kind of typical data.
Speaker 1: I think we'd never do that before because it kind
Speaker 1: of just felt so weird to like call somebody up
Speaker 1: and have a zoom spawn night. But now that we're
Speaker 1: kind of breaking the barrier to do these things, I
Speaker 1: think we can keep doing them in the future too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a really optimistic note. And I guess one of
Speaker 1: the things I've been thinking about is these wonderful moments
Speaker 1: we've seen captured on social media where like all of
Speaker 1: Italy comes out onto their balconies and everyone's flapping or
Speaker 1: singing together to celebrate healthcare workers and these kinds of moments.
Speaker 1: You know, how can we find more of those after
Speaker 1: the crisis would be helpful as well, I think, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, we should be thanking our healthcare workers all
Speaker 1: the time, right, you know, we should be kind of
Speaker 1: coming together as communities all the time. And I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, as you know from all your work on habits, like,
Speaker 1: once we start doing this stuff, once it becomes part
Speaker 1: of our behavioral repertoire, we'll be able to do that
Speaker 1: more often once this is over too. I love all
Speaker 1: these suggestions about how we can maintain our social ties.
Speaker 1: I know there are some other things we can do too,
Speaker 1: outside of maintaining social ties to maintain our well being.
Speaker 1: One thought that I had was that a lot of
Speaker 1: our mutual friends in the scientific community have been advocating
Speaker 1: for something called the Three Gratitudes exercise. In normal times,
Speaker 1: that's something that can be helpful, and I thought maybe
Speaker 1: it would be helpful if you could talk our listeners
Speaker 1: through how that works and why it might be valuable
Speaker 1: to try. I know, yeah, I think this idea is
Speaker 1: so critical right now, where we can just get in
Speaker 1: the mode of woe is me, everything is terrible, like
Speaker 1: complaining about everything from staying inside to like what we
Speaker 1: have in our pantry, to you know, the small things,
Speaker 1: to like the really big awful things, like you know,
Speaker 1: people's family members are dying, right like this could be
Speaker 1: a time when we really got in everything is awful mode.
Speaker 1: But what research shows is that that doesn't help us
Speaker 1: as much as we think, and that we really can
Speaker 1: benefit from taking an approach that involves being a little
Speaker 1: bit more grateful, so counting our blessings, even right now
Speaker 1: when it feels like there aren't that many blessings to
Speaker 1: be counted. There's lots of work suggesting that the simple
Speaker 1: act of scribbling down three to five things you're grateful
Speaker 1: for can significantly bump up your mood in some studies
Speaker 1: as quickly as within a couple of weeks. And so
Speaker 1: this is an exercise that all of us can be doing.
Speaker 1: It's completely free. It takes, like, you know, five to
Speaker 1: ten minutes a day. You know, for me, I've been
Speaker 1: trying to do this sort of informally myself, and you know,
Speaker 1: the list is a little bit crazy. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I have the tea that I really liked in the
Speaker 1: back of my cupboard and I found it. Neither me
Speaker 1: nor my husband are sick, and I can still hug
Speaker 1: him right now, which which is something I want to
Speaker 1: savor now because who knows how long that's going to last.
Speaker 1: Right again, those seem like silly things, and they're against
Speaker 1: a backdrop of a lot of bad stuff. But just
Speaker 1: remembering that I have these enormous blessings does two things.
Speaker 1: One is it makes me feel grateful, which can boost
Speaker 1: my well being in the moment. And so those moments
Speaker 1: that you appreciate can cause you to savor the things
Speaker 1: that you really care about now and can appreciate them,
Speaker 1: you know, even though some of them are really fragile.
Speaker 1: So we're talking a lot about things that are bringing
Speaker 1: us hope about after this crisis. I also want to
Speaker 1: talk about what's giving you hope and the way people
Speaker 1: are behaving during the crisis. Are there things that you're
Speaker 1: seeing about this crisis that are bringing out good in
Speaker 1: people and that you think will have benefits on society immediately. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that too is the thing that I've seen. But
Speaker 1: it also takes work. You know, if you're not putting
Speaker 1: intention in and you just go on your Facebook news
Speaker 1: or go on Google News, it doesn't look like the
Speaker 1: world is a happy place. It's a very woe is
Speaker 1: Me kind of time right now. But if you dig
Speaker 1: a little deeper and you look for where there are
Speaker 1: people doing amazing things. As I think it was mister
Speaker 1: Rogers said, you know, go look for the heroes. That
Speaker 1: was one of his quotes during tragedy. If you look
Speaker 1: for the heroes, there are heroes there, and there are
Speaker 1: heroes that are doing amazing things. One of the things
Speaker 1: I've been doing is on Twitter, there's this wonderful hashtag
Speaker 1: called covid kindness. And whenever I find myself panic scrolling,
Speaker 1: like I've kind of been on Twitter looking at the
Speaker 1: awful stuff from like, let me do the search for
Speaker 1: COVID kindness, and whenever you do that, you just see
Speaker 1: these wonderful stories of people who are doing things in
Speaker 1: their community to help vulnerable individuals or healthcare workers that
Speaker 1: are just you know, being incredibly brave to help the community.
Speaker 1: Just like wonderful stories of just human kindness and compassion
Speaker 1: that just pop to the four And when you see those,
Speaker 1: you realize that, you know, all the panic buying and
Speaker 1: the toilet paper stealing, like that's not actually the norm.
Speaker 1: What does happen when people are in crisis is that
Speaker 1: people come together in these incredibly beautiful ways. But you
Speaker 1: have to be a little intentional to notice that. I've
Speaker 1: been trying to do the same thing, to look and
Speaker 1: see where people are doing these generous acts, and I've
Speaker 1: been totally blown away. One thing that I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about is I've read about many of the generous acts
Speaker 1: that we're seeing, is that not only are they helping
Speaker 1: other people, but they're actually probably helping the people who
Speaker 1: are doing them. Right, So for those of us who
Speaker 1: are trying to figure out how to maintain well being
Speaker 1: at this time. One of the things I've been thinking
Speaker 1: is we should all be trying to find a way
Speaker 1: to contribute in a small way from home. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe the way we can contribute as just by staying home,
Speaker 1: but finding a purpose and finding a way to be
Speaker 1: generous has benefits. Could you talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the research on pro social behavior and how that affects
Speaker 1: well being? Yeah, I mean there's so much work suggesting it.
Speaker 1: If we want to be happier, we need to be
Speaker 1: other oriented rather than self focused. And I think this
Speaker 1: goes against the kind of standard cultural line right now,
Speaker 1: you know when we think of like, oh, we need
Speaker 1: to treat ourselves or like self care you know during
Speaker 1: the pandemic. What the research suggests is that that doesn't
Speaker 1: work as well as other care during the pandemic. Tons
Speaker 1: of lovely work by folks like Mike Norton and Liz
Speaker 1: Done show that the simple act of doing something nice
Speaker 1: for others, whether spending money on others or spending your
Speaker 1: time on other people, can boost your well being more
Speaker 1: than if you spent that money or time on yourself.
Speaker 1: And again, that violates our intuitions about what we need,
Speaker 1: but it's what the research suggests, and I think right
Speaker 1: now that becomes all the more important. I think one
Speaker 1: of the frustrations people are feeling about staying inside is
Speaker 1: that they see so many people in need. There's so
Speaker 1: many vulnerable people, there's so many sick people who need help,
Speaker 1: and you say, well, what can I do to help?
Speaker 1: And people say, just stay home, Like do nothing, like
Speaker 1: just stay home, which kind of violates our agency, Like
Speaker 1: we want to take active steps to be helpful. But
Speaker 1: then when you look at what people are doing, you
Speaker 1: realize that, like, so many of us can do really
Speaker 1: simple things right now. And I think it's particularly useful
Speaker 1: right now, not just because we all need this bump
Speaker 1: in well being that can come from pro social behavior,
Speaker 1: but also because we all have these windfalls that allow
Speaker 1: us to do that more easily. You know, so many
Speaker 1: of us are experiencing a bit of a time windfall
Speaker 1: right now. You know, some of us aren't working as much.
Speaker 1: Some of us, even who are still working at our
Speaker 1: normal jobs, don't have the normal commute time that we spend.
Speaker 1: We can use that time windfall to help, whether that's
Speaker 1: you know, calling and advocating for people in need, or
Speaker 1: doing chores and stuff for people in need, whether that's
Speaker 1: you know, like going on social media and writing gratitude
Speaker 1: letters for the healthcare workers, like we can use that
Speaker 1: time in specific ways to help others. Some of us
Speaker 1: are even experiencing what we don't expect, but which is
Speaker 1: a sort of financial windfall. And I've seen this in myself.
Speaker 1: It's small and so we might not notice it, but
Speaker 1: you know, those cups of coffee that I'm not buying
Speaker 1: at my coffee shop every morning, you know, that's three
Speaker 1: bucks a day that I'm saving that I could be
Speaker 1: using to do something nice for other people, whether that's
Speaker 1: again buying groceries for someone in need, or you know,
Speaker 1: buying gift card to a local restaurant that you needs
Speaker 1: the support right now, and it helps the folks that
Speaker 1: are really in need, but it also helps us, like
Speaker 1: this kind of wonderful win win situation that doing nice
Speaker 1: stuff for others right now is going to boost our
Speaker 1: well being in a time when we really really need
Speaker 1: it right And I think that's one of the most
Speaker 1: fascinating findings from research on happiness of late is how
Speaker 1: we get this virtuous cycle we're giving helps the giver
Speaker 1: and the recipient, and it feels really important right now.
Speaker 1: I've also been thinking about how we find meaning in
Speaker 1: these moments, and I think looking for ways that we
Speaker 1: can be purposely helpful is probably going to help us
Speaker 1: all find meaning in this madness exactly. And I think
Speaker 1: that is a scary part of this is that it
Speaker 1: feels so uncertain. You know, many of us are facing
Speaker 1: our own mortality or the close mortality of the people
Speaker 1: we care about, and that can launch us into this
Speaker 1: deep search for a meaning. And I think the act
Speaker 1: of realizing that our purpose in this crisis is to
Speaker 1: do whatever we can to help other people and to
Speaker 1: make other people's lives better in this yucky time, that
Speaker 1: can curb that existential anxiety, which I think can be
Speaker 1: really really powerful. Okay, I want to pivot from the
Speaker 1: existential to the super practical and talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about a couple of other things that people might want
Speaker 1: to focus on and think about doing just to make
Speaker 1: themselves feel better on a daily basis. We talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about three blessings or the three gratitudes. Exercise.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about physical exercise as well. Where
Speaker 1: does that fit into maintaining well being, and how are
Speaker 1: you finding ways to do it while you're social distancing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think one kind of scary thing about this crisis
Speaker 1: is that the normal things that we do for our
Speaker 1: well being, like our daily yoga practice, it's hard to
Speaker 1: maintain that habit in this new situation, mostly just because
Speaker 1: we're in a totally new situation. We're all like in
Speaker 1: our houses, we might not be able to get to
Speaker 1: our gyms or our yoga studios, and so we need
Speaker 1: to be very intentional about making sure the normal things
Speaker 1: we did in our daily lives to promote well being,
Speaker 1: like exercise, that we still seem to fit those in.
Speaker 1: And exercise is a really really critical one. We know
Speaker 1: exercise is super important for our physical health, right It's
Speaker 1: another thing that contributes to healthy immune function, which we
Speaker 1: all need right now to protect ourselves from this virus,
Speaker 1: but it completely contributes to a healthy mental health as well.
Speaker 1: You know, a half hour of cardio on Monday morning,
Speaker 1: there's research that suggests that the kind of endorphin while
Speaker 1: being boost you get from that can last till Tuesday
Speaker 1: at two pm. And so I think we need to
Speaker 1: find ways to prioritize it, but that means hacking our
Speaker 1: new habits to figure out how to fit it in.
Speaker 1: And one of the tips that I've been giving my
Speaker 1: listeners or the podcast actually comes Katie from your work,
Speaker 1: which is on all this work on fresh starts. Right. So,
Speaker 1: one of the bad things about this crisis is that
Speaker 1: we all are stuck in this new situation of being
Speaker 1: inside our house. But for many of us, that's a
Speaker 1: really unprecedented situation. And what we know is that we
Speaker 1: can use those new situations and these new kind of
Speaker 1: temporal boundaries to set up fresh habits. And so this
Speaker 1: is something that I've been trying to do where I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not working in the mornings, I'm not having my
Speaker 1: normal meetings. That means mornings are for cardio right now.
Speaker 1: And so almost like you might treat a new year
Speaker 1: as a new moment, as a new time horizon, as
Speaker 1: a good new start, I'm kind of using social isolation
Speaker 1: as that It's like, well, now I'm sheltering place new situation,
Speaker 1: let me set up these new habits. I think we
Speaker 1: also have to get really intentional about how we do
Speaker 1: that exercise, especially if you're a person who's gone to
Speaker 1: the gym a lot. I think you just need to
Speaker 1: get creative. And one of the creative ways to do that,
Speaker 1: I think is to harness exercise which bumps up your
Speaker 1: well being, and being social, which bumps up your well being,
Speaker 1: and to try to find ways to do exercise via
Speaker 1: these technologies with friends. And so I've done this a
Speaker 1: lot with different yoga classes. You can actually learn from
Speaker 1: some of the best yogis in the country for free,
Speaker 1: because people are doing these wonderful nice things where they're
Speaker 1: sharing this stuff. But don't just do that yourself on
Speaker 1: your yoga mat. Do that with a friend over zoom,
Speaker 1: you know, book a class together and meet with a
Speaker 1: friend in a different time zone who can work out
Speaker 1: with you. And I think that allows you both to
Speaker 1: get your work out in, but it also can let
Speaker 1: you have that social connection time that we're all creating
Speaker 1: right now. It's also a nice commitment device, by the way,
Speaker 1: to throw out another thing we've actually talked about on
Speaker 1: on this show, and Mabe you've talked about on yours too.
Speaker 1: By committing with someone else to do something, it ensures
Speaker 1: you'll actually fall through at a higher rate. Right, So
Speaker 1: if you how your friend, you'll meet them at this
Speaker 1: class online. It's sort of like telling someone you'll meet
Speaker 1: them at the gym, because if you don't show up,
Speaker 1: then you're a jerk. So exactly. You know, you'd never
Speaker 1: go to an online yoga class with your mom before
Speaker 1: this crisis, But now this is this new way that
Speaker 1: we can connect with the people we care about who
Speaker 1: we may not see as much, and hopefully that can
Speaker 1: be a thing that sticks into the future. You know,
Speaker 1: hopefully this fresh start of this crisis, if you can
Speaker 1: harness it to do better habits, whether that be exercise
Speaker 1: or these new forms of social connection or even things
Speaker 1: we haven't talked about yet, like meditation or breathwork, like
Speaker 1: hopefully those habits will stick beyond the time that we're
Speaker 1: stuck in our houses. I hope you'll like the tips
Speaker 1: that you've heard so far. We'll take a quick break,
Speaker 1: but Katie and I will be back in just a
Speaker 1: second with even more practical ways you can focus on
Speaker 1: your well being during this challenging time. The next thing
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about was patient and what
Speaker 1: you think that can do for people at this time
Speaker 1: and in general. You know, it's something we hear about
Speaker 1: all the time, and I always wonder, you know, is
Speaker 1: it just overhyped or con meditation really be helpful and
Speaker 1: sort of how does it relate to mindfulness and how
Speaker 1: can we use both at this moment to boost our
Speaker 1: well being. Yeah, I think this stuff is so critical
Speaker 1: right now. Both meditation and then all just different attempts
Speaker 1: to kind of chill out our sympathetic nervous systems, you know,
Speaker 1: fast biology lesson. You know. One of the reasons we're
Speaker 1: all feeling so hyped up and anxious right now is
Speaker 1: that coronavirus is the kind of threat, like a tiger
Speaker 1: lurking in the bushes, that's going to set our sympathetic
Speaker 1: nervous system going a little bit crazy. And so this
Speaker 1: is the fight or flight system. It's the system that says,
Speaker 1: oh my god, shut off everything else about the way
Speaker 1: the body works so that we can run away really
Speaker 1: quickly from this threat. The problem with coronavirus is that
Speaker 1: it's chronically on, you know, possibly it's going to be
Speaker 1: a threat that we're all facing for months and months
Speaker 1: and months, and it's really wigging our sympathetic nervous systems out.
Speaker 1: For lack of a better way to phrase it. We're
Speaker 1: not meant to turn these systems on, but the constant
Speaker 1: threat is making us feel anxious. It's causing our bodies
Speaker 1: to be flooded with stress hormones, and that has a
Speaker 1: number of really awful physical consequences. First, it's really bad
Speaker 1: for our immune system, so again, at this time that
Speaker 1: we need our immune function to be working at its
Speaker 1: optimal level, we're flooding our bodies with hormones that are
Speaker 1: it's making that not the case. But the second thing
Speaker 1: is it's awful for our digestion, it's awful for our
Speaker 1: sexual health and functioning. It's just not good to be
Speaker 1: turning this system on for a long time. The good
Speaker 1: news is that the body has a stop gap, which
Speaker 1: is the parasympathetic nervous system. That's the like rest and
Speaker 1: digest system. And normally you would turn that on by
Speaker 1: shutting off the threat, which we can't do right now.
Speaker 1: But the great news is that the body gives us
Speaker 1: an awesome way to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, and
Speaker 1: that's actually through our breath. If you ever notice when
Speaker 1: you have like a horrible threat, or if you've been
Speaker 1: attacked by a tiger or even if you're like running
Speaker 1: a marathon or running on a treadmill. When you're breathing
Speaker 1: in the time when your body's like activating all its muscles,
Speaker 1: you tend to breathe really shallowly and through your chest,
Speaker 1: the kind of thing that people experience in say, panic
Speaker 1: attacks too. But the parasympathetic nervous system is activated not
Speaker 1: by shallow chest breathing, but by this deep sort of
Speaker 1: belly breathing. You know, these deep breaths that we take
Speaker 1: where we take the air in through our stomach and
Speaker 1: then let it out really slowly. The awesome news is
Speaker 1: that this is a way that science suggests we can
Speaker 1: activate our parasympathetic nervous system just through our breath. And
Speaker 1: so just taking time to do two to three minutes
Speaker 1: of deep belly breathing this is an even meditation per se.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of getting your breath right can give
Speaker 1: your parasympathetic nervous system a moment to kind of jump
Speaker 1: in and react. You know, this is a spot where
Speaker 1: the ancient wisdom was just spat on. The simple act
Speaker 1: of taking time to focus on your breath means a
Speaker 1: couple of things. One is that you're kind of training
Speaker 1: your brain to focus on something, you're training your brain
Speaker 1: to focus in some sense on what you want. And
Speaker 1: so when your mind might go to ruminating about COVID
Speaker 1: or what's happening with your elderly grandparents, all these things
Speaker 1: that you might not be able to control at that time,
Speaker 1: that kind of sucks and it's going to active your
Speaker 1: sypathetic nervous system. But the simple act of focusing on
Speaker 1: your bath means you're kind of like a muscle retraining
Speaker 1: your mind to go to the stuff that you want
Speaker 1: it to. And every moment that you spend kind of
Speaker 1: focusing on your breath or a mantra is one that
Speaker 1: you're not freaking out about COVID statistics right now, And
Speaker 1: it can have these incredible effects. The simple act of
Speaker 1: meditating a few minutes a day can increase your concentration,
Speaker 1: It can increase your focus, It can decrease things like
Speaker 1: craving and like things like your addictive tendencies. It can
Speaker 1: be really helpful for sort of promoting the healthy behaviors
Speaker 1: you need to get over addictions and things like that.
Speaker 1: But it can really regulate your emotions. It can really
Speaker 1: help with things like depression and anxiety. Again, I think
Speaker 1: in part because you're kind of training your mind not
Speaker 1: to ruminate on the bad stuff but to focus on
Speaker 1: the good stuff. That's really helpful. And for those like
Speaker 1: me who are a little bit new to the world
Speaker 1: of meditation, do you have any advice on great tools
Speaker 1: we can use to get up to speed. Would you
Speaker 1: just google meditation or do you think there's some Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some offerings out there that are better than others. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are lots of different ones. If you look at
Speaker 1: you know, beginner meditations or especially beginner mindfulness based stress reduction,
Speaker 1: which is one of the most secular and scientifically based
Speaker 1: versions of meditation, those tend to be really good. Other
Speaker 1: folks really like calm an app or headspace. But honestly,
Speaker 1: even if you just google beginner mindfulness based meditation, you
Speaker 1: can get started. Another thing that I often tell people
Speaker 1: who are new to it is to not focus on
Speaker 1: the amount of time. I think sometimes you think, oh
Speaker 1: my god, I to meditate for twenty minutes and so on,
Speaker 1: like start with a minute. Dan Harris, who is like
Speaker 1: a big new proponent of meditation, he wrote a book
Speaker 1: called a Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, he's a big proponent
Speaker 1: of just do it for a minute, because we all
Speaker 1: have a minute where you can just sit there, and
Speaker 1: you'd be surprised that just sitting and following your breath
Speaker 1: for a minute can be really powerful. I also think
Speaker 1: it's useful to think about the particular kinds of meditation
Speaker 1: because they're different sort of flavors of meditation that you
Speaker 1: can try out. Whether you're focused on your breath, in
Speaker 1: some meditation cases, you're focused on gratitude, so actually kind
Speaker 1: of using that meditation time account your blessings in some sense.
Speaker 1: But a really powerful one that can be particularly helpful
Speaker 1: right now is a form of meditation known as loving
Speaker 1: kindness or meta meditation, which sounds so cheesy in syrup
Speaker 1: be sweet and so bear with me if you're the
Speaker 1: kind of person who's not like into this stuff naturally,
Speaker 1: But what loving kindness meditation is is it's the act
Speaker 1: of trying to control your compassion muscles. Basically, during the meditation,
Speaker 1: you sort of think about people in your life and
Speaker 1: you sort of wish them well. You'll often use phrases
Speaker 1: like may you be happy, may you be healthy, may
Speaker 1: you be free from harm, things like that, but Practitioners
Speaker 1: of this practice often report that in the act of
Speaker 1: thinking those thoughts, they kind of feel these warm compassion
Speaker 1: feelings in their chest, and the research suggests that practicing
Speaker 1: these things can be incredibly powerful. One piece of research
Speaker 1: suggests that loving kindness meditation can really help with burnout,
Speaker 1: and the way this is thought to work is that,
Speaker 1: you know, burnout is when you kind of over feel
Speaker 1: people's pain too much. Think of these healthcare workers right
Speaker 1: now who are dealing with these awful situations, you know,
Speaker 1: seeing people and suffering, watching young people die like it's awful.
Speaker 1: Practicing compassion through these techniques allows you to experience the
Speaker 1: care that you want to give for other people without
Speaker 1: necessarily experiencing their pain. So it's a little different than
Speaker 1: empathy and kind of feeling people's pain. You're kind of
Speaker 1: feeling motivated to help them and what The research suggests
Speaker 1: that these practices can allow you to engage with the
Speaker 1: suffering of other people in a way that doesn't mess
Speaker 1: you up. One study by Tania Singer and her colleagues
Speaker 1: show that if you give subjects these kind of nasty
Speaker 1: videos of people suffering, but you have them do this
Speaker 1: practice of loving kindness meditation, they experience those videos not
Speaker 1: with negative emotions like ah, I feel sad and I
Speaker 1: feel angry about this situation. They actually experience those videos
Speaker 1: with more positive emotions, and particularly more affiliative or caregiving emotions. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, you see human suffering and rather than
Speaker 1: wanting to run away from it, you want to do
Speaker 1: something about it and help. And I think in this
Speaker 1: time where we need to kind of oh with the
Speaker 1: suffering of other people and not fall apart, but also
Speaker 1: in a time when we need to focus our energies
Speaker 1: on more pro social actions, this particular kind of meditation
Speaker 1: can be really powerful. One thing I've been thinking a
Speaker 1: lot about, and you mentioned earlier, is how much time
Speaker 1: we're all spending on social media and the news, and
Speaker 1: how hard it is to rip ourselves away from that.
Speaker 1: For me, one of the biggest challenges actually is that
Speaker 1: at night, right before bed, I sort of get on
Speaker 1: my phone and start reading all the latest statistics, and
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like that's probably the best thing to do.
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering if you would suggest other routines. In particular,
Speaker 1: how can we rip ourselves away from these statistics? When
Speaker 1: is it most harmful in fact to be looking at them,
Speaker 1: and what other routines should we have if we want
Speaker 1: to make sure that we sleep well, for instance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I think the social media one is a big one.
Speaker 1: Many of us are in a new situation or feeling anxious,
Speaker 1: We're feeling a little bored, and in our normal life,
Speaker 1: many of us have a habit that we do when
Speaker 1: we're feeling that way, which is like we quickly go
Speaker 1: on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter and like do a
Speaker 1: quick check. The problem is that while those quick checks
Speaker 1: might have worked and bumped up our dopamine in the past,
Speaker 1: right now they're not filled with happy cat videos or
Speaker 1: baby pictures. It's filled with like these scary coronavirus statistics
Speaker 1: that are going to spike our anxiety. I think one
Speaker 1: of the things I've been trying to do is when
Speaker 1: I do those things. In other words, when I do
Speaker 1: the quick Twitter check, I try to be really mindful
Speaker 1: and pay attention to how it's feeling in my body.
Speaker 1: Did that help or did that kind of make me
Speaker 1: feel worse? And inevitably, whenever I've done that check lately,
Speaker 1: I've been like, this was a really dumb idea, Like
Speaker 1: why did I just spike my anxiety unnecessarily again right
Speaker 1: before bed, right when I was going to bed, and
Speaker 1: so I've kind of just put a moratorium on any
Speaker 1: social media after around six pm. I've made a little
Speaker 1: spot in my room where I put my phone and
Speaker 1: I keep it really far away. And the things I
Speaker 1: do before bed now usually i'd read on my kindle.
Speaker 1: I've only brought out physical books ahead of time, so
Speaker 1: that even if I'm planning to just read on my kindle,
Speaker 1: I don't have the urge to kind of do the
Speaker 1: quick social media check. And that's been so helpful for
Speaker 1: my anxiety levels, particularly before I sleep, right because another
Speaker 1: thing that spiking your sympathetic nervous system does, it makes
Speaker 1: it really hard to go to bed. It makes it
Speaker 1: really hard to rest and relax. So that's been really powerful.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's incredibly important to be informed, right,
Speaker 1: and some amount of anxiety about what's going on is
Speaker 1: important because we have to plan and act on it.
Speaker 1: But I've been trying to figure out, like, what's the
Speaker 1: optimal level right now? How many times a day do
Speaker 1: I actually have to check in to be informed rather
Speaker 1: than to be totally freaked out, And what I've realized
Speaker 1: is that, like you know, one half hour check in
Speaker 1: the morning is probably good for the day. Anything else
Speaker 1: is going to be superfluous. And so that's been really
Speaker 1: powerful to realize I don't have to do it, and
Speaker 1: also to realize that doing that is an opportunity cost
Speaker 1: on other stuff that could really be helping me. When
Speaker 1: I get the urge to go on social media now
Speaker 1: to do a quick check, I've been trying to harness
Speaker 1: that into a new behavior, which, as you know, to
Speaker 1: replace habits, it's helpful to have the other new behavior
Speaker 1: you go to. So I've been trying, instead of going
Speaker 1: on social media to say, oh, this is a time
Speaker 1: when I should text a friend, who should I text,
Speaker 1: I'll text my dad, or I'll text you know, a
Speaker 1: friend who's like up the street, like And so it's
Speaker 1: still like going to my phone and doing something when
Speaker 1: I have that moment, a momentary anxious feeling that I
Speaker 1: have this queue that I want to act on, but
Speaker 1: instead of acting on it in a way that's going
Speaker 1: to bump up my anxiety, hopefully it's acting on it
Speaker 1: in a way that will help with social connection. Right now,
Speaker 1: I love that habit replacement that's a fantastic one. Use
Speaker 1: that queue of a social media craving and instead text
Speaker 1: a friend or you know, make a donation or find
Speaker 1: out way you can help someone. Exactly the same with
Speaker 1: going to bed too. I think, you know, if I
Speaker 1: didn't have the other queue of a physical book that
Speaker 1: I was excited to read, even if I put my
Speaker 1: phone somewhere, I would just get up and go look
Speaker 1: at my phone right like. But having this other thing
Speaker 1: that I'm looking forward to, that's an alternative behavior that
Speaker 1: I can just slot in. It's been really powerful, that's great,
Speaker 1: So I have to be really disciplined about replacements. On
Speaker 1: the note of sleep, you mentioned your sleep routine, which
Speaker 1: is fabulous, and I'm going to emulate. Are there any
Speaker 1: other things we should be thinking about doing to ensure
Speaker 1: that we're able to sleep well or as well as
Speaker 1: possible at this very stressful time. What does the research
Speaker 1: say about how we can ensure we get the sleep
Speaker 1: we need for our systems and our emotional well being. Well.
Speaker 1: I think one thing is to just realize how critical
Speaker 1: sleep is for our mental health. Right now, the data
Speaker 1: on sleep and mental health are like shocking that you
Speaker 1: basically can spike your mood and your emotions to basically
Speaker 1: almost be at a clinical level where you need treatment
Speaker 1: simply by getting like, you know, three to four hours
Speaker 1: a night of sleep for a week or so. There's
Speaker 1: some studies suggesting this right, So finding ways to prioritize sleep,
Speaker 1: it's really critical, and I think you hit the nail
Speaker 1: on the Headwick. We just have to be really intentional
Speaker 1: about it. We have to form new habits. The good
Speaker 1: news is we're in this crazy new situation where we
Speaker 1: can start to form those new habits. We're in the
Speaker 1: house in a different way than we were before. You know,
Speaker 1: we're not going out, say at night, to go get
Speaker 1: drinks with friends or doing what we would normally do,
Speaker 1: and I think that allows us a novel situation where
Speaker 1: we can set up these new habits. The last thing
Speaker 1: I was thinking about is these stressors that are very
Speaker 1: real and aren't just in the media, but things like
Speaker 1: losing a job or being afraid that you were going
Speaker 1: to be out of a job, or knowing someone who's
Speaker 1: sick and being very worried about them. When we have
Speaker 1: these very real concerns that we can't ignore, like social media,
Speaker 1: which we really could live without. What advice do you
Speaker 1: have on how we can handle that? I guess there
Speaker 1: are two pieces of advice. One is if you're dealing
Speaker 1: with that situation happening to someone else, someone you care about,
Speaker 1: right you know, this is happening with me in my
Speaker 1: own life, you know, finding out that students in my
Speaker 1: college are presumed COVID, you know, and they're really, really
Speaker 1: sick right now. And this is one of the worst
Speaker 1: things about this crisis, is like I can't do what
Speaker 1: I would normally do, which is like show up at
Speaker 1: their door, give them soup, like, you know, wish them well.
Speaker 1: I think we have these thwarted moments of wanting to
Speaker 1: help where we can't do it. And what I've been
Speaker 1: trying to do is to harness those thwarted altruism moments
Speaker 1: to a different kind of altruism. Right Like, every time
Speaker 1: I get an email from a six student, I'm like,
Speaker 1: let me donate some money to a cause that's really
Speaker 1: good right now, or let me call an elderly neighbor
Speaker 1: and check out on them, right So you kind of
Speaker 1: take the altruistic urge that you have to help the
Speaker 1: person in need who you might not be able to
Speaker 1: help directly. And sort of channel that into something else.
Speaker 1: I think if you're facing these problems yourself, right you've
Speaker 1: personally lost a job or you've personally started to feel sick,
Speaker 1: I think the key there is to do the kinds
Speaker 1: of things that we know can be really powerful for
Speaker 1: promoting resilience, and a lot of them have to do
Speaker 1: with realizing that this situation, as awful as it is,
Speaker 1: is temporary. And it's the kind of thing where we
Speaker 1: know that people who've gone through really awful life circumstances
Speaker 1: and have come out the other side often report that
Speaker 1: it was ultimately a good experience. Okay, so it'll be
Speaker 1: hard in the moment when you're dealing with a crisis
Speaker 1: to see that, but it sounds like the key advice is, yes,
Speaker 1: this may be the low point in your life. We
Speaker 1: don't want to take anything away from that, but research
Speaker 1: shows that you will come out of it and that
Speaker 1: six months later a lot of people are able to
Speaker 1: be back just as happy as they were before. So
Speaker 1: know that there is a light at the end of
Speaker 1: the tunnel and look for opportunities to grow. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you can speed that light up by kind of taking
Speaker 1: this future oriented processing yourself. So if you're experiencing something awful,
Speaker 1: just gribe how you're going to deal with that setback
Speaker 1: a year from now. You know, So if you've lost
Speaker 1: your job, sit down and be like, all right, a
Speaker 1: year from now, me, what am I thinking? Actually I
Speaker 1: got through it, things are going to be okay. It
Speaker 1: can kind of just get you to have all like
Speaker 1: a more meta view of what's going on, and you
Speaker 1: can realize that it's it's in the moment. Things that
Speaker 1: seem really awful in the scheme of things are often
Speaker 1: going to be okay in sometime. Laurie, No, we're about
Speaker 1: at a time, and I just wanted to ask if
Speaker 1: you have any final words of wisdom or any final
Speaker 1: things you think we should cover so that our listeners
Speaker 1: can get through this very difficult time. You've given so
Speaker 1: much great advice, but is there any last word that
Speaker 1: you want to share? I think I guess the last
Speaker 1: words two words, but just self compassion. It really is
Speaker 1: an awful time. Like there's a reason we're calling this
Speaker 1: crisis unprecedented. There's a deadly virus that's incredibly scary and
Speaker 1: incredibly uncertainty provoking. And I think one thing to realize
Speaker 1: is it's okay to feel crappy, Like it's okay to
Speaker 1: not be working. It's okay to give yourself and your
Speaker 1: family members a little bit more self compassion and a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a benefit of the doubt than
Speaker 1: you usually would. But part of that is to realize
Speaker 1: that science gives you intentional things that you can do
Speaker 1: to feel better. So yeah, like feel crappy and lick
Speaker 1: your wounds, but as soon as you have the space,
Speaker 1: try some of these things out that we've been talking about,
Speaker 1: because all the research suggests they can help a lot.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Laurie, this was so great. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: you taking the time. No, no problem, this is one
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this special episode. If you liked
Speaker 1: what you heard, you should subscribe to Choiceology wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. And I also hope that you'll come
Speaker 1: back to hear the next episode of The Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: with me doctor Laurie Santos