Speaker 1: Are you feeling stressed about the holidays? The pressure to
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Speaker 2: The ones of our ancestors who so danger everywhere, who
Speaker 2: prepare for the worst, planned for a catastrophe around every corner.
Speaker 2: They probably had better chances of survival than the ones
Speaker 2: who thought, ah, that's probably fine, I don't have to
Speaker 2: worry about anything. So that means that we are the
Speaker 2: descendants of the anxious ones.
Speaker 3: Welcome to the one you feed.
Speaker 4: Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the
Speaker 4: thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or
Speaker 4: you are what you think, ring true, and yet for
Speaker 4: many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen.
Speaker 3: Or empower us.
Speaker 4: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 4: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 4: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 4: But it's not just a thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 4: takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 4: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 4: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 4: good wolf.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is
Speaker 3: Anders Hansen, a psychiatrist, speaker, and popular TV show host
Speaker 3: with his own docuseries about the mysteries of the human brain.
Speaker 3: Andrews has published several best selling books and is arguably
Speaker 3: Sweden's favorite expert on the topic of brain and health matters.
Speaker 3: His books have sold over three million copies and have
Speaker 3: been on bestseller lists in Sweden, Japan, and numerous other countries,
Speaker 3: and many of them now will be available in the
Speaker 3: United States. Enjoy this incredible interview.
Speaker 1: Hi Andrews, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: Oh hi, my pleasure.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to have you on. You are releasing a
Speaker 1: bunch of books in the United States this fall, one
Speaker 1: of which we are going to really focus on today,
Speaker 1: and that is called The Happiness Cure, Why You're not
Speaker 1: built for constant happiness and how to enjoy the journey.
Speaker 1: But before we get into that, we'll start, like we
Speaker 1: always do with the parable. In the Parable, there's a
Speaker 1: grandparent who's talking with their grandchild. They say, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a
Speaker 1: bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.
Speaker 1: And the grandchild stops and think about it for a second.
Speaker 1: They look up at their grandparent and they say, well,
Speaker 1: which one wins, And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: does that parable mean to you in your life and
Speaker 1: in the work that you do.
Speaker 2: Well. First of all, it's it's a fantastic I love
Speaker 2: it to me. It means that we humans adapt to
Speaker 2: our world, to our environment. We're not blank slate, but
Speaker 2: we do adapt. Our brains are plastic, and if we
Speaker 2: live in a world which is dangerous, filled with threats,
Speaker 2: we will adapt to that. We will be vigilant, perhaps aggressive,
Speaker 2: And if we are surrounded by kindness and gratitude, we
Speaker 2: will adapt to that and those sides of our personality
Speaker 2: will be amplified. That's how I see it.
Speaker 1: And I think that ties into to some degree what
Speaker 1: you talk about in the Happiness Cure. You start off
Speaker 1: by talking about we are the survivors. Talk to me
Speaker 1: about what you mean by that and why that's important
Speaker 1: to happiness.
Speaker 2: Well, the most important thing I never learned in med
Speaker 2: school is that the brain has not changed for ten
Speaker 2: thousand years. And the second most important thing I never
Speaker 2: learned in med school is that half of all humans
Speaker 2: died before the teenagers during ninety nine point nine percent
Speaker 2: of our history. And you and I and all of
Speaker 2: your listeners are, of course the Lost generation. Of an
Speaker 2: unbroken line of survivors, because our ancestors did not die
Speaker 2: before they reached adulthood, otherwise we wouldn't exist, right, So
Speaker 2: what then was it that humans had to survive? Well,
Speaker 2: the thing that killed the most humans during our history
Speaker 2: was infection, bleeding, murder, starvation, dehydration. And since we are
Speaker 2: the descendants of the survivors, we are very very good
Speaker 2: at surviving infections, bleeding, murder, dehydration, and accidents. However, today
Speaker 2: we don't die from these things. Today we die from
Speaker 2: cardiovascular disease, cancer, and stroke. But that has just been
Speaker 2: the case for a couple of generations, and that means
Speaker 2: that we are not very good at surviving those things.
Speaker 2: They have not had time to shape us. So from
Speaker 2: this perspective you understand so much of human psychology, I think,
Speaker 2: and particularly human mental health. We never evolved to be happy.
Speaker 2: We evolved to survive. The brain is a survival machine
Speaker 2: that evolved to regulate the body, and the main goal
Speaker 2: of the brain is not to be creative or smart.
Speaker 2: It is to take us tomorrow alive. And as I said,
Speaker 2: the brain has not changed for the last ten thousand years.
Speaker 2: So that basically means that we are driven by brains,
Speaker 2: which are survival machines for the savannah, and today we
Speaker 2: live in a completely different environment and we are driven
Speaker 2: by instincts that helped us survive on the savannah, and
Speaker 2: those instincts don't make us happy in a world of overabundance.
Speaker 2: And one concrete example is our crave for calories. In
Speaker 2: the world where we evolved, calories was very hard to
Speaker 2: get by, and we had to eat everything when we
Speaker 2: found them. If we found sweet berries or fruit something
Speaker 2: like that, we should eat everything at once because tomorrow
Speaker 2: they may be gone then someone else have taken them. Now,
Speaker 2: that craving for calories made a lot of sense in
Speaker 2: a world where it was a little food, but that
Speaker 2: does not make sense at McDonald's. When you take the
Speaker 2: crave for calories that evolution has built into us during
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands, millions of years where calories we are
Speaker 2: hard to come by, where you take that crave into
Speaker 2: our world where calories are basically free, well then it's
Speaker 2: not surprising that you get the problems that you see
Speaker 2: today in terms of overweight obesity and type two diabetes.
Speaker 1: So when you say we are driven by these things,
Speaker 1: say a little bit more about what you mean, because
Speaker 1: we obviously are driven by many different things. We have
Speaker 1: different motivations of all sorts. But what are you speaking
Speaker 1: about when you say the word driven in this case.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a good point. The brain does not have
Speaker 2: one inner voice. There's no little miniature version of myself
Speaker 2: in my brain. The brain has several different motivation systems
Speaker 2: that compete against one another. But a concrete example is
Speaker 2: the following the world that shaped us was incredibly dangerous,
Speaker 2: and as I said, half of all humans died before
Speaker 2: they became teenagers. That means that the ones of our
Speaker 2: ancestors who saw danger everywhere, who prepare for the worst,
Speaker 2: planned for a catastrophe around every corner, they probably had
Speaker 2: better chances of survival than the ones who thought, ah,
Speaker 2: that's probably fine, I don't have to worry about anything.
Speaker 2: So that means that we are the descendants of the
Speaker 2: anxious ones. And it's not surprising that people have anxiety
Speaker 2: due to this. And about forty percent of your risk
Speaker 2: of suffering from anxiety actually comes from your genes. It's
Speaker 2: set in you when you are born. A difficult childhood
Speaker 2: can amp up the anxiety. Of course, the risk of
Speaker 2: it but partly of it is genetic, and if you
Speaker 2: think about it, that means that the ones who have
Speaker 2: genes that increase your risk of anxiety, they actually have
Speaker 2: a strong brain because they have a brain that wants
Speaker 2: to protect them against disasters, against accidents, against the things
Speaker 2: that killed us in the past. And I often say
Speaker 2: to my patients with anxiety that it's not strange that
Speaker 2: there are people who have anxiety. What is strange is
Speaker 2: that there are people who don't have anxiety, and maybe
Speaker 2: the other ones should be diagnosed. And you know, when
Speaker 2: you present it that way, you reframe it, I think,
Speaker 2: and you stop looking at yourself as damaged, as broken,
Speaker 2: and that is very very important. And I always say
Speaker 2: to my patients that strong pair of arms they could
Speaker 2: lift heavy things, and a strong pair of legs can
Speaker 2: run fast. But a strong brain is not the brain
Speaker 2: that goes through periods of stress unaffected. It's a brain
Speaker 2: that wants to keep you alive at all costs, even
Speaker 2: though it means that you see danger everywhere. I think
Speaker 2: this reframing of the perspective is important because how we
Speaker 2: view ourselves is so important of how we view our future.
Speaker 2: We are always looking for explanations identities for ourselves, and
Speaker 2: I've seen how psychiatric diagnosis can become such an identity.
Speaker 2: People think, oh, I could not have a normal relationship
Speaker 2: because I have an anxiety disorder, I can't have a
Speaker 2: normal job because I have a ADHD, etc. And that
Speaker 2: is just so sad because these diagnoses are not meant
Speaker 2: to be that. So they can be self fulfilling in
Speaker 2: a way, and that's why you need to change the
Speaker 2: perspective and look at it from the perspective of the brain,
Speaker 2: and then you'll realize that you are actually functioning. However,
Speaker 2: I don't want to trivialize the damage that anxiety can cause,
Speaker 2: because it can be hell. It wrecks people's lives. If
Speaker 2: you suffer from it, you should seek help, absolutely, but
Speaker 2: you should not view yourself as broken.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We talk on this show a lot about this
Speaker 1: idea of diagnosis and labels, like when are they useful
Speaker 1: and when are they not right? And I think being
Speaker 1: able to hold them pretty loosely and trade them in
Speaker 1: and out, like, Okay, it's useful to think about having
Speaker 1: a person who has anxiety right now, but it's not
Speaker 1: useful necessarily. Maybe you think of myself as an anxious
Speaker 1: person or it's just this ability to be flexible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, but it's surprising how often they become self
Speaker 2: fulfilling prophecies. We are incredibly complex. If you take ADHD,
Speaker 2: for instance, it's a diagnosis that is based on hyperactivity, impulsivity,
Speaker 2: and difficulties of concentrating. Everyone has those problems more or less,
Speaker 2: so we are all on an ADHD scale. That doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that everyone has ADHD. That means that we have
Speaker 2: more or less of these traits. At the same time,
Speaker 2: we also have more or less autistic traits, and we
Speaker 2: have more or less bipolar traits, not saying that everyone
Speaker 2: is bipolar or autistic, just that we have more or
Speaker 2: less of these traits. And if that sounds complicated, that's
Speaker 2: because it is complicated. Human nature is incredibly complex, so
Speaker 2: you should not generalize too much. And as a psychiatrist
Speaker 2: these diagnosis, their function is to guide treatment so that
Speaker 2: you get the best treatment. That's what they are there for.
Speaker 2: They are not there to give you an explanation for
Speaker 2: your whole life, and they are certainly not there to
Speaker 2: cause harm in the sense that they become self fulfilling prophecies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about feelings. Emotions and feelings. You use
Speaker 1: those words early on in the book. First, let's delineate
Speaker 1: between what is an emotion and what is a feeling
Speaker 1: like when you use those two words, what do you
Speaker 1: mean by.
Speaker 2: Each emotions is the bodily reactions that happens when you
Speaker 2: get afraid. For instance, your heart will beat faster, you
Speaker 2: will breed faster, and your adrenal glands will pump out courticeol.
Speaker 2: All of these things that happen are part of an emotion,
Speaker 2: and a feeling is a subjective feeling that you feel
Speaker 2: when this is happening to you. That's a normal distinction
Speaker 2: between them. And what's so important to understand is that
Speaker 2: feelings is all about actions. That's what they are there for.
Speaker 2: They are not there to give us a rich inner life.
Speaker 2: They are there to tilt our behavior in ways that
Speaker 2: made us survive and reproduce in the past. So you
Speaker 2: can't really say what's the purpose of this feeling today?
Speaker 2: You must instead ask the question was it important to
Speaker 2: have this feeling in our mental repertoire in the world
Speaker 2: that shaped us? And for instance, negative feelings such as
Speaker 2: anxiety and depression was probably very important because they helped
Speaker 2: us survive danger. They have to survoid danger, and they
Speaker 2: should also be easily triggered the negative feelings, and the
Speaker 2: negative feelings out triumphs the positive ones. If you're anxious,
Speaker 2: you can't think of anything positive, and that's because your
Speaker 2: brain is telling you look out for danger, and then
Speaker 2: it came think of any other thing else. That's survival, right.
Speaker 2: And if you look at what's happening in the brain
Speaker 2: when you're feeling something, there's a part of the brain
Speaker 2: called the insular cortex, and the insular cortex is tucked
Speaker 2: inside your temporal lobes, and the insular cortex receives signals
Speaker 2: from the body and the senses. So in the insular cortex,
Speaker 2: your inner world and your outer world is combined. And
Speaker 2: based on that, the brain creates a subjective experience of
Speaker 2: feeling in order to tilt your behavior in such a
Speaker 2: way that helped us survive in the past. And again,
Speaker 2: since we are the descendants of the humans who did
Speaker 2: not die, we have an unbroken line of survivors behind
Speaker 2: us as our ancestors. I look at feelings as whispers
Speaker 2: from previous generations of humans who, against all odds, survived starvation, dehydration, bleeding, accidents,
Speaker 2: and murder.
Speaker 1: So it's easy to see how anxiety could have an
Speaker 1: evolutionary purpose. It's harder to see the evolutionary purpose of depression.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about that. What do we
Speaker 1: think the evolutionary purpose behind depression was or is?
Speaker 2: Well, First of all, a depression is a state where
Speaker 2: everything feels worthless. Things that you normally like to do
Speaker 2: meet your friends, or cook or play the guitar or
Speaker 2: watch your movie or whatever you like, those things feel worthless.
Speaker 2: And it's not like that for a day. Everyone has
Speaker 2: those days. This goes on for months. Now this stands still. Basically,
Speaker 2: as a psychiatrist, I have seen that what often triggers depressions,
Speaker 2: most of them are triggered by long term stress, and
Speaker 2: by that I don't mean a day or a week
Speaker 2: long periods on stress. Now, the stress system that we
Speaker 2: have in our bodies evolved to protect us against danger.
Speaker 2: When we get stressed, heartbeats stronger and faster because we
Speaker 2: are in a state where we should go to attack
Speaker 2: or run away, fight or flight, and we use the
Speaker 2: same system for modern stressors. Now, that means that when
Speaker 2: the stress system is turned on constantly. The brain probably
Speaker 2: gets a signal that you are in a dangerous world
Speaker 2: because that was having stress all the time meant for
Speaker 2: our ancest and then the brain tries to steer you
Speaker 2: away from that world. How will it do that? It
Speaker 2: makes you want to withdraw and it downregulates motivation, so
Speaker 2: you basically want to hide in your bed. You don't
Speaker 2: want to go out. Everything feels worthless. What we also
Speaker 2: know is that inflammation plays an important part, and inflammation
Speaker 2: is the body's response to many things. If I scratch
Speaker 2: myself like this, it becomes slightly reddish here. That's a
Speaker 2: slight inflammation. If I have a cardiovascular insult, which can
Speaker 2: be deadly, of course, that causes inflammation in my heart.
Speaker 2: So inflammation is a reaction in the body that is normal,
Speaker 2: but it can also be very dangers Now, there is
Speaker 2: always a certain level of systemic inflammation in the whole
Speaker 2: body that's perfectly normal. When we get an infection, let's
Speaker 2: say by influenzerur, covid or something, the level of inflammation
Speaker 2: in the body rises. That causes a number of chemicals
Speaker 2: called cytokines to be released, and the brain registers the cytokines.
Speaker 2: It basically registers. Aha, there's an infection going on the brain.
Speaker 2: Then down regulates mood and drive. We feel blue, we
Speaker 2: want to go home and tuck ourselves into bed. We
Speaker 2: feel sick. Basically, we don't want to do anything. Now
Speaker 2: why is that, Well, that's probably because the immune system
Speaker 2: uses a lot of energy. About twenty percent of the
Speaker 2: body's energy goes to the immune system, and when the
Speaker 2: immune system must amp up its activity, which it must
Speaker 2: during an infection, the body must save its energy. So
Speaker 2: you can't go around running and doing other things. You
Speaker 2: have to save your energy. That's why your brain wants
Speaker 2: to keep you still when you have an infection. Now
Speaker 2: this makes perfect sense. However, modern lifestyle factors such as
Speaker 2: sitting too much, sleeping too little, stressing too much, eating
Speaker 2: too much processed food also causes inflammation, and here comes
Speaker 2: the main point. The brain cannot distinguish what caused that inflammation.
Speaker 2: It sort of figures inflammation as inflammation, and down regulates
Speaker 2: mood and drive. So our current lifestyle is triggering an
Speaker 2: old defense system against infections. And that may sound speculatory,
Speaker 2: but during the last decade it's been shown in many
Speaker 2: studies that inflammation is behind a third of all depressions
Speaker 2: they have an inflammatory origin. So I think I think
Speaker 2: in a way that the current lifestyle that we live
Speaker 2: with long term stress, where we eat too much processed food,
Speaker 2: we don't exercise, they trigger this alarm in us, this
Speaker 2: defense mechanisms, and it's actually from that perspective it's not
Speaker 2: so strange that so many are suffering from depression. In Sweden,
Speaker 2: more than one in eight adults are on antidepressant medication.
Speaker 1: So I've got a couple of follow on questions to
Speaker 1: that idea. The first is there are measures of inflammation
Speaker 1: that we can take in the body, see reactive proteins,
Speaker 1: other ones. I believe if somebody is showing normal levels
Speaker 1: of inflammation in that way, is it reasonable to assume
Speaker 1: that inflammation is not what's driving a depression or is
Speaker 1: it more subtle than that, or do you know?
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I know that there's been many studies
Speaker 2: that have looked into whether you can have inflammatory markers
Speaker 2: guiding antidepressant medication, and the studies that I have read
Speaker 2: has not been conclusive. Okay, anti inflammatory medications seem to
Speaker 2: have an antidepressant effect if, but only if the depression
Speaker 2: comes from inflammation, right, And it doesn't seem to be
Speaker 2: so strong that you could just use that. You have
Speaker 2: to use antidepressant as well. And a big point I
Speaker 2: want to make here is if you're on any medication
Speaker 2: at all, you must consult your doctor before you change anything.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, depression is one of those things that it's hard
Speaker 1: to wrap your head around because it seems to be
Speaker 1: multi causal, multivariatet right. It's sort of like addiction in
Speaker 1: that way, like we've got a lot of good theories,
Speaker 1: but it seems to be sort of a constellation of
Speaker 1: different things.
Speaker 2: Often absolutely, But I think that we view depressions from
Speaker 2: a purely psychological perspective. We think depression must come from
Speaker 2: something in my private life, my relationships, or my work,
Speaker 2: my boss, something like that, but we underestimate the part
Speaker 2: that is biology. We must also look at depression from
Speaker 2: the perspective of physiology as a consequence to long term
Speaker 2: stress and as a consequence of inflammation. And as you say,
Speaker 2: depressions are incredibly complex. But what is interesting, I think
Speaker 2: is that one has looked at hunter gatherer tribes and
Speaker 2: tried to estimate how many of them that are depressed,
Speaker 2: and there seems to be very few. There are many
Speaker 2: caveats to this science because it's difficult to measure this.
Speaker 2: Sometimes people hide their problems, they don't want to talk
Speaker 2: about them, and sometimes they externalize their problems, so a
Speaker 2: depression could be sort of maybe an aching knee or
Speaker 2: aching back is actually a depression, and so on. So
Speaker 2: it's difficult. But having said that, the studies that have
Speaker 2: been done indicate that depression seems to be rare among
Speaker 2: and gatherers, and that gives you a possible clue that
Speaker 2: maybe depressions were very rare among our ancestors. Maybe actually
Speaker 2: our ancestors felt better than we do. That's quite possible.
Speaker 2: And I visited a tribe in Kenya last year and
Speaker 2: I asked them, you know, how often do you see
Speaker 2: people that are depressed? And they said, it's very very rare,
Speaker 2: very very rare. It does happened when then most of
Speaker 2: them had lost the child because child mortality was so
Speaker 2: high in this group. They were sad, but they seldom
Speaker 2: got depressed. So I think psychiatry is not just advanced
Speaker 2: medicine and cool molecules. It's also about taking a step
Speaker 2: back and looking at our past and trying to understand
Speaker 2: what shaped us and what are the brain's achilles heels,
Speaker 2: so to speak.
Speaker 1: The other question you wonder in the scenarios you are about,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking about hierarchy of needs, like if you're
Speaker 1: focused on survival, do you have time to contemplate things
Speaker 1: on a deeper level. In the book, you really tried
Speaker 1: to dig into whether we're seeing more depression than we
Speaker 1: used to? Are people more depressed today? And you ended
Speaker 1: with the studies the data just is unclear, but you
Speaker 1: did say I feel pretty comfortable saying that What is
Speaker 1: remarkable is that the number of cases of depression clearly
Speaker 1: is not going down exactly. And that's even with us
Speaker 1: giving lots of people medication and therapy. So it's hard
Speaker 1: to know if overall they're going up, but you would
Speaker 1: expect the trend to be sharply downward if what we
Speaker 1: were doing was working exactly.
Speaker 2: And if you take one step back and think about it,
Speaker 2: since the nineties, our economy has basically doubled. We become
Speaker 2: twice as rich. And if we can't say that we
Speaker 2: feel better, why then should we have this economic progress?
Speaker 2: You could ask the hardest capitalist you could find, you know,
Speaker 2: why should we have economic progress, and they will say, well,
Speaker 2: so that we could have it better, of course, and
Speaker 2: then if you natively ask well why should we have
Speaker 2: it better, they will say so that we could feel better,
Speaker 2: and we obviously don't do that. The main point here
Speaker 2: is that we can't really say whether we are worse
Speaker 2: off than we were ten twenty years ago. We know
Speaker 2: that teenagers feel worse now than they did twenty years ago,
Speaker 2: that's a fact, but for adults it's very difficult to say.
Speaker 2: But you can't say that we feel better, and that
Speaker 2: is actually the question you should ask, why aren't we
Speaker 2: doing that right?
Speaker 1: Another thing in the depression area that you talked about
Speaker 1: that i'd love to have you elaborate a little bit
Speaker 1: on is something that you called the analytical rumination hypothesis.
Speaker 1: Can you share what that is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's something that I have seen in many many
Speaker 2: patients that when they are depressed, do you have a
Speaker 2: big decision in your life that you're facing? And often
Speaker 2: they say yes, I do, and they could be ruminating
Speaker 2: about whether they should leave their partner, or whether they
Speaker 2: should leave job, or perhaps try a new career or
Speaker 2: something like that. And I had such a period myself.
Speaker 2: I went into economics after high school, and I studied
Speaker 2: and this was just not for me, but I just
Speaker 2: kept going because I thought it was the right thing
Speaker 2: to do. And I didn't internship that investment banks and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. And then when I was about twenty three,
Speaker 2: I had this period where I felt really blue and
Speaker 2: down and I withdrew and I sort of ruminated on
Speaker 2: this problem, should I switch, And then eventually I just
Speaker 2: decided to do that. And then I switched into medicine
Speaker 2: and I never looked back, and I'm so happy that
Speaker 2: I took that decision. But there is a theory that
Speaker 2: in some cases of depression, the brain down regulates mood
Speaker 2: and drives that you should be able to withdraw and
Speaker 2: really ponder a difficult question, a really difficult decision that
Speaker 2: you should not take lightly. It's a theory, and I'm
Speaker 2: very certain that all the depressions does not have to
Speaker 2: do with that, but maybe a subset of them actually
Speaker 2: has something to do with that. And personally, I was
Speaker 2: glad that I had this period because I don't think
Speaker 2: that I would have made this decision to go into
Speaker 2: medicine unless I had done that, unless I've been through that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting. I am a person who has
Speaker 1: had challenges with depression, and I find myself pulled between
Speaker 1: often two things, right, and one is should I be
Speaker 1: looking for things in my life that are not going
Speaker 1: right or that aren't the right fit for me? Or
Speaker 1: is there something I need to be paying attention to
Speaker 1: or to the earlier point, is this more of a
Speaker 1: physiological thing that it should be treated by better exercise
Speaker 1: and diet and sleep. And of course the answer for
Speaker 1: me is always both. It's both those things. But the
Speaker 1: question of whether I need to be looking deeper is
Speaker 1: an interesting one because, like when I get the flu,
Speaker 1: to your point earlier, when I have the flu and
Speaker 1: I feel down and depressed and life seems kind of crappy,
Speaker 1: I just go don't listen to your thoughts for a
Speaker 1: couple of days because you don't feel good. You're gonna
Speaker 1: feel better. There's no need to make a big deal
Speaker 1: out of this, right, And the same thing sometimes I
Speaker 1: think can be effective for depression, Like for me, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a matter of just saying, all right, you know what,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason you go through these cycles, just keep
Speaker 1: doing the things you know that are good. You'll come
Speaker 1: out the other side. But then there's a part of
Speaker 1: you that goes, well, should I be looking more closely
Speaker 1: at am I deeply fulfilled? Of those sort of things.
Speaker 1: Curious how you work with clients on that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to generalize, but the brain is constantly
Speaker 2: trying to explain why we're feeling the way we're feeling.
Speaker 2: It gives post hoc rationalizations or post hoc answers to
Speaker 2: these questions. And I've seen many times in patients they
Speaker 2: come and they have a depression and they think these
Speaker 2: existential thoughts, you know, is life worth living? Things like
Speaker 2: that really dark, and then you see that they have
Speaker 2: too little of thyroid hormone, which regulates your metabolism, and
Speaker 2: when you give the medication, these things vanish. So there's
Speaker 2: so much that goes into the part of the brain
Speaker 2: that creates feelings, and part of it is your internal
Speaker 2: state in the body. And then the brain tries to
Speaker 2: think of a reason why we feel this way, and
Speaker 2: it often thinks of things outside. And it doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be like that. I've never heard someone coming in
Speaker 2: and having existential thoughts and saying, maybe my thyroid hormone
Speaker 2: is too low. No, they never say that yeah, but
Speaker 2: of course, at the same time, it's very very hard
Speaker 2: to generalize. And I think that depression is a very
Speaker 2: very powerful state and it can be very dangerous. Even
Speaker 2: deadly suicides are often due to do depression. So you
Speaker 2: should attack them from as many fronts as possible. You
Speaker 2: should definitely exercise, and you should definitely go into therapy,
Speaker 2: and if it's severe, you should definitely try medication. And
Speaker 2: you should not do one of these things, you should
Speaker 2: do all of them. Same with anxiety, it must be
Speaker 2: attacked from many fronts.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree with you more on that. I had
Speaker 1: food poisoning a couple of weeks ago, and I became
Speaker 1: like as existentially dark as like you know, kafka. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just a it's so funny, And then a
Speaker 1: couple days later I felt better, and you know, the
Speaker 1: world looked normal again. It just it's so funny how
Speaker 1: we are so affected by how our body feels, and
Speaker 1: it's why to me kind of behavioral therapy is a
Speaker 1: very useful tool, but it's not the only tool because
Speaker 1: it's not just that thoughts cause emotions. It seems like
Speaker 1: feelings cause thoughts too. It's a two way street.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, absolutely, I have the same experience as you have.
Speaker 2: This darkness can be so overwhelming. I mean you talk
Speaker 2: about it like this, it's a bit abstract, but when
Speaker 2: you experience this. I saw Pageansoo had vaccination that caused
Speaker 2: inflammation and some really felt dark and there was just
Speaker 2: a couple of hours afterwards and then it was gone. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So these states can be so powerful, and you must
Speaker 2: then think that this is just my brain playing tricks on. Yes,
Speaker 2: this will pause. It doesn't feel like that, but it
Speaker 2: will pause because feelings are short term. Why is that, Well,
Speaker 2: that's because we had to change our behavior all the time.
Speaker 2: As I said, the feelings are there to tilt our
Speaker 2: behaviors in a certain way that helped us survive. And
Speaker 2: since we had to do many things, they soon go
Speaker 2: up and smoke. If, for instances, were lucky enough to
Speaker 2: you know, find a big pile of ben or hunt
Speaker 2: down the biggest deer or something, how long could they
Speaker 2: be happy about that? Well, a couple of hours, maybe
Speaker 2: a day or so. But if they were happy for
Speaker 2: two weeks and didn't do anything, well, then they would
Speaker 2: die from starvation. And we all know that that positive
Speaker 2: feelings are supposed to be short term. They will soon
Speaker 2: go up and smoke, and they will be replaced by
Speaker 2: wanting some more. And this is not because we're damaged.
Speaker 2: This is because we're built this way the same. But
Speaker 2: negative feelings, they will disappear, and if they don't, you
Speaker 2: should seek help. But in these cases one must try
Speaker 2: to call the bluff of the brain, so to speak,
Speaker 2: which is very difficult.
Speaker 1: Right because the very tool you're trying to use to
Speaker 1: do it is the tool that's not functioning very well
Speaker 1: in that moment. It's a conundrum. But you say early on,
Speaker 1: you're talking about this idea that good feelings should always last,
Speaker 1: and I think we do live in a culture that
Speaker 1: seems to push that narrative, and you say basically that
Speaker 1: expecting to always feel great is about as unrealistic as
Speaker 1: expecting that the banana on the kitchen counter will keep
Speaker 1: us full for the rest of our lives. Like, it
Speaker 1: doesn't work that way. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: what you do in this book, and you do a
Speaker 1: really good job of, is showing us that just because
Speaker 1: our feelings come up and they come down and there's
Speaker 1: negative parts of it, that's what they were designed to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you expect to feel good all the time.
Speaker 2: I mean happiness first. It's such a difficult topic. I
Speaker 2: always avoid it because everything you say sounds like cliches.
Speaker 2: But if you think that happiness is feeling good all
Speaker 2: the time, then you will be disappointed because we're not
Speaker 2: built that way. And that may sound obvious, but the
Speaker 2: picture we get on social media is that we should
Speaker 2: go around feeling happy all the time and that we
Speaker 2: feel good all the time, and if we put our
Speaker 2: expectations on that, then we will be underwhelmed, so to speak.
Speaker 2: In science, the definition of happiness is that you are
Speaker 2: content with the long term direction of your life. And
Speaker 2: if you agree to that definition, and that's up to everyone,
Speaker 2: of course, then the most important things for happiness seems
Speaker 2: to be relation. Relations and relations that's the main thing.
Speaker 2: That's not something that sounds good. That's the result of
Speaker 2: a best study on this, which has been going for
Speaker 2: more than ninety years now at Harvard.
Speaker 1: It's funny I was exchanging emails with Robert Waldinger earlier
Speaker 1: when I came across you referencing his study, this Harvard
Speaker 1: study that's so clear on how critical relationships are for
Speaker 1: our overall well being. I want to hit a few
Speaker 1: other things kind of around these ideas. I want to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about memory. And you have a
Speaker 1: phrase where you say memory is a guide to the future. Yes,
Speaker 1: tell us what you mean by that.
Speaker 2: We view memory as a recollection of the post, exactly
Speaker 2: what happened. When I think of my graduation, I think
Speaker 2: of the day and whether it was sunny, or what
Speaker 2: I was doing, meeting my friends, my parents were there, etc.
Speaker 2: But it turns out that memory has nothing to do
Speaker 2: with our post. Memories are there to guide us in
Speaker 2: the present. In every moment of our lives, the brain
Speaker 2: pulls up the memories that it thinks is most relevant
Speaker 2: to what we're experiencing right now. And what we do
Speaker 2: know is that every time we pull up a memory,
Speaker 2: it becomes malleable, it can change, and the situation in
Speaker 2: which we bring it up rubs itself off on the memory.
Speaker 2: So if I think of my graduation when I'm very sad,
Speaker 2: the memory itself will become slightly more sad, And if
Speaker 2: I think about it when I'm happy, the memory will
Speaker 2: become happier. And that may sound strange, but the reason
Speaker 2: is probably that if you're in a forest, for instance,
Speaker 2: and then you get attacked by wolf and you survive,
Speaker 2: you get away from there, but very close call. Every
Speaker 2: time you come back to the same place, you will
Speaker 2: feel anxious, And perhaps you will feel anxious just by
Speaker 2: going in any forest or just seeing a tree. That's
Speaker 2: not strange. If you were to come back to the
Speaker 2: same place forest again and there is no wolf, and
Speaker 2: again and again and again and there's no wolf, the
Speaker 2: memory of the wolf attack will start to change from
Speaker 2: being very unpleasant to being slightly less threatening. And that
Speaker 2: is probably because if you have been there one hundred
Speaker 2: times and you have been attacked by a wolf one time,
Speaker 2: it's probably very low chance that there will be a
Speaker 2: wolf attack the one hundred and first time you get there.
Speaker 2: So memories are constantly updated in order to be as
Speaker 2: good a guide for the present as possible. And this
Speaker 2: is exactly what you are using in therapy. If you
Speaker 2: have experienced something traumatic and then you talk about it
Speaker 2: in a state where you feel calm and safe, for instance,
Speaker 2: at a therapist's office, that feeling of being safe will
Speaker 2: rub itself off on the memory and it will become
Speaker 2: slightly less hostile to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that idea of thinking of the purpose
Speaker 1: of memories and their purpose being like everything else that's happening,
Speaker 1: to guide what we're going to do next in order
Speaker 1: to survive. And when you think about a memory as
Speaker 1: not being there for a pleasant reminiscence, but as a
Speaker 1: way of telling us what's important now, it really reframes
Speaker 1: how you think about them as a whole exactly.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Loftus is famous memory research is she said that
Speaker 2: we experience memories as YouTube clips, something that we could
Speaker 2: look at and then put back and look at again,
Speaker 2: and they will be identical. But in reality they are
Speaker 2: more like Wikipedia pages, something that can be edited by
Speaker 2: ourselves and by others around us. Every time we bring
Speaker 2: up a memory, it becomes a bit unstable, and the
Speaker 2: present situation where it's brought up rubs itself off on
Speaker 2: the memory. And it's a very functional mechanism, but it
Speaker 2: goes against how memories are perceived. Right.
Speaker 1: If you have a memory as bad as mind, you
Speaker 1: years ago realized like, okay, don't trust this thing, you know.
Speaker 1: I guess that's the one thing about having a memory
Speaker 1: that's so bad.
Speaker 2: You're like, all right, that's an interesting point because every
Speaker 2: time I run around in my apartment looking for my keys.
Speaker 2: I cursed my bad memory, and I thought that my
Speaker 2: memory hasn't worked because it forgot what I put the keys.
Speaker 2: And neuroscientists looked at memory in the same way that
Speaker 2: it was a failure of the brain to register what's
Speaker 2: going on. But then in twenty nineteen, the group of
Speaker 2: Japanese researchers discovered brain cells in mice and humans also
Speaker 2: have them that down regulates the activity in the epocampus,
Speaker 2: which is the memory center of the brain. Mother Nature
Speaker 2: has put cells in us that down regulates memory. Why
Speaker 2: is that? I mean, that's very strange. And there are
Speaker 2: some cases of people who have been unable to forget things.
Speaker 2: One of them was a Russian journalist in the thirties
Speaker 2: and he had one of the best memories that have
Speaker 2: been ever recorded in a human. He could hear poems
Speaker 2: in language he didn't speak, and he could quote them
Speaker 2: regardless of how long they were, and even remember them
Speaker 2: fifteen years after. Now, this guy sounds like a superpower,
Speaker 2: But it was terrible.
Speaker 1: It sounds terrible, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it was bogged down by all these details.
Speaker 2: Since the brain can't remember everything we experienced, because it
Speaker 2: would mean that it had to go through too much
Speaker 2: information in any given moment of our lives to pull
Speaker 2: up the important stuff. It would be bogged down by
Speaker 2: irrelevant stuff if it remembered too much. So this person
Speaker 2: was actually very dysfunctional. He had difficulties thinking in an
Speaker 2: abstract way because it was just too much details. So
Speaker 2: it seems that forgetting is actually an important part of
Speaker 2: our memory.
Speaker 1: I lost my wallet yesterday, and as I mentioned to you,
Speaker 1: I'm overseas. It's difficult, but I'm going to file away
Speaker 1: that my bad memory could be a good thing.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I heard somebody recently talking about absent mindedness, and I
Speaker 1: loved the way they described it because they said, like, literally,
Speaker 1: your brain is absent from where you are. It's on
Speaker 1: something else. And I like to think of it that way, like, Okay, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm absent minded because I'm thinking about, you know, something else.
Speaker 1: Not always so bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's absolutely true that the bridge between what
Speaker 2: we experience and our memory is focus. When we focus
Speaker 2: on something, we tell our brain this is important, keep this,
Speaker 2: and if we're not focused, well that it doesn't get
Speaker 2: that signal, and then we tend to forget it. And
Speaker 2: with your keys and wallet, and stuff that can be disastrous.
Speaker 2: Of course, Yes, it turns out today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've more or less sorted it out. Thankfully my
Speaker 1: passport wasn't with it, So that's the going. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about loneliness. It's become
Speaker 1: a fairly common trope that we're experiencing a loneliness epidemic.
Speaker 1: You actually say, you're not sure if that's really the case,
Speaker 1: but that loneliness is deeply problematic for us as individuals.
Speaker 1: We recently asked people who are on our text list
Speaker 1: to share kind of what's going on with them, like
Speaker 1: what their biggest challenge was, and loneliness was a really
Speaker 1: big one. And so I wanted to talk about something
Speaker 1: that you say that I think is really important. I'm
Speaker 1: going to just read what you said and then ask
Speaker 1: you to elaborate on it. You say that when researchers
Speaker 1: compiled the results from multiple studies that compared different approaches
Speaker 1: to beating loneliness, it emerged that the most effective method
Speaker 1: was to learn systematically and in therapy how loneliness affects
Speaker 1: our thought patterns and our perceptions of ourselves. What are
Speaker 1: those thought patterns and perceptions and why is under stand
Speaker 1: in them a good antidote to loneliness.
Speaker 2: So loneliness is, as you may know, something that has
Speaker 2: attracted a lot of medical studies during the last decade.
Speaker 2: And we know now that loneliness is dangerous, and by
Speaker 2: that I mean long term involuntary loneliness, because we have
Speaker 2: different social needs. But long term loneliness increases the risk
Speaker 2: of several forms of cancer, and the prognosis for all
Speaker 2: forms of cardiovascular disease is actually worse if you experience
Speaker 2: too much loneliness. And that is very strange. I mean,
Speaker 2: why is that? And the reason is probably that during
Speaker 2: almost our entire history, to be isolated, to be lonely,
Speaker 2: meant that you would die. To be part of the
Speaker 2: group there you were safe by yourself, you were gone,
Speaker 2: So to be part of a group was as important
Speaker 2: as having food. And when you are isolated, you are
Speaker 2: in a state that historically meant that no one can
Speaker 2: save you. There's no one there to help you, and
Speaker 2: then your stress system is activated. You get more alert
Speaker 2: to danger if your state when you're isolated, and that
Speaker 2: actually makes sense. We've seen in studies that people who
Speaker 2: are isolated who normally sleep with a partner and are
Speaker 2: isolated and sleep by themselves, they sleep more shallow, they
Speaker 2: have less deep sleep, and wake up more often during
Speaker 2: the night. And that is strange. I mean, why would
Speaker 2: you wake up if you don't have anyone tossing and
Speaker 2: turning in your bed? Your sleep nice, right, And the
Speaker 2: reason is probably that if you were isolated during our
Speaker 2: history and no one that was there to help you,
Speaker 2: no one that was there to warn you for danger,
Speaker 2: so you could not afford to get as much deep sleep.
Speaker 2: And we also know that people who experience loneliness they
Speaker 2: look at others people as more hostile than they actually are.
Speaker 2: Neutral faces become slightly hostile. If you're lonely, slightly hostile
Speaker 2: faces become very hostile. So the brain's sensitivity to danger increases.
Speaker 2: When you are isolated, you see the world as more
Speaker 2: dangerous because there was no one there to help you
Speaker 2: in our past. That doesn't make sense today, does not
Speaker 2: not make sense if you want to sort of reconnect
Speaker 2: with your friends, to see them as hostile and therefore
Speaker 2: it's one has shown that if you are isolated or
Speaker 2: lonely and learn about this, you will realize that I
Speaker 2: perceive the world as more threatening and dangerous than it
Speaker 2: actually is. And even more importantly, if you have people
Speaker 2: in your surroundings who experienced loneliness, they might be slightly edgy, standoffishly,
Speaker 2: but that may be a symptom of loneliness. That may
Speaker 2: not be because they don't like you. And this is
Speaker 2: not a sign of them not functioning. It's actually a
Speaker 2: sign of them functioning exactly as they should.
Speaker 1: Right, it's a cruel irony, you know, it is a
Speaker 1: cruel irony. Or even said differently, it's a cycle that
Speaker 1: can perpetuate itself. Right that the more you're alone, the
Speaker 1: more you distrust other people, which causes you to be
Speaker 1: more alone, which causes you to distrust more people, and
Speaker 1: it feeds on itself. And I think the point you're
Speaker 1: making is if we know that, we can work to
Speaker 1: actively consciously counter.
Speaker 2: That, Yes, exactly. And it's very difficult, of course, and
Speaker 2: to understand this is how we're built, this is how
Speaker 2: I function. Maybe that could be the first step to
Speaker 2: stopping this vicious cycle.
Speaker 1: We addressed to lifestyle factors just a little bit earlier
Speaker 1: talking about depression, and you have said that as you've
Speaker 1: learned more about this mind body connection, it's caused you
Speaker 1: to sort of double down on sort of the old
Speaker 1: fashion advice like eat your vegetables and get enough sleep
Speaker 1: and exercise. And I am similar. The more I've learned
Speaker 1: about how we function, and the more I've paid attention
Speaker 1: to myself, the more I've realized how important those things are.
Speaker 1: And yet it's such boring advice to give, right, It's
Speaker 1: much better to have some new neuroscience hack. But let's
Speaker 1: connect some of the dots here for why these things
Speaker 1: that seem sort of basic actually are as important as
Speaker 1: they are.
Speaker 2: I mean, exercise is important. Everyone knows that, but most
Speaker 2: people don't know how incredibly important it is. It's not
Speaker 2: just important for the body, but it's also incredibly important
Speaker 2: for the brain. The brain actually seems to be the
Speaker 2: organ that benefits the most from exercise. All of our
Speaker 2: cognitive functions, memory, creativity, the ability to focus, even intelligence
Speaker 2: actually seems to be increased if we exercise, if we
Speaker 2: are physically active, and as a psychiatrist, the most interesting
Speaker 2: part is that we get protected from depressions and anxiety
Speaker 2: if we exercise. An exercise has been shown to be
Speaker 2: as effective and antidepressant as antidepressant medication. But for that
Speaker 2: you need to raise your pulse three times a week
Speaker 2: for the five minutes every time, and it will take
Speaker 2: five to six weeks before we get the effect, and
Speaker 2: that is often unrealistic. If you're very depressed, you're not
Speaker 2: going to go for a run. That's not going to happen.
Speaker 2: So I think the role of exercise is more in
Speaker 2: protecting us against depressions and anxiety. And as you said,
Speaker 2: that's not a new advice. People have known this for ages,
Speaker 2: but when you learn the science behind it, you might
Speaker 2: take it more seriously. I have certainly done that, and
Speaker 2: many of my patients have. And an interesting paradox is
Speaker 2: if exercise is so good for the brain and for
Speaker 2: the body, then why are we lazy? I mean, that's
Speaker 2: very strange, right, Why.
Speaker 1: Would it very strange? Yeah, I've asked that question a
Speaker 1: thousand times.
Speaker 2: Yes, So why is the brain actively avoiding doing something
Speaker 2: that is so good for itself. The answer is that
Speaker 2: during almost our entire history, we were threatened by starvation
Speaker 2: and that meant that we should eat all the calories
Speaker 2: that we could find. However, the amount of energy that
Speaker 2: we have in our bodies is not just dependent on
Speaker 2: how much food we eat. It's also dependent on how
Speaker 2: much energy we use, and it costs energy to move.
Speaker 2: That's why we're lazy. That's why we want to stay
Speaker 2: in the couch. Almost all previous generations of humans had
Speaker 2: to pay for every step they took by getting new calories,
Speaker 2: and they could not find the calories at the grocery store.
Speaker 2: They had to hunt them down. So it made a
Speaker 2: lot of sense to never use any energy in vain,
Speaker 2: so to speak. And I think if we could tell
Speaker 2: our ancestors that we go for a run and then
Speaker 2: we come back to the same place and then we
Speaker 2: start lifting heavy things up into the air and put
Speaker 2: them down again without achieving anything, they would say that
Speaker 2: you are crazy to do something like that, be as
Speaker 2: crazy as throwing food into the ocean. So my point
Speaker 2: here is that we don't want to exercise. We are
Speaker 2: lazy by nature, and not because there's something wrong with us,
Speaker 2: but because we're built that way, and that is an
Speaker 2: achilles heel that we must try to overcome. And I
Speaker 2: was once many times actually by people who said that
Speaker 2: you know, if you're overweight, you obviously have accept calories.
Speaker 2: There's no risk of starving. Why do you still want
Speaker 2: to be in the couch, And that's a great question,
Speaker 2: and the answer is that we have never been overweight
Speaker 2: or a beast during human history, so that has been
Speaker 2: a non existent problem. Then therefore, the brain interprets all
Speaker 2: weight loss, even if it's from a high level, as
Speaker 2: threatening starvation, and it wants to avoid that, so it
Speaker 2: wants to keep us in the couch. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that question used to drive me crazy because I'm like,
Speaker 1: if you understand reward learning, you would think, because literally
Speaker 1: every time I exercise, every single time, and it's thousands
Speaker 1: and thousands of times now I get done and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm glad I did that, Like, oh every time, you
Speaker 1: would think if reward learning was the only thing at work,
Speaker 1: that I would run to exercise. But obviously there's more
Speaker 1: to it than that. And I think knowing this thing
Speaker 1: about exercise and how beneficial it is to our brain,
Speaker 1: like immediately for me, has been one of the keys
Speaker 1: to getting very regular at doing it because I'm not
Speaker 1: doing it for a future reward. Although it's great that
Speaker 1: I will get a future reward, it's great that my
Speaker 1: chances of cardiovascular disease are lower. I'm doing it because
Speaker 1: I know that in an hour when I'm done. I'm
Speaker 1: going to feel better than I feel now, and that
Speaker 1: for me actually helps me often get over that in
Speaker 1: built lazinesses because I'm not trying to connect the dots
Speaker 1: on something way out in the future, which we're not
Speaker 1: very good at exactly.
Speaker 2: We are mammals for here and now. If we learn
Speaker 2: that if we exercise, the role of cardiovascular disease two
Speaker 2: or three or four decades in the future is bumped
Speaker 2: down by twenty percentage point or something, we say, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's interesting. Will we change behavior because of that? Absolutely not.
Speaker 2: We don't change behaviors for those things. And that's why
Speaker 2: the effects on the brain of exercise are so important,
Speaker 2: because they are here and now. You will become more
Speaker 2: creative now if you exercise. Your memory will be boosted
Speaker 2: now if you exercise.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to up here with kind of where
Speaker 1: you wrap up where you talk about the happiness trap.
Speaker 1: You say that we expect an unrealistic state, right, and
Speaker 1: we've evolved to map every experience against our expectations. There's
Speaker 1: an old phrase out there that I've heard, something like
Speaker 1: happiness is expectations divided by reality or something. Talk to
Speaker 1: me about how do we have realistic expectations around how
Speaker 1: happy we might be. How do we readjust these As
Speaker 1: soon as you hear lower expectations, people think, well, that's
Speaker 1: not good. So give me some framework on this.
Speaker 2: Yes. By advertising it menton and social media, we are
Speaker 2: led to believe that we should feel good all the time,
Speaker 2: and we are not built that way. And I always
Speaker 2: say to my patients that you are comparing your inner
Speaker 2: self to everyone else's exterior yourself and you don't know
Speaker 2: what they are feeling, and they are certainly not feeling
Speaker 2: so well that they show off on social media. So
Speaker 2: I think we we are putting a goal that is very,
Speaker 2: very difficult to achieve, and then we go around feeling
Speaker 2: broken all the time. And there's actually been studies that
Speaker 2: shows that the more money is poured into advertisement in
Speaker 2: a country, the less satisfied its inhabitants are two years later.
Speaker 2: There's very difficult to do such studies. There are many
Speaker 2: caveats to this, but maybe it gives sure that the
Speaker 2: modern view of happiness that is given to us is
Speaker 2: causing us to be less happy because we're comparing ourselves
Speaker 2: to something that isn't possible. As I said, the best
Speaker 2: study on happiness was done at Harvard by Robert Waaldinger,
Speaker 2: and I visited him a couple of months ago, and
Speaker 2: he is I think the sixth or seventh director of
Speaker 2: the study, which started as is set in the thirties,
Speaker 2: and there was Harvard students and there was people from
Speaker 2: Boston area and they were recruited in the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 2: so it's ninety years ago. And they did all the
Speaker 2: number of medical tests and interviews and so on. And
Speaker 2: when they got children, the children got tested and did interviews,
Speaker 2: and they had grandchildren and now something the third or
Speaker 2: fourth generation, so they have been tons of data compiled
Speaker 2: and the result is that what makes people happy long
Speaker 2: term is relationships, close relationships, not superficial ones. And maybe
Speaker 2: you don't need science to understand that. Maybe that is obvious,
Speaker 2: but I think these things exercise, sleep, and meeting people
Speaker 2: in real life, you know, they are so obvious that
Speaker 2: we tend to forget them. And that's why we need
Speaker 2: to learn more about the brain, because when you understand
Speaker 2: what they do to the organ in which your experience
Speaker 2: of existence is being created, well then you will take
Speaker 2: them more seriously. When you understand that you are lazy
Speaker 2: not because you're broken, because that's how we build. You
Speaker 2: will sort of build your way around that Achille is
Speaker 2: heal when you understand that social media presents as a
Speaker 2: picture that is toxic to us in the sense that
Speaker 2: we are comparing ourselves to something that is unrealistic. Well
Speaker 2: perhaps you will not expose yourself so much to that, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Speaker 2: So the more we learn about that biology, I think
Speaker 2: the freer we become from our biology, the better we
Speaker 2: could work around these achilles heels.
Speaker 1: Well, wonderful. I think that's a great place to wrap up.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed your book, and as I mentioned, it's
Speaker 1: being released in the States. Several of the year books
Speaker 1: have come out, so Americans good news. More of his
Speaker 1: books will be available. They've only been available in European
Speaker 1: countries largely up till now. So, Andrews, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for coming.
Speaker 2: On my pleasure. I hope you find your wallet.
Speaker 1: I think that's a lost cause, but I appreciate the optimism.
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