Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties,
Speaker 1: the podcast where we talk through some of the big
Speaker 1: life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they
Speaker 1: mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to this show.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever
Speaker 1: you are in the world, it is so great to
Speaker 1: have you here. Back for another episode of the show
Speaker 1: as we, of course break down the Psychology of our twenties.
Speaker 1: Before we get into it today, I want to let
Speaker 1: you guys know that my latest line of notebooks, in
Speaker 1: collaboration with the illustrator Rosy Pink, have launched and are
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Speaker 1: hands on. A lot of love and care went into
Speaker 1: designing and producing these beautiful companions to the podcast. If
Speaker 1: you're somebody who likes journaling, who likes to take notes
Speaker 1: while listening, who likes, I don't know, just a gratitude journal,
Speaker 1: who likes to have a little planner, a little to
Speaker 1: do list, whatever you need a notebook for, these ones
Speaker 1: are adorable and definitely up there as being one of
Speaker 1: my favorite things I've ever created. It's also an amazing
Speaker 1: way to support the show and to support me as
Speaker 1: a creator. So if you are even thinking about it,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. And if you hit purchase, you
Speaker 1: are my favorite person in the world. So, without further ado,
Speaker 1: let's get into the show. Today, we are going to
Speaker 1: be taking a look at one of our most primary
Speaker 1: and significant emotions, and that is happiness. This huge concept,
Speaker 1: if we can even call it that that sounds so
Speaker 1: reductive to call a concept. It plays such an everyday,
Speaker 1: valuable role in our life. And yet I realized that
Speaker 1: I have never actually sat down and done an episode
Speaker 1: on happiness. Even in two hundred episodes. It might come up,
Speaker 1: but it has never had its time in the spotlight
Speaker 1: all on its own. And today is that day when
Speaker 1: we are going to give all of our attention and
Speaker 1: focus to this primary, deep, important emotion. I think everybody
Speaker 1: on this planet wants to be happier in some sense.
Speaker 1: They want more contentment, they're striving for greater satisfaction in
Speaker 1: some area of their life, more pleasant emotions, or they
Speaker 1: are you know, they recognize that they are unhappy and
Speaker 1: they're looking for some way out of their despair or
Speaker 1: their emotional rut. And yet I don't think many of
Speaker 1: us really know how to change that. We don't really
Speaker 1: know what brings us joy or contentment. We kind of
Speaker 1: spend a lot of our life at this baseline level,
Speaker 1: this like fifty percent mark of not being onhappy but
Speaker 1: not really excelling as a happy human. The other alternative
Speaker 1: is that we spend a lot of time doing things
Speaker 1: that we think will improve our life satisfaction, doing things
Speaker 1: that we think bring temporary pleasure and temporary joy, but
Speaker 1: which don't actually have that sustainable happiness factor behind them, right,
Speaker 1: They don't actually improve our emotional state in the long term.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about things like retail therapy, that's the first
Speaker 1: one that always comes to mind, but other concepts or
Speaker 1: other behaviors like binge drinking, emotional eating. Yes, we feel
Speaker 1: better in the moment. Often we use these things to
Speaker 1: self soothe, but I think that if we see happiness
Speaker 1: as a scale, a lot of those activities that we
Speaker 1: pursue to improve happiness really don't have a lasting effect.
Speaker 1: On top of that, I also think that in our
Speaker 1: minds for a lot of us, happiness is like important, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but it's also seen as rather uncomplicated and very much
Speaker 1: out of our control. When life is good, we are happy.
Speaker 1: When bad things happen, we are not, And so we
Speaker 1: really do tend to project our happiness and see it
Speaker 1: as the responsibility of our circumstances, the responsibility of what
Speaker 1: is happening around us, that is what has the biggest impact.
Speaker 1: But actually that is not necessarily the case. There is
Speaker 1: this model called the happiness pie which says something completely
Speaker 1: differently so behavior geneticist psychologists. They actually attribute about fifty
Speaker 1: percent of our happiness to genetics. So every single one
Speaker 1: of us is born with what we call happiness set point,
Speaker 1: a baseline level of happiness. This kind of relates to
Speaker 1: the individual differences between being a pessimist and being an optimist.
Speaker 1: When we are born, we are just naturally hardwired to
Speaker 1: see the world as perhaps realistic, but more so either
Speaker 1: a brighter or darker place than it actually is. So
Speaker 1: fifty percent genetics, and then ten percent of our happiness
Speaker 1: comes down to our life circumstances, which is shocking because
Speaker 1: I think so often we blame our context and external
Speaker 1: events for our emotional state when actually it really can
Speaker 1: only tip the scale, not throw it off completely. I think,
Speaker 1: of course, during intense moments of loss or grief, that
Speaker 1: ten percent is really going to dominate. But on the
Speaker 1: average day, our happiness really comes down to our mindset
Speaker 1: and our outlook and our habits. And so we finally
Speaker 1: arrive at that final slice of the pie, the forty
Speaker 1: percent that we can actually attribute to our personal choices.
Speaker 1: Forty percent of our happiness is dictated by us. Science
Speaker 1: would say that it is within our control. And that's
Speaker 1: what we're going to focus on today, that part of
Speaker 1: the equation, and five ways that we can, you know,
Speaker 1: scientifically improve our level of happiness. And I really wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about tips that were actionable, accessible, simple, but
Speaker 1: also inexpensive. Right, I'm not going to recommend some like
Speaker 1: fifty dollars workout class or supplement, because it's kind of
Speaker 1: ridiculous to think that only wealthy people would have access
Speaker 1: to joy and peace. But I'm also not going to
Speaker 1: give you like the basic tips that we all know.
Speaker 1: You know, I think we all understand that when you
Speaker 1: exercise and move more, when you get eight hours of sleep,
Speaker 1: when you eat better, you are going to be happier.
Speaker 1: That is pretty basic knowledge. But I want to go
Speaker 1: a little bit deeper today. I want to really look
Speaker 1: at some of the academia and the research about what
Speaker 1: can really impact our happiness on an everyday level. What
Speaker 1: are some of the secret habits of really really joyful,
Speaker 1: happy content people. One final caveat. I know I've been
Speaker 1: rambling for a while. These are not tips that are
Speaker 1: going to, of course, cure you of your mental health concerns,
Speaker 1: of your mental health symptoms or conditions. They are more
Speaker 1: so additions to our life. They are techniques that can
Speaker 1: elevate the work that we're already doing in therapy with
Speaker 1: the help of medications. I just want to say that
Speaker 1: loud and clear, this is not a replacement. These are
Speaker 1: just bonuses. So without further ado, let's get into our
Speaker 1: five evidence based ways to actually truly be happier. Let
Speaker 1: us jump straight into it with my first tip, invest
Speaker 1: as much time in your platonic relationships as your romantic ones,
Speaker 1: if not more. I think that it is important that
Speaker 1: if we are focusing on happiness, we need to firstly
Speaker 1: focus on our social connections, and that requires us to
Speaker 1: spend at least I would say, thirty minutes every day
Speaker 1: day doing something that meaningfully connects you with another person
Speaker 1: and that keeps you in touch even as life gets busy.
Speaker 1: Even as the older we get, you know, the more
Speaker 1: focus we become on our partners, or our romantic lives
Speaker 1: or our marriages. Keep those platonic connections alive with those
Speaker 1: people from your past and new friends as well, even
Speaker 1: when it feels hard, even when it feels tedious, and
Speaker 1: dare I say, even when it does sometimes let's admit
Speaker 1: it feel like a bit of a chore. I think
Speaker 1: we all go through these like social ruts where we
Speaker 1: want to isolate, where we do feel withdrawn or you know,
Speaker 1: just simply lonely. And the best thing that you can
Speaker 1: do for your happiness is to find some way, any
Speaker 1: way of getting back in touch with others. That is
Speaker 1: one of the core needs that we have as humans.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about some of the research behind why
Speaker 1: this is so crude, sure, and why it's often neglected.
Speaker 1: So possibly one of the most brilliant and significant studies
Speaker 1: of all time provides so much evidence for why this
Speaker 1: is such an important step in our happiness. So back
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty eight, that is almost ninety years ago now,
Speaker 1: this huge team at Harvard University, they decided that they
Speaker 1: wanted to track two hundred and sixty eight current sophomores
Speaker 1: at the time, and they didn't just want to track
Speaker 1: them for the you know, for the year, for the term.
Speaker 1: They wanted to track them for the rest of their lives,
Speaker 1: regularly checking in with them, regularly seeing how they were going,
Speaker 1: to determine what parts of their lives, what factors were
Speaker 1: determining whether one person was healthy and one person wasn't,
Speaker 1: What events and characteristics meant that these men succeeded or failed,
Speaker 1: what caused their early deaths or their long lives, what
Speaker 1: made their marriages flourish versus fail, And also what it
Speaker 1: was about these people's lives tracking them from when they
Speaker 1: were nineteen till ninety and even past that what made
Speaker 1: these people happy versus miserable. So this is now known
Speaker 1: as the Grant Study. It is actually the longest longitudinal
Speaker 1: study of all time. When I'm recording this right now
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty four, I think only about like eighteen
Speaker 1: of the men are still alive. But the biggest finding
Speaker 1: across all of those decades of observation and research was
Speaker 1: that the one thing that determined happiness above all else
Speaker 1: was positive social relationships, not money, not promotions or careers,
Speaker 1: not material possessions, but friendship and love, and even deeper
Speaker 1: than that, just genuine companionship and a warmth from relationships.
Speaker 1: There is something really valuable in that that I think
Speaker 1: we often forget. I think there is often this sense
Speaker 1: of like friendships and you know, relationships are just there
Speaker 1: to feel empty space, They are there to make me
Speaker 1: feel less lonely. Always sometimes end up thinking that our
Speaker 1: careers and material fulfillment is actually what determines our happiness.
Speaker 1: And this is a bit of a wake up call
Speaker 1: that no, if you are going to invest in anything
Speaker 1: in your life, anything at all, that's going to ensure
Speaker 1: that not only do you live longer, but you're happier.
Speaker 1: It is those really meaningful, platonic friendships and relationships that
Speaker 1: was like the pioneering study on this. There have of
Speaker 1: course been so many follow up research projects that are
Speaker 1: finding the exact same thing. Another example of this is
Speaker 1: a more recent one and research has employed the use
Speaker 1: of this app and it was called the Mappiness App,
Speaker 1: and basically what they wanted to determine was when a
Speaker 1: people happiest on an eleven point scale from no, oh
Speaker 1: I'm not happy at all to I am extremely happy.
Speaker 1: This app would send them little alerts to rank how
Speaker 1: they were at that very point throughout their day, and
Speaker 1: they had over three million submissions from nearly fifty thousand volunteers.
Speaker 1: And what they found was that the point where people
Speaker 1: are happiest is when they are with their friends. Amongst
Speaker 1: everything else, that they were able to track when they
Speaker 1: were with their partners, when they were with their parents,
Speaker 1: when they were with their children, when they were at work,
Speaker 1: when they were exercising, when they were with their friends
Speaker 1: always came out on top. So applying this tip, here
Speaker 1: are three things that we can do once a day,
Speaker 1: find thirty minutes minimum to deepen your bond with someone. Literally,
Speaker 1: it could be as easy as sending them tiktoks or
Speaker 1: texting them, but if you really want to improve your chances,
Speaker 1: here giving that long distance friend a call, or grabbing
Speaker 1: lunch with a friend on your lunch break, going to
Speaker 1: the gym together afterwards. You know, after work, those small
Speaker 1: thirty minute like kind of points of contact are so
Speaker 1: valuable in building up that relationship. Once a week you
Speaker 1: need to be doing minimum at least a one to
Speaker 1: two hour even longer, hopefully in depth catch up with
Speaker 1: one of your friends where you actually have a deep,
Speaker 1: meaningful conversation, You get vulnerable, you disclose, you laugh, and
Speaker 1: more important, you make memories. And then it comes to
Speaker 1: once a month. Once a month, become the host. Now,
Speaker 1: if you have listened for a while, if you know
Speaker 1: me in real life, you will know that. One of
Speaker 1: my secrets too, I would say being an incredibly optimistic,
Speaker 1: happy person and a present person as well is finding
Speaker 1: ways to build community, not just for myself but also
Speaker 1: for the people that I love. And I think hosting
Speaker 1: events in your house, in your neighborhood small things is
Speaker 1: an expression of that. When I stopped waiting for other
Speaker 1: people to do or organize cool things and hopefully invite
Speaker 1: me and just started being the person who literally just
Speaker 1: did fun shit, my life got so much better. So
Speaker 1: once a month, what I really would implore you to
Speaker 1: do is to get together a big, random bunch of
Speaker 1: people for like a friendship group pot luck, or a
Speaker 1: movie night at somebody's house or you know, trivia brunch,
Speaker 1: a run club. You be the organizer, you be the host,
Speaker 1: You be the person around which community is built. I
Speaker 1: think you know, reflecting on that, and why it makes
Speaker 1: so much sense is that in this day and age,
Speaker 1: we really lack some of the structures and activities that
Speaker 1: used to bring us together. You know, in the past,
Speaker 1: we used to have so many more places to operate
Speaker 1: within a community, right We had community dances, we had
Speaker 1: town squares, we had small village like place and spaces
Speaker 1: where you were surrounded by people. A lot more people
Speaker 1: went to church or were involved in religion. There was
Speaker 1: a bigger focus on community essentially, and I think as
Speaker 1: society has progressed and become more globalized but also a
Speaker 1: lot more online, for example, we've lost a lot of
Speaker 1: that and that disconnection really bleeds into other areas of
Speaker 1: our lives. So deliberately making our way back to that,
Speaker 1: making engagement a practice rather than something we passively fall into,
Speaker 1: is so valuable. My second tip for today spend your
Speaker 1: money better.
Speaker 2: Now. This has nothing to do with budgeting or having
Speaker 2: long term financial goals. It is actually about spending money
Speaker 2: on others and on experiences. And trust me, I know
Speaker 2: that in this kind of very materialistic society, this may
Speaker 2: initially make you feel uncomfortable to hear me say that
Speaker 2: the secret to happiness is to spend on other people
Speaker 2: and not yourself. But there is a science here. If
Speaker 2: you're aiming for happiness, if that is your goal, this
Speaker 2: might just be the path to it. Money does make
Speaker 2: us happier up to a point, though only up to
Speaker 2: a point. So in a really famous study I think
Speaker 2: we probably have all heard of it at some point,
Speaker 2: and they actually revised it last year. Basically they wanted
Speaker 2: to measure at what point does an extra dollar really
Speaker 2: not do much for our happiness? At what point does
Speaker 2: making more money not really move the need or when
Speaker 2: it comes to how good we feel? And they recently
Speaker 2: updated this for inflation and nowadays. What they say is
Speaker 2: that once you're making around one hundred k a year
Speaker 2: in US dollars, so do the conversion. If you live
Speaker 2: outside of the US, more money doesn't really do much
Speaker 2: to make you feel better, and it doesn't do much
Speaker 2: to eliminate misery or sadness. Yes, you might be able to,
Speaker 2: you know, buy objects and experiences that you value. You
Speaker 2: definitely will have more freedom and independence and security, but
Speaker 2: at that point there isn't much more that would provide
Speaker 2: you with already that baseline, So if your happiness hasn't
Speaker 2: already been influenced by that level of wealth, more money
Speaker 2: isn't going to help you, but there's something else that will.
Speaker 2: So a study by Harvard Business School and the University
Speaker 2: of British Columbia, they found that once you've actually pulled
Speaker 2: yourself out of poverty, so once you can actually afford
Speaker 2: your basics, spending money on other people actually gives us
Speaker 2: more joy than spending money on ourselves. So they found
Speaker 2: that even a minimal amount can make a difference. It's
Speaker 2: really interesting because I think that that power generosity has
Speaker 2: been lost, but it is such ancient, ancient knowledge. I
Speaker 2: think in almost every major religion, every major historical text,
Speaker 2: you will find evidence that for a long time, when
Speaker 2: you've known that doing good by other people makes us
Speaker 2: feel better, I think it also has the effect of
Speaker 2: turning the attention away from you and your problems for
Speaker 2: a moment, and remembering what it is that you have
Speaker 2: that others might not, that you could assist them by
Speaker 2: giving to them. So use your money, devote some portion
Speaker 2: of it to basically engaging in random acts of kindness.
Speaker 2: Quite literally, I want you to budget it. In One
Speaker 2: way that I do this is called good deed Sunday.
Speaker 2: Every Sunday you practice essentially being generous you give back
Speaker 2: in some way or another. It actually doesn't even need
Speaker 2: to be that much. Could be that, you know, when
Speaker 2: you go and do your weekly shop, you buy some
Speaker 2: extra items for your local community pantry, or you ask
Speaker 2: somebody doing it tough outside if you can buy them something,
Speaker 2: If you can buy them a couple of items that
Speaker 2: they really need, you could find a you know, random
Speaker 2: GoFundMe and budget literally five ten fifteen dollars each week
Speaker 2: to go towards this random act of giving back and kindness.
Speaker 2: I know it feels kind of strange giving to others
Speaker 2: for your own happiness rather than just because you feel
Speaker 2: compelled to do so, but I actually think it's more
Speaker 2: about adopting an attitude and a genuine lifestyle adversely, gratitude
Speaker 2: for what you do have, and generosity by realizing that
Speaker 2: there is so much that you could give to others
Speaker 2: that you should essentially feel really privileged to already be
Speaker 2: in possession of. And as I said, the studies repeatedly say,
Speaker 2: you will feel better for it. You will feel so
Speaker 2: much better giving that small portion of what you're making
Speaker 2: to somebody else than using it to buy something that
Speaker 2: you might not actually need. So a brief second layer
Speaker 2: to this tip around spending your money better to promote
Speaker 2: your happiness. If you're not spending that extra coinage on others,
Speaker 2: if that's not really what you want to do with
Speaker 2: your time and your money, that is okay. A study
Speaker 2: by Cornell University found that you're actually better off purchasing
Speaker 2: experiences than things because the joy and the satisfaction that
Speaker 2: you get from an object is going to wane and
Speaker 2: decline pretty quickly after purchasing. But the enjoyment of an experience,
Speaker 2: it's like a nice wine. It gets better over time
Speaker 2: as you age. Those memories do become more valuable, They
Speaker 2: become an investment, they become an important asset. The other
Speaker 2: thing that the researchers pointed out around this in this
Speaker 2: study by Cornell was that your experiences are actually just
Speaker 2: inherently less comparative. It's a lot harder to you know,
Speaker 2: compare them to somebody else and feel like you're lacking
Speaker 2: the same way that we can do with material objects.
Speaker 2: And we also don't typically have buyers remorse when it
Speaker 2: comes to memories. When it comes to experiences, because even
Speaker 2: if they were terrible, they are still a story. So
Speaker 2: if you want to spend your money better for your happiness,
Speaker 2: give to others, and give to your memories rather than
Speaker 2: to your kind of like material rather than to the
Speaker 2: material side of things. So let's move on to our
Speaker 2: third tip. Have one project, one thing that you are
Speaker 2: actively trying to finish or accomplish or get better at.
Speaker 2: I say this a lot on the podcast, so I'm
Speaker 2: very sorry if I sound like a broken record at
Speaker 2: this point, but I say it because it's important and
Speaker 2: it's something that I believe in very deeply. Sometimes the
Speaker 2: easiest thing to do isn't what's best for us. What's
Speaker 2: best for us is the thing that requires a bit
Speaker 2: more effort for a lot more gain. I think the
Speaker 2: older we get, we do tend to become more passive
Speaker 2: in our lives, especially during our free time, during our downtime,
Speaker 2: because hours a long, life is exhausting, life is busy,
Speaker 2: Everything just gets a bit harder. I think we have
Speaker 2: all had that feeling at some point of just wanting
Speaker 2: to take the path of least resistance through life, getting
Speaker 2: home from work and just genuinely wanting to sit on
Speaker 2: the couch and scroll. But when we were kids, when
Speaker 2: we were teenagers, we often had the privilege of something
Speaker 2: to work towards, something that actually gave us a sense
Speaker 2: of drive and purpose. I think that we have lost
Speaker 2: that a little bit now. And you know, everybody tries
Speaker 2: to blame social media and technology. I'm going to actually
Speaker 2: quickly jump on that bandwagon for a second. I think
Speaker 2: with social media, if we're getting the same amount of
Speaker 2: dopamine from saying other people do cool and rewarding stuff,
Speaker 2: why would we need to do it ourselves? And the
Speaker 2: reason why. The answer to that question is that we
Speaker 2: need purpose. If we think about happiness as being made
Speaker 2: up of four components, in my mind, they would be
Speaker 2: joy and pleasure, connection, altruism and meaning doing something that
Speaker 2: actually makes you feel like you are alive and contributing,
Speaker 2: and just having a sense of purpose. So in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 2: this group of researchers at UCLA they actually identified this
Speaker 2: through some research they were doing on the two distinct
Speaker 2: kinds of happiness. We have hedonic happiness and eudaemonic happiness.
Speaker 2: Hopefully I'm pronounced that right. You demonic, Yeah, you demonic happiness.
Speaker 2: There we go, correct me if I'm wrong. But hedonic
Speaker 2: happiness comes from self gratification and pleasure seeking hedonic is
Speaker 2: obviously relating to the idea of hedonism, prioritizing pleasure over
Speaker 2: everything else. But you, demonic happiness comes from having a
Speaker 2: deep sense of meaning and purpose in life, doing things
Speaker 2: for others, but more so doing hard things that do
Speaker 2: take time. Rather than getting all of your joy and
Speaker 2: pleasure from instantly gratifying experiences, we tend to spend a
Speaker 2: lot of time in hedonic happiness. We look to external
Speaker 2: pleasures to make life enjoyable. Because you, demonic happiness is harder.
Speaker 2: Simply put, it's just harder to obtain, but there are
Speaker 2: so many benefits. So simply put, if you are in
Speaker 2: a bit of an emotional rut right now, I think
Speaker 2: creating meaning is an essential way to switch from adonic
Speaker 2: happiness to eudonic happiness. Just have a little bit more
Speaker 2: of that more sustainable form of joy in your life.
Speaker 2: And we create that meaning by creating goals or things
Speaker 2: that we can strive towards, because I think you know,
Speaker 2: in that act of striving, we feel engaged and proactive, meaning,
Speaker 2: we realize that we can do things to change our
Speaker 2: lives and how we feel about it. Now, those goals
Speaker 2: this big, very daunting idea of purpose. It doesn't have
Speaker 2: to be as large or as scary as it sounds.
Speaker 2: You just need to have something. And I prefer to
Speaker 2: think about this as a project rather than thinking about
Speaker 2: this huge mission that we all need to have. You
Speaker 2: just need to have something. For some people. That is,
Speaker 2: you know, running a marathon, perfect example, and also super timely,
Speaker 2: because I think everybody I know right now seems to
Speaker 2: be training for a marathon or some running event of
Speaker 2: some sort. But you know, that's fabulous because you're working
Speaker 2: towards something that is harder and bigger than yourself that
Speaker 2: you actually can't achieve overnight. But I also have a
Speaker 2: really good friend whose purposeful thing for the year is
Speaker 2: hitting her fifty two book target on Goodreads. My dad,
Speaker 2: for example, right now, is learning Japanese. You know that
Speaker 2: is something that you progress towards. And for me, well,
Speaker 2: it was finishing my book, but that has done so now.
Speaker 2: It's kind of being consistent in the gym, right I
Speaker 2: can't just like show up one day and you know,
Speaker 2: hit all my prs and do everything perfectly. It is
Speaker 2: once again the act of striving that is so so
Speaker 2: meaningful in these situations. So just stop and pause with
Speaker 2: me right now, and I want you to honestly ask yourself,
Speaker 2: is there something in my life, anything that ischallenging me
Speaker 2: or that I am working towards? Do I have a project?
Speaker 2: Or when I finish work, when I finish uni, when
Speaker 2: I say goodbye to all my friends? Is my only
Speaker 2: function to scroll and consume? And is that really what
Speaker 2: I was designed to do? Is that really how I
Speaker 2: want to spend my life? Does it make me feel human?
Speaker 2: Does it make you feel meaningful? You can still, of
Speaker 2: course unwind in that way, but I just want to
Speaker 2: encourage you to think about what else you are made
Speaker 2: for and whether you actually would be happier if you
Speaker 2: were putting time into something that you really had something
Speaker 2: to show for it at the end of it all,
Speaker 2: you really had something that you felt was important and
Speaker 2: that you felt proud of. Alrighty, I have two more
Speaker 2: tips for you, but firstly we are going to take
Speaker 2: a small break and then we will be right back.
Speaker 2: Welcome back. I have two final tips for you today,
Speaker 2: and the first one takes place outdoors. If you want
Speaker 2: to be happier, if that is what you are striving towards,
Speaker 2: and I'm assuming that it is because you are listening
Speaker 2: to this episode. You need to rewild yourself. You need
Speaker 2: to quite literally touch some grass, get your feet stuck
Speaker 2: in the dirt, you know, experience or as you look
Speaker 2: at the stars, take a dive in the ocean. Pretty
Speaker 2: much anything that gets you connected with nature, our literal
Speaker 2: you know, natural habitat can boost serotonin beyond even some
Speaker 2: of the strongest antidepressants. Now again, not a cure for
Speaker 2: serious mental health concerns. I am never going to sit
Speaker 2: here and say go off your medication and like get outdoors,
Speaker 2: because I think that is ludicrous, that is ridiculous, that
Speaker 2: is unethical to even suggest. But it is an important addition.
Speaker 2: I think we are so detached from nature in today's world.
Speaker 2: We are so like you, caught up in concrete and
Speaker 2: indoor environments that we have lost touch with what makes
Speaker 2: us wild and what makes us as a species, what
Speaker 2: makes us connected to the world around us. And when
Speaker 2: researchers have deliberately intervened and essentially forced people to go
Speaker 2: outdoors as part of studies, the impact on their overall happiness,
Speaker 2: on their udontic happiness, on their joy, on their genuine
Speaker 2: joy and love for life, the results and the impact
Speaker 2: of that is just honestly so impressive. So I have
Speaker 2: three examples for you to take away with you today,
Speaker 2: three examples of how we can really activate this part
Speaker 2: of us that responds so well to nature. So in
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, there was a study on this and it
Speaker 2: was run on a group of thirty eight Northern Californians,
Speaker 2: so not a huge sample size, but just hear me out.
Speaker 2: So these thirty eight Californians, sorry in Northern Californians, maybe
Speaker 2: there is a distinction, I don't know. They were split
Speaker 2: up into two groups. One group took a ninety minute
Speaker 2: walk in nature every day and the other group did
Speaker 2: that same walk in the city. At the end of
Speaker 2: this study, have a guess who was having fewer negative thoughts.
Speaker 2: Have a guess who had a better self esteem. Have
Speaker 2: a guest who was reporting greater levels of happiness. It
Speaker 2: was the people who were walking in the outdoors. The
Speaker 2: urban walkers who were walking amongst the city did not
Speaker 2: report the same significant amount of change when they kind
Speaker 2: of controlled for the general serotonin in endorphin boost from exercise.
Speaker 2: It was those who did it out in nature and
Speaker 2: who were you know, actively rewilding themselves who really experienced
Speaker 2: the most benefit. What's more, fMRI scans revealed less activity
Speaker 2: in the brain region that plays a role in mood
Speaker 2: disorders and negative thought patterns. These individuals had genuinely seen
Speaker 2: their brains almost rewire to be more positive. So the
Speaker 2: dirt example I gave before, you know it may have
Speaker 2: sounded like a joke, me telling you to go out
Speaker 2: and touch some dirt. You know, touch some dirt, and
Speaker 2: they go willy nilly, you're happier, But there is actually
Speaker 2: some evidence that the literal smell of mud of dirt
Speaker 2: may lift your spirits. So what it comes down to
Speaker 2: is actually this harmless bacteria that exists in the soil.
Speaker 2: It's called Myobacterium vacate. So if you want to give that,
Speaker 2: you know, fancy Latin name a quick google, what you're
Speaker 2: going to find is that when you smell dirt, that
Speaker 2: smell that you can remember right now, really picture it
Speaker 2: smelling that like that fresh soil. What you're actually spelling
Speaker 2: and is that specific bacteria. And when it enters your
Speaker 2: olfactory center in your brain, it leases a whole wave
Speaker 2: of euphoria and serotonin, so much so that in human
Speaker 2: tests when cancer patients were administered this bacteria, They're moved,
Speaker 2: despite their circumstances, despite this terrible, terrible disease, their outlook
Speaker 2: greatly improved. It is like nature's antidepressant, this bacteria. It
Speaker 2: is really you should google it. It has this strange impact
Speaker 2: on our brain and how our neurons communicate. Even anecdotally,
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever met an unhappy person who
Speaker 2: was gardening. I have never been miserable whilst repotting my plants,
Speaker 2: or hiking, or taking my feet off and like squishing
Speaker 2: them around in the mud. So one final study to
Speaker 2: convince you of the healing power of the outdoors and
Speaker 2: why if you are prioritizing happiness, you should be prioritizing
Speaker 2: quite literally your outdoor time is this study that was
Speaker 2: focused on what eating outdoors can do for our well being,
Speaker 2: and it turns out that it can do quite a bit.
Speaker 2: One thing that I hear a lot, and I think
Speaker 2: it's super understandable, is that you know, I just don't
Speaker 2: have time for that, And that is actually so reasonable.
Speaker 2: If you are working from eight am to six pm
Speaker 2: and it's the middle of winter and the sun is
Speaker 2: you know, not even coming up until you're at work,
Speaker 2: not even setting until you're home. How are you possibly
Speaker 2: meant to, you know, go play in the dirt or
Speaker 2: frolic in the ocean. How are you meant to do that?
Speaker 2: I understand, you know, it's really difficult for me to
Speaker 2: sit here and you know, give you this advice when
Speaker 2: we are like, there's just practicalities that prevent me from
Speaker 2: doing this. So the simple solution is spending your lunch
Speaker 2: break that thirty minutes or our lunch break that we
Speaker 2: all legally get, eating outside, or eating somewhere with windows
Speaker 2: to at least see some kind of nature. Do not
Speaker 2: sit at your desk and eat, please and thank you.
Speaker 2: Do not sit in the middle of a crowded food
Speaker 2: hall with no natural light and expect, you know, to
Speaker 2: see a difference. So in twenty thirteen, another study for
Speaker 2: you guys and full of them today. These scientists from
Speaker 2: the University of Sussex. They measured the happiness of these
Speaker 2: this group of employees who ate lunch in different locations.
Speaker 2: So the results showed that workers they were actually happiest
Speaker 2: when they ate their lunch on the beach. Of course
Speaker 2: you're going to be happy doing that, but it's also
Speaker 2: not reasonable that you can get from your offers to
Speaker 2: the ocean so quickly, but even just getting outside in
Speaker 2: the sun was a huge contributor to basically like staving
Speaker 2: off misery. People who ate in parks, people who ate outdoors,
Speaker 2: they had a more positive attitude about their jobs, about
Speaker 2: their lives, about their connections than those who were eating
Speaker 2: at a restaurant or sitting on their couch at home.
Speaker 2: So if you want to be happy, even slightly, if
Speaker 2: this is something you're consciously trying to do, prioritize your
Speaker 2: outdoor time that one. You know, one change that you
Speaker 2: can make is literally just sitting outside while you have
Speaker 2: your lunch, something that you are already you know, it's
Speaker 2: already factored in your day that you will have to
Speaker 2: do this. I am going to finish up with my
Speaker 2: most counterintuitive tip of this entire episode, one that you
Speaker 2: will probably be surprised would show up in an episode
Speaker 2: about happiness. Here it is you need to be sadder
Speaker 2: more often. And let me explain why we often think
Speaker 2: of happiness as the absence of sadness, but it's actually
Speaker 2: a mastery of sadness. It is a recognition that shit
Speaker 2: happens life sometimes hurts a lot, It is boring, It
Speaker 2: can quite frankly be a little bit bland if we're
Speaker 2: not searching for hedonistic pleasure at all times. But that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that it's not worthwhile. And it also doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that we suppress those feelings and adopt the delusion
Speaker 2: that everything is fine and hope that it will be.
Speaker 2: We need to give ourselves permission to wallow. We need
Speaker 2: to be tender, we need to feel, We need to
Speaker 2: watch that sad movie. We need to let ourselves be
Speaker 2: open about our emotions. There is a brilliant Vice article
Speaker 2: about this back when Vice you know, it was actually good,
Speaker 2: and it's called You'll be Happier if you let yourself
Speaker 2: feel like crap, and I would really really recommend you
Speaker 2: go and read it. We have such high standards when
Speaker 2: it comes to our emotions like joy, like euphoria, like excitement,
Speaker 2: like passion, like love. We of course want to feel
Speaker 2: them all the time. That is so human to want
Speaker 2: to feel amazing all the time, but it can create
Speaker 2: a gap between expectation versus reality, and you know that
Speaker 2: actually results in us sometimes feeling less happy overall because
Speaker 2: we're disappointed that we can't feel happy all the time.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, we live in a time
Speaker 2: when our culture is very obsessed with this idea of
Speaker 2: constant happiness. And I know it is so ironic that
Speaker 2: I am doing a whole episode devoted on this feeling
Speaker 2: whilst I am saying that, But seriously, I do think
Speaker 2: that maturing and developing and evolving is knowing that you
Speaker 2: cannot be happy all the time. And this author to
Speaker 2: Boor to Boor, that is their full name. She published
Speaker 2: a study in twenty twenty three talking about how when
Speaker 2: we as individuals rebrand sadness as valuable rather than as
Speaker 2: something that we want to escape from. This transformation occurs
Speaker 2: because the very expression of this emotion begins to normalize
Speaker 2: it as part of our human can be, and instead
Speaker 2: of only focusing on how it is maladaptive, how it
Speaker 2: is unpleasant, how we want to avoid it, we think
Speaker 2: about what it actually can give us. I think that
Speaker 2: our ability to embrace our negative feelings provide so many benefits.
Speaker 2: There have been so many papers on this, so much
Speaker 2: evidence that people individuals like you and I, who accept
Speaker 2: all of our emotions without judgment, we are less likely
Speaker 2: to ruminate on you know, those hard times, we are
Speaker 2: less likely to suppress mental experiences, you know, which typically
Speaker 2: backfires to only amplify those experiences in the end. And
Speaker 2: we are also less likely to experience meta emotional reactions,
Speaker 2: which is feeling, you know, upset about being upset, feeling
Speaker 2: even more unhappy about the fact that we are unhappy.
Speaker 2: You know. There was this fabulous article. It's in the
Speaker 2: Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the authors put
Speaker 2: it this way, when we accept, versus judge, our mental experiences,
Speaker 2: we let those experience you know, experiences run there natural
Speaker 2: and also relatively short lived course, rather than focusing on
Speaker 2: them and exacerbating them. So that's my final tip. Express
Speaker 2: your sadness. Find ways to communicate it to your friends,
Speaker 2: find a home for it, find an expression for it,
Speaker 2: find a way to sit with it even when it's uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: And the research tells us that counterintuitively, it actually makes
Speaker 2: us happier in the long term. Here are some quick
Speaker 2: final notes for me on this. You don't have to
Speaker 2: do all of these things, you know, that's a lot
Speaker 2: of work. Just choose one or two of these tips
Speaker 2: and implement them slowly, implement them over time, and just
Speaker 2: notice whether something changes. You know, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: choose which one you should do first. I think that
Speaker 2: all five are really important, but whichever one resonates with
Speaker 2: you most, that is the one that you should choose.
Speaker 2: And I also want to say one more time, don't
Speaker 2: forget the other core components of your wellbeing. I know
Speaker 2: I said I wouldn't talk about exercise or eating well
Speaker 2: or going to therapy, but you know, those are our foundations.
Speaker 2: You can't really accept your sadness or have a project
Speaker 2: or think that going outdoors is going to do as
Speaker 2: much as getting those basics down pat will do in
Speaker 2: the first place. So really I'm rooting for you these.
Speaker 2: You know, with small changes comes big, big impact and
Speaker 2: big results. And I just want you to remember the
Speaker 2: happiness pie. When life feels overwhelming, you get to control
Speaker 2: forty percent of it. That is all up to you
Speaker 2: and your perception. So I'm sending a lot of love
Speaker 2: and strength. If you enjoyed this episode, please feel free
Speaker 2: to share it with somebody else might also benefit from it.
Speaker 2: Who you think might get something from this, And if
Speaker 2: you do feel cool to do so, please leave a
Speaker 2: review five stars. Of course it would really make my day.
Speaker 2: It helps the show grow. It helps this information get
Speaker 2: to more people and it just makes me really happy.
Speaker 2: Make sure you're following along as well, so you know
Speaker 2: when new episodes are coming out. If you have feedback
Speaker 2: an episode, suggestion, something to say, something to contribute, something
Speaker 2: that you even disagree with, whatever it is, please feel
Speaker 2: free to follow me and DM me at that Psychology
Speaker 2: Podcast with all your questions, queries, concerns, inquiries, topic suggestions,
Speaker 2: whatever it is. I would love to hear from you,
Speaker 2: and as always, we will be back on Friday with
Speaker 2: another episode