Speaker 1: I'm Katie Kuric, and this is next question, you know,
Speaker 1: having a podcast on happiness, teaching a whole classed Ivy
Speaker 1: League students, generation after generation. Yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that we get happiness wrong. Happiness, that feeling of joy
Speaker 1: or contentment that we all seem to crave can also
Speaker 1: seem totally unattainable in this day and age. In fact,
Speaker 1: maybe we need to replace the word happiness altogether. True
Speaker 1: flourishing is taking on challenges, embracing failure, you know, navigating
Speaker 1: these negative emotions that might be normative. And so I think,
Speaker 1: you know, it would be better to have a different word,
Speaker 1: But in some ways we're stuck with happiness. Doctor Laurie
Speaker 1: Santos is a cognitive scientist who's been studying happiness in
Speaker 1: the lab as well as through the class she teaches
Speaker 1: at Yale. But she's the first to admit even she
Speaker 1: isn't happy all the time. Some of us are kind
Speaker 1: of genetically lucky to have a little bit of a
Speaker 1: predisposition and happiness. I'm probably the opposite. I think I
Speaker 1: was born on a rainy like loudry mixed kind of day.
Speaker 1: So what do we need to understand about happiness, Why
Speaker 1: is it so difficult to come by? And why is
Speaker 1: true happiness such freaking hard work. By the way, if
Speaker 1: you want to get smarter every morning with a breakdown
Speaker 1: of the news and fascinating takes on health and wellness
Speaker 1: and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter, Wake
Speaker 1: Up Call by going to Katiecurrek dot com. Are you
Speaker 1: or a loved one battling cancer? I'm passionate about raising
Speaker 1: awareness about the importance of early detection and for patients
Speaker 1: and their caregivers to fully understand all available treatment options,
Speaker 1: especially those that have meaningful impact to extending survival and
Speaker 1: improving quality of life. You know, too often the length
Speaker 1: of treatment, recovery period, and debilitating side effects can be
Speaker 1: difficult to cope with. Our partners at view Ray have
Speaker 1: reinvented cancer treatment with Meridian MRI guided radiation therapy for
Speaker 1: those who qualify. Around eighty percent of patients complete treatment
Speaker 1: and as few as five sessions, often with little or
Speaker 1: no side effects. Viewray is working to educate patients about
Speaker 1: this life changing cancer treatment and where patients can find
Speaker 1: a Meridian treatment center. Innovation like Meridian gives me hope
Speaker 1: for the millions of people around the world currently battling cancer.
Speaker 1: So talk to your doctor. To find hospitals where Meridian
Speaker 1: is available, visit viewray dot com. Laurie Santos, come on down.
Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be talking to you. Ditto, Ditto.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the basics. What exactly is happiness? We
Speaker 1: do a very long time answering that, kat So. Social
Speaker 1: scientists tend to think of happiness as being happy in
Speaker 1: your life and being happy with your life. So being
Speaker 1: happy in your life is like you've just got lots
Speaker 1: of positive emotions. There's like joy and smiling and laughter
Speaker 1: as opposed to kind of negative emotions like sadness, anger
Speaker 1: and saying. It's not saying you have no negative emotions,
Speaker 1: it's just that the ratio is pretty good. That's being
Speaker 1: happy in your life. But being happy with your life
Speaker 1: is how you think about your life. Is the answer
Speaker 1: to your question, like all things considered, how satisfied are
Speaker 1: you with your life? And if you say yes, then
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. And I love this definition because you know,
Speaker 1: we all know that there are times that those two
Speaker 1: things dissociate, right that you know you're doing something that's
Speaker 1: making you incredibly satisfied with your life. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: you have a new baby or a new job, but
Speaker 1: it's hard, you know, in your life there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stress and things like that. And I think we've
Speaker 1: all met people, you especially being you know, with the
Speaker 1: rich and famous folks where no no in their life,
Speaker 1: like you know, you're flying first class and great food,
Speaker 1: but with your life there's a real sense of emptiness
Speaker 1: and a lack of meaning. And so we have these
Speaker 1: misconceptions when it comes to the things that make guess happy.
Speaker 1: Are we using the wrong word? Should it be contentment?
Speaker 1: Should it be fulfillment? I think the Greeks, you know,
Speaker 1: and the ancients as usual, had it right. You know,
Speaker 1: they talked about you diamondia flourishing, and that I think
Speaker 1: would be a better word, because to have true flourishing,
Speaker 1: it's not like you're happy all the time. Like true
Speaker 1: flourishing isn't toxic positivity where you're like smiling like some
Speaker 1: terrible yellow emojing where you're like, oh my gosh, I'm
Speaker 1: happy all the time. And so what I try to
Speaker 1: do is to explain to folks that true happiness allows
Speaker 1: for the normal kinds of spots where you're not going
Speaker 1: to feel great, like, that's typical, that's normal, that's what
Speaker 1: you need for a good, ultimately happy life. But people
Speaker 1: probably should think about the word flourishing or fulfillment, contentment.
Speaker 1: It just seems much more stable. Happiness seems like at
Speaker 1: the high end of the emotional scale, right, and that's
Speaker 1: unattainable because nobody's happy all the time. Yeah. My colleague
Speaker 1: Dan Gilbert, professor at Harvard, who comes a lot on
Speaker 1: my podcast, Dan's vond of saying that you know, happily
Speaker 1: ever after only exists if you have like three minutes
Speaker 1: left to live, like, it's just not a destination. And
Speaker 1: I think that's another thing we get wrong. We think
Speaker 1: I'm going to do something and get there. You know,
Speaker 1: I'll get married and I will be happy. Or I'll
Speaker 1: get this new raise and I will be happy. Or
Speaker 1: you know, my college students, I'll get into the perfect
Speaker 1: medical school or get the perfect rates and I will
Speaker 1: be happy. And that's just not how it works. My
Speaker 1: late husband used to say that I was born on
Speaker 1: a sunny day, which I thought was such a nice compliment,
Speaker 1: and it made me wonder if some people are hardwired
Speaker 1: for happiness. Is there a happiness set point that varies
Speaker 1: from person to person, from biology to biology. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: some evidence that that might be at least partly the case.
Speaker 1: And the evidence comes from these studies on what's called heritability. Right,
Speaker 1: what is it called heritability? It's just not irritability irritability. Heritability,
Speaker 1: which is this like big word of saying, you know,
Speaker 1: how much of the variance that we see in the population.
Speaker 1: You know, some people are happy, not so happy. How
Speaker 1: much of that is do to your biology? How much
Speaker 1: of that is due to kind of how you grow up? Right?
Speaker 1: And the way we test heritability is to look at twins. Right,
Speaker 1: Some twins are identical. That means they're genetically exactly the same,
Speaker 1: the same way, raise the same way. Right. Some are fraternal,
Speaker 1: which means they're genetically different, Like they're just as similar
Speaker 1: as regular brothers and sisters. And so if happiness is
Speaker 1: really built in, then identical twins should be much more
Speaker 1: similar in their happiness level than regular brothers and sisters.
Speaker 1: Tons of studies have looked at this, and what you
Speaker 1: find is that's true, but a little bit. Heritability estimates
Speaker 1: are at about thirty percent, and that's like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's there, but scientifically speaking, it's kind of small. What
Speaker 1: does that mean? It means there's something to be said for,
Speaker 1: you know, being born on a sunny day. Some of
Speaker 1: us are kind of genetically lucky to have a little
Speaker 1: bit of a predisposition to happiness, but it's not as
Speaker 1: much as we, I think assume. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: nurture is more important than nature when it comes to happiness.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, and I think it's important not to
Speaker 1: discount nature, right. There are some people who have a
Speaker 1: harder than others because they've got to put more work in,
Speaker 1: but everybody can put the right work in to change things. Well,
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you what sets you up for happiness?
Speaker 1: I mean, is it a secure home, life, loving parents,
Speaker 1: financial security, positive affirmation, success, and however you define it.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm really lucky, honestly, Laurie, in all
Speaker 1: those categories. I think of people who have parents who
Speaker 1: didn't give them unconditional love and how that really kind
Speaker 1: of reverberates throughout their lives. Yeah, I mean, obviously those
Speaker 1: things have an impact, right. You know, trauma, which is
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you're talking about right where parents,
Speaker 1: you know, your abusive parents or with whole scene or
Speaker 1: exactly or you know, they could even be affluent, you know,
Speaker 1: successful parents, just very distant or really harsh, right, I
Speaker 1: mean we all kind of grow up with different levels
Speaker 1: of that, and you can look at levels are pretty extreme,
Speaker 1: and scientists do that, right. This is a lot of
Speaker 1: the work on trauma and what's often called post traumatic
Speaker 1: stress disorder. You many of us have heard about that, right,
Speaker 1: And it comes from the fact that when you experience
Speaker 1: trauma sometimes that can have a longstanding effect. But even
Speaker 1: though you know post traumatic stress disorder PTSD gets a
Speaker 1: lot of airtime, scientists have also looked at what you
Speaker 1: might consider the opposite, which is called post traumatic growth. Right,
Speaker 1: you go through an awful, terrible incident that you never
Speaker 1: would have wished on yourself or anyone else, and some
Speaker 1: good comes from that. You feel like you come out stronger,
Speaker 1: you feel like you come out more resilient, you feel
Speaker 1: like you come out more socially connected to the people
Speaker 1: you really care about. And this is what's called post
Speaker 1: traumatic growth. And I'm kind of curious. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: you and I are talking after you've been so helpfully
Speaker 1: public about your breast cancer diagnosis. That could be a
Speaker 1: trauma that leads to PTSD. You know, individuals who experience
Speaker 1: cancer diagnosis and have to go through the process, you know,
Speaker 1: terrible and awfully traumatic, but you kind of resonate with that,
Speaker 1: this idea of the post traumatic growth a bit. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think because I've had so much experience witnessing cancer
Speaker 1: much more severely in both my late husband and my
Speaker 1: sister who also passed away, and I became so knowledgeable
Speaker 1: about cancer. I have a very really healthy and solid
Speaker 1: understanding about my particular situation, and instead of being traumatized,
Speaker 1: it actually increased my gratitude because I know, unlike them,
Speaker 1: both my husband and sister were diagnosed with stage four cancer.
Speaker 1: Mine was discovered early, when it's not only treatable but curable,
Speaker 1: and so if anything, it wasn't traumatic. It was actually
Speaker 1: weirdly life affirming. It was a death sentence for my
Speaker 1: husband and my sister when they were diagnosed, and the
Speaker 1: fact that it was twenty twenty two, the fact that
Speaker 1: science has really progressed, I felt grateful. And so this
Speaker 1: is what we hear a lot, both with kind of
Speaker 1: diagnoses like yours, but even cases where individuals find out
Speaker 1: they have a terminal situation or things that you couldn't
Speaker 1: even imagine. You're There are accounts of parents who've lost
Speaker 1: young children who obviously, you know, the most traumatic thing
Speaker 1: any parent could imagine. You know, obviously they're not happy
Speaker 1: about it, they wouldn't wish it again, but they'll say
Speaker 1: on mass more good things came of it than I expected, right,
Speaker 1: And that is a profound thing about human psychology and
Speaker 1: human nature. The worst thing possible that we could ever
Speaker 1: imagine happens, and we say there are parts of this
Speaker 1: at least that I'm grateful for, or there's parts of
Speaker 1: this that I wouldn't change. I've grown from this. This
Speaker 1: is one of the biggest mistakes that we make about happiness.
Speaker 1: We think it's only our circumstances. If things go well,
Speaker 1: I'll be great, and God forbid things go badly. But
Speaker 1: in practice, when these things actually happen to people were
Speaker 1: much more resilient, and we often take much more meaning
Speaker 1: and purpose from those events than we often expect. I
Speaker 1: think my resilience you mentioned going public, just as I
Speaker 1: try to spread awareness and educate people about calling cancer
Speaker 1: prevention and encourage them to get colonoscopies, and got one
Speaker 1: on television myself, I knew that by being a public
Speaker 1: figure and talking about it, I have the potential to
Speaker 1: actually save lives. And so for me translating it into
Speaker 1: I don't mean to sound cheesy, but some form of service,
Speaker 1: it actually is very grounding and satisfying and fulfilling for me.
Speaker 1: And that's what I think. Sometimes we get wrong about happiness.
Speaker 1: I think resilious it's finding strength with them. So sometimes
Speaker 1: we are in a situation that we're unprepared for and
Speaker 1: you find yourself digging deeper into something that you didn't
Speaker 1: even know you possessed more after the break. I'm an
Speaker 1: artist in New York City, so when I'm creating or discovering,
Speaker 1: that's where I find my happiness usually most of the time.
Speaker 1: So happiness, you can try and find it, you can
Speaker 1: try to inspire it. I also think you got to
Speaker 1: give energy to get energy, So do that you can
Speaker 1: find a lot of happiness. We're back with Lorie Santos.
Speaker 1: All this focus on quote unquote self care, which I
Speaker 1: think to a certain extent, we need to focus and
Speaker 1: take care of ourselves. And the oxygen mask and all
Speaker 1: that jazz. On the other hand, it seems like we
Speaker 1: have become so self focused that we're missing the point
Speaker 1: about serving others, being kind to others. Those things are
Speaker 1: proven to increase your happiness, right, Lorie. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: one of the biggest cross cultural universals in happiness science
Speaker 1: right now is that doing nice things for other people
Speaker 1: makes you happier. If you look at people who are
Speaker 1: controlled for the level of income they have, people who
Speaker 1: donate more of their money to charity are happier. People
Speaker 1: who just tend to just be more self focused are
Speaker 1: less happy than the people who are out there doing
Speaker 1: stuff for other people. And even if you force people
Speaker 1: to do nice stuff for others, they wind up feeling happier.
Speaker 1: And do you think this whole emphasis on self care
Speaker 1: and wellness has had the adverse effect in some ways?
Speaker 1: Have you looked at that? Yeah? Definitely. It's a relatively
Speaker 1: new phenomenon, isn't it. I mean I feel like sort
Speaker 1: of the self care wellness industry has really blossomed and
Speaker 1: just the last five years. Yeah, I think it's problematic
Speaker 1: in two ways. Again, One is this focus on the self, right,
Speaker 1: you know, me, me me, when again, all the data
Speaker 1: suggest that doing for others would be better. I think
Speaker 1: another problem is it like reflects this notion that we
Speaker 1: have that like our circumstances matter for happiness. Right, if
Speaker 1: I could just like have it be you know, bubble
Speaker 1: bats and rainbows and first class flights, then my life
Speaker 1: would be great. And it's really missing out on the
Speaker 1: things that can actually matter for our happiness. Were in
Speaker 1: some ways even just a simple act of spending our money,
Speaker 1: We're doing it wrong. Spending on things that we think
Speaker 1: are going to make us feel good, I think aren't
Speaker 1: going to bring us joy, and they might not bring
Speaker 1: us the joy we think. We're in New York City,
Speaker 1: the epicenter of type A strivers, right, and I think
Speaker 1: if there's one thing that has hurt my happiness quotient,
Speaker 1: if you will, is always striving, because once you get something,
Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, what am I going to do next?
Speaker 1: Where am I going to go? How am I going
Speaker 1: to achieve something? More? Talk about how these type A
Speaker 1: kind of super driven people, because I'm transitioning to you
Speaker 1: your Yale class where you at them in droves, how
Speaker 1: that impacts your happiness. I mean, it's sometimes funny to
Speaker 1: people when they hear I teach this class unhappiness to
Speaker 1: Yale students, because the lay person's assumption is like Yale
Speaker 1: students haven't made they're nineteen, you know, many of them
Speaker 1: are wealthy or at least well connect. Did yet you
Speaker 1: know one fourth of them decided to take a class
Speaker 1: on happiness. What year did you start teaching it? First?
Speaker 1: In twenty eighteen, and it was It became the largest
Speaker 1: class ever in Yale's history, and one quarter of the
Speaker 1: students enrolled, right, And I ken that tells you that
Speaker 1: these you know type A, you know, very driven Yale
Speaker 1: students are voting with their feet. They've especially at Yale,
Speaker 1: they've gotten everything they've wanted. You know, probably since these
Speaker 1: kids were twelve years old, they dreamed of getting into
Speaker 1: an Ivy League school, and now they're there and it's
Speaker 1: still not doing what they expect, which only proves like
Speaker 1: all these things that we talked about are not necessarily
Speaker 1: the key. What's missing for them? Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: often the things that they are having an opportunity cost
Speaker 1: on because they're so driven at their academics. It's simple
Speaker 1: things like sleep and taking care of their physical health.
Speaker 1: It's often social connection. Right. These are students who are
Speaker 1: working on homework into the night. They're not getting the
Speaker 1: same social connection that you expect, And honestly, it's just
Speaker 1: having this kind of mistaken idea that more and more
Speaker 1: and more is going to be good. Right. It's not
Speaker 1: stopic to kind of you smell the roses and reflect
Speaker 1: on the accomplishments you've gotten, because they're thinking about what
Speaker 1: grades are going to make, and how are they going
Speaker 1: to get into a good law school, and how are
Speaker 1: they going to get that job at Goldman Sachs or
Speaker 1: you know, all those things that I would imagine detract
Speaker 1: from just being present and enjoying the moment exactly. There's
Speaker 1: work on what's known as journey mindset, right, which is
Speaker 1: this idea that you're not kind of going for the
Speaker 1: next thing, you're not looking at what you're arriving towards.
Speaker 1: The goal is not then it's not law school or
Speaker 1: Goldman Sacks, we're even getting into Yale. It's kind of
Speaker 1: what you're going to learn and get along the way.
Speaker 1: It's really being present across that, and I think that
Speaker 1: we've raised, honestly, not just my Yale students, but a
Speaker 1: generation of young people that have dropped the journey mindset right.
Speaker 1: They are careerists from as early as we can detect,
Speaker 1: and that means that they're just going to jump to
Speaker 1: the next accolade. How can we tamp down this tremendous
Speaker 1: pressure that's really detracting from being a happy, whole person.
Speaker 1: You imagine if Yale and Harvard and Stafford, all big
Speaker 1: schools got together, like a nuclear d escalation, and we
Speaker 1: all said, you know what, here the minimum standards you
Speaker 1: need to be a good Yale student. Once you meet
Speaker 1: this minimum standard, you go into a lottery and you'll
Speaker 1: might get in or you might not. I think this
Speaker 1: would be first of all, I think you'd be accurate,
Speaker 1: But I think it would also allow students to see that, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to keep hustling, and I
Speaker 1: think the hustle starts earlier and earlier. I think you
Speaker 1: know what you said is correct. I think parents really
Speaker 1: have a role to kind of scale this back. And
Speaker 1: I think you know, it can sometimes be really tough
Speaker 1: for parents because they obviously want what's best for their kids.
Speaker 1: You know, if there's a kind of accolade out there
Speaker 1: that your child doesn't have, it so easy to kind
Speaker 1: of want them to strive for it. I think working
Speaker 1: with your kids to kind of back them up, talk
Speaker 1: to them about what they're learning along the journey, make
Speaker 1: it clear that you're going to love them no matter what,
Speaker 1: and don't push them just because you want that Yale
Speaker 1: sticker on the back of your car. You can buy
Speaker 1: one even if your kid doesn't go to Yale. Dirty. So,
Speaker 1: I'm curious what you heard from your students. You talked
Speaker 1: to so many of these kids. I mean, you had
Speaker 1: a whole case study every semester. What did they talk
Speaker 1: about and why were they taking your class? There's lots
Speaker 1: of evidence that this generation, and this is true at
Speaker 1: Yell too, is just facing the biggest mental health crisis
Speaker 1: that we've seen in the history of the human species. Like,
Speaker 1: right now, there's race of depression nationally at colleges are
Speaker 1: at levels like forty percent of students report being too
Speaker 1: depressed to function most days. Over sixty percent say they're
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly anxious. More than one in ten has seriously considered suicide.
Speaker 1: So if you're looking at a group of ten college students,
Speaker 1: one of them might be contemplating taking their own life, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's really how bad the mental health situation has gone
Speaker 1: on campus. But that doesn't even tell you what you're
Speaker 1: just seeing in the low grade kind of stress and
Speaker 1: disappointment these students are facing. You know, I'll run into
Speaker 1: a student in the courtyard and be like, hey, how's
Speaker 1: it going, And they'd be like, oh, if I could
Speaker 1: only get to mid terms or if I could only
Speaker 1: fast forward to the summer to get out of this.
Speaker 1: And I would have kind of two reactions to that
Speaker 1: of like what college is so precious since so short,
Speaker 1: Like how can you be fast forwarding this? But then
Speaker 1: my other reactions like oh, yeah, we could only get
Speaker 1: to mid terms, you know. So I was like realizing like, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, these are misconceptions that I was having too.
Speaker 1: You know, even though it was so acute in my
Speaker 1: students that kind of overwhelm and stress they were facing,
Speaker 1: I kind of saw it in myself too. You know.
Speaker 1: I'm worried that we weren't being good mentors for them
Speaker 1: to help them out of this. You know. I guess
Speaker 1: maybe because I'm I'm a big fan of self flagellation,
Speaker 1: but I do wonder if people of my generation parents
Speaker 1: fucked up well it's hay, you know, yeah, yeah, blah blah,
Speaker 1: And I wonder I wonder if my generation style of
Speaker 1: parenting has contributed to this, because you know that everybody
Speaker 1: gets a trophy. You have to fix things for your kids.
Speaker 1: You can't have them suffer because it's too painful for you.
Speaker 1: You can't have them be disappointed. And are the chickens
Speaker 1: coming home to roost? I think so, although I think
Speaker 1: there's also lots of evidence that, you know, society, a
Speaker 1: lot of these structures changed, right. You know, the last
Speaker 1: twenty years were also the time when the news was
Speaker 1: talking a lot about stranger danger. You know, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be seen as a good parent unless you were trying
Speaker 1: to protect your children. Again, I think institutions like mine,
Speaker 1: you know, like focused on meritocracy in a way that's great.
Speaker 1: You know, anyone can get into Yale now, anyone can
Speaker 1: get into you. Oh why aren't you giving your child
Speaker 1: the resources they need to do that? And I think
Speaker 1: that that focus on higher education in these next steps
Speaker 1: made it so that failure seemed scary. But I think
Speaker 1: that that did mean that the kids today are growing
Speaker 1: up with different kinds of norms when it comes to failures,
Speaker 1: different kinds of norms when it comes to parental involvement.
Speaker 1: Different kinds of norms when it comes to what they're
Speaker 1: expected to know, just at different ages. We have college
Speaker 1: students who have never used an alarm clock. Their parents
Speaker 1: are their alarm clock. They call, you know, to make
Speaker 1: sure their child gets up in the morning, you know,
Speaker 1: at nineteen twenty one years old. Lily from New York.
Speaker 1: I'm a teacher. I think the pandemic really affected kids negatively,
Speaker 1: and they're having a really hard time figuring out how
Speaker 1: to socialize in the way that we did when we
Speaker 1: were kids, when life was quote unquote normal. So I
Speaker 1: think the socializing, the lack of social skills is we're
Speaker 1: finding kids like really inverting and struggling to reach out
Speaker 1: to people. We'll be right back. There's things within your
Speaker 1: control and there's things outside, and focus on those things
Speaker 1: that are within your control and you'll do better and
Speaker 1: we're back. You have just started an online course that's
Speaker 1: free to teenagers. It's called the Science of Well Being.
Speaker 1: What prompted you to do that, Laurie, Well, it had
Speaker 1: done this class, you know, live on Yale's campus, and
Speaker 1: we got tons and tons of press for it. But
Speaker 1: a lot of the emails I was getting from parents
Speaker 1: was saying, you know, could you make this available? Was
Speaker 1: there any way I could see the syllabus. I want
Speaker 1: my daughter who's in middle school, I want my son
Speaker 1: who's any school to get this content. And it made
Speaker 1: me realize that, you know, a lot of the skills
Speaker 1: I was teaching Yale students. We want kids who are
Speaker 1: younger than that to learn these things. So is it
Speaker 1: different teaching teens than it is teaching college students. Yeah,
Speaker 1: yes and no. Yes in the sense that you know,
Speaker 1: teens face different kinds of contexts where these kinds of
Speaker 1: principles and these misconceptions come up. Right, They're not worried
Speaker 1: about salary and you know, getting married. They're worried about,
Speaker 1: you know, getting good grades and thinking about colleges and
Speaker 1: navigating how they're portrayed on social media rights. In some ways,
Speaker 1: there are lots of similar stressors, but they kind of
Speaker 1: play out in different ways. And so the new class
Speaker 1: really uses the same kind of science concepts. Those things
Speaker 1: are the same, but we're kind of talking about them
Speaker 1: in a context that teens can really relate to them.
Speaker 1: You know, So if we're talking about your circumstances don't matter.
Speaker 1: We're not using examples of like getting promotions at work.
Speaker 1: We're using examples of like, you know, the grade that
Speaker 1: you got on your homework lass Thursday. We're sort of
Speaker 1: talking about the kinds of things that are on teens minds.
Speaker 1: Are there some basic skills that you're really trying to
Speaker 1: give both the kids in college and also teenagers. One
Speaker 1: of the great things that I've seen with the Yale
Speaker 1: students in so far, with the teens who have taken
Speaker 1: the classes, they want an evidence based approach. They don't
Speaker 1: want to hear a bunch of platitudes about what they
Speaker 1: should do. They like, what does the science say, because
Speaker 1: that's great. But then we just walk through just really
Speaker 1: simple behavior thought pattern changes that you can engage with
Speaker 1: when a stressor comes up. You know, so if you're
Speaker 1: feeling stressed, what are good behaviors? You know, maybe spending
Speaker 1: more time on TikTok not as good the evidence suggests,
Speaker 1: but if you can move your body a little bit more,
Speaker 1: if you can contact a friend, if you take a sleep,
Speaker 1: maybe take a walk, or even you know, think about
Speaker 1: what you could do for someone else, you know, getting
Speaker 1: back to this idea of being other oriented. These behaviors
Speaker 1: that you could use in the moment to fix this.
Speaker 1: We also spend a lot of time on changing your
Speaker 1: thought patterns. I think we think we are our thoughts,
Speaker 1: like you know, they just pop up and that's reality.
Speaker 1: But there's so much evidence to say, no, that's just
Speaker 1: the voice in our head, and there are simple techniques
Speaker 1: we can use to change our thought patterns. You know.
Speaker 1: A big one for teenagers is trying to sort of
Speaker 1: shut off that self critic in your head. You know that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: why started out for teenagers? I mean I do negative
Speaker 1: self talk all the time, and some of my friends
Speaker 1: here at Katie Kirk Media say, you know you are
Speaker 1: what you say, and that actually is scientifically proven right totally.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so much evidence that what you're saying
Speaker 1: to yourself is affecting how you perform. For example, if
Speaker 1: you're really self critical, it's very easy to procrastinate because
Speaker 1: you're screaming yourself. You can have set up this fear
Speaker 1: in your own mind. There's also lots of evidence at
Speaker 1: what you say it to yourself can affect your physiology.
Speaker 1: The best advice is to talk to yourself like you
Speaker 1: would a friend. If your best friend was really screwing up,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be like, oh, it's fine. You know, it's great,
Speaker 1: You're wonderful, everybody loves you. You'd be like, you know,
Speaker 1: we need to deal with this, like what's going on?
Speaker 1: Like I love you and I really care about you.
Speaker 1: And you wouldn't be like you suck, like why are
Speaker 1: you wouldn't scream at your best friend and be great
Speaker 1: him or her, but you would, you know, call a
Speaker 1: spade a spade and say, hey, we got we gotta
Speaker 1: deal with this. This isn't going well, And you would
Speaker 1: be curious. You'd be like, what's going on? Like why
Speaker 1: are you doing this? Like how can we fix this?
Speaker 1: You'd be you'd be gentle, you'd be proactive, you'd be
Speaker 1: problem solving oriented. But you wouldn't scream. You wouldn't be mean.
Speaker 1: And that's the kind of voice we're trying to kind
Speaker 1: of cultivate. But the evidence suggests that these practices really work.
Speaker 1: So what can we do with social media? I means
Speaker 1: the genie out of the bottle. How are you talking
Speaker 1: to teens and to ladies like me about kind of
Speaker 1: monitoring it and moderating it? Yeah, well, in some sense,
Speaker 1: the genie is out of the bottle, right, We're not
Speaker 1: ever going to go back to, you know, the way
Speaker 1: we were, you know, when you and I were in college.
Speaker 1: We're always going to have probably these devices in our
Speaker 1: pockets that have the temptation of comparison, that have these
Speaker 1: technologies available. I think what we can do, though, is
Speaker 1: that we can be a little bit more mindful about
Speaker 1: how these things are making us feel. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's important, right, because we don't want to deny
Speaker 1: the benefits of these things. One of the strategies I
Speaker 1: teach my students comes from the journalist Catherine Price, who
Speaker 1: is this lovely book called How to Break Up with
Speaker 1: Your Phone, which she argues, you don't have to break
Speaker 1: up your phone, but like couples, counseling probably required, you know,
Speaker 1: for the relationship. And she has this acronym that she
Speaker 1: uses called WWW to help you be more mindful. It
Speaker 1: stands for what for, why now? And what else? And
Speaker 1: so she argues, whenever you find your phone in your hand,
Speaker 1: you should think, oh, www, like what for? Was was
Speaker 1: there a purpose? Like I was checking my email or
Speaker 1: I was going to text a friend? You know, maybe
Speaker 1: it's just my addictive go to right? Why now? Right?
Speaker 1: What was the trigger. You know, maybe again you had
Speaker 1: something to do, but maybe it was I was feeling anxious,
Speaker 1: or I was feeling bored, or you know, for my students,
Speaker 1: often it's I was feeling a little bit scared about
Speaker 1: engaging in real life social connection talking to someone in
Speaker 1: the dining hall, so I just, you know, picked up
Speaker 1: my phone. But the biggest one I think is what else, right?
Speaker 1: What's the opportunity cost? What else could you be doing?
Speaker 1: Could you be just like taking a deep breath, talking
Speaker 1: to a friend, sleeping right? What are you not doing
Speaker 1: because you're on your phone? And what are you missing?
Speaker 1: You know? Sometimes if I land in a new city,
Speaker 1: I am going to the hotel, and I realized I
Speaker 1: didn't even look around at this new place and take
Speaker 1: in being in a totally different environment because I've had
Speaker 1: my face and my phone, and I think this is
Speaker 1: so dumb. Why am I doing this? It is such
Speaker 1: a default, though, Lorie, you know now, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's a default. And often the thing we're missing is
Speaker 1: other people. That's right, because it's distracting. It's very presence
Speaker 1: is distracting. It also prevents you to engage in deep
Speaker 1: thinking because it's interrupting you all the time, right, and
Speaker 1: it makes sense, right because our brains aren't stupid, like
Speaker 1: they know on the other end of this device, you know, imagine,
Speaker 1: you know, we're having this lovely conversation here and it's
Speaker 1: very fun. But imagine if to the conversation I brought
Speaker 1: this big wheelbarrow, and in the wheelbarrow I had like
Speaker 1: my photo album since like nineteen ninety two and print
Speaker 1: outs of everything every politician or you know, Kardashian has said.
Speaker 1: And the last week there was like cat video is imporn,
Speaker 1: just like this huge pile of stuff in the wheelbar
Speaker 1: and sort of food that you could learn to make. Like,
Speaker 1: our brain isn't stupid. It knows that all that stuff
Speaker 1: is right next to you. But it's having a huge
Speaker 1: effect on our attention and our performance and our social connection.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about global happiness because I mean, look what
Speaker 1: you started, laurining. Now there then these worldwide surveys about happiness,
Speaker 1: and what are we learning about those? I think so
Speaker 1: many interesting things. I mean, first, I think we're learning
Speaker 1: that just having a metric is powerful. Right. This is
Speaker 1: the World Happiness survey that goes around globally and tries
Speaker 1: to measure happiness using the sort of standard survey tools
Speaker 1: that we have, and then they rank countries. What we've
Speaker 1: learned from the metrics so far, though, is that there
Speaker 1: are differences. There are countries that since this survey has
Speaker 1: been out there have standardly been around the top, places
Speaker 1: like Denmark, Norway, you know, these Scandinavian countries. And there
Speaker 1: are otherwise very wealthy countries like the US that have
Speaker 1: been surprisingly low on the list, like sixteenth. Yeah, not
Speaker 1: at the bottom, but like not as high as we
Speaker 1: would expect given that, you know, the pursuit of happiness
Speaker 1: is like literally in our Declaration of Independence. And I
Speaker 1: think that can be powerful because we can start to
Speaker 1: ask questions about like, Okay, what are those nations that
Speaker 1: are doing well doing well? And what are we missing
Speaker 1: out on? And have you learned anything? I mean, is
Speaker 1: it sort of quality of life? Is it providing you know,
Speaker 1: parental leave and accessible childcare, things that reduce stressors for people?
Speaker 1: It's all of those things. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: it's actually having access to you know, those sorts of
Speaker 1: things that we know mean for a good life. And
Speaker 1: so I think what these countries do well is that
Speaker 1: they build things into the structure of how they live
Speaker 1: their lives that make it easier to get things like
Speaker 1: social connection, presence, exercise, and so on, and what you
Speaker 1: have is a lot more equality. Surprisingly, COVID did not
Speaker 1: decrease the happiness metric in many of these countries, which
Speaker 1: says a lot about our resilience. And in fact, I
Speaker 1: think the pandemic in some ways was a reset for us.
Speaker 1: I think so. I think there was a little bit
Speaker 1: of this idea of post at at growth that we
Speaker 1: talked about before right where you know. It caused us
Speaker 1: to socially connect more. It caused us to recognize our
Speaker 1: own resilience. It's sort of brought back our gratitude for
Speaker 1: simple things. I think it also really taught us to
Speaker 1: reevaluate what we were doing with our lives. I think
Speaker 1: many people during the pandemic thought a little bit more
Speaker 1: critically about the hustle culture that they might have been
Speaker 1: engaged in, about what it was for. We saw that
Speaker 1: there was a path when we could work at home
Speaker 1: and spend more time with our families, and I think
Speaker 1: that's what's leading to this so called great resignation, things
Speaker 1: like quiet quitting. Right now, I think people are reevaluating
Speaker 1: their relationship with work and are maybe considering some kind
Speaker 1: of patterns that might be healthier. I think many people
Speaker 1: are starting to realize that they're frantically climbing up this
Speaker 1: ladder that they might not even want to be on
Speaker 1: in the first place, and they're burning out before they
Speaker 1: even graduate from college. And it's even affecting college professors
Speaker 1: like you, because you took a sabbatical because you were
Speaker 1: afraid you were going to totally burn yourself out. So
Speaker 1: did taking a step back. I know you're still working,
Speaker 1: but getting a change of scenery, etc. Didn't make you happier?
Speaker 1: Oh definitely. I mean, and I'm a nerd, right, so
Speaker 1: I take, you know, like literally data on this. I've
Speaker 1: gone up about a point on a ten point happiness scale. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I was really I really started to notice
Speaker 1: in the midst of this pandemic all the classic signs
Speaker 1: of early burnout. Right. I was emotionally exhausted, not just
Speaker 1: physically exhausted. It was just like kind of tired, like
Speaker 1: if one more email came like I was gonna, you know,
Speaker 1: just lose it. It It was just like too much. I
Speaker 1: was feeling really cynical, right, my fuse was really short
Speaker 1: with the people around me, especially my students. That that
Speaker 1: was the thing that affected me most. That's not normal
Speaker 1: for me, and that was really big. But the biggest
Speaker 1: thing I think I experienced during COVID on college campuses
Speaker 1: was the third kind of symptom of burnout, which is
Speaker 1: a sense of personal ineffectiveness, like even if you did
Speaker 1: your job the best that you possibly could, it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be good enough. And I was like, wait, you know,
Speaker 1: I've read the papers. I know where this leads. I
Speaker 1: need to make some changes. Good news is I think,
Speaker 1: you know, for me, at least, the changes have been great.
Speaker 1: Actually made the very difficult decision to step down as
Speaker 1: a head of college on campus in part because I
Speaker 1: was realizing that, you know, to do that job as
Speaker 1: well as I wanted to, I just didn't have the
Speaker 1: bandwidth anymore. Have you regained your happiness equilibrium as a
Speaker 1: result of stepping back? And you know, will it change
Speaker 1: when you re enter the Yale campus? Will it change me? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think I'll make, you know, some big changes. You know,
Speaker 1: stepping down from this role has been a big one.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm already sort of thinking about how I
Speaker 1: can have a better balance with some of the stuff
Speaker 1: I'm doing. There Again, you have to remember, happiness isn't
Speaker 1: this destination. This is going to keep and taking a constant.
Speaker 1: It's not a constant. Let's close this out with some
Speaker 1: Laurie Santo's happiness tidbits. One is, as you mentioned, it
Speaker 1: takes work. So what does that mean, Like if you
Speaker 1: were saying, Katie, if you want to be happy and happier,
Speaker 1: this is what you should do. What kind of work
Speaker 1: do I have to do? I think the first piece
Speaker 1: of work is just recognizing that your intuitions are off right,
Speaker 1: that you just have these normal things that you think, Oh,
Speaker 1: i've had a bad day, I'll you know, I'll get
Speaker 1: a manicure. Oh you know, this is what I'll do,
Speaker 1: or I'll keep pushing at work. You know, for X, Y,
Speaker 1: and Z, we have these intuitions about the things that
Speaker 1: we should be doing, that we're supposed to be doing.
Speaker 1: I think you have to realize that those intuitions are wrong. Right,
Speaker 1: you have to say the science says do something else
Speaker 1: in really simple domains, right. You know, if you have
Speaker 1: a long day at work, you might have the intuition
Speaker 1: of like, oh, I just want to PLoP down and
Speaker 1: just like glass of wine, which is a depressant, by
Speaker 1: the way, exactly when you know so much. Science suggests
Speaker 1: that if you instead called a friend, went for a walk,
Speaker 1: you know, just try to engage in something that was
Speaker 1: a little bit more challenging of a form of leisure
Speaker 1: than plopping down to watch that. Take a pickle ball
Speaker 1: lesson you know, just like on your phone, do a
Speaker 1: lingo something right like that would be better. Text a
Speaker 1: friend that you're a little bit worried about, right, Become
Speaker 1: a little bit more other oriented. When we're in these
Speaker 1: moments where we're feeling stressed, we're feeling overwhelmed, we're feeling
Speaker 1: a little sad. They are just simple behaviors we can
Speaker 1: engage in that are going to work better than what
Speaker 1: our natural intuition is. Laurie Santos, this has been so fun.
Speaker 1: Thank you for spending so much time with me. I
Speaker 1: feel like I just went to therapist and I owe
Speaker 1: you whatever a lot. Thank you, Laurie, Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening everyone. If you have a question for
Speaker 1: me or want to share your thoughts about how you
Speaker 1: navigate this crazy world, reach out. You can leave a
Speaker 1: short message at six o nine five one two five
Speaker 1: five oh five, or you can send me a DM
Speaker 1: on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Next
Speaker 1: Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Kurik Media.
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Met Katie Kurik and Courtney Litz.
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Marcy Thompson. Our producers are Adriana
Speaker 1: Fasio and Catherine Law. Our audio engineer is Matt Russell,
Speaker 1: who also composed our theme music. For more information about
Speaker 1: today's episode, or to sign up for my newsletter wake
Speaker 1: Up Call, go to the description in the podcast app,
Speaker 1: or visit us at katiecurreic dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: find me on Instagram and all my social media channels.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Are you
Speaker 1: Battling Cancer? I'm passionate about raising awareness about early detection,
Speaker 1: and it's also critical to understand all treatment options, especially
Speaker 1: their impact on survival and quality of life. View Ray
Speaker 1: has reinvented cancer treatment with Meridian MRI guided radiation therapy.
Speaker 1: We're nearly eighty percent of patients complete treatment and as
Speaker 1: few as five sessions, often with little or no side effects.
Speaker 1: Innovation like Meridian gives hope to millions of people around
Speaker 1: the world. Locate a Meridian atviewray dot com.