Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, it's Maya. We're back Monday, February twentieth with
Speaker 1: a brand new season of A Slight Change of Plans.
Speaker 1: This season will hear personal stories of change, as well
Speaker 1: as conversations with scientific experts who teach us how we
Speaker 1: can live happier and healthier lives. We kick off the
Speaker 1: season with social scientists from Dupe Akinola, who challenges us
Speaker 1: to reframe our stress as something that can actually be
Speaker 1: good for us. Our dominant model and narrative is that
Speaker 1: we should deny, reduce, and avoid stress, and that is
Speaker 1: not always the case. Every single person I know can
Speaker 1: tell of the time where their stress helps him. I
Speaker 1: also talk with comedian Hussan Minhaj, who reveals that having
Speaker 1: a job that is so dependent on whether or not
Speaker 1: people like him is making him reconsider his future in comedy.
Speaker 1: Do you like me? How many millions of people like me?
Speaker 1: So I can hopefully continue doing this? Man, I don't
Speaker 1: want to participate? And science journalists Florence Williams describes how
Speaker 1: when her twenty five year marriage came to a sudden end,
Speaker 1: she was inspired to go on a quest to understand
Speaker 1: why heartbreak can have such a devastating impact on our
Speaker 1: minds and bodies when the person you consider sort of
Speaker 1: your safety net, when they're suddenly gone. It's so disorienting
Speaker 1: in a way that's kind of like a deep freakout,
Speaker 1: and you feel it emotionally. And it turns out our
Speaker 1: immune systems and our bodies, our nervous systems are really
Speaker 1: paying very close attention to that sense of freakout. We'll
Speaker 1: hear from an expert on friendship who teaches us to
Speaker 1: think differently about the role of friends play in our lives,
Speaker 1: and from a psychologist who tells us how empathy is
Speaker 1: actually a skill we can build with effort. We used
Speaker 1: to think of our personalities as totally fixed, but it
Speaker 1: turned out that people do change. In fact, the only
Speaker 1: thing that you can't do is stop changing. I can't
Speaker 1: wait for you to hear these powerful conversations. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: you can get a backstage past the show on Instagram
Speaker 1: at doctor Maya Schunker. See you next week.