WEBVTT - The Science of Happiness 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:07.120 Please welcome Professor Catherine Sanderson, Thank you, Thank you. The 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:11.360 Science of Happiness, Appreciating modern painting, Dilemmas of modern medicine, 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:15.520 Abraham Lincoln, and the civil history of Jazz, Artistic genius 0:00:15.600 --> 0:00:19.400 of Michel Angela, When Intuition, food turning, Points that changed 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:28.319 American history, Psychology of religion. One Day University. The most 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:33.080 acclaimed and popular professors from top colleges. They're best lectures, 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:40.519 fascinating conversations. Hi, I'm Richard Davies. Let's learn about the 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:47.199 science of happiness. I'm delighted to be here today. I 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:49.360 love teaching. I think that will be obvious over the 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:52.160 next hour. I hate grading. Maybe some of you sat 0:00:52.280 --> 0:00:55.120 and watched me great um in preparation for today, and 0:00:55.120 --> 0:00:57.000 so this is really my ideal. I come and I 0:00:57.040 --> 0:00:59.240 talk for an hour, and I don't leave with anything 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:02.040 I have to do. My name is Katherine Sanderson, and 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:05.679 I'm a professor of psychology at AMers College in Massachusetts. 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:08.520 Presentation and if you'd like one, just choot me an 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:10.800 email and you can have the entire presentation. What do 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:15.520 you mean by happiness? So that's a really tricky question 0:01:15.560 --> 0:01:19.360 because it's actually currently in heated debate in the literature, 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:22.200 and so different people. You could have this podcast, you know, 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.080 five times, and you'd get five different answers. So some 0:01:25.120 --> 0:01:28.679 people think of happiness as a sense of overall contentment, 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:32.520 comfort with their life, well being, well being, sure exactly. 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.920 Other people think of happiness as a much more sort 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:40.120 of positive, joyful emotion. And you know, I think of 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:41.959 the image in my mind is a little kid on 0:01:42.000 --> 0:01:44.479 a swing, you know, with their face in a big grim, 0:01:44.600 --> 0:01:47.240 you know, pumping their legs back and forth. So one 0:01:47.280 --> 0:01:50.240 of them is really a sense of contentment, life satisfaction 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.360 overall I feel good. And one of them is a 0:01:53.400 --> 0:01:56.040 sense of utter and pure joy. And probably both of 0:01:56.080 --> 0:02:00.440 those are part of what happiness is. What is the 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:04.360 thing that you really want to get over in your 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.880 lecture about the science of happiness? The biggest thing I 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.840 want is for people to leave the lecture knowing that 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.880 there are specific, concrete things they can do in their 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:18.440 lives to increase their happiness. I think lots of people 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:22.520 believe that happiness is beyond them, you know, some quirk 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:28.440 of you know, bad genes or negative life experiences, environmental factors, etcetera. 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:33.320 And I end every lecture by giving people ten strategies 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:36.640 that no matter where you start on the genetic lottery 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:40.920 of happiness, no matter your life circumstances, there are specific, 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:42.960 concrete things you can do in life that are within 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.240 your reach to increase happiness. There are a bunch of 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:51.000 little behaviors we can do so Exercising strongly associated with 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:55.200 better psychological and physical well being, getting enough sleep, spending 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.280 time in nature. Those are all very simple things. Reading 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:02.480 a book you love that brings great happiness. How good 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:07.240 is the science of happiness? I think the science of 0:03:07.240 --> 0:03:10.960 happiness is strong, and in fact is getting stronger. So 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:14.480 some of the most interesting research right now is extending 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:18.280 prior research in two ways. One, a lot of research 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:20.760 in the field of psychology in general has focused on 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:23.919 Western cultures and largely the United States, And so then 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:28.160 the ultimate question becomes, well, is this happiness in our 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:32.000 culture or is this happiness across cultures? And so there's 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:35.200 growing evidence now that the predictors of happiness are in 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.839 fact quite similar across cultures. And that's something that's very 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:42.600 new and that we didn't know a decade ago. The 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:46.440 other real advantage to current technology is that we're learning 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:51.520 much more about genes and about brain functioning. So there's 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.560 research that I describe in the talk that looks at 0:03:54.680 --> 0:03:57.400 m r I data and literally has people think about 0:03:57.400 --> 0:03:59.440 a certain thing and then looks at what parts of 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:05.640 the brain are activated. Researchers did a very interesting study 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:07.760 in which they brought in people and put them in 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:11.040 an MRI machine, so a machine that measures brain activation, 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:14.360 and they had them look at different pictures. Um, the 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:17.520 top scene is of an urban scene, it's a city skyline. 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:20.560 The bottom scene is of a nature scene water. So 0:04:20.640 --> 0:04:23.960 the researchers controlled very carefully for lots of things in 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.400 the pictures. Um, the scenes were always pretty. It wasn't 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:30.000 that you were showing you know, urban scenes of congestion 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:33.240 or whatever. None of the pictures had people in them. 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.440 So people are in an MRI machine and they show 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.760 them a series of pictures and they measure brain activity. 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.599 What they found was that looking at the urban city 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:45.520 skyline created lots and lots of brain activity. The brain 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.200 was reacting, the brain was processing thinking, you know, activated. 0:04:49.839 --> 0:04:53.640 Looking at the nature scene, the brain was very calm, 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.560 like you were meditating. So in response to the nature scene, 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.960 people were relaxed. Brain waves were low, relaxed. It was 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:04.880 literally like they were meditating. So that's some evidence for 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.400 what looking at nature may do to us physiologically, and 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:10.960 it may help explain this link between looking at nature 0:05:11.279 --> 0:05:16.040 and feeling better. And so we're learning about neurological measures 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:21.720 of happiness in particular situations that provide stronger evidence than 0:05:21.760 --> 0:05:25.280 we've had before, which is just self report data questionnaires 0:05:25.360 --> 0:05:29.440 and people responding, which may be accurate but can also 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:31.520 be subjected to some kind of bias. Yeah, because it 0:05:31.600 --> 0:05:36.279 must be difficult to design a questionnaire around happiness that 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:39.000 that one person would report yeah, I'm happy or I'm 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:42.280 in a happy relationship, and another person with exactly the 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:47.520 same set of of objective criteria may report differently, right, 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:49.360 And and of course one of the challenges in that 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:52.840 example is that there are people in the exact same 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:57.800 life circumstance that see the world in very different ways. 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:01.920 So I gave an example about being on a date 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:06.200 shortly after college graduation with my boyfriend, and we were 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:10.040 driving in urban Atlanta and had a flat tire. So 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:12.840 we had a lovely day planned picnic and hike, et cetera, 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:15.880 and we had this flat tire. So we pulled it 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:19.000 side of the road, and I am in the passenger seat, 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:22.640 freaking out. This is a terrible thing that happened. Our 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:25.520 day is ruined. It's going to be really expensive. We're 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.039 gonna have to get the car tode. And I'm spiraling, 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:32.600 and my boyfriend says, um, I'm just going to change 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.919 the tire. So there's an example. And it was like 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:38.000 ten minutes, but there's an example in which we were 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.320 in the exact same circumstance and an event happened and 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:43.720 I saw it in a very sort of negative and 0:06:43.760 --> 0:06:46.839 fatalistic way, and he saw it as no big deal. 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:49.720 And and that I think sort of illustrates that one 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:52.960 of the challenges happiness is that different people see the 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:57.400 same thing in different ways. How about you, Why are 0:06:57.440 --> 0:07:03.240 you personally so interested in this subject? So my answer 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:09.760 to the last question probably probably already conveyed that. And 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.040 I should start by saying that that boyfriend is now 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:16.600 my husband because I sat in the well, I sat 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.160 in that car knowing going like, huh, you know, he 0:07:19.160 --> 0:07:21.160 sees the world in a much better way than I do, 0:07:21.400 --> 0:07:24.160 which is which has been true, you know, throughout our marriage. 0:07:24.520 --> 0:07:26.560 And so I think one of the reasons that I 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:30.280 like giving this talk is that happiness does not come 0:07:30.320 --> 0:07:33.520 easily for me. So for some people, my husband, uh, 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:40.760 my oldest child, happiness comes very easily. I have a 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.520 teenage son that when we take the iPhone away from periodically. 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:46.400 He was in public school from kindergarten through eighth grade. 0:07:46.520 --> 0:07:48.440 In ninth grade, he moved to an elite prep school 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.200 that he was woefully underprepared for in every sense of 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:55.160 the word. And it was a very rocky transition, involved 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.520 a lot of tears, mostly mine and uh and he 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.600 was doing very, very poor, like really across the board, 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:04.680 but especially in Spanish, and it's in Spanish. At the 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.160 end of the halfway through the first trimester and we 0:08:07.200 --> 0:08:09.960 got his progress report and the progress report said he 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:12.440 had a fifty in Spanish. This is a school that 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:17.520 uses the traditional grading scale, so fifty was really good. Uh. 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:19.800 So at the end of the first trimester, Andrew calls 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:22.560 me and says, mom, I got my grades. Good news 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:26.120 about Spanish. I was like, what a relief. I'm so nervous, 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:27.880 you know what with the fifty. I'm like, what did 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.280 you get? He goes, I got a fifty eight, And 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.439 I was like, it's not good news, and he goes, no, no, 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:38.000 it is. It's eight points higher than I had in 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:42.880 in October. I go, it's an F and he says 0:08:43.000 --> 0:08:48.160 it's really an F plus And I said, I am 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.959 a professor. There is no F plus that is not 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:55.280 one of the grade options. That doesn't is impossible. And 0:08:55.360 --> 0:08:57.640 he says, but at the rate I'm going, I'm gonna 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:00.920 have a sixty six in January. And I said that's 0:09:00.960 --> 0:09:05.240 a D. Like that's also not good. But so here 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.280 really is what is good Andrew? You know, by all accounts, 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:12.120 some days can end up in prison. Um and hopefully 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:14.800 not a Spanish speaking prison. I mean, that would be terrible. 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:18.599 But but he's going to be fine because he is 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.120 going to call home and be like, hey, I got 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.000 a bunk bed, I got this roommate. There are these 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.480 meals three times today, there's this exercise yard. And after 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.080 that I stopped worrying about him, because anybody who can 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:32.320 call their mom with the good news of the F plus, 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.160 he really is going to be fine. He's probably gonna 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:37.560 be living in my basement, but he's gonna be fine 0:09:37.800 --> 0:09:41.640 as an adult. Where is Andrew? Now? Ye? So, so 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:45.920 here's the story about why this optimistic outlook, which is 0:09:45.960 --> 0:09:50.520 so beneficial, really helps people. He continues he improves. At 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:52.800 the end of his freshman year of high school, he 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:56.079 has an a minus in Spanish, and his teacher calls 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:57.840 me and says, in all of my years of teaching, 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.640 it's the single biggest improvement I've seen an any student. 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:04.280 So Andrew stuck with Spanish throughout high school. He finished 0:10:04.320 --> 0:10:07.480 high school, applied to college, got in, and came to 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:09.880 me and my husband in the spring of a senior 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.520 year in high school and said, I have a personal 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:15.040 goal before I start college. I want to be fluent 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:17.760 in Spanish, so I'd like to take a gap year 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:22.560 and spend it in Peru. And Andrew is currently a 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:26.040 freshman in college, continuing to say Spanish, but he spent 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:31.839 last year living in Peru with a family, speaking Spanish 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:36.679 full time and has basically become fully bilingual. And that's 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:41.760 an example of how his optimistic outlook let him take 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:46.400 what was literally a failure and and turn it into 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.480 a success, and in fact, it's been really life changing 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:53.800 for him. Most of us are on social media. Does 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:58.920 social media make us happier or more miserable? Is there 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:03.160 strong research on this. There is pretty consistent strong research 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.600 that social media is not good for psychological well being. 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:11.120 There's often a sense on social media in which people 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:16.040 only post the good. My kid is valedictorian. I just 0:11:16.160 --> 0:11:19.640 ran the Boston marathon and under three hours. So one 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.640 there's this sense of look at all these people having 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.880 this great life, and my life doesn't measure up. You know, 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:30.320 my life is really not you know what other people 0:11:30.360 --> 0:11:34.280 are experiencing. It's less good. The other key is that 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:39.319 social media often has the effect of making people feel excluded. 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:43.120 So I have three teenagers right now, and you know, 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.600 I vaguely remember being a teenager, and I'll say that 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:47.600 one thing my children have to deal with it I 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.600 never had to deal with is seeing pictures posted of 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.480 parties they weren't invited to. And that happens all the time. 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:58.640 So people on social media, you know, post events, parties, 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:03.720 social gatherings, and if you weren't invited, you're now vividly 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.319 aware that you weren't invited and can see all the 0:12:07.360 --> 0:12:24.480 other people who were. One day university where we taught 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:28.040 to award winning and acclaimed professors the most popular on 0:12:28.080 --> 0:12:32.040 their campuses. They're best lectures the one students love to hear. 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:41.080 Discover more on our website one day you dot Com 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.880 Now more with professor Catherine Sanderson of Amherst College, who 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.520 says many of us compare ourselves to others way too often. 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:51.720 I think that there are people who are always better 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.080 at it than other people, and I think there are 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.360 people who are always very focused on those comparisons. The 0:12:57.720 --> 0:12:59.880 nature of the comparison may change, so it may be 0:13:00.559 --> 0:13:03.800 this person took a better vacation, or this person drives 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:08.720 a nicer car or whatever. But we're often aware of 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.600 how we are different from other people, and that is 0:13:12.640 --> 0:13:15.440 true across the lifespan, even if the specific parts of 0:13:15.440 --> 0:13:22.520 comparison may change. What does studies say about how anxiety? 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:27.280 Are levels of anxiety affect happiness? It's a really important 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:31.480 question and seems to be something that is of growing 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:34.240 concern that you know, I see in college students, but 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.800 we see sort of, you know, across America. So people 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:41.840 vary tremendously in their overall baseline of anxiety. There's some 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.160 people who can sort of think about worst case scenarios 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.880 and and escalate situations, and there are other people who 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:53.320 seem to have the ability to take experiences in life 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:56.440 and take it in stride. It's obviously much harder for 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:00.520 people who are high in anxiety to find happiness. Is 0:14:00.559 --> 0:14:03.040 there a way to deal with that? Sure, you really 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:05.600 try to think about the world in a new and 0:14:05.640 --> 0:14:09.600 different way, so you change your thought patterns. When my 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:12.120 son was on the verge of what I thought was 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:14.800 failing out of prep school, what I continually said to 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:20.040 myself is he doesn't have leukemia. And that's the reality 0:14:20.080 --> 0:14:23.960 that for me, there was this horrible tragedy of he 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.400 has an f in Spanish and may well get tossed 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:31.160 from his prep school. But the reality is there are 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:34.520 parents all across the country who have teenagers having chemotherapy 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:38.280 and hospital and they wish their kid was failing Spanish 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:41.640 in high school. And so that's an example of changing 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:45.360 the thoughts we have about something to recognize that what 0:14:45.480 --> 0:14:50.320 we see as a terrible crisis and a terrible stressor 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:53.000 in reality is not that big a deal in the 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:57.440 scheme of things. What are the biggest mistakes that people 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:05.000 make around happiness? One, and this will not be surprising. Money. 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.040 We have a very strong belief in our society that 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:10.880 more money leads to more happiness. If I just had 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:13.880 more money, then I would be happier. Um. So here's 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:17.040 a picture of um, Tiger Woods's house, or maybe now 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:21.400 Tiger Woods's ex wife's house. Um, And we think, gosh, 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:23.960 if I lived in a house like that, surely I 0:15:23.960 --> 0:15:26.600 would be happy every single minute of every single day. 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.680 And of course the reality is that isn't true. More 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:32.360 money does not lead to more happiness. Here's the important 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.480 exception for people living below the poverty line, for people 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:37.880 who are worried about are my kids going to have 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.840 enough food tomorrow? Will we have heat this winter? Do 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:42.440 I have a safe place to sleep? For people who 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:45.120 are living below the poverty line at the poverty line, 0:15:45.320 --> 0:15:49.320 more money absolutely increases happiness. But for people who are 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:52.640 not living at that level of subsistence, more money does 0:15:52.680 --> 0:15:57.440 not increase happiness. The keys that we acclimate, and that's 0:15:57.480 --> 0:15:59.960 really sort of the fundamental principle. We think, will be 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.000 happy when we get more money, But the reality is 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.800 we acclimate when we get into college, when we graduate 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:09.600 from college, by a house, get a promotion. These are 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:13.840 all big, sort of substantial life events that we expect 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.640 will lead us to be happier, and they do, but 0:16:17.720 --> 0:16:23.560 only briefly, because then we adapt. Given all the advances 0:16:23.600 --> 0:16:28.680 and science and medicine, what are the prospects for instant 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:32.960 gratification in a in a happiness pill. Great question. I'm 0:16:32.960 --> 0:16:36.480 going to say two things about that. One, there are 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:41.120 people who have chemical imbalances in their bodies that lead 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:46.400 them to experience chronic clinical depression, you know, severe anxiety. 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:48.920 And so I want to be very careful to say 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:57.040 that my lecture is not a substitute for therapy, psychopharmacological 0:16:57.320 --> 0:17:00.000 you know, aids, etcetera. And that one of the challenge 0:17:00.200 --> 0:17:02.240 is is that for people who are in the midst 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:07.879 of the throes of a serious psychological disorder, they simply 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.120 do not have the ability to say, oh, yes, let 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:14.280 me spend some time in nature and read a book 0:17:14.560 --> 0:17:17.840 and you know, smile more often. That they really need assistance. 0:17:17.880 --> 0:17:20.239 And so one of the things that we do, in 0:17:20.280 --> 0:17:25.080 fact have is a magic pill, because the magic pills, antidepressants, 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:28.879 anti anxiety medication are actually correcting a chemical balance in 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:33.439 the brain that enables people to then take the steps 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:36.119 they need to find greater happiness. And your second point, 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:40.240 and my second point is that part of the joy 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:45.639 and happiness is the pursuit of happiness. It's not I 0:17:45.680 --> 0:17:48.360 will have a pill so I feel happy and joyous 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:51.520 all the time. Part of what brings us happiness is 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:55.159 working towards that happiness. So how do we spend money. 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.919 You can spend money in better and worse ways in 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:02.280 terms of happiness. So a lot of people think wrongly 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:07.719 that happiness is about spending money on expensive possessions. You know, uh, 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.960 new car, new watch, you know, expensive purse or shoes 0:18:11.080 --> 0:18:15.280 or whatever. And initially, yeah, that is new and it's exciting, 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.000 and it's your you know, nice watch or fancy purse 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.000 or whatever. And then it's just your watch, your purse. 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:25.359 So where we get much more happiness from is the 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:29.439 pursuit of experiences. So that could be, you know, tickets 0:18:29.440 --> 0:18:32.680 to a Broadway show, it could be travel, it could 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.520 be going to a concert, or tickets to the Super 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:39.560 Bowl or whatever. And why that is a better way 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:43.560 to spend money on experiences is that it allows us 0:18:43.640 --> 0:18:47.280 to anticipate, Oh, I'm going to be going to this 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:49.440 big game, I'm going to be going to the World Series. Well, 0:18:49.440 --> 0:18:51.320 I'm going to see Hamilton's you know whatever that I've 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:54.520 always wanted to do. So we have this anticipation of 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:58.480 the event. Then we get to experience the event, and 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.000 then we get to look back on the event, and 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:03.760 we tell people about the event, and we savor the event. 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:10.760 When we spend money on experiences, we are pursuing happiness. 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.639 We are actively engaging in happiness, and that brings us 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:21.600 tremendous pleasure. Going further, any book recommendations, there's a wonderful 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:24.200 book I recommend all the time. Really should get royalties 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:26.400 on it, but I do not um And it's by 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:29.920 a neuroscientist at Stanford, and it's called why Zebras Don't 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:34.760 get Ulcers? And Zebras don't get ulcers because they only 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:40.200 react physiologically with great anxiety and stress and physiological reactions 0:19:40.200 --> 0:19:44.480 like heartbeating fast and rapid breathing when they're about to die, 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.359 when they're being chased by a lion or tiger or whatever. 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:52.280 And as you can probably imagine, humans showed that stress 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:56.480 reaction all the time. I'm stuck in traffic, I have 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:59.560 a blind date, I have a job interview. And it's 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.439 one of reasons why humans have relatively high rates of 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.560 stress related illnesses. And the second book is a great 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:13.960 recommendation for women, and it's by Dr Susan Nolan HOA 0:20:14.040 --> 0:20:19.200 Suma and it's called Women Who Think Too Much, And 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:24.639 it's really about the somewhat gendered pattern of how we 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.080 think about the world, which is that women are much 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:32.720 more likely than men to ruminate, to obsess about negative things, 0:20:32.800 --> 0:20:36.040 to worry about negative things. And this book is really 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:39.800 an easy guide in terms of trying to help break 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:42.359 some of the negative cycles. But it but it doesn't 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:47.080 urge women to be like men. No, no, although there 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:52.320 is certainly research suggesting that men's ability to distract themselves 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:58.479 from negative events can actually be beneficial. Great, Thank you 0:20:58.600 --> 0:21:06.760 very much, Thank you. This has been delightful. Professor Catherine 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:10.879 Sanderson on the Science of Happiness. I'm Richard Davies. Thanks 0:21:10.880 --> 0:21:14.320 for listening. Sign off on our website one Day You 0:21:14.440 --> 0:21:17.440 dot com to become a member and access over six 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:21.679 hundred full length video lectures from the world's finest professors.