Speaker 1: There's stuff our societies have been saying, our cultures have
Speaker 1: been saying, our grandmothers have been saying for hundreds, if
Speaker 1: not thousands of years. But somehow, in the modern world
Speaker 1: we've got away from actually practicing these things. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized
Speaker 1: the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Dr Laurie Santos, a
Speaker 1: professor of psychology and head of Silliman College at Yale University.
Speaker 1: She's also the host of the podcast The Happiness Lab.
Speaker 1: Dr Santos is an expert on human cognition and the
Speaker 1: cognitive biases that impede better choices. Her course, Psychology and
Speaker 1: the Good Life teaches students what the science of psychology
Speaker 1: says about how to make wiser choices and live a
Speaker 1: life that's happier and more fulfilling, and that class is
Speaker 1: Yale's most popular course in over three hundred years. She's
Speaker 1: been featured in numerous news outlets including New York Times,
Speaker 1: NBC Nightly News, The Today Show, and many many more,
Speaker 1: and is also a winner of numerous awards for both
Speaker 1: science and teaching from institutions such as Yale and the
Speaker 1: American Psychological Association. Larie has been featured as one of
Speaker 1: Popular Sciences Brilliant ten Young Minds and was named Times
Speaker 1: Leading Campus Celebrity. Hi, Laurie, Welcome to the show. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for having me on. I'm so excited to
Speaker 1: have you on. You are the creator of a really
Speaker 1: great podcast called The Happiness Lab, as well as work
Speaker 1: you do on happiness at Yale and all sorts of things.
Speaker 1: And we'll get into all that in a minute, but
Speaker 1: let's start, like we always do, with the parable and
Speaker 1: the Parable. There's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild,
Speaker 1: and they say, in life, there are two wolves inside
Speaker 1: of us that are always at battle. One is a
Speaker 1: good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love,
Speaker 1: and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like greed and hatred and fear. And the grand schild
Speaker 1: stops and thinks about it for a second, looks up
Speaker 1: at their grandparents. Which one wins, and the grandparents says,
Speaker 1: the one you feed. So I'd like to start off
Speaker 1: by asking you what that parable means to you in
Speaker 1: your life and in the work that you do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I've heard the parable before that when you
Speaker 1: see you know, for me, it really shows that happiness
Speaker 1: and focusing on our mental health takes work, and it
Speaker 1: takes choices, right, And it reminds us not just that
Speaker 1: happiness takes work, but that there's these interesting opportunity costs, right,
Speaker 1: that if you're putting your time and your energy, especially
Speaker 1: your emotional energy into certain kinds of things, you could
Speaker 1: be doing that at an opportunity cost of the kinds
Speaker 1: of processes you want to win out right. And so
Speaker 1: the wolf metaphor has always been really powerful of me.
Speaker 1: It's not enough that you focus on the things that matter,
Speaker 1: you also have to make sure that you're not also
Speaker 1: focusing on the things that don't matter. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot in your work that I think we'll get
Speaker 1: to as we go through that really hits on that parable.
Speaker 1: So much of your work, I think orients around an
Speaker 1: idea of what we think will make us happy is
Speaker 1: actually not usually the things that will make us happy.
Speaker 1: If we think something is going to make us happy,
Speaker 1: that's where we're going to direct all our energy. And
Speaker 1: to your point, if all your energy is going there,
Speaker 1: you don't have enough left to put over on the
Speaker 1: things that do create happiness. If we had infinite energy,
Speaker 1: this wouldn't be a problem, right, but it is. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, that opportunity cost is really important. I want
Speaker 1: to start by going a slightly different direction because I
Speaker 1: did not know this about you until I started doing
Speaker 1: deeper research. But you are the director of the Yale's
Speaker 1: Canine Cognition Lab, which that is so cool. That is
Speaker 1: so cool. I'm a huge dog lover. Yeah, the work
Speaker 1: is relevant in a couple of different ways of feeding wolves.
Speaker 1: We haven't worked with wolves directly, but we have worked
Speaker 1: with Australian dingoes. This was my kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: day job. Before I got interested in the science of happiness.
Speaker 1: I was really interested in this question of what makes
Speaker 1: humans unique, what makes humans special, And studying canaids is
Speaker 1: really it's an important way to answer that question, in
Speaker 1: part because dogs, and dovestigated dogs in particular, grew up
Speaker 1: alongside humans, right, you know, so the path from becoming
Speaker 1: a wolf to becoming a canaid that could be around
Speaker 1: people is one that really shaped these animals to pay
Speaker 1: attention to us in a particular way and maybe even
Speaker 1: shape their cognitive abilities. So canaids are really fantastic comparison
Speaker 1: point for all the cool and interesting things that humans
Speaker 1: do if you're interested in questions of uniqueness. But but
Speaker 1: I sadly don't get to spend as much of my
Speaker 1: time doing the canine work these days. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's just as I was looking at some of your
Speaker 1: publications after, like the second one that had dogs or
Speaker 1: you know, canines in the titles, like there's something I'm
Speaker 1: not understanding about her work here, and so then as
Speaker 1: I dug a little deeper, I was like, okay, so
Speaker 1: to that end, you know, if we wanted to translate
Speaker 1: that work into the happiness work. Is there anything about
Speaker 1: the work that you do, or about dog cognition or
Speaker 1: animal cognition that would point us in the direction of happiness,
Speaker 1: or any lessons we can sort of even if we're
Speaker 1: sort of stretching the analogy a little bit, anything from
Speaker 1: there that you find interesting. Yeah, I mean I think
Speaker 1: there are, you know, a couple of things. One is,
Speaker 1: animals are incredibly good at prioritizing some of the stuff
Speaker 1: that makes them happy, right, I mean to take you know,
Speaker 1: for example, presence, right, you know, mindfulness, just being in
Speaker 1: the present moment, you know. I think dogs are a
Speaker 1: wonderful example of this. I mean, I think one of
Speaker 1: the benefits we get from hanging out with dogs, and
Speaker 1: in fact, they're scientific work to suggest this, is that
Speaker 1: you become more mindful when you're around your dog. You're
Speaker 1: taking your dog for a walk and he's you know,
Speaker 1: sniffing the ground and looking at the flowers and paying
Speaker 1: attention to the sounds. It sort of causes you to
Speaker 1: do the same thing. It gets you back into your
Speaker 1: normal sensory experience, and so I think animals can be
Speaker 1: a great guide for helping us do that. I also
Speaker 1: think that dogs are a really wonderful way to get
Speaker 1: social connection, especially if you're having a hard time getting
Speaker 1: some social connection with humans. You can form that meaningful
Speaker 1: bond with an animal in a way that gives us
Speaker 1: so many of the exact same psychological benefits. So the
Speaker 1: work I was doing with dogs wasn't necessarily on happiness,
Speaker 1: but they have definitely given me a glimmer into some
Speaker 1: strategies that work. Yeah, I mean, dogs are one of
Speaker 1: my great sources of happiness in life, for sure. It's
Speaker 1: funny anytime if you were to look at my camera role,
Speaker 1: or you were to look at my gratitude lists, they're
Speaker 1: always you know, they're near the very very top. All right,
Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about an idea that
Speaker 1: you use a lot, which I think is really important,
Speaker 1: and we talk about it on this program. We talk
Speaker 1: about in the Spiritual Habits program. You say, a good
Speaker 1: rule of thumb for all this stuff is little and often.
Speaker 1: And I think what I mean by that is, you know,
Speaker 1: we can really find ways to protect our mental health
Speaker 1: and boost our well being through the little things that
Speaker 1: we do if we kind of keep up the habit
Speaker 1: of doing them often, you know. So I think when
Speaker 1: we think about the things that are really bringing us down.
Speaker 1: It's not usually the one off thing that we happen
Speaker 1: to do with our time. It's the things that we're
Speaker 1: doing persistently over and over again that again, you can
Speaker 1: kind of create this opportunity cost on our happiness. But
Speaker 1: if you can put in positive habits, even if they're tiny,
Speaker 1: even if they're baby steps, and you can get yourself
Speaker 1: to do them more and more, those are the things
Speaker 1: that are really going to impact your well being, oftentimes
Speaker 1: more than you expect. You think, Oh, it's this little thing,
Speaker 1: you know, do a five minute meditation, you know, it's
Speaker 1: this tiny thing to like make sure, you know, exting
Speaker 1: the friend and checking in. You know, these things matter
Speaker 1: more than we think. Yeah, there's a Tanzanian proverb that
Speaker 1: I use in the Spiritual Habits course, which is little
Speaker 1: by little, a little becomes a lot. And I just
Speaker 1: love that idea and I love how you just pointed
Speaker 1: to this works for both the good and the bad. Right.
Speaker 1: You know, if social media doesn't make you feel good,
Speaker 1: I'm not castigating it across the board. But if you're
Speaker 1: one of those people and which social media turns into
Speaker 1: a comparison exercise, and leaves you feeling bad about yourself.
Speaker 1: You know, little by little that becomes a lot versus
Speaker 1: just like you're saying text to friends, little by little,
Speaker 1: you're nurturing and growing connection. And so I just think
Speaker 1: that's such an important idea, and we tend to discount
Speaker 1: it because we think we have to make really big changes.
Speaker 1: And sometimes a big change can be great and can
Speaker 1: be helpful and depending on what it is, but for
Speaker 1: most of us, it's the little changes. You know, how
Speaker 1: do we work a little more of this indo our day?
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, focusing on the little can
Speaker 1: allow us to do something that also can prove our
Speaker 1: well being right, which is to make sure we're harnessing
Speaker 1: self compassion. You know. I think sometimes when we want
Speaker 1: to make this huge change, like I'm going to be
Speaker 1: perfectly happy and I'm never going to mess up again,
Speaker 1: we're often trying to make that big change with a
Speaker 1: certain sort of attitude, and it's an attitude of perfectionism,
Speaker 1: like if I screw up, you know the world is over.
Speaker 1: And so I think focusing on the little changes means
Speaker 1: you're giving yourself something you can bite off, something that's
Speaker 1: actually doable. You're you're not setting yourself up for a failure.
Speaker 1: You're kind of doing it in a compassionate way. And
Speaker 1: so I think that's another way that focusing on the
Speaker 1: little can help us. We're doing it with this mindset
Speaker 1: of compassion and doability, as opposed to I must be
Speaker 1: this perfect robot that gets everything right the first time. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And I think there's so much to be said for
Speaker 1: positive momentum. Right, So when we start doing little things
Speaker 1: and we're successful, we feel better about ourselves, We feel
Speaker 1: more confident, we feel like we have more self efficacy
Speaker 1: versus when we try and do big things and we fail.
Speaker 1: You know, you do that long enough that eats away
Speaker 1: your sense of your ability to change. You know, I
Speaker 1: did a lot of behavior coaching for a while, and
Speaker 1: that was such a big thing. Was people would say
Speaker 1: I'm the kind of person who doesn't finish things, and
Speaker 1: I'd say, well, you haven't finished things in the past.
Speaker 1: But I don't know that that's a personality trait, right,
Speaker 1: But we've got to adjust the way we go after
Speaker 1: these things. That's exactly right. And I think we forget
Speaker 1: that the stories we tell ourselves matter a lot, right,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a person who doesn't finish things. You know.
Speaker 1: That's a story that you can update, Right, That's a
Speaker 1: story that has some content that may or may not
Speaker 1: be true that you could challenge, you know, riddled with
Speaker 1: these cognitive fallacies. And so I think focusing on the
Speaker 1: small can also help us make sure that those stories
Speaker 1: are accurate. Right. We're not trying to come up with
Speaker 1: a magnum opus story that's gonna make sense of everything
Speaker 1: we've done. We're just talking about you know, did I
Speaker 1: get up and like do my five minute gratitude meditation
Speaker 1: this morning? Right? You know, these tiny things allow us
Speaker 1: to achieve it, but they allow us to come up
Speaker 1: with better stories that we can tell ourselves, that are
Speaker 1: stories that are positive, ones about growth and so on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Dr Rick Hanson said something once. He said, our stories
Speaker 1: about ourselves are at least six months out of date.
Speaker 1: And I think actually that numbers way underestimated. I think
Speaker 1: I think our stories about ourselves can be years out
Speaker 1: of date, you know. And so I like that idea
Speaker 1: of just adjusting a little bit. You mentioned gratitude there,
Speaker 1: and I thought maybe we could turn towards gratitude for
Speaker 1: a second, because it's one of the skills that you
Speaker 1: talk about in your happiness course as being a really
Speaker 1: helpful happiness tool. There's lots of studies about how good
Speaker 1: gratitude is for us in so many different ways. You know,
Speaker 1: it's pro social, it tends to make us often be
Speaker 1: able to regulate ourselves better, sometimes get more done. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a ton of reasons why gratitude is
Speaker 1: so valuable. So my question to you would be two fold.
Speaker 1: The first would be what do you think are some
Speaker 1: of the most useful strategies for making gratitude part of
Speaker 1: our life? And then the second question is a little
Speaker 1: bit more complex, but you talk about hedonic adaptation, which
Speaker 1: is we get used to things, right, you know, I
Speaker 1: get a new car, and then I get used to
Speaker 1: have in the car. It's no longer special anymore. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm curious whether we can have hedonic adaptation in our
Speaker 1: gratitude work, because this is what I feel like happens
Speaker 1: to me as I do it, and it's really valuable
Speaker 1: until I've done it for a while and now I'm
Speaker 1: back to the same sort of things, and now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it's kind of used to the gratitude work.
Speaker 1: So question one would be what are some practices you like?
Speaker 1: And then question to what would be some ways of
Speaker 1: keeping it fresh? Yeah, well, in terms of practices that
Speaker 1: I think work, I mean part of it is, you know,
Speaker 1: you've got to find what works for you. Right there
Speaker 1: are practices that might be fantastic for me that you
Speaker 1: might find cheesy or you might find onerous. You know,
Speaker 1: as someone who's an expert on behavior changes, you know
Speaker 1: the practices is going to work is the one that
Speaker 1: we can get ourselves to do. Right. Some that I
Speaker 1: really like are you know, just the simple act of
Speaker 1: writing down a few things that you're grateful for. You know,
Speaker 1: I have a little app that I used to do this.
Speaker 1: I don't think you need an app. It can if
Speaker 1: you're a pen and paper person, use pen and paper,
Speaker 1: but just come it to you know, three to five
Speaker 1: things you're grateful for every day. Um. And the key,
Speaker 1: which maybe is going to get to your hedonic adaptation
Speaker 1: question a little bit, is that ideally those should be different.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really work if every day you're like dogs
Speaker 1: spouse coffee, dog spouse coffee like like, you gotta first
Speaker 1: have to mix it up a bit, and you second
Speaker 1: have to make sure you're feeling. It can't be wrote.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole point of gratitude is that it's
Speaker 1: an emotion and you have to kind of turn it on.
Speaker 1: But another practice I really love, which for me felt
Speaker 1: a little bit easier because it meant I was noticing
Speaker 1: things I was grateful for throughout the day, was a
Speaker 1: practice that I learned from the author Ross Gay who
Speaker 1: has this book called The Book of Delights, and his
Speaker 1: practice is just he tries to notice things that he
Speaker 1: finds delightful out there in the world. So it's not like,
Speaker 1: you know, capital g gratitude of this blessing that came
Speaker 1: to your life. It's just like you notice fun things
Speaker 1: out there. Like you know, this morning, as I was
Speaker 1: walking to get coffee, there was a guy who was
Speaker 1: like parking near me and he was like blasting full school,
Speaker 1: like Ozzy Osbourne out there. Went over his car and
Speaker 1: he had this big dog that was hanging out, and
Speaker 1: you know, so I looked over in for a second
Speaker 1: I thought the dog was like jamming along to Ozzy Osbourne, right,
Speaker 1: and that was like delight. You know. Rosskay would put
Speaker 1: his finger in there and just said that is a delight, right,
Speaker 1: And The reason I like the delight practices. First, it's
Speaker 1: easier than gratitude, right, you don't have to kind of
Speaker 1: remember this list and write it down. But the second
Speaker 1: is that it's it's doing what you want to be doing.
Speaker 1: In the gratitude practice, which is sort of training your
Speaker 1: attention to the blessings, to the things that are good
Speaker 1: in life. You're fighting this bias that we know is
Speaker 1: one that is built in, which is a negativity bias.
Speaker 1: Your brains are set to notice the big tigers out
Speaker 1: there in the world, the anxiety provoking, scary, sad things.
Speaker 1: It takes some work to train our brains to shift
Speaker 1: focus and notice the delightful things. So if a gratitude
Speaker 1: practice seems onerous or like it's going to be to work,
Speaker 1: commit to noticing the delights. And I like finding a
Speaker 1: delight buddy where you can like text the buddy like
Speaker 1: saw a dog hanging out car playing Ozzy Osbourne, delight
Speaker 1: you know all caps. That's a idea to get to
Speaker 1: your heat. On a adaptation question, you know, I think
Speaker 1: this is a tough one because there are studies that
Speaker 1: suggest that we don't hedonically adapt to certain kinds of
Speaker 1: emotions as easily, and gratitude is one of these that
Speaker 1: if you're focused on the right stuff, you can continue
Speaker 1: that feeling long after you expect you don't see the
Speaker 1: same hedonic adaptation curve for gratitude, but you have to
Speaker 1: keep feeling it to get there. And I think the
Speaker 1: problem with a lot of gratitude practices is we turn
Speaker 1: them into something that we do wrote It's like brushing
Speaker 1: our teeth again, you know, it's like you know, spouse
Speaker 1: dog coffee like every single day, right, and you just
Speaker 1: stop feeling it. And so one way to do that is,
Speaker 1: you know, make a rule with yourself that it has
Speaker 1: to be something new. You know, it can be my
Speaker 1: spouse's feet or his smile or you know, my dog's
Speaker 1: tail or, like my dog the way she drinks the water.
Speaker 1: You have to commit to finding something novel every single time.
Speaker 1: And that means you're still in the noticing, right, You're
Speaker 1: still like allowing the gratitude to do what it needs
Speaker 1: to do, which is like you've got to feel it.
Speaker 1: You've got to think like that is amazing that this universe,
Speaker 1: of all the people, this dog could be, with all
Speaker 1: the dogs I could have, I have this dog, you
Speaker 1: have to take a moment to feel that. But if
Speaker 1: if you get there, if you allow yourself to feel it,
Speaker 1: there is evidence suggesting that you won't adapt to it
Speaker 1: as much. It's still kind of can have its effect,
Speaker 1: maybe even more so than other emotions, which is one
Speaker 1: of the many, many cool things about gratitude. If you're
Speaker 1: doing it right, you don't hedonically adapt as much. You
Speaker 1: said a bunch of things there. I'd like to just
Speaker 1: kind of hit on real quick. I think first, is
Speaker 1: I love that idea of delight, the word I often
Speaker 1: use as appreciation, like what do I appreciate today? Like,
Speaker 1: to your point, it's smaller than something I'm grateful for.
Speaker 1: It's just a little flash of a moment that there
Speaker 1: was something something that was there. And then the other
Speaker 1: question I have is about feeling it, because this is
Speaker 1: an interesting one, right, I've talked on this show a
Speaker 1: lot about my struggles with depression. Depression when it comes
Speaker 1: on me, what it is primarily is lack of feeling right.
Speaker 1: Something that you might normally feel just doesn't do it right.
Speaker 1: The song that normally is like God of Love, that
Speaker 1: song is just like it's fine. And so if gratitude
Speaker 1: is something we need to feel, and yet feelings are
Speaker 1: difficult to come by, and yet we know that gratitude
Speaker 1: is something that may help with depression. Any thoughts and
Speaker 1: working around that, Yeah, I think your experience is of
Speaker 1: course really common. I mean one of the classic symptoms
Speaker 1: of depression is you know, an Hedonia's literally like you're
Speaker 1: not having hedonic you know moments, these hedonic experiences, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, I mean I think one way to do
Speaker 1: that is again to take this idea of baby steps
Speaker 1: and a little self compassion. Right. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: going through a terrible episode, yeah, the song that moved
Speaker 1: you before isn't going to do so. In the same way,
Speaker 1: you know, the main thing on your gratitude list, you're
Speaker 1: not going to feel it, And you know that's a
Speaker 1: pain that sucks, right, but it's something that you need
Speaker 1: to accept is not going to last forever. Right. I
Speaker 1: think the sort of statements that you talk to yourself
Speaker 1: with can be really powerful in those moments. But that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that I think a practice of
Speaker 1: something like a delight practice can be so powerful, is
Speaker 1: that if you commit to the tiniest thing, like you
Speaker 1: can start noticing again, and that can kind of break through.
Speaker 1: And I do think that these things sort of snowball
Speaker 1: I mean, this is one of the things we know
Speaker 1: in depression rights that you know, you're not getting as
Speaker 1: much of a hedonic burst every time you do something fun,
Speaker 1: So then you stop doing things that are fun and
Speaker 1: that you really don't have any hedonic burst, and then
Speaker 1: you're you know, it's like, so if you can kind
Speaker 1: of get the snowballing to go very slowly in the
Speaker 1: other direction, it can be quite powerful. And and in
Speaker 1: Ross Guy's book, you know, he talks about how this
Speaker 1: practice of delight has gotten him through, you know, some
Speaker 1: really tough times. You know, the book is really honest
Speaker 1: about issues of racial violence and things like that, and
Speaker 1: he says, even in the midst of the worst times,
Speaker 1: you can just notice that one cool thing. It can
Speaker 1: kind of give you a little, you know, a peak
Speaker 1: of hope that can help you in a really important way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think there's a couple of things you're pointing to.
Speaker 1: Their one is specificity, Right, I can be more specific
Speaker 1: in what I'm grateful for. You just named it, like
Speaker 1: the way my dog drinks water, my dog's tail, Right,
Speaker 1: It's the specificity. And then I think the second piece
Speaker 1: in what you're saying also is that I do think
Speaker 1: by looking for little moments of even if the word
Speaker 1: delight is too strong, little moments of something that's positive,
Speaker 1: shows that even something that feels as all encompassing as
Speaker 1: depression has its moments in which it's waxing and waning.
Speaker 1: It is not this constant thing. It's not always there
Speaker 1: in the same level with the same intensity it seems
Speaker 1: like it. But these noticing of little delights, as you
Speaker 1: sort of said short of it, allows you to see
Speaker 1: through these little holes, you know, like oh yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: there's something out there. It's not all clouds, it's not
Speaker 1: all gray. And I think another key is to give
Speaker 1: yourself permission that those things were supposed to have on
Speaker 1: our gratitude journal, like our spouse and our dog. But
Speaker 1: you know, if you can find the goofy things, It's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I love Ross's book is you know,
Speaker 1: in his big list is like the band l de Barge,
Speaker 1: like purple things, like you know, like wise purple of colored,
Speaker 1: such a weird color. I think if you can allow
Speaker 1: yourself a little bit of the goofiness, that can kind
Speaker 1: of snap you out of it a little bit too.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be, you know, the most meaningful
Speaker 1: thing in your life. You could just be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty good. It's a good thing. It's like slightly
Speaker 1: above baseline and just get your brain to notice that stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Another person who does that well as a guy Neo
Speaker 1: pass Reacha. It's called the Book of Awesome, and then
Speaker 1: he's got other Books of Awesome. But it's basically that thing.
Speaker 1: He's been a guest a couple of times, and it's
Speaker 1: just fun. He approaches it in a fun, small way.
Speaker 1: But again, the thing that I notice about his stuff
Speaker 1: is it's so specific, and I think that's an important thing.
Speaker 1: Let's change directions because I have to ask you about
Speaker 1: episode of The Happiness Lab, which is your podcast, and
Speaker 1: it's about something you've worked on with Dallas Taylor to
Speaker 1: create the Handbook for Sonic Happiness. Basically, the idea sound
Speaker 1: has an enormous impact on happyness and well being. I
Speaker 1: am a extraordinarily sound sensitive person, so I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: you can give us a few tips from the Handbook
Speaker 1: for Sonic Happiness. Yeah, it's funny that you're such a
Speaker 1: sound sensitive person. I feel like in general that you
Speaker 1: know might not be a good thing for for a podcast,
Speaker 1: or that's a fantastic you know, like you can hear
Speaker 1: all the tiny things. Yeah, yeah, I mean one of
Speaker 1: the great things about talking with Dallas was realizing that
Speaker 1: we're not often intervening on sound to promote our happiness
Speaker 1: and our mental health. What do I mean by that?
Speaker 1: You were constantly intervening on our other senses to feel better.
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm having a bad day, I want
Speaker 1: to take a warm bubble bath or maybe put on
Speaker 1: a candle, like I want to watch something on TV.
Speaker 1: I want to buy flowers. Right, we're hacking vision and
Speaker 1: touch and like taste. Right, you know what, I'm having
Speaker 1: a bad day, I want some ice cream. Right. We
Speaker 1: do that quite naturally, and many of us have like
Speaker 1: straightforward go toos of things in those domains that feel good,
Speaker 1: But we don't often do that as much with sound.
Speaker 1: Maybe a little bit with music, right, you know, if
Speaker 1: I'm having a sad day, maybe I want to enhance
Speaker 1: the sadness and listen to a sad song or listen
Speaker 1: to something peppy to get me out of it. But
Speaker 1: that's pretty limited in the scope of all the sounds
Speaker 1: we could be engaging with. You know, what Dallas really
Speaker 1: recommends is making sure that you're as much as you
Speaker 1: can limiting some of the bad sounds and kind of
Speaker 1: noticing them. You know, he talks about even ambient sounds
Speaker 1: in the room, like you know, the hum of a
Speaker 1: refrigerator that's really annoying, or you know, like just other
Speaker 1: sounds around you. Sometimes I noticed this too, like I'm
Speaker 1: feeling just great, and like what's going on. It's like
Speaker 1: there's some stupid hum like happening in the building next
Speaker 1: door that's like really bugging me, right, So kind of
Speaker 1: finding ways to limit the bad sounds, but really trying
Speaker 1: to find ways to mindfully notice some of the good sounds,
Speaker 1: you know, and trying to get beyond music for something
Speaker 1: that feels nice. You know, for me, it's often very
Speaker 1: natural sounds kind of sound amazing, right, Like take a
Speaker 1: little height or go somewhere naturally, even if it's like
Speaker 1: a park in your neighborhood and just be quiet. Notice
Speaker 1: and you know, you and I are having this conversation.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm in New England when it's right around
Speaker 1: the beginning of autumn and the leaves are kind of rustling,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you can hear the acorns fall and things
Speaker 1: like that. You know, those are true delights for me.
Speaker 1: You know, those are delights in the sound domain. But
Speaker 1: but I'm often not giving myself permission to engage with
Speaker 1: them in the same way I would totally give myself
Speaker 1: permission to engage with the taste of an ice cream
Speaker 1: cone or the warmth of a warm bath. Right, give
Speaker 1: yourself permission to engage in positive sounds. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: the benefit of being a sound sensitive person and a
Speaker 1: person focused on positivity to some degree, as I've really
Speaker 1: learned to seek those out. I had been a on again,
Speaker 1: off again meditator for a long time, and then someone
Speaker 1: said something to me that I had never heard of before.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's uncommon now, but this is ten
Speaker 1: years ago. As they said, go outside, sit outside, and
Speaker 1: just meditate on what you hear. Just follow what you're here,
Speaker 1: and when your mind it gets lost in thought, just
Speaker 1: ask again what can I hear? And all of a
Speaker 1: sudden I was like, this is what I have been
Speaker 1: trying to get for twenty years from meditation. You know,
Speaker 1: it just really worked. And then that actually allowed me
Speaker 1: to settle enough that the other types of meditation became
Speaker 1: a lot more profound for me. Um, So it really
Speaker 1: unlocked something for me. So I love to go outside
Speaker 1: and listen to sounds. But the downside of a sound
Speaker 1: sensitive person is sort of like you mentioned, if there's
Speaker 1: a rattle or a hum or something. I mean, I
Speaker 1: am so aware of it and what I don't know
Speaker 1: and I can't decide, And I'd be curious to see
Speaker 1: you know kind of what your thoughts are and from
Speaker 1: what you've learned about it is. I sometimes worry that
Speaker 1: I'm making myself more neurotic around it. Just it's a rattle.
Speaker 1: Let it go, Eric, But I don't very well you know.
Speaker 1: The other one is and I think there's an actual
Speaker 1: name for this, but I don't know what the name is.
Speaker 1: But it's where the sound of other people eating drives
Speaker 1: you nuts. And I don't know whether you guys discussed
Speaker 1: that part at all. Couple of things there. One is,
Speaker 1: I think probably a lot of us are getting rattled
Speaker 1: by the rattle psychologically, but we're not mindful or aware
Speaker 1: enough to realize it. I know, I'm just like, I'm
Speaker 1: in a bad mood. I'm going to strike out. I
Speaker 1: want to say some of me to my husband and
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh wait, it was the refrigerator. Hu Like,
Speaker 1: it was like there's a causal arrow from this nasty sound.
Speaker 1: So part of being you know, sound sensitive. You might
Speaker 1: even say sound mindful, right, sound sensitive as you're really
Speaker 1: affected by about sound mindful, as you're noticing which things
Speaker 1: are out there. It can just give you some awareness, right,
Speaker 1: you might be able to do something to shut the
Speaker 1: rattle off. And even if you can't, you now at
Speaker 1: least have some awareness. Okay, this is going on, right,
Speaker 1: you know, I know you talk a lot on the
Speaker 1: show about addiction and things like that. You know, it's
Speaker 1: the same as craving, right, you know, being mindful of
Speaker 1: the craving and now it's there, it's really present. But
Speaker 1: now you're aware of it, you can choose to do
Speaker 1: what you want to do with it. Maybe you're going
Speaker 1: to allow it, maybe you're gonna non judgmentally really pay
Speaker 1: attention to it, you know. And this was one of
Speaker 1: the things you know that I've seen in sounds that
Speaker 1: are annoying is sometimes if you can get to recognizing
Speaker 1: them just as sounds, you're us in the same way
Speaker 1: that you can recognize a craving is it's just a feeling,
Speaker 1: and get really curious about it, Like that rattle, you know,
Speaker 1: what's the frequency the bump bump bump ball. It makes
Speaker 1: my chest vibrate and things like that. Like now you're
Speaker 1: just digging into it and investigating it in a way
Speaker 1: that kind of causes it to lose its power, right,
Speaker 1: Like you notice it's not just this valance that's like
Speaker 1: sucky negative stop stop stop, Like you can sort of
Speaker 1: see it for what it is, and that can disarm
Speaker 1: it sometimes too. I like that idea. Actually, I had
Speaker 1: not thought of investigating it more closely. If it's rhythmic,
Speaker 1: I can capture the rhythm of it, and then it
Speaker 1: sort of disappears. It's the intermittent ones. But to your point,
Speaker 1: I either try and tell myself don't be annoyed by it,
Speaker 1: or make it go away. I do one of those two,
Speaker 1: but I have not that much. Now that you're saying
Speaker 1: it turned towards it in a curious way. Learn more
Speaker 1: about it. How often is it, what are its frequencies?
Speaker 1: What you know? I think that's helpful, all right? What
Speaker 1: about being driven crazy by the sound of other people eating?
Speaker 1: Can you fix this problem. Um, I think you can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe same technique, get out of the room, are eating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just funny. I mean it's the same with all
Speaker 1: affective things, right. You know, if you can really investigate
Speaker 1: your own preferences, sometimes you start laughing at yourself. Right,
Speaker 1: You're like, I'm really really annoyed by this guy chewing chips.
Speaker 1: You know, Like if if you can kind of get
Speaker 1: to a meta awareness of what's really upsetting you, then again,
Speaker 1: through this process of kind of allowing it and investigating it,
Speaker 1: you can sometimes get some purchase on it to be like, wait,
Speaker 1: that doesn't make any sense. Again, it doesn't make it perfect,
Speaker 1: and it does take a lot of work, right, but
Speaker 1: you can kind of get to the other side on things. Hi, everyone,
Speaker 1: I wanted to personally invite you to a workshop that
Speaker 1: we are offering at the end of October at the
Speaker 1: Omega Institute, which is in the Hudson Valley in New York,
Speaker 1: and it is really beautiful this time of year. It's
Speaker 1: going to be a great chance to meet some wonderful people,
Speaker 1: recharge and relax while learning foundational spiritual habits that will
Speaker 1: allow you to establish simple daily practices that will help
Speaker 1: you feel more at ease and more fulfilled in your life.
Speaker 1: You can find details at one you feed dot net
Speaker 1: slash Omega. I'm really looking forward to meeting many of you.
Speaker 1: There another episode that you had recently. It was about,
Speaker 1: in essence, on one level, working too much or you know,
Speaker 1: how much is too much to work? But the insight
Speaker 1: that came out of it that I thought was really
Speaker 1: interesting was that we all want more time. We have
Speaker 1: this desire. I used to say, I want to be
Speaker 1: able to do whatever I want whenever I want right,
Speaker 1: which is in my case an unqualified disaster when that occurs.
Speaker 1: But the point of the episode is that there is
Speaker 1: a sweet spot for how much discretionary time is helpful,
Speaker 1: and that even moving small amounts of discretionary time can
Speaker 1: be very helpful. Back to this a little and often,
Speaker 1: so can you tell us a little bit more about
Speaker 1: that one? Yeah? Yeah, So this was work that was
Speaker 1: looking at kind of how much discretionary time do we need?
Speaker 1: It was an episode with the psychologist Cassie Holmes, who's fantastic.
Speaker 1: She's got a great new book out on some of
Speaker 1: these topics. And I think we we assume that like
Speaker 1: infinite time, is good, right, like all the free time possible.
Speaker 1: But when she finds is that you definitely need some
Speaker 1: free time, time that you would describe as free that's
Speaker 1: not scheduled, but it's really not infinite. It's actually just
Speaker 1: a couple hours a day, you know, maybe even the
Speaker 1: range of like two to three hours a day. And
Speaker 1: I think two things there. One is like when you
Speaker 1: realize it doesn't have to be infinite, you're like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this seems much more doable, right, Like I think I
Speaker 1: can move things around to objectively get that much free time,
Speaker 1: or it's a little easier than if I was going
Speaker 1: for infinite free time, for example. But the other thing
Speaker 1: that she she talks a lot about is that we
Speaker 1: really need to prioritize that free time, right and think,
Speaker 1: look really carefully at what's digging into it. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes what's digging into it is work and paying the bills,
Speaker 1: and you know, yeah, that's a thing. But sometimes what's
Speaker 1: digging into it is stuff that's just like feeling our
Speaker 1: time that we don't need, you know, I know you
Speaker 1: love parables on the show, you know, she talks about
Speaker 1: the perhaps apocryphal tale of some professor who was trying
Speaker 1: to teach his kids, you know, about the power of this,
Speaker 1: and he says, like, you know, have these ping pong balls?
Speaker 1: How many ping pong balls can I fit in this class?
Speaker 1: People say some number of pink pall balls and he
Speaker 1: puts them in and he's like, so is the glassful?
Speaker 1: And people are like, yeah, you know. And then he
Speaker 1: brings out these little like marbles and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: I know, actually, can I put some marbles in? And
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, yeah, you can't use So he fits
Speaker 1: some marbles and he says, well, now is the glassful?
Speaker 1: And people like yeah, And then he pulls out the
Speaker 1: sand and he's like, huh, yeah, I put the sand in.
Speaker 1: The reason this is relevant is he says, you know,
Speaker 1: your time is this glass, and if you start filling
Speaker 1: it with the sand first, you won't be able to
Speaker 1: fit the ping pong balls, which are the things you
Speaker 1: really want to be doing with your life, the things
Speaker 1: that really fulfill you and build you up. And so
Speaker 1: I think, you know, with that metaphor, I think we
Speaker 1: can ask the question like, what's the sand in our
Speaker 1: lives that fill things up? You know? And what's the
Speaker 1: ping pong balls? And sometimes when you do that analysis,
Speaker 1: you realize, you know, the sand was you know, every
Speaker 1: you know, free ten minutes I had. I was looking
Speaker 1: at something stupid on the internet, and the sand was
Speaker 1: ruminating over and over again when I could have like,
Speaker 1: you know, popped out and you know, done a quick
Speaker 1: workout or something like that. Right, It really allows us
Speaker 1: to analyze and be more intentional about how we're spending
Speaker 1: our time and recognize that it's a limited resource that
Speaker 1: we often don't think of as one perhaps our most
Speaker 1: important limited resource. You know, money, if you blow it,
Speaker 1: you might be able to get more money someday. But time,
Speaker 1: when you blow it, it's gone forever, you know, in
Speaker 1: your life, it's not coming back. When we're talking about
Speaker 1: discretionary time, are we talking about time that we get
Speaker 1: to choose what we want to do in and we
Speaker 1: may fill it up. Is it still discretionary time? For example,
Speaker 1: if I'm like, all right, well, I want to exercise
Speaker 1: for an hour and I want to meditate for twenty
Speaker 1: minutes and I'd like to do this, would we still
Speaker 1: consider that sort of discretionary time because I don't have
Speaker 1: to do those things, or would we still say even
Speaker 1: beyond that sort of thing I need some amount of
Speaker 1: time that's just do whatever I feel like. Yeah, honestly,
Speaker 1: I think it kind of depends a little bit on
Speaker 1: how you frame it. You know. You use the example
Speaker 1: of like the time to exercise. There's different ways to
Speaker 1: frame that, right. You know. You could frame it like
Speaker 1: I'm done work and I get to do the things
Speaker 1: that are for me. What's the thing for me, I'm
Speaker 1: going to exercise when I have this amazing yoga session, right,
Speaker 1: Or you could frame that exercises like I have to
Speaker 1: do it. If I don't do my half exercise, I'm
Speaker 1: failing at my happiness mission and I'm going to like
Speaker 1: die of a heart attack. Like there's a sort of
Speaker 1: half donus shouldness to certain kinds of things we do.
Speaker 1: And you know, a lot of shouldness obviously comes from
Speaker 1: work and paying the bills and things, but sometimes we
Speaker 1: build up that shouldness in our brain for things that
Speaker 1: aren't a have to write, that are supposed to be
Speaker 1: a want to but now have somehow turned into a
Speaker 1: weird should have to you know. And the joke I
Speaker 1: use with my students is that you don't want to
Speaker 1: be shooting all over yourself, you know. But I think
Speaker 1: we we often should all over ourselves in ways that
Speaker 1: make even the most leisurely things, even the things we
Speaker 1: would normally be doing, you know, as a gift to
Speaker 1: do ourselves. Is this thing we should savor, you know,
Speaker 1: this delicious ice cream cone of time that we've spent.
Speaker 1: And it just feels like crappy, like we're just trying
Speaker 1: to like push our throlves through it, you know, it
Speaker 1: feels like the most onerous work tasks. I think it's
Speaker 1: not exactly defined by a particular thing. It's often defined
Speaker 1: by our attitude towards that thing. And this is one
Speaker 1: of the time hacks I think can be quite powerful, right,
Speaker 1: is that you don't necessarily have to change how you're
Speaker 1: objectively spending your time to you know, in some ways
Speaker 1: subjectively think about your time used differently. If you can
Speaker 1: kind of change your attitude towards how you're spending your time,
Speaker 1: that might be enough. Yeah, I think that is such
Speaker 1: a powerful intervention. Is to get to this, I'm choosing
Speaker 1: to do X, you know, even do get to you know,
Speaker 1: get to do this is amazing. Yet well, even something
Speaker 1: like doing work as a parent can very much feel
Speaker 1: like I have to you know, I had this realization.
Speaker 1: I've I've shared this on the show a number of
Speaker 1: times when my son was I don't know how old
Speaker 1: he was, nine or whatever, and I was complaining about
Speaker 1: having to take him to soccer practice again, and I
Speaker 1: just went like, no, I don't, like, there's no law
Speaker 1: that says I have to take my son to soccer practice,
Speaker 1: Like I simply don't have to do that. A matter
Speaker 1: of fact, I could choose not to come home and
Speaker 1: his mother would have to take care of now I'd
Speaker 1: have to pay child support, but I could make that choice,
Speaker 1: And just reframing it that way then caused me to go, Okay,
Speaker 1: So I am taking into soccer practice? Why am I
Speaker 1: doing it? And now I'm sort of linking this thing
Speaker 1: to something I value, you know, and the same thing
Speaker 1: as you're saying with exercise, like I can turn it
Speaker 1: into a have to do it, but I don't actually
Speaker 1: have to do it. I'm totally in charge of choosing.
Speaker 1: I'm choosing to do it. Why, okay, because I know
Speaker 1: it makes me feel better, I know, you know, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. So I think reframing things as choices in
Speaker 1: our lives a gets us out of that feeling of
Speaker 1: obligation or we have to feeling. It's a trapped feeling
Speaker 1: for me, right, and then also does get me back
Speaker 1: in touch with my values what matters to me? Then
Speaker 1: I can make a choice, Well, maybe that doesn't matter
Speaker 1: to me that much? Why am I doing that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I think that's really profound, right in two ways.
Speaker 1: One is kind of, as you mentioned, getting back to
Speaker 1: your values. Right, So now you can appreciate this thing, right,
Speaker 1: you can have some gratitude for it's like allowing you
Speaker 1: to harness the things you care about. I think it
Speaker 1: also gets you back to a sense of agency, which
Speaker 1: just psychologically is powerful. We don't like to be forced,
Speaker 1: you know, and helpless in doing things. But I think
Speaker 1: that choice can remind you that, like it's a choice,
Speaker 1: and you know, to go back to the metaphor we mentioned,
Speaker 1: Like you can ask yourself, is this the sand or
Speaker 1: is this the like you know, big ping pong balls? Right,
Speaker 1: you can really say you know and like really assess
Speaker 1: whether or not this is the kind of thing you
Speaker 1: want to be doing, because sometimes some of the things
Speaker 1: we think are have twos in life have moved away
Speaker 1: from our values. Right there, they're not serving us in
Speaker 1: the way that they served us before. Right, you mentioned
Speaker 1: our our theories of ourselves are several years old. In
Speaker 1: some cases, I think our kind of meta theories of
Speaker 1: what our values are might be wrong. We really introspect,
Speaker 1: you can be like I don't have to do this,
Speaker 1: and in fact, I don't want to do this even
Speaker 1: in terms of my values. So so it can allow
Speaker 1: us to engage in behavior changes that really are going
Speaker 1: to serve us a little bit better. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff in your happiness course talks about,
Speaker 1: you know, there's some very basic things in there that
Speaker 1: I often am like, I wish I had recommendations that
Speaker 1: were more interesting than exercise, good sleep and meditate, Like
Speaker 1: feels a little bit like eat your vegetables. Right, People
Speaker 1: pay you and they're like, wait, really, this is the
Speaker 1: rocket science of you know, the happiness research right now. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, one thing I like to tell my students
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, totally common wisdom, but definitely not common practice. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's good. One of the reasons I think it's powerful
Speaker 1: to understand the scientific benefits of these things is I
Speaker 1: think it sometimes can help us pop over a little
Speaker 1: bit to behavior change, right, when you really reflect on
Speaker 1: the actual benefits of something like getting a half hour
Speaker 1: of cardio in or the actual benefits of getting some
Speaker 1: sleep for your mental health. You know, you see, like
Speaker 1: in my case, my students like they see these graphs
Speaker 1: of like do you want to be here on your
Speaker 1: mental health? They're here, you know, this big graph. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: like you know, that can sometimes give you the motivation,
Speaker 1: that kind of kick in the pants to get back
Speaker 1: in here with some of these things. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean there's stuff our societies have been saying, our cultures
Speaker 1: have been saying, our grandmothers have been saying, you know,
Speaker 1: for hundreds, if not thousands of years. But somehow in
Speaker 1: the modern world we've got away from actually practicing these things. Yep.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about this don't shoot on yourself or
Speaker 1: reflecting on choice, right, which is very valuable. There are
Speaker 1: still going to be times, you know, with me, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I know unequivocally the single best thing I can do
Speaker 1: for my mental health is exercise, Like it is the
Speaker 1: number one intervention for me. I know that I have
Speaker 1: internalized that, and yet there are days where I'm like,
Speaker 1: I just don't want to do this. So there's a
Speaker 1: certain amount of like, yes, I want to have agency
Speaker 1: and I don't want to do this. There's a certain
Speaker 1: amount of time where there is a need to sort
Speaker 1: of push and say, Eric, this is good for you
Speaker 1: and do something that in the moment I may not
Speaker 1: be wanting to do. So how do you balance those
Speaker 1: two sort of you know, not getting locked into obligation,
Speaker 1: not making something that's good for us a chore, knowing
Speaker 1: that sometimes we have to just go through the motion.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you only have days when you experience this,
Speaker 1: you're doing well because I have months things like I think,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the big insights I think that
Speaker 1: the research shows us is that a lot of this
Speaker 1: isn't what the actual activities themselves are, but it's how
Speaker 1: we talk to ourselves about them. Right. So the shooting
Speaker 1: brain is really this kind of drill sergeant kind of
Speaker 1: idea of motivation where you just think, if I just
Speaker 1: scream it myself and be raped myself for being such
Speaker 1: you know, idiot that I won't want to go to
Speaker 1: the gym, then that will motivate me to go to
Speaker 1: the gym. Right, And that feels like I showed, It
Speaker 1: feels like it can turn the best thing that you
Speaker 1: love the most into this thing that feels like an
Speaker 1: external obligation. But then you also don't want to, you know,
Speaker 1: have the pendulum shift too far in the other direction
Speaker 1: where you go into like indulgent mode where you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: do whatever, just like be this crazy, heated nous and
Speaker 1: hurt yourself, right, because that can lead down a bad
Speaker 1: path too. And so what you're trying to do is
Speaker 1: to find a happy medium, always hard, of course, but
Speaker 1: one of the voices to channel I think that helps
Speaker 1: with that happy medium is a voice of self compassion.
Speaker 1: Self compassion in the way that researchers like Kristin neff
Speaker 1: at U t Austin talk about it, where you're trying
Speaker 1: to talk to yourself as a close friend would talk
Speaker 1: to you, right, you know. So let's say, you know,
Speaker 1: you haven't been to the gym in a while, you're
Speaker 1: feeling like crap. Your close friend shows up. What are
Speaker 1: they going to say to you. They're not gonna be like, Eric,
Speaker 1: you need to get your act together and get to
Speaker 1: the gym. What a loser like. They're not gonna scream
Speaker 1: at you. They're not gonna be like, no, you have
Speaker 1: tomorrow morning eight am, you gotta go to the gym,
Speaker 1: like I'm gonna beat you up or something. Right, But
Speaker 1: they're also not going to be like, no, not a
Speaker 1: problem that you're never going to the gym, like eat
Speaker 1: more ice cream, like say on your butt, Like they're
Speaker 1: gonna be like, Eric, what's going on? What's going on?
Speaker 1: Why aren't you going to the gym? Right, they might
Speaker 1: be curious. They're going to be kind, They're going to
Speaker 1: try to get to the bottom of it. They're not
Speaker 1: gonna let you indulge just you know, self compassion is
Speaker 1: not self indulgence. But they're gonna, you know, try to
Speaker 1: figure out what's going on. And I think that's sort
Speaker 1: of the attitude we need to take to ourselves when
Speaker 1: we're feeling that resistance. One move is to actually get
Speaker 1: curious about the resistance and say, what's you know going on?
Speaker 1: And I've done this, I mean I definitely have had this,
Speaker 1: specifically with exercise a lot. They said it's not days
Speaker 1: for me, sometimes it's months. But I find that when
Speaker 1: I get curious about it, it can help, like what's happening?
Speaker 1: Why does this feel like an obligation? What have I done?
Speaker 1: And sometimes you analyze and you realize, like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's the particular thing I'm compelling myself to do. There
Speaker 1: are other things that feel like I showed in my
Speaker 1: life and if I can't harness that time that I
Speaker 1: was exercising for something else, like there's another thing that
Speaker 1: I'm missing that I want to get into. But all
Speaker 1: of that is it's not necessarily which solution I come
Speaker 1: up with. It's just the fact that being curious about
Speaker 1: the resistance can allow you to stop butting heads against
Speaker 1: either kind of you know, plowing through it like a
Speaker 1: drill sergeant, which doesn't work, or ignoring it and letting
Speaker 1: it continue when the resistance is really not serving you.
Speaker 1: So again, it's this kind of how you talk to
Speaker 1: yourself and allowing yourself to kind of get curious and
Speaker 1: pay attention and investigate what's going on with you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's really good. I think another phenomenon I've
Speaker 1: noticed in myself is particularly with exercise. It's like I
Speaker 1: look at exercise and I'm like, Okay, my plan is
Speaker 1: I'm going to do a sixty minute bike ride that day,
Speaker 1: and I know how much energy a sixty minute bike
Speaker 1: ride takes. It takes ten units of energy, and I
Speaker 1: look inside and I'm like, I have got one. This
Speaker 1: is not going to happen, right, So you know. The
Speaker 1: other just sort of simple thing to do is to
Speaker 1: break it down and go like, okay, kind of get
Speaker 1: on my bike shoes. That takes one union of energy.
Speaker 1: I got one union of energy. Good. I ease myself
Speaker 1: one step at a time into the thing can be
Speaker 1: another just sort of a simple hack, for lack of
Speaker 1: a better word, to kind of get over that hump.
Speaker 1: Because I don't know what it is about exercise. I've asked,
Speaker 1: maybe you have a theory on this. I've never gotten
Speaker 1: a good answer for it, or not a complete answer,
Speaker 1: which is I have exercise. Let's say I don't know
Speaker 1: five thousand times in my life. I don't know what
Speaker 1: the number is. It's a big number now right, I'm
Speaker 1: not a young man. Every single time I've done it,
Speaker 1: when I'm done, I'm like that, I'm so glad I
Speaker 1: did that. That was also going to do that. Ye
Speaker 1: Never once, not once, have I been like, man, I
Speaker 1: wish I didn't do that. Right. You would think that
Speaker 1: it would just be easy to do it right. It
Speaker 1: just seems like my brain would learn that's good, do it,
Speaker 1: and yet it's still sometimes a big effort. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it just comes down to conservation of energy
Speaker 1: as a species. I don't know you have any thoughts
Speaker 1: on that, because it's strange to me. You're good if
Speaker 1: it's just exercise for you. I mean for me, it's
Speaker 1: like sit down to journal, do your meditation like your mom.
Speaker 1: Like there's so so One hint that we get from
Speaker 1: the neuroscience is that you'd like to think that, you know,
Speaker 1: the brain was organized in the following way. It was
Speaker 1: good at detecting what I really liked, what drove pleasure.
Speaker 1: It would notice that really well, and then it would
Speaker 1: have mechanisms that motivate you that say, hey, whenever you
Speaker 1: feel that you know that little burst of pleasure, do
Speaker 1: that more often. Turns out the brain doesn't have that
Speaker 1: many pleasure centers. They're like really tiny and hard to find.
Speaker 1: Even as neuroscience researchers early on we're looking for them, like,
Speaker 1: we don't have any pleasure centers, meaning we don't often
Speaker 1: notice what feels good, right, we notice things that really
Speaker 1: hack into those systems. So you know, drugs of addiction
Speaker 1: like those hack into the system. Great, we notice that
Speaker 1: those feel good and those are very hooked up to
Speaker 1: the motivation systems. You know, sweet things, right, you know,
Speaker 1: these visceral states we get. But you know, the nice
Speaker 1: warm feeling I get from doing a nice gesture to somebody,
Speaker 1: you know, the warmth I get from social connection, the
Speaker 1: exercise and doorphin high don't notice it as much. However,
Speaker 1: the brain has lots and lots of neural real estate
Speaker 1: devoted to what you might call wanting. So if the
Speaker 1: pleasure systems are like the liking, the brain has lots
Speaker 1: of wanting stuff, and so you get these systems that
Speaker 1: like give you lots of craving to do stuff that
Speaker 1: you know just happened to be a hack in this
Speaker 1: liking system. Again, whether it's drugs of addiction or things
Speaker 1: like social media or you know, all these like little
Speaker 1: dopamine hacks, our brain is really ready to go after those,
Speaker 1: but it has no mechanism to learn about, you know,
Speaker 1: the big highs, the you know kind of like deeper
Speaker 1: pleasures in life, and that sucks. Is such a stupid
Speaker 1: way to do. We probably work for rats, great for them,
Speaker 1: but like not for us, you know, So how do
Speaker 1: you kind of combine these systems for wanting and liking better.
Speaker 1: You know, all the forms of liking get them to
Speaker 1: talk to your wanting better. Sadly, there's not an obvious way,
Speaker 1: but there are hints that one way you can do
Speaker 1: it is to kind of ramp up your intentional noticing
Speaker 1: of the rewards you get. So my colleague Eddy Cober,
Speaker 1: who's a neuroscientist at Yale. She she's really interested in
Speaker 1: mindfulness approaches to addiction and things like that, you know,
Speaker 1: claims that you can use the same sort of approaches
Speaker 1: to notice the good things, just as you can would say,
Speaker 1: a craving for a cigarette or something, notice like, actually,
Speaker 1: when I'm craving is kind of gross, you know, like
Speaker 1: really pay tension to how this makes you feel, which
Speaker 1: is not that good. You can do the reverse for
Speaker 1: something like exercise. And so this is something she practices
Speaker 1: all the time. She's like the annoying friend that always
Speaker 1: wants to do like the hard yogo or the run
Speaker 1: or the like. You know, she never has the thing
Speaker 1: that we were just describing, but it's in part because
Speaker 1: she's forced herself at the end of it. In that
Speaker 1: moment you talk about your like this feels great to
Speaker 1: sit there and meditate on it, Like, oh, my chest
Speaker 1: feels lighter, I feel really good, right, Like she's kind
Speaker 1: of giving her brain sometime to be like wait, like
Speaker 1: the reward areas that are kind of slow unless it's
Speaker 1: like a straight up dopamine hit. They can kind of
Speaker 1: notice this stuff. And you know, does that perfectly lock
Speaker 1: up your wanting and liking systems? No, but I think
Speaker 1: it can kind of help this sort of mindfulness practice
Speaker 1: of noticing their rewarding parts, just in the same way
Speaker 1: you might notice that the negative things that are not
Speaker 1: serving you. When you sort of notice those consequences and
Speaker 1: really attend to how they feel, they can kind of
Speaker 1: get into that circuit a bit more too. That's a
Speaker 1: really interesting perspective the liking and one in systems, and
Speaker 1: that a lot of the things that these pleasures were
Speaker 1: describing that come from wholesome activity there are a subtler thing,
Speaker 1: and so savoring them is really importan. It's just so
Speaker 1: interesting having been somebody who had drugs of addiction right
Speaker 1: as a heroin addict, it amazes me looking back on
Speaker 1: the amount of pleasure I was getting at the end
Speaker 1: was so small. Compared to the price I was paying,
Speaker 1: you know, And I've heard people describe some theories of
Speaker 1: addiction people have is that there's learning disorder associated with it,
Speaker 1: and that your brain is just not updating its prior
Speaker 1: so to speak, right it it's just it's stuck on
Speaker 1: the heroin good signal, even though heroin is clearly not
Speaker 1: any longer good. My brain is like, it doesn't get it,
Speaker 1: you know. And so I think that these things are
Speaker 1: really tricky, that liking and wanting. I think it's really
Speaker 1: interesting that the brain has a lot of real estate
Speaker 1: devoted to wanting. M Yeah, and in that the wanting
Speaker 1: sticks really strongly to certain things, right, you know. Again,
Speaker 1: drugs of abuse a lot of times are hacking your
Speaker 1: do commune system, as does the intermitt and reward of
Speaker 1: your Instagram feed, you know, as does the like really
Speaker 1: central pleasures like sugar and you know, lounging around and
Speaker 1: things that that wanting system has nothing to stick on
Speaker 1: to for these bigger pleasures, and it doesn't update well,
Speaker 1: you know, As you mentioned, I think one of the
Speaker 1: said things that you know, if you're really addicted to
Speaker 1: a particular drug, is that you're habituated to it, you're
Speaker 1: definitely not getting not only at the consequences super high,
Speaker 1: but you're also probably not getting the same pleasure that
Speaker 1: you're getting in the beginning because your brain is kind
Speaker 1: of used to it. But yet still the wanting systems.
Speaker 1: Like one one, if I could go back in evolutionary
Speaker 1: time and like tweak one thing about the rain, it
Speaker 1: would probably be to put more pleasure zones for the
Speaker 1: bigger you know, more meaningful pleasures, and it would be
Speaker 1: to hook the wanting systems up a little bit better
Speaker 1: to those. But sadly I did not get consulted on
Speaker 1: how brains should be designed so well. So do you think,
Speaker 1: though that this is just pure conjecture that if we
Speaker 1: as a species managed to not exterminate ourselves in the
Speaker 1: next several thousand years, that will change because to your point,
Speaker 1: for rats, it's a very simple system. Right, They don't
Speaker 1: have meaningful pleasures in the same way that we do.
Speaker 1: Right do you think that we might evolve to be
Speaker 1: a little wiser about these things and to shake off
Speaker 1: some of this evolutionary baggage one being like that, maybe
Speaker 1: we would realize, like sugar and fat are not always good.
Speaker 1: Do you think that humans will evolve. And again this
Speaker 1: is just conjecture, but I'm curious what you think. Yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: totally scientifically speaking, I think these selection pressures have to
Speaker 1: be pressured to change things around in the brain. You know,
Speaker 1: if if sugar and fat were killing us, you know,
Speaker 1: then we might over time develop adaptations not to like it.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of true, but but not so quickly,
Speaker 1: you know, like real evolutionary time likes evolution always moves
Speaker 1: towards directions of adaptation, but sometimes is it really slowly, right,
Speaker 1: you know, so not in our lifetime and not in
Speaker 1: a long time for the human species. That said, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, this is where cognitive hacks can come in, right,
Speaker 1: you know, if we can get good at noticing, mindfully
Speaker 1: paying attention to or in rewards, you know, that really
Speaker 1: seems to be a hack on this system. It takes
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of work. I mean, this is like,
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking like Buddhist meditation levels of commitment
Speaker 1: to this stuff. But there's a sense in which you're
Speaker 1: kind of hacking these things. And this is one of
Speaker 1: the things I love about. You know, recent neuroscience work
Speaker 1: that looks at people who engage in these ancient spiritual practices,
Speaker 1: is that they are literally hacking their brain. You know,
Speaker 1: if you look at a long term meditator, they just
Speaker 1: have less neural real estate devoted to mind wandering. You know,
Speaker 1: if you look at a monk who's done you know,
Speaker 1: many many hours of compassionate meditation, their brains just go
Speaker 1: more quickly to engaging with compassion to other people. If
Speaker 1: you look at drug addicts who've used mindfulness practices to
Speaker 1: overcome craving, when you look at you know, their brain
Speaker 1: when they're in a craving state, it looks different than
Speaker 1: you know, are recovering addict who might not have used
Speaker 1: these mindfulness practices. And so there are hints that we
Speaker 1: can start hacking these systems through work and so on.
Speaker 1: That's not as easy as like, you know, meteor hits
Speaker 1: godly people with certain wanting like existence stick around be
Speaker 1: way easier, you know, though maybe more tragic. But but
Speaker 1: the good news is that with effort and intention, there
Speaker 1: are some hacks that can help this stuff. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think we can change this wiring extensively, my own life
Speaker 1: just being a testament to that. I've shared this story
Speaker 1: several times recently on the show. So sorry listeners if
Speaker 1: it's getting boring, But I think it's an important one,
Speaker 1: which is my mom broke her hip and I was
Speaker 1: picking up all her prescriptions. I was carrying oxycotton back
Speaker 1: and forth from my mom's house. The amazing thing is,
Speaker 1: not only did I not want it, I didn't even
Speaker 1: think about it. It was a month or two into
Speaker 1: it that I was like, that's incredible. But I would
Speaker 1: have robbed somebody at gunpoint for that once upon a time,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I think that just speaks to
Speaker 1: change is really possible if we just keep doing these things. Now.
Speaker 1: I've got a lot of years away from heroin, so
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen overnight, but it is possible. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I think that's important to remember. You know. It gets
Speaker 1: back to something we were talking about before, that little
Speaker 1: and often that often is the key, I think in
Speaker 1: your case, right like you, you have to fight that
Speaker 1: craving or allow it or investigate it a lot to
Speaker 1: get to the point that you're at. But it does
Speaker 1: get easier over time, for sure. We've been talking a
Speaker 1: fair amount about behavior change here, and there's lots of
Speaker 1: techniques and tools for behavior change, but one of them.
Speaker 1: Is that the support of other people or a term
Speaker 1: I've seen you use as cultural or religious structures. You
Speaker 1: talk about how it seems kind of very clear that
Speaker 1: like your cross fit gym or your church or these
Speaker 1: things can help make behavior change occur, and you then
Speaker 1: go on to say, well, what's driving it? Is that
Speaker 1: the beliefs of the organization of the thing, or is
Speaker 1: it simply the commitment to it? And I just would
Speaker 1: love to hear you kind of talk through that again
Speaker 1: because I think it's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: so you know this better than anyone in your listeners
Speaker 1: your podcast, if they've been listening to them, know this
Speaker 1: better than anyone. Behavior change is a hard, hard, hard hard, right,
Speaker 1: So a hacks that we can figure out to help
Speaker 1: us can be huge, And I think one of the
Speaker 1: hacks that we forget about. We love this sort of
Speaker 1: Protestant work ethic idea that like I'll just power through it,
Speaker 1: you know, me, me, me, this individual changing my behavior
Speaker 1: against the world. But one thing we find is that
Speaker 1: behavior change often seems a lot easier when you have
Speaker 1: environments and structures around you that are kind of consistent
Speaker 1: with that change. You know, what do I mean, like,
Speaker 1: if you want to exercise, that's much easier if all
Speaker 1: your friends exercise, right Like, that's much easier. If you
Speaker 1: have like you know this like padded out home gym,
Speaker 1: that's amazing, right Like, that's much easier. If you just
Speaker 1: happen to live in a place where there you know,
Speaker 1: there's no cars, you gotta walk all the time, You're
Speaker 1: just going to get that in more naturally. So the
Speaker 1: environments can really help us. And sometimes those environments are
Speaker 1: physical structures, you know, like lots of walking paths and
Speaker 1: you know, an elliptical machine in your apartment. But sometimes
Speaker 1: those structures are really like cognitive structures, their belief systems, right,
Speaker 1: you know, they're about the people around me value this,
Speaker 1: Right the people around me are committed to this. And
Speaker 1: I think both of those kinds of things can really
Speaker 1: work their magic. Those are both kinds of structures that
Speaker 1: seem to really help us. But it's often not the
Speaker 1: kind of beliefs and values we think, you know. So
Speaker 1: one of the big findings I talked about in my
Speaker 1: class is that overall, religious individuals tend to be happier.
Speaker 1: People who have a belief and afterlife belief in God
Speaker 1: and so on, And so you could say like, well,
Speaker 1: maybe it's their their personal beliefs, right, like they have
Speaker 1: this belief and afterlife that gives them meaning and so on.
Speaker 1: Turns out not so much. It turns out if you
Speaker 1: factor certain things out, a belief in, you know, a
Speaker 1: god or something like that doesn't actually matter. What what
Speaker 1: seems to matter a lot more is the practices you
Speaker 1: engage in. Religious individuals go to services, so they engage
Speaker 1: in social connections. Religious individuals often are part of organizations
Speaker 1: that engage in charity, so they do nice things for
Speaker 1: each other. They pray, and so they get a chance
Speaker 1: to be mindful and take some time where they're present.
Speaker 1: They often engage in practices related to things like gratitude
Speaker 1: and other pro social emotions. You know, they're just like
Speaker 1: physically around other people all the time because they're engaging
Speaker 1: with these other folk folks. And so we think structures
Speaker 1: have to be about our own personal beliefs and like
Speaker 1: what we believe and what we value, but sometimes the
Speaker 1: environments around us can be shaping our behavior in ways
Speaker 1: that are so much easier. In a recent episode of
Speaker 1: my podcast where I interview Um, the inventor of these
Speaker 1: so called blue zones. Dan Buttner, he's an author who
Speaker 1: studies places around the world that tend to have these
Speaker 1: positive practices, either for like physical health, like places that
Speaker 1: induce longevity where people live healthily for a really long time,
Speaker 1: or places that induce happiness. And he's fond of saying that, like,
Speaker 1: any attempt to individually change your behavior without your environment
Speaker 1: supporting you is doomed to failure. Like, you know, you
Speaker 1: could do all these different hacks and download apps and
Speaker 1: get coaches and whatever, but like if you just moved
Speaker 1: to a place that was happier or moved to a
Speaker 1: place where you exercise more, that would impact your behavior
Speaker 1: so much more. You know, he's being a little harsh.
Speaker 1: We know that with work you can change your behavior,
Speaker 1: but it's definitely true that if you can find some
Speaker 1: environmental support that helps enormously, it makes such a huge difference.
Speaker 1: I mean, I got sober in twelve step communities, and
Speaker 1: you know, I've had friends of mine who were former
Speaker 1: heroin attics. It was harder to quit smoking than stop
Speaker 1: doing heroin. And there's a variety of reasons for that,
Speaker 1: but one of them I think is simply when we
Speaker 1: went to get off Heroin. We were embedded in a
Speaker 1: community that was focused on that, and when we stopped smoking,
Speaker 1: primarily most people just simply go all right, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: stop smoking, and they do it entirely on their own,
Speaker 1: you know. I think it makes such a difference. And
Speaker 1: I think this idea between beliefs and practices, I've often
Speaker 1: heard people describe Judaism as a religion that's less about
Speaker 1: belief and more about practices. You know. I often try
Speaker 1: and tweez apart what in twelve step programs worked, What
Speaker 1: was it that was actually working there? And you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting to think about. But I do think that
Speaker 1: the community aspect of it, that piece of it is
Speaker 1: really really important. In twelve step programs to talk about unity,
Speaker 1: service and recovery, and I think it's really interesting the
Speaker 1: un into your the people. The service is doing something
Speaker 1: that cares about other people. And then the recovery was
Speaker 1: some method of personal internal transformation. I think that can
Speaker 1: just be applied to us generally as humans. You know,
Speaker 1: those three things are really helpful orienting points totally. And
Speaker 1: I also think this idea of you know, giving up control,
Speaker 1: you know, which which can be complicated. I think it
Speaker 1: has certain relig just overtones and so on, but you know,
Speaker 1: ultimately it's really accepting your common humanity, you know, which
Speaker 1: is something that people who do work on self compassion
Speaker 1: talk about. Right. It's like, I'm not going to be perfect.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to be human. I'm going to be tempted, right,
Speaker 1: you know, like I have to kind of come to
Speaker 1: terms with the fact that I'm not the one, you know,
Speaker 1: who's in control all the time, and that humility can
Speaker 1: often ground us in a whole host of attitudes and
Speaker 1: ways of talking to ourselves that allow us to be
Speaker 1: a little bit more self compassionate. Right, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be perfect. Maybe let's not put
Speaker 1: myself in this situation. It's going to be really hard.
Speaker 1: I'm not superman, right, Like I need to ask for help, right.
Speaker 1: You know. All of these are practices where you're kind
Speaker 1: of compassionately dealing with yourself, but those are practices that
Speaker 1: also make behavior change much easier. I'd like to turn
Speaker 1: now towards loneliness. There's a lot of it out there,
Speaker 1: and it's not such an easy thing to solve. I
Speaker 1: was talking with someone who is lonely about this and
Speaker 1: this is a person who's had lots of loss in
Speaker 1: their life, so everything that they sort of relied on
Speaker 1: is just kind of gone, and they're sharing how you know,
Speaker 1: It's one thing when you've got a spouse to go
Speaker 1: out and find some additional community by joining a club,
Speaker 1: but that when you have none of those foundations, it's very,
Speaker 1: very difficult. So I'm wondering what might you say to
Speaker 1: someone who's in that position, who's you know, really isolated
Speaker 1: and becoming unisolated feels like a tremendous amount of work
Speaker 1: and is very discouraged by it. Yeah, I think first
Speaker 1: that could recognize that you're not alone, like a lot
Speaker 1: of people relate, right, Like, loneliness is skyrocketing even if
Speaker 1: you don't have people talking to you about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, even the Surgeon General of the United States, Vigmurthy,
Speaker 1: has been focusing on loneliness in part because he thinks
Speaker 1: is a public health crisis, a public health crisis because
Speaker 1: of how dangerous it is, but also a public health
Speaker 1: crisis because of how common it is. Right, And so
Speaker 1: I think that step number one is, like, you know,
Speaker 1: you're not a loser. There's not something wrong with you
Speaker 1: like this is something a lot of people are going through.
Speaker 1: But that also comes with, you know, something that's related,
Speaker 1: which is that if you reach out in a baby
Speaker 1: step way, you'll often be surprised about how many people
Speaker 1: will follow up. I think one of our fears of
Speaker 1: loneliness is or one of our worries when we're feeling
Speaker 1: lonely about doing something about it, because we're kind of
Speaker 1: simulating how much work it's going to take and how
Speaker 1: much success we're going to get, right, or something like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be such a pain to like call somebody
Speaker 1: or go to this club or whatever, and we're stimulating
Speaker 1: you know, if I do reach out, people aren't going
Speaker 1: to like me, right, And scientists have looked at this
Speaker 1: and there's evidence that both of those intuitions are wrong. Right.
Speaker 1: Our predictions about how much of a pain in the butt,
Speaker 1: how stressful, how you know, annoying, how maybe awkward it's
Speaker 1: going to be to reach out, they're all wrong. Like
Speaker 1: our brain is telling us, oh, don't do that, it's
Speaker 1: going to be a pain, not going to be as
Speaker 1: much of a pain as you think, right, And our
Speaker 1: brain is also telling us stuff about how successful it's
Speaker 1: going to be, and we there's so much evidence that
Speaker 1: we miss predict how many people are going to like us.
Speaker 1: We mispredict how much people will appreciate our attempt at
Speaker 1: reaching out, especially if we haven't reached out in a
Speaker 1: long time. And I think recognizing that those biases are biases,
Speaker 1: that our intuitions are wrong, can be really helpful when
Speaker 1: you're making the decision to try to overcome your loneliness
Speaker 1: because you're like us, feels like it's gonna be a
Speaker 1: lot of work. You can be like, Nope, science says
Speaker 1: it's not. Let me just try it, right, Let me
Speaker 1: just try it and take a baby step towards it,
Speaker 1: and then often if you're paying attention, you'll get some
Speaker 1: positive reinforcement back. Right, you think it's gonna be so
Speaker 1: onerous to go to this club, especially I don't have
Speaker 1: a spouse, nobody to talk to you. But then when
Speaker 1: you try it, it actually works. The key though, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, especially with the science, is that you kind
Speaker 1: of have to try it the right way, and the
Speaker 1: right way is really making sure that you're doing that
Speaker 1: first step to reach out, you know, including when you
Speaker 1: go to a place you know, so you know, I've
Speaker 1: seen friends who say, you know, um, you know, lonely,
Speaker 1: like maybe I shall I'll go to cross fit or
Speaker 1: you know, I'll go to a book club or I'll
Speaker 1: go to this thing. But then they get to the
Speaker 1: book club and they like, you know, are on their phone,
Speaker 1: checking their email, or they're like playing with the cat
Speaker 1: you know at the book club, right like, they're not
Speaker 1: actually talking to people, and what does that do? You know?
Speaker 1: It's reinforces the cycle where people think, well, you're not
Speaker 1: interested in them, so they're not going to try to
Speaker 1: talk to you. And so I think we need to
Speaker 1: recognize that it's not just putting ourselves in this situation,
Speaker 1: but it's having our own openness. Often solutions to loneliness
Speaker 1: involved not like someone reaching out to us, but us
Speaker 1: reaching out to other people, us trying to solve other
Speaker 1: people's loneliness, us feeling like, you know, we're the ones
Speaker 1: We're going to talk to somebody so they feel better.
Speaker 1: That's what kind of opens things up. That's a really
Speaker 1: interesting perspective and actually I think my own experience would
Speaker 1: bear that out in certain cases. One on one, I
Speaker 1: pretty fine with people. Put me in a room full
Speaker 1: of people that I don't know, and I hate it.
Speaker 1: You know, if I could have three glasses of whiskey,
Speaker 1: I would like it a whole lot more. But but
Speaker 1: I don't. And so what I've found though, in some
Speaker 1: of those situations is exactly what you just said is
Speaker 1: the strategy for me sometimes is look around and see
Speaker 1: who looks lonely and go approach that person as a
Speaker 1: starting point. It's funny when you said that, like, you know,
Speaker 1: you go to the event and you're on your phone
Speaker 1: or you're playing with the other people's cat. You know,
Speaker 1: I am totally that way put me in a new
Speaker 1: social situation. And what I've learned about myself is I
Speaker 1: may not even be able that first couple of times
Speaker 1: to overcome it, like it just may be too strong.
Speaker 1: But if I keep going, I can find something. And
Speaker 1: I've seen some research talking about you know, it takes
Speaker 1: a while to build a connection or a friendship. And
Speaker 1: the thing that I've done so many times in my
Speaker 1: life is show up someplace once and be like, now,
Speaker 1: not my people, because nothing happened right. And I just
Speaker 1: know for myself that the first time I show up,
Speaker 1: my defense this is they're just they're unconscious and they're
Speaker 1: high enough that I'm either going to think I don't
Speaker 1: like these people or they don't like me. One of
Speaker 1: those two things is going to be going on in
Speaker 1: my brain, and I just kind of have to ignore
Speaker 1: it and go We'll try again, you know, try a
Speaker 1: few times. If this seems like it's a place that
Speaker 1: might offer the kind of community I want, I may
Speaker 1: have to venture into the space multiple times. And then
Speaker 1: sooner or later, I find like, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: my walls start dropping. And so that's a way of
Speaker 1: doing it, even if you can't quite overcome you know
Speaker 1: what you're saying, Like the first time I'm there, all
Speaker 1: I can do is play with a cat because I
Speaker 1: feel so shy. I'd think yourusly just in there. You
Speaker 1: can also look at it from the other people's perspective, right,
Speaker 1: like why didn't they connect with me? It might not
Speaker 1: be because you know you're a loser and unconnectible. It
Speaker 1: might be you were playing with that cat the whole,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's like I think, if you if
Speaker 1: you frame it more like I'm going to help the
Speaker 1: loneliest person at the party, that's super helpful. I mean
Speaker 1: I've seen this on one on one. You know, if
Speaker 1: you know, if you're in feeling anxious socially in US
Speaker 1: and a party is not the right scene, fine, look
Speaker 1: through your phone or your email list and say, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna you know, text or email the person in this
Speaker 1: list that I think might be the loneliness and I'm
Speaker 1: just going to check in and you'd be surprised how
Speaker 1: much good work that does. This is my final question
Speaker 1: to what extent does virtual connection? Can it be a
Speaker 1: replacement for in person connection? Is it is good? Is good?
Speaker 1: I'm asking the wrong question. It's a good question, and
Speaker 1: the answer is sort of. It depends on how you
Speaker 1: do it right. You know, you and I are talking
Speaker 1: virtually over our favorite podcast app, and it feels pretty good,
Speaker 1: like we're having this nice connection. I see you, And
Speaker 1: that's in part because it's in real time. Right, we're
Speaker 1: talking using the same things as primates that we were
Speaker 1: built a revolution to do. Right, we're talking in real
Speaker 1: time with one another. I think that virtual connection works
Speaker 1: less well if you're not doing in real time, like
Speaker 1: you know, a text thread where you're texting a friend.
Speaker 1: It just kind of doesn't drive with the way our
Speaker 1: psychology is used to do. But the cool thing is
Speaker 1: we have lots of tools now that allow us to
Speaker 1: do that, from like FaceTime and zoom where you and
Speaker 1: see each other, or just like the old school phone. Right,
Speaker 1: we we have these you know, sportphones that are our
Speaker 1: cameras and our alarm clocks and all these things, and
Speaker 1: we forget like you could just use it as a phone,
Speaker 1: and we know the phone, you know, it's pretty good
Speaker 1: for social connection. It was like really all we had
Speaker 1: for a very long time. So yeah, yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think the thing that sometimes people will do, and I
Speaker 1: know I've been guilty of this, is like, well, in
Speaker 1: person connections, what's really important? So I won't do zoom
Speaker 1: thinking it's somehow inferior, but it's still way, way, way
Speaker 1: better than nothing. And I think this for me was,
Speaker 1: you know, a gift of the pandemic, you know I
Speaker 1: could talk about because silver linings and blessings and really
Speaker 1: awful situations. Was that, you know, I think it got
Speaker 1: a lot of us to, you know, do these zoom
Speaker 1: hangouts with the friends or Zoom movie or game nights
Speaker 1: and zoom yoga classes. I was doing zoom yoga with
Speaker 1: friends and it made me realize, like, wait, this is
Speaker 1: pretty good. You know, there are people that live far
Speaker 1: away that I won't see in person for a while,
Speaker 1: but connecting with them over zoom was great. And some
Speaker 1: of those you know zoom things I was doing, I'm
Speaker 1: still doing with those friends. Michael. My college roommates are
Speaker 1: scattered all across the country and we still do these
Speaker 1: like once a month kind of you know spawn night
Speaker 1: hangouts over zoom because we realize like it's better to
Speaker 1: see them that way than not at all. So I think,
Speaker 1: you know, listen to those lessons. They can be powerful. Well, Laurie,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming on. It has been
Speaker 1: such an enjoyable conversation and I'm so grateful that you
Speaker 1: had time to join us today. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: having me on the show. If what you just heard
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