Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to House Calls. I'm Vivik Morphy and
Speaker 2: I have the honor of serving as US Surgeon General.
Speaker 2: I'd like to introduce you to doctor Lorie Santos, Professor
Speaker 2: at Yale University and the creator of the revolutionary class
Speaker 2: Psychology and the Good Life, better known as the Happiness Class. Today,
Speaker 2: we'll be talking about happiness in the context of the
Speaker 2: mental health crisis among you. This episode includes lessons on stress,
Speaker 2: burnout and the practice of happiness. Hi, Laurie, Welcome to
Speaker 2: the podcast.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for having me on the show.
Speaker 2: I have so much time want to talk to you
Speaker 2: about today, but I first just want to ask just
Speaker 2: about your personal story, which is I find so fascinating
Speaker 2: that you went from working on non human primates to
Speaker 2: becoming an expert unhappiness, and I'm wondering if you could
Speaker 2: tell us a little bit about how that happened.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a kind of strange path, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been an academic psychologist for a very, very embarrassingly
Speaker 1: long time. Most of the time I was really interested
Speaker 1: in this question of what makes humans unique, what makes
Speaker 1: us special? What are some of the ways that we
Speaker 1: make sense of the world that no other creature does.
Speaker 1: And I studied that question using monkeys, using non human primates.
Speaker 1: But it was around this time, like you know, about
Speaker 1: ten years ago, that I started getting more and more
Speaker 1: involved in undergraduate student life and I took on this
Speaker 1: new role on campus. I became a head of college
Speaker 1: on Yelle's campus, which is this position where faculty get
Speaker 1: to live with students in one of these undergraduate houses.
Speaker 1: And it was just an amazing opportunity, right, I get
Speaker 1: to see student life up close and personal. But what
Speaker 1: was surprising was that I didn't like what I was seeing.
Speaker 1: You know. I assumed college student life was like what
Speaker 1: college life was like back you know, when I went
Speaker 1: to school in the nineties, and it was just completely different.
Speaker 1: You know. So many students were reporting feeling depressed and
Speaker 1: anxious and lonely, as you know so well from your work,
Speaker 1: and it just kind of wasn't what I was expecting,
Speaker 1: and so I kind of wanted to do something about it. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm like, living in this community with my students, I'm
Speaker 1: like this benevolent faculty aunt who's supposed to take care
Speaker 1: of them. And I realized, like we weren't addressing this
Speaker 1: crisis of student mental health. So I kind of did
Speaker 1: this sort of retraining in positive psychology and sort of
Speaker 1: science of well being, all these evidence based strategies you
Speaker 1: can use to feel better, and so I kind of
Speaker 1: packaged it all together to develop a new class for students.
Speaker 1: I thought, you know, forty or so students would take it,
Speaker 1: but the first time I taught it back in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: a quarter of the entire Yale student body decided to
Speaker 1: take the class. Over. Over a thousand students showed up,
Speaker 1: and that was sort of, you know, a logistical nightmare,
Speaker 1: but it was also kind of humbling and cool, and
Speaker 1: it showed me that students were voting with their feet.
Speaker 1: They don't like this culture of feeling lonely and stressed
Speaker 1: and anxious, and I think they really wanted some evidence
Speaker 1: based ways that they could address some of these problems.
Speaker 1: They were looking for solutions, and they wanted those solutions
Speaker 1: to come from science and public health.
Speaker 2: Well, Laurie, you and I both I know, are deeply
Speaker 2: concerned about what's happening with young people in their mental
Speaker 2: health these days the country, and I'm curious, I think
Speaker 2: for people out there who may have seen the headlines,
Speaker 2: but for whom it's not quite tangible. Y're sure, like,
Speaker 2: what does this actually look like for kids to being crisis?
Speaker 2: Can you paint a picture of what you've been seeing
Speaker 2: on the campus and what you're observing the lives of
Speaker 2: students in terms of how this mental health crisis is
Speaker 2: manifesting in their lives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'll start with some of the statistics,
Speaker 1: because I think the statistics are pretty dire, right, you know,
Speaker 1: according to these national college health surveys. So these aren't
Speaker 1: just students at ivy League schools like yea, These are
Speaker 1: students around the country and all kinds of different schools.
Speaker 1: Right now, or at least in twenty nineteen, which is
Speaker 1: the last kind of pre COVID data we had, you know,
Speaker 1: over forty percent of college students report being too depressed
Speaker 1: to function most days, Over sixty percent say that they're
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly anxious, more than fifty percent say that they're very
Speaker 1: lonely most of the time, and more than one in
Speaker 1: ten has seriously considered suicide in the last twelve months.
Speaker 1: You know. So this is what is happening nationally and
Speaker 1: the way I would just see it on the ground
Speaker 1: We're just students are just overwhelmed, you know, they're overwhelmed
Speaker 1: by academics, they're overwhelmed by social stuff. I'd see a
Speaker 1: student in the dining hall and be like, hey, how's
Speaker 1: it going, and be like, Oh, if only I could
Speaker 1: get to the end of the week, or if only
Speaker 1: I could get to midterms. You know, they're kind of
Speaker 1: fast forwarding this this rare and precious time they have
Speaker 1: as young people. And those are the students who aren't
Speaker 1: in crisis, right, you know, crisis really looks like students
Speaker 1: who are unable to get out of bed because they
Speaker 1: have panic attacks, or who are acutely suicidal, or who
Speaker 1: have everything going, you know, especially in a school like Yale.
Speaker 1: They're students who are academically achieving, but in terms of
Speaker 1: their mental health, they're falling apart. And so I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we really need to as you know all
Speaker 1: and as you've discussed yourself, I mean, I think we
Speaker 1: really need to think seriously about addressing this crisis, not
Speaker 1: just because our young people's mental health matters, but as educators,
Speaker 1: we're not really doing our job when these are the
Speaker 1: statistics on the ground, Like as a college educator, if
Speaker 1: I'm trying to teach a psychology class or you know,
Speaker 1: some pre med class, Like, my students aren't learning if
Speaker 1: forty percent of them are too depressed to function most
Speaker 1: days and sixty percent expence or experiencing overwhelming anxiety, Right,
Speaker 1: they're just not learning in the way I think we
Speaker 1: had assumed for a very long time that they were.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean those stats and stories are so powerful
Speaker 2: and so disturbing, Laurie, I mean that tells I think
Speaker 2: anyone out there who's listening is wonder it is this
Speaker 2: more the exception or you know, only something that affects
Speaker 2: a small group of people. The answer is no. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is sadly becoming the norm, you know, if anything,
Speaker 2: and affecting in some cases a majority of young people
Speaker 2: out there. So this is a this is a profound crisis,
Speaker 2: and it's affecting our kids. You know, as you think
Speaker 2: about this journey, obviously weren't a bad place now, But
Speaker 2: how did we get here? What's your sense of the
Speaker 2: road that led to the current moment?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think there's no It'd be nice
Speaker 1: if there was like a you know, a red herring
Speaker 1: of one thing we could point to and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the factor, Like, let's get rid of it.
Speaker 1: I think it's a variety of things. I mean, I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we have a very different relationship with technology
Speaker 1: than we did when you and I were in college. Right,
Speaker 1: this is a generation of students who really can't shut off.
Speaker 1: You know. I told this this funny story to students.
Speaker 1: One of my students was in their dorm room and
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, my title is hawk Santo's head
Speaker 1: of college Santo's. They'd be like, hack Santo's. There's a
Speaker 1: weird number on my wall, Like what is that? And
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that's the phone number. You know,
Speaker 1: people used to call your phone in your room. And
Speaker 1: the students said, well, how could they call me when
Speaker 1: I wasn't in the room. And I was like, well
Speaker 1: they couldn't. Like you could just leave, like you could
Speaker 1: walk away from your social expectations. And I think when
Speaker 1: you think about that difference, that students feel like they're
Speaker 1: on all the time, onto their friend group, onto the
Speaker 1: people they're performing with on social media, onto just being
Speaker 1: connected to all the scary stuff in the news all
Speaker 1: the time. Right, that alone is a recipe for anxiety.
Speaker 1: It's a recipe for kind of not feeling like you
Speaker 1: can ever shut off right, And so I think I
Speaker 1: think we really need to take a solid look at
Speaker 1: our relationship with technology. And it's partly social media, but
Speaker 1: I think it's broader than that. You know, even a
Speaker 1: student who's not really on TikTok or on Instagram or
Speaker 1: so on, you know, there can to their parents who
Speaker 1: could text them at a moment's notice. They're connected to
Speaker 1: WhatsApp when they're kind of connecting with your friend group
Speaker 1: and things like that. So I think that's a big change.
Speaker 1: And if you plot just the number of smartphones that
Speaker 1: students tended to have alongside these you know, awful mental
Speaker 1: health statistics, you see a really robust correlation. And we
Speaker 1: know correlation isn't causation, but my sense is that there's
Speaker 1: something there we need to analyze. I think there's also
Speaker 1: been some interesting and important structural changes to the way
Speaker 1: childhood and education works. You know, I think childhood has
Speaker 1: become much more of an achievement culture. You know, in
Speaker 1: the years since you and I were in college, where
Speaker 1: even from grade school students are starting to worry about grades.
Speaker 1: You know, we have words like college readiness and things
Speaker 1: like that, and those things are important. You know, we
Speaker 1: want students to learn, but I think we've moved much
Speaker 1: more away from internal rewards like learning and the benefits
Speaker 1: you get from education, to things like getting into a
Speaker 1: perfect school and the scores you get on exams and
Speaker 1: so on. And I think that focus on external rewards
Speaker 1: has set students up for, you know, competing in really
Speaker 1: individualistic ways that lead them astray from the things that
Speaker 1: really matter for their mental health, things like social connection,
Speaker 1: things like helping others, things like having a sense of
Speaker 1: meaning and purpose that's beyond yourself. And so I think
Speaker 1: those structural changes in the way we think about education
Speaker 1: and what students are trying to achieve, those things actually
Speaker 1: matter a lot, and we need to look at those
Speaker 1: really carefully if we're going to think about addressing this
Speaker 1: mental health crisis.
Speaker 2: So let's dig into that for a second, because I
Speaker 2: like what you're talking about regarding internal versus external rewards,
Speaker 2: or more so as priorities. You know that we ask
Speaker 2: young people to train their minds on and then the
Speaker 2: chase for years and years and years some cases the
Speaker 2: rest of their life. And I think this is where
Speaker 2: I think it's so interesting that. You know, people talk
Speaker 2: about you as the happiness professor, and I know that
Speaker 2: happiness has been your focus. But a lot of these
Speaker 2: priorities are part of a narrative that tells us that
Speaker 2: if you achieve those extra markers, right, whether it is,
Speaker 2: you know, winning certain competitions, getting certain grades, getting to
Speaker 2: certain school, getting fancy jobs, making a certain amount of money,
Speaker 2: becoming famous, whatever the external markers are, the story goes
Speaker 2: that if you achieve those, you will be happy. But
Speaker 2: what is the data actually tell us about whether that's
Speaker 2: true or not?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the data are really clear on this one,
Speaker 1: which is that our circumstances don't necessarily make us happy.
Speaker 1: I think the one caveat to that is that if
Speaker 1: you're in really dire circumstances, right, if you don't have
Speaker 1: enough money to put food on the table, if your
Speaker 1: health is terrible, you know, those are circumstances that if
Speaker 1: you change those, of course they'll positively affect your well being.
Speaker 1: But you know, if you're not living in poverty, the
Speaker 1: results seem to suggest that getting more money isn't necessarily
Speaker 1: going to help you, or it's definitely not going to
Speaker 1: help as much as we predict it well. The same
Speaker 1: is true for grades and accolades. One of the statistics
Speaker 1: I share with my students is that there is a
Speaker 1: correlation between high school grade point average and well being,
Speaker 1: but it's a negative correlation. That mean that means as
Speaker 1: high school GPA goes up, your overall well being goes down.
Speaker 1: You also see a negative correlation between high school GPA
Speaker 1: and self esteem and high school GPA and optimism. Right,
Speaker 1: it's not what we predict, but you know, they're just
Speaker 1: student achievement is not leading to the kind of well
Speaker 1: being effects we expect. And you might say, well, you
Speaker 1: know that that might be true in school, but maybe
Speaker 1: you know once they graduate from college, once they get
Speaker 1: into the good school, you know in the future they'll
Speaker 1: be much better off. But the data don't seem to
Speaker 1: bear that out either. In cases where we have good data. Again,
Speaker 1: people's great circumstances don't tend to lead to these well
Speaker 1: being effects. The things that matter for well being are
Speaker 1: the things that our students are often not prioritizing. They're
Speaker 1: the kind of things that get lost in this sort
Speaker 1: of opportunity cost struggle that we're sort of setting students
Speaker 1: up for. They're things like social connection, things like just
Speaker 1: getting enough sleep and healthy habits like exercise. They're things
Speaker 1: like doing things for others and having a sense of purpose,
Speaker 1: not just kind of individually competing for yourself, but really
Speaker 1: having some bigger goal that you're doing something for your community. Again,
Speaker 1: these I think are things that we've lost out on
Speaker 1: in the norms that we set students up for today.
Speaker 1: There are things that have kind of gone by the
Speaker 1: wayside and the structures we've set up in our kind
Speaker 1: of early educational system. But those are the things that
Speaker 1: the research sug just really matter for happiness.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's incredibly powerful to hear because I do
Speaker 2: think that young people, when I talked to them across
Speaker 2: the country, a lot of them have actually really impressive
Speaker 2: and profound insight into the structure in which they're operating
Speaker 2: as structure and a culture that are asking them to
Speaker 2: chase certain benchmarks, if you will, of achievement with the promise,
Speaker 2: even if it's in the losory promise of happiness that
Speaker 2: comes thereafter. But they're not happy necessarily doing that, And
Speaker 2: so you know, I think about this from tube respects.
Speaker 2: One is if they're not happy, they don't want it,
Speaker 2: where's it coming from. Is it coming from parents, Is
Speaker 2: it coming from media? Is it coming from you know,
Speaker 2: some other you know, sort of messaging element in society
Speaker 2: that's selling people this is which you have to do.
Speaker 2: But what's your sense of what is driving that culture
Speaker 2: of achievement, even if it's at the expense of happiness.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there are a couple of factors.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to look at this historically. There's a former
Speaker 1: Stanford gene Julie Lithcott Jims, who's looked at this in
Speaker 1: a lot of detail, and what she talks about is
Speaker 1: like a lot of changes that happened to education in
Speaker 1: the in the kind of eighties and nineties that might
Speaker 1: have led to this. One of the big ones was
Speaker 1: that changes to this sort of US News and World
Speaker 1: Report kind of scoring of different colleges. Right before, it
Speaker 1: was kind of like, you know, go to college, that's great.
Speaker 1: Now there's like rankings, you can kind of win or
Speaker 1: lose the college game. And I think parents pick up
Speaker 1: on that, students pick up on that. Right you know,
Speaker 1: there's this idea that there are the kind of haves
Speaker 1: and that have nots when it comes to education now,
Speaker 1: and that feels really different. I think there's also been
Speaker 1: changes in terms of who can go to college in
Speaker 1: incredibly positive ways. Right you know, any amazing student you
Speaker 1: know can go to Yale right now, you know, YO
Speaker 1: will provide a massive financial aid package. It's just fantaststic,
Speaker 1: But the meritocracy means that, like the spoils of the
Speaker 1: war become large. You know, this is where I kind
Speaker 1: of tie back to my roots studying animals. You see
Speaker 1: in animals these impressive games that when you know, the
Speaker 1: spoils go up, the competition rises. You see this kind
Speaker 1: of arms race in terms of how they invest in,
Speaker 1: how much they compete. And I think we've kind of
Speaker 1: stuck our students into this arms race of competing for
Speaker 1: these things, and the competition begins really early, and what
Speaker 1: they're sacrificing is all the stuff that we know matters
Speaker 1: for happiness again, sleep, social connection, being present, you know,
Speaker 1: being mindful, taking breaks, what social scientists call time affluence,
Speaker 1: just the sense that you have some free time. You
Speaker 1: think of our poor, overscheduled kids and just all the
Speaker 1: stuff we pack in for them. And I think, you know, again,
Speaker 1: I think parents did this. Parents kind of focused on
Speaker 1: these things out of love for their children, right, they
Speaker 1: want their children to succeed, They want their children ultimately
Speaker 1: to be happy. But we have these misconceptions about the
Speaker 1: kinds of things that really matter for happiness, and we
Speaker 1: set up our structures using those misconceptions. And I think
Speaker 1: now that we understand the signs of this stuff better,
Speaker 1: I think we can start questioning some of those structures
Speaker 1: and trying to think about whether there are some changes
Speaker 1: we need to make. It's time to take a short break,
Speaker 1: but there'll be more of my conversation with doctor V.
Speaker 1: Big Marty in a moment. Hey, Happiness Lab listeners, welcome
Speaker 1: back to my chat with the US Surgeon General, doctor V.
Speaker 1: Big Marty.
Speaker 2: You know, in your course on happiness, I feel like
Speaker 2: you're it seems like there are two elements of the course, right.
Speaker 2: You're teaching people about the science of happiness, what leads
Speaker 2: to and influences our happiness. But you're also teaching them
Speaker 2: about the science and art of behavior change. Right, Like,
Speaker 2: once we understand that, how would we actually change our behaviors?
Speaker 2: Just gosh, one of the toughest things to do, right,
Speaker 2: but so important. And I'm curious, Like for folks out
Speaker 2: there who are listening who recognize that there may be
Speaker 2: a happiness gap in their life, a gap that they
Speaker 2: want to close, how should they think about what kind
Speaker 2: of activities may in fact help them increase happiness, and
Speaker 2: then how can they change your lives to actually make
Speaker 2: those activities part of their life. Because from one thing
Speaker 2: is everything you've written before and spoken before that I've
Speaker 2: listened to. You're very realistic about telling people that this
Speaker 2: isn't a simple, you know, flip of the switch. This
Speaker 2: isn't just an app that you sign up for, It's
Speaker 2: not a one time activity. But this is it's hard work,
Speaker 2: you know, to build a life that truly contributes to
Speaker 2: and supports happiness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think I think the first important
Speaker 1: insight is to recognize that it's possible. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: there's just tons of data that if you can change
Speaker 1: your behaviors, if you can change your mindsets, you will
Speaker 1: see significant increases in happiness. Right, And again, I think
Speaker 1: it's worth kind of qualifying that that doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: go from like zero on a happiness scale to ten.
Speaker 1: But if you really take seriously these kinds of strategies
Speaker 1: and you engage with it, you know you can go
Speaker 1: from a six to a seven. You know, on average,
Speaker 1: students who take my course, for example, go up about
Speaker 1: a point on a standard ten point well being scale.
Speaker 1: And that's significant, right, Like that matters a lot. That
Speaker 1: can get you out of a dark place if you're
Speaker 1: feeling in a dark place. So I think that's thing
Speaker 1: number one is to recognize that it works. The second
Speaker 1: is to try to figure out the kinds of strategies
Speaker 1: that really do positively affect your happiness. And again, it's
Speaker 1: not what we think. We think we have to change
Speaker 1: our job or you know, make some incredible change in
Speaker 1: our finances or things like that, and for many people
Speaker 1: it's not that. For many people, it's for example, getting
Speaker 1: in more social connection, you know, something I know you've
Speaker 1: talked about a lot. You know, I really wish that
Speaker 1: you know, your office in addition to kind of having
Speaker 1: the you know, recommendations for how much exercise people should
Speaker 1: get in a day, and you know, how many whole
Speaker 1: grains or whatever, like how many minutes of meaningful conversation
Speaker 1: we should have you know, every single day, right, you
Speaker 1: know how many people we should reach out to? Right,
Speaker 1: just kind of like standard ways that we can in
Speaker 1: really simple forms just get a little bit more connection
Speaker 1: in our lives. That's I think, honestly, if you really
Speaker 1: want to increase your happiness, that's like one of the
Speaker 1: fastest ways to do it is just to reach out
Speaker 1: to other people and connect. Another behavior that we know
Speaker 1: matters for happiness, you know, of tails with our physical health,
Speaker 1: which is just getting a little bit more asleep, right,
Speaker 1: getting a little bit more sleep in a little bit
Speaker 1: of exercise. I mean, one of my favorite studies that
Speaker 1: I share with students shows that you get a half
Speaker 1: hour of cardio exercise a day that's as effective at
Speaker 1: treating depression as some antidepression medications. You know, just a
Speaker 1: half hour every day of cardio, right, if you're not
Speaker 1: doing that normally, And so I think we need to
Speaker 1: just kind of remember that these behaviors are powerful. And
Speaker 1: one of the behaviors that can be powerful for happiness
Speaker 1: is also not doing anything. You know, this idea of
Speaker 1: time affluence, right, like not scheduling actually getting rest in
Speaker 1: it can be a powerful way to kind of free
Speaker 1: our schedule and give ourselves a little bit of a break.
Speaker 1: So those are behaviors we can engage in. What happiness
Speaker 1: also can come from our mindsets, right, like literally shifting
Speaker 1: our mindset. You know, we talked about this a little
Speaker 1: bit about you know, maybe parents shifting their forms of anxiety.
Speaker 1: I think you can also shift your mindset in terms
Speaker 1: of paying attention to the positives out there lots of
Speaker 1: evidence that paying attention to the things you're thankful for,
Speaker 1: or getting a kind of mindset of gratitude matter hard
Speaker 1: to do in this day and age where we have,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty four seven news cycles and algorithms that
Speaker 1: point us to the most outrageous, most negative thing. You know,
Speaker 1: it's harder to train your brain towards things that are positive.
Speaker 1: But the evidence suggests that gratitude can make us not
Speaker 1: just improve our overall happiness levels, but it can also
Speaker 1: improve our physical health. You know, there's evidence that grateful
Speaker 1: people sleep better, for example, Right, and so a mindset
Speaker 1: of gratitude are powerful, But then also a mindset of
Speaker 1: I think compassion, right. I think we believe that the
Speaker 1: right way to live a life is to push ourselves
Speaker 1: and constantly be going for these external rewards and going
Speaker 1: after these kinds of things. But there's lots of evidence
Speaker 1: that giving yourself some grace, giving yourself a break not
Speaker 1: only feels better in terms of happiness, but it might
Speaker 1: be the path towards getting you towards those other goals
Speaker 1: that you have otherwise, because it means you're not beating
Speaker 1: yourself up as much. And so yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: think finding ways to get in these behaviors and these
Speaker 1: mindsets are important. The evidence suggests it really will improve
Speaker 1: your happiness. But like all behavioral changes, it's going to
Speaker 1: take you know, some work, right, and I think recognizing
Speaker 1: that it's work, recognizing that it's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: you need to do every day, you know, just like exercise,
Speaker 1: just like eating healthy. I think that's the framing of
Speaker 1: happiness that we need to sort of take on. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, too often we fall for the maybe maybe
Speaker 1: it's Disney messed us up, this notion of like happily
Speaker 1: ever after that well, you know, get this one thing
Speaker 1: and then we'll be happily ever after. But that's that's
Speaker 1: not how it works. My Harvard colleague Dan Gilbert is
Speaker 1: fond of saying happiness happily ever after only works if
Speaker 1: you have three more minutes to live. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just not how happiness works.
Speaker 2: Well, it is a a constant effort, but as you mentioned,
Speaker 2: it can be a fruitful effort and one that can
Speaker 2: really return dividends. And what struck me about some of
Speaker 2: the measures you were speaking to was the relative simplicity
Speaker 2: of these measures. You didn't say go out and buy
Speaker 2: an expensive service. You didn't say go out and buy
Speaker 2: an expensive product. You talked about things that are within
Speaker 2: our grasp, about sleep, about the empower of gratitude, about
Speaker 2: even a short amount of physical activity on a given
Speaker 2: day making an impact on our mood and how we feel.
Speaker 2: Talked about social connection, about picking up the phone to
Speaker 2: call a friend, or picking up the phone when someone calls,
Speaker 2: even if it's for two minutes, but just to hear
Speaker 2: their voice. These are incredibly powerful, and when you mentioned them,
Speaker 2: it strikes me that these are kind of the original
Speaker 2: building blocks of what allowed humans to thrive. Right, And
Speaker 2: in some ways, what you're speaking to I think so
Speaker 2: eloquently in what you've been modeling, I think in your
Speaker 2: own life and your coursework, is that this is not
Speaker 2: an effort to somehow transform us into something that's just
Speaker 2: totally unfamiliar and foreign to us. This is a return
Speaker 2: to who we've been for thousands of years. And we've
Speaker 2: perhaps in recent history forgotten that as we've allowed other
Speaker 2: influences to shift what we pursue and how we live.
Speaker 2: But this is our chance, and I think our opportunity
Speaker 2: to really get back to living a life that truly
Speaker 2: nourishes us and how to thrive. There's one thing you
Speaker 2: mentioned also that I that struck me too, you know,
Speaker 2: when it made me think about my conversations I've had
Speaker 2: with patients over the years about behavior change, often around
Speaker 2: like diet and physical activity, which are you know, challenging
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, if you are like me, you
Speaker 2: probably started gym routines many times in your in your life,
Speaker 2: or diets various times, and they have fallen off the
Speaker 2: wagon somehow. And one thing I always found powerful with
Speaker 2: patients was to recommend to them that they have somebody
Speaker 2: else in their life that they can either pair up
Speaker 2: with and make a commitment to do something together, whether
Speaker 2: it's trut a new diet or a new exercise pattern,
Speaker 2: or at least somebody who they can can hold them
Speaker 2: accountable in a kind uh you know, but firm way.
Speaker 2: You know, a good friend whom they may check in with,
Speaker 2: you know, every couple of days to say hey, here's
Speaker 2: how I'm doing on my diet, and that external partnership accountability. Uh,
Speaker 2: it's felt. I've just noticed with patients with myself that
Speaker 2: it helps, you know, make behavior change stick, it increases
Speaker 2: the longevity. But I'm curious what you've seen in your
Speaker 2: research as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean definitely. I think one of the reasons
Speaker 1: that students do so well in my class, that we
Speaker 1: do see these actual wellbeing gains when we measure before
Speaker 1: and after, is that students are doing it in the
Speaker 1: context of this big group. Right. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: quarter of the entire Yale student body who's you know,
Speaker 1: engaging with these things at the same time. For by
Speaker 1: online class that we put online for free on Coursera,
Speaker 1: you know, there's millions of learners who are doing the
Speaker 1: same thing at the same time that you can connect
Speaker 1: with on message boards and things like that. And you
Speaker 1: know that's you know, a big extreme version. But I
Speaker 1: think you know, just partner up with a friend and
Speaker 1: and try to do these kinds of practices together. I
Speaker 1: think this is a spot where parents can really get
Speaker 1: something out of kids.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You know, all the practices we just talked about are
Speaker 1: ones that you can explain, you know, to your six
Speaker 1: year old, you know, in five minutes and they get it.
Speaker 1: And they'll you know, if you commit to doing this
Speaker 1: stuff together with your kids, they'll hold you accountable. You know.
Speaker 1: If you're supposed to be getting time affluence and you're not,
Speaker 1: your kid would like Dad, like, you know, like you
Speaker 1: said we should get time affluence, you know, like you
Speaker 1: said you should work out the day you didn't work
Speaker 1: out today, Like they love calling you out on that stuff.
Speaker 1: And so I think that that this idea of connecting
Speaker 1: with other people allows you to have the social connection,
Speaker 1: but it also allows you to have some social support. Right.
Speaker 1: You feel worse if you're not engaging in these things
Speaker 1: because you're letting somebody else down. So it's a powerful
Speaker 1: way to do these things. But getting back to your
Speaker 1: other point, I mean, I agree it's you know, in
Speaker 1: some ways, when I give the list of all these
Speaker 1: evidence based things that you know, like people are getting, know,
Speaker 1: social scientists are getting money to study, and it's like, look,
Speaker 1: the list is like social connection and exercise more and sleep.
Speaker 1: Your people will say, you know, that's that's what my
Speaker 1: grandmother told me. You know, like this is you know,
Speaker 1: like this is common wisdom, and I think ironically it's
Speaker 1: it's long been common wisdom, but at least in the
Speaker 1: modern day, it's not common practice. Right. It's the kind
Speaker 1: of thing we need to build into our lives to
Speaker 1: live a healthy life. And so I think coming up
Speaker 1: with structures, whether it's social support or you're putting it
Speaker 1: in your calendar, anything you can do to build these
Speaker 1: things in is important. The final caveat I'll say with that, though,
Speaker 1: is that, you know, I think whenever we hear this stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, we as humans, you know, being these like
Speaker 1: reward driven, you know, especially my kind of type a
Speaker 1: Yale students, Like, there can be this move where you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, and now I will begin beating myself up
Speaker 1: for not being this like perfectly happy creature or not
Speaker 1: achieving all these behaviors and mindsets. And I think it's
Speaker 1: important to remember the power of baby steps, right. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're feeling really lonely and you're not getting in
Speaker 1: any social connection, you know, just texting a friend wants
Speaker 1: is going to do some work. You know, if you're
Speaker 1: a really kind of person, that the type of person
Speaker 1: that focuses on the negative, then you know, thinking of
Speaker 1: one thing that you might be grateful for every night
Speaker 1: could be a powerful shift in your attention. And so
Speaker 1: I think if you're hearing these things, you're feeling like,
Speaker 1: oh gosh, I got to do all of them, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a moment to maybe take a step back, you
Speaker 1: give yourself some grace, pick one thing to focus on,
Speaker 1: and start small. We know behavior change works best if
Speaker 1: people are picking small things to start with and giving
Speaker 1: themselves grace when things don't work out perfectly.
Speaker 2: Laurie, that makes great sense. And if I think if
Speaker 2: we could pursue some of these pathways for action that
Speaker 2: you're talking about, especially when we're feeling, you know, run
Speaker 2: down or burned out, I think they may help a lot.
Speaker 2: But I want to ask you about two technology related
Speaker 2: pathways that many of us, myself included, sometimes feel ourselves
Speaker 2: walking down when we're feeling tired or exhausted or burned out.
Speaker 2: One is social media, you know, which you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: we can feel like, gosh, if I from lonely, or
Speaker 2: if I'm just not feeling connected to people, let me
Speaker 2: just you know, log onto my social media app and
Speaker 2: then I'll see what other folks are doing, and I'll
Speaker 2: feel connected to them. But then there's the other tech
Speaker 2: piece I want I talked to you about, which is
Speaker 2: streaming TV shows and movies, right, which is you know
Speaker 2: once you know, I remember growing up we had to
Speaker 2: like wait a week, you know for the next you know,
Speaker 2: show to come on, and it was like maddening, Like, oh,
Speaker 2: I wonder what happens in the next episode. Now, of
Speaker 2: course we can. You can binge watch you know, an
Speaker 2: entire series, you know, like in a night or weekend
Speaker 2: if you want. And I've certainly found myself at moments,
Speaker 2: you know, over the years, you know, when I've felt
Speaker 2: you know, just exhausted or burned out. But like, you know,
Speaker 2: let me just sit down and watch a few episodes
Speaker 2: of my favorite show. But tell me, how do you
Speaker 2: think about these types of technology platforms? How can they
Speaker 2: be helpful to us? When are they actually not helping us?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think the problem with some of
Speaker 1: these technology platforms, I mean, there might be lots of
Speaker 1: challenges with them, but I think one particular challenge comes
Speaker 1: from yet another way that our mind lies to us,
Speaker 1: which is that our mind really lies to us when
Speaker 1: it comes to leisure. Right, you know, I have a
Speaker 1: super busy week at work, you know, I finally get
Speaker 1: some downtime. My instinct is that the best thing to
Speaker 1: do will be to PLoP down and watch Netflix or
Speaker 1: scroll through Reddit, or do something that feels like vegging out.
Speaker 1: That's my instinct of what I'm motivated to do. But
Speaker 1: in practice, if you look at the emotions that happen
Speaker 1: when I do that, I kind of feel apathy. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of bored, Like I'm kind of not challenged, right
Speaker 1: Whereas if I did something that was a little bit
Speaker 1: more challenging, right, like I had a little bit of
Speaker 1: a startup cost, like call a friend or engage with something,
Speaker 1: you know, learn a new hobby or something like that, right,
Speaker 1: like that ultimately would be a better boost and happiness.
Speaker 1: Even something like you know, doing like a quick yoga
Speaker 1: you know, like you know class, or like a little
Speaker 1: pilates or just like a couple jumping, I'd feel better.
Speaker 1: But my instinct is that I wouldn't. And and this
Speaker 1: is is something that I think I see with leisure
Speaker 1: a lot, Like, you know, companies aren't you know, making
Speaker 1: things these things to hurt us. They're giving us what
Speaker 1: we want, you know, we want these quick dopamine hits
Speaker 1: that feel kind of relaxing, but once we get them,
Speaker 1: it means it becomes easier and easier to avoid the
Speaker 1: thing that has a little bit of startup costs, but
Speaker 1: ultimately for our happiness would feel better. And so for me,
Speaker 1: what helps with that is just recognizing that that's true, right,
Speaker 1: like knowing the science of that. Because even though I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, like I teach this class at Yale and
Speaker 1: I've become, you know, an expert on some of these things,
Speaker 1: I still fall prey to all these intuitions, right. You know,
Speaker 1: tonight we'll have this conversation. I'll have a very busy
Speaker 1: day with all these zoom calls, and I will immediately
Speaker 1: be like, whoa, I'm going to pick up my phone
Speaker 1: and scroll read it. I won't be like, oh, let
Speaker 1: me call a friend who I haven't talked to, or
Speaker 1: let me like pull out my yoga mat and do
Speaker 1: a hard plates Like I know that I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: do that, but my instinct is like anything but right.
Speaker 1: But I think sometimes knowing the stuff can can allow
Speaker 1: you to recognize it right. It can help you mindfully
Speaker 1: realize that engaging in those activities isn't going to give
Speaker 1: you the fun that you expect.
Speaker 2: We talked a lot, you and I about the culture
Speaker 2: piece here, about how part of what we need to
Speaker 2: do is is shift our culture from the kind of
Speaker 2: hustle culture that's leading young people to pursue and chase
Speaker 2: the kind of achievement that doesn't always lead to happiness,
Speaker 2: to refocusing on the things that truly do bring us happiness,
Speaker 2: enjoy our relationships, our physical health, our sleep, to focusing
Speaker 2: on what we're grateful for. How does that culture shift, Like,
Speaker 2: what do you see as necessary to happen that's going
Speaker 2: to ensure that our kids in future generations are guided
Speaker 2: by a set of incentives that actually truly maximize their happiness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think there are a couple of
Speaker 1: spots to shift. I mean, one is changing the kinds
Speaker 1: of structures that are making that difficult. You know. Whether
Speaker 1: that looks like tech companies realizing that you know, they
Speaker 1: don't want to be cigarettes and they should, you know,
Speaker 1: fix themselves before regulators decide to regulate them. One possibility.
Speaker 1: I think universities need to do the same thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, in some ways I worry the
Speaker 1: admissions office is that big universities like mine are like
Speaker 1: cigarette pushers that are setting up structures that they need
Speaker 1: to worry that they're, you know, dismantling the very generation
Speaker 1: that they want to be educating and want to be
Speaker 1: bringing up. And I think, you know, careful decisions and
Speaker 1: maybe kind of coordinated decisions across universities about what counts
Speaker 1: as admissions kind of stuff will matter a lot. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure universities will get there, who knows, but I
Speaker 1: think that that helps a lot. But I actually think
Speaker 1: and one of the reasons I'm so excited to teach
Speaker 1: young people and to try to get this content out
Speaker 1: to even younger learners is I actually think a lot
Speaker 1: of the change is going to come from our young people.
Speaker 1: You know. I look at the kinds of things that
Speaker 1: students and young people are doing well with social media,
Speaker 1: you know, look at the kind of outreach that happened
Speaker 1: after an awful incident like Parkland, right, Like look at
Speaker 1: the kind of social justice movements that students are engaging
Speaker 1: in online. Right they are able to use these tools
Speaker 1: for powerful collective action. And what we'll need to do
Speaker 1: to fight this kind of arms race of hustle culture
Speaker 1: that's emerged among our young people is to de escalate,
Speaker 1: and that takes a kind of coordinated action that these
Speaker 1: tools might, ironically like allow our young people to do. So.
Speaker 1: I think as young people learn more that you know,
Speaker 1: we promised you a bill of goods that's just kind
Speaker 1: of not going to deliver, you know, they may take
Speaker 1: collective action to shift these things around. And you know,
Speaker 1: as I teach more and more young people in middle
Speaker 1: school and high school, as they hear some of these
Speaker 1: results and they're like, wait a minute, hang on, that's
Speaker 1: not what I was promised from all this hustle, I
Speaker 1: kind of watch them scaling back, and I'm hopeful that
Speaker 1: they really will use the tools that they have that
Speaker 1: their generation is kind of uniquely good at to do that. Well.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you what makes you hopeful
Speaker 2: about the future, and you just told me in your
Speaker 2: prescient way. But I think that in my mind makes
Speaker 2: courses like yours, Lori all the more important, because I
Speaker 2: do agree with you. Our greatest chance of shifting culture
Speaker 2: is going to come from the rising generation of young
Speaker 2: people who decide that they want to live a different life.
Speaker 2: But we need to encourage them. We need to support
Speaker 2: them as they do it, because it's not always going
Speaker 2: to be easy to do. And I think you're giving
Speaker 2: people the permission, the vocabulary of the structure through which
Speaker 2: to think about that through your course, which I think
Speaker 2: is so valuable. I want to end just with a
Speaker 2: couple of fun questions for you. You recently staged a funtervention,
Speaker 2: which I love the term, but an intervention to bring
Speaker 2: fun into your life at a time where you realize
Speaker 2: you needed to be having more fun. But I'm curious,
Speaker 2: what did you do in your funtervention and do you
Speaker 2: recommend that other people stage fundervention.
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, ten out of ten recommend the funtervention. I mean, so,
Speaker 1: the fund prevention was just an attempt to get a
Speaker 1: little bit more socially connected play into my life, and
Speaker 1: it started. Step one was a kind of attitude shift.
Speaker 1: I went around trying to find delights in the world,
Speaker 1: sort of trained my brain to notice things that were
Speaker 1: delightful and then shared them with friends of mine. But
Speaker 1: then it was trying to do something that was social
Speaker 1: and fun that I had no external reward for that
Speaker 1: I knew I'd just be bad at. And so I
Speaker 1: tried surfing, which you've met me. I'm like a a
Speaker 1: forty something, very uncordated person with no athletic skill, and
Speaker 1: so surfing was going to be I'm never going to
Speaker 1: be a surfer, and so I had to embrace it
Speaker 1: in a fun way, just like as something goofy and
Speaker 1: kind of stupid, and I wasn't really trying to get
Speaker 1: some external reward out of it. And it was fantastic.
Speaker 1: It was as predicted, super fun.
Speaker 2: I love that. Okay, well, I'm taking away doctor Santos's
Speaker 2: prescription for everyone is a funtervention at some point in
Speaker 2: their life. I'm certainly going to do that. And then finally,
Speaker 2: you've spent year study monkeys. Is there something that you've
Speaker 2: learned from monkeys that we can learn from as human Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think you know. One of the ironies is that
Speaker 1: if you touch to people who are really interested in
Speaker 1: in developing a mindset of mindfulness, right, a mindset of presence,
Speaker 1: they often curse what's called the monkey mind, this idea
Speaker 1: that our mind, you know, jumps from things to things
Speaker 1: and so on. But having spent a lot of time
Speaker 1: with monkeys, I think this is an unnecessary, an unfair
Speaker 1: insult to monkeys, Like if you look in the monkey mind,
Speaker 1: they're just present all the time. When they're eating something,
Speaker 1: they're just eating something. When they're grooming another monkey, they're
Speaker 1: just grooming. And you know, I often, ironically wish I
Speaker 1: could get back to my monkey mind. I think that's
Speaker 1: a big happiness insight that I've gotten from monkeys.
Speaker 2: That presence is so important, and I think we easily
Speaker 2: get robbed of that by the distractions in our life,
Speaker 2: whether it's our phone or our email inbox or other
Speaker 2: things that are constantly banging and generating alerts in our life.
Speaker 2: You've shared so much wisdom today. I was been taking
Speaker 2: notes as we were talking, but just so many beautiful things.
Speaker 2: I think about one you've helped. I think me and
Speaker 2: our listeners just understand that happiness is in fact within
Speaker 2: our grasp, but it's not something we can tay for granted.
Speaker 2: We actually have to work to build the activities that
Speaker 2: generate happiness into our life, whether that's gratitude, social connections, sleep, exercise,
Speaker 2: or time affluence. As you said, and that's point I
Speaker 2: want to underscore as well, is that free time, unstructured
Speaker 2: on scheduled time, is a very very good thing. It
Speaker 2: is not a bad thing, and it's not evidence that
Speaker 2: you are lazy or unproductive or that you're somehow leaving
Speaker 2: something on the field. That is actually what we all
Speaker 2: need to thrive, and we've squeezed ourselves too much in
Speaker 2: that regard. And of the many other lessons you shared,
Speaker 2: I think the importance of being kind to ourselves and
Speaker 2: each other really stands out too, you know that, not
Speaker 2: beating ourselves up, recognizing that we're in a challenging time
Speaker 2: right now, not just because of the pandemic, but because
Speaker 2: of the broader culture that we're growing up then living
Speaker 2: in and the demands it's placing on us. But that
Speaker 2: is all made a bit better whenever we're able to
Speaker 2: be just a bit more kind to one another as well.
Speaker 2: And in a world where so many things seem to
Speaker 2: be pushing us to be more angry at one another
Speaker 2: or to demonize one another, being kind can be an active,
Speaker 2: you know, of radical opposition, if you will, to those
Speaker 2: types of cultural elements that are and technology pieces that
Speaker 2: are constantly trying to make us angry at one another
Speaker 2: or turn us against one another. So thank you just
Speaker 2: for joining LORI, thank you for this wonderful conversation for
Speaker 2: inspiring me as you always do, and teaching me, but
Speaker 2: most importantly, thank you for the work you do in
Speaker 2: the world to help create a happier, more fulfilled society.
Speaker 2: That's what we need and we certainly need you out
Speaker 2: there doing the incredible work that you're doing, so I
Speaker 2: really appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Laurie, ditto, and thanks for helping me share the message.
Speaker 2: This concludes our conversation with Lorie Santos. Join me for
Speaker 2: the next episode of House Calls with doctor Vivik Morphy,
Speaker 2: wishing you all health and happiness.