Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome to the first of some special episodes of
Speaker 1: the Happiness Lab Long Capacity. The now global spread of
Speaker 1: coronavirus is affecting all of us people. This disease has
Speaker 1: brought a whole host of medical, economic, and political problems,
Speaker 1: but it's also given us a ton of uncertainty and anxiety,
Speaker 1: which you're beginning to have an enormous negative impact on
Speaker 1: our well being. But whenever I'm confused or fearful, I
Speaker 1: always remember that looking for answers in evidence based science
Speaker 1: is the best thing to do, and that's why I'm
Speaker 1: hoping this podcast can help for those of you that
Speaker 1: haven't listened before. I'm doctor Laurie Santos. I'm a professor
Speaker 1: of psychology at Yale University, where I also live on
Speaker 1: campus with students. In the past two weeks, university life
Speaker 1: as I know it has been totally upended. We've halted
Speaker 1: research and classes and have told our students that they
Speaker 1: can't come back from spring break. They just have to
Speaker 1: leave all their stuff where it is and complete their
Speaker 1: studies online. The whole process has been stressful, scary, and
Speaker 1: really sad. My staff and I spent the last week
Speaker 1: dealing with problem after problem buying flights for students who
Speaker 1: couldn't afford it, and fighting through a web of emergency issues,
Speaker 1: and as of today, nearly every one of my five
Speaker 1: hundred students is gone. Buildings that usually hum with the
Speaker 1: sounds of hundreds of young people will now be empty
Speaker 1: for who knows how long. It's eerie and really lonely.
Speaker 1: And so I did what I'm guessing many of you
Speaker 1: are doing right now. I began panic scrolling surfing my
Speaker 1: social media feeds, but it didn't provide the distraction I
Speaker 1: was craving. The latest news wound up making me even
Speaker 1: more anxious. I saw articles about panicked shoppers fighting over
Speaker 1: toilet paper. But then I saw a video that was
Speaker 1: a little more hopeful. Italians who were quarantined in their
Speaker 1: homes had opened their windows to join together and song.
Speaker 1: It was just after that singing video that I saw
Speaker 1: an article in the Washington Post written by one of
Speaker 1: my friends, Jamie Zaki. Jamil is a professor of psychology
Speaker 1: at Stanford University an author of the book The War
Speaker 1: for Kindness, Building Empathy in a Fractured World. He's also
Speaker 1: genuinely one of the funniest and most optimistic people I've
Speaker 1: ever met. Jamie's article was the first real breath of
Speaker 1: hope I'd seen in a while. He argued that our
Speaker 1: main weapon against the spread of coronavirus social distancing, doesn't
Speaker 1: need to break the social bonds that are so vital
Speaker 1: to our happiness with my entire community. Kicked off campus,
Speaker 1: social distance is a challenge that I'm really struggling with
Speaker 1: right now, and it's probably a challenge you're facing or
Speaker 1: will soon be facing. So I decided to call Jamille
Speaker 1: to get his advice and record our conversation so you
Speaker 1: could learn from too. I started by asking about the
Speaker 1: videos I've just seen. As an empathy researcher, Jamil has
Speaker 1: the scientific scoop on how people actually react in a crisis.
Speaker 1: His work shows that supermarket fistfights overcanned goods aren't as
Speaker 1: common as we think. Disasters and catastrophes are so interesting
Speaker 1: for this reason. Many of us have a stereotype that
Speaker 1: when the lights turn off and the rules are gone,
Speaker 1: that will tear each other apart. That's what movies like
Speaker 1: The Purge are about, that just under the surface, we
Speaker 1: have this kind of violent instinct towards each other. It
Speaker 1: turns out that basically the exact opposite is true. When
Speaker 1: disasters happen, like earthquakes or terrorist attacks or giant blizzards,
Speaker 1: people pour out of their homes to help each other.
Speaker 1: It's what Rebecca Solny calls a carnival of compassion. So
Speaker 1: you basically see people helping strangers in every way they can.
Speaker 1: They line up for hours to donate blood, They overrun
Speaker 1: charities and then start their own. They help people and
Speaker 1: ignore boundaries of ray and class and all other social
Speaker 1: divisions that sometimes would separate them because almost as though
Speaker 1: a disaster, in putting us all at risk, makes us
Speaker 1: realize how much we have in common. But what's really
Speaker 1: scary about the coronavirus situation is that that's not happening right.
Speaker 1: This is the paradox of and really adds to the
Speaker 1: tragedy of an outbreak like coronavirus, is that we have
Speaker 1: these deep instincts that when things are going really poorly,
Speaker 1: when we're in under stress, we have these deep instincts
Speaker 1: to seek out others for their help and to help
Speaker 1: them to use one of our greatest strengths, which is
Speaker 1: our connection to each other. In one of the toughest moments,
Speaker 1: but the thing about coronavirus and other epidemics is that
Speaker 1: they force us, for the interest of public health, to
Speaker 1: go exactly in the opposite direction, apart when we want
Speaker 1: to be together, when we most need to be together.
Speaker 1: That's what makes this so tragic at even another level.
Speaker 1: And I think you've probably seen it your university. I
Speaker 1: know we're now implementing social distance, saying right, so my
Speaker 1: staff is just standing behind, you know this big rope
Speaker 1: that says, really stay super far away. And what's amazing
Speaker 1: is people just normally have a hard time with this,
Speaker 1: like they want to walk up to each other and
Speaker 1: start talking. But I think in this moment, people really
Speaker 1: want like hugs and to be close to each other.
Speaker 1: And it seems pretty crazy. It's so weird to see
Speaker 1: people who are obviously struggling and you do you have
Speaker 1: that impulse to reach out to them, to make contact,
Speaker 1: to lay hands on, right, to comfort each other, and
Speaker 1: we're being stripped of that possibility. It's really it really
Speaker 1: does double down, I think on the damage of this
Speaker 1: epidemic because it's already scary, it's already killing people and
Speaker 1: scaring so many other people, but it also has the
Speaker 1: potential to have this long term psychological mental health fallout
Speaker 1: from this increase in isolation. I mean, we know that
Speaker 1: loneliness is basically psychologically poisonous, right. It produces depression and
Speaker 1: anxiety idea, It worsens our response to stress, It increases inflammation,
Speaker 1: worsens our cardiovascular health. I mean, it damages us in
Speaker 1: ways that are really quite long lasting. And so to
Speaker 1: add a loneliness epidemic to the viral epidemic we're already
Speaker 1: living through is really you know, it's dangerous, it's tragic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, loneliness is bad. But the flip side is
Speaker 1: that social connection can heal us in these incredible ways.
Speaker 1: So talk about some of the research that's shown how
Speaker 1: powerful social connection can be even in times of like
Speaker 1: physical and emotional trauma. I would say especially in those times. Right, So,
Speaker 1: people when they're going through stress, if they feel as
Speaker 1: though there are loved ones around them, people who care
Speaker 1: for them, they are able to bounce back more quickly
Speaker 1: from those stressors. They experience them as less psychologically damaging,
Speaker 1: They recover from trauma more easily. There's even evidence from
Speaker 1: the brain that when people go through pain, for instance,
Speaker 1: like getting zapped with a painful electric that they experienced
Speaker 1: those shocks as less painful if they're holding the hand
Speaker 1: of somebody who cares for them. Right, So, at a
Speaker 1: physical and psychological level, that connection really buffers us against
Speaker 1: suffering and against anxiety and against many of the experiences
Speaker 1: that we're having right now. But an additional thing that's
Speaker 1: really terrible about this virus is that it makes us
Speaker 1: avoid our fellow man in a different way. Right, we
Speaker 1: have to have this physical distance, But in some sense,
Speaker 1: the scariest thing for me is that other people will
Speaker 1: become a threat. It's it's like we're living in a
Speaker 1: slow motion zombie movie, right. The people who you love,
Speaker 1: for people who you typically would want to be around,
Speaker 1: you have to kind of look at them and say,
Speaker 1: are they one of the infected? Right? And it's it's
Speaker 1: not a great feeling. I mean, I was. We went
Speaker 1: to the grocery store and was panic shopping for toilet
Speaker 1: paper like everyone else, and somebody sneezed in a crowded
Speaker 1: aisle and it was like they were going to be
Speaker 1: gang tackled, right. I mean, it's it's frightening because they
Speaker 1: are vulnerable people in all of our lives, and we
Speaker 1: want to protect them, but in order to protect them,
Speaker 1: basically the threat becomes other people. So, as you say,
Speaker 1: it's not just that we're distanced, it's that we're fearing
Speaker 1: each other. And as you know, this also can exacerbate
Speaker 1: some of the divisions that are already between us. There's
Speaker 1: been xenophobia and racism attached to some of the you know,
Speaker 1: some of the ways that people are talking about this virus,
Speaker 1: which often happens when people are scared, when they feel
Speaker 1: as though they're anxious, they often brighten the lines between
Speaker 1: us and them, which is, you know, and yet another
Speaker 1: way that this outbreak can be psychologically damaging. The other
Speaker 1: thing that's really awful about this virus is that the
Speaker 1: people that are most physically susceptible to coronavirus also seem
Speaker 1: to be the people that are most mentally susceptible to
Speaker 1: things like loneliness. That's right, Yeah, and especially older adults
Speaker 1: you know, suffer from an increase in loneliness and also
Speaker 1: suffer more from the consequences of loneliness, including the sort
Speaker 1: of added cardiovascular and immune risks. So, for instance, a
Speaker 1: giant meta analysis recently demonstrated that sort of chronic, severe
Speaker 1: loneliness among older adults was significantly increasing mortality among older adults. Right,
Speaker 1: so we've got this really you know, possibility that feeling
Speaker 1: deeply isolated can actually shorten one's life, which again is
Speaker 1: really difficult given that, you know, older adults in our
Speaker 1: culture are getting this kind of double whammy, you know,
Speaker 1: the sort of both from the disease burden and from
Speaker 1: the burden of isolation. So that's the problem. So many
Speaker 1: of us are facing social isolation and the loneliness that
Speaker 1: it brings. As I've said in previous editions of the
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab, loneliness is as bad for our physical health
Speaker 1: as smoking fifteen cigarettes a day, which means that as
Speaker 1: we isolate ourselves to fight this awful virus, we might
Speaker 1: be harming ourselves in a different way. And that's why
Speaker 1: I was so hopeful after reading Jamil's article. He's come
Speaker 1: up with some practical solutions, ones that he's implementing with
Speaker 1: his own friends and family for how we can physically
Speaker 1: isolate in a way that doesn't feel so socially isolated.
Speaker 1: And I want to turn to those next. One of
Speaker 1: the reasons I wanted to talk to Jamil so badly
Speaker 1: and to share this conversation with you is that he's
Speaker 1: surprisingly hopeful that we can continue our meaningful interactions in
Speaker 1: a time of social distancing. I totally get how lonely
Speaker 1: it feels to be isolated, but the great news is
Speaker 1: that Jamille's work offers us some hope. I do think
Speaker 1: that this is going to be a hard time for
Speaker 1: many people, and it's going to be a lonely time
Speaker 1: for many people. But one thing that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: remember myself and tell as many people as possible is
Speaker 1: that you know, actually we're all going through something pretty similar.
Speaker 1: You know, you might be hold up in your apartment,
Speaker 1: working from home, feeling confused and scared and lonely, But
Speaker 1: guess what, so are the other people who are normally
Speaker 1: at your office. So is your third grade best friend,
Speaker 1: you know, so is your cousin. Right, I mean, we
Speaker 1: have more in common with more people than we usually do.
Speaker 1: This is, in a way, a vast shared experience, and
Speaker 1: if we could acknowledge it that way and try to
Speaker 1: truly experience it together, I think that we'd be able
Speaker 1: to cultivate more social connection than we realize. Right, when
Speaker 1: you talk with somebody, even if both of you feel anxious.
Speaker 1: A lot of things happen. One you realize that your
Speaker 1: experience is shared. You're not alone in feeling what you're feeling.
Speaker 1: In fact, maybe that feeling brings you together. You express
Speaker 1: care for one another, and you feel supported, and you
Speaker 1: feel able to support somebody else. Oftentimes, comforting someone else
Speaker 1: is one of the best ways to be comforted yourself,
Speaker 1: because in doing so, you locate a strength and calm
Speaker 1: that you didn't realize you had for the benefit of
Speaker 1: somebody else. I think we all share that instinct, but
Speaker 1: then when we try to connect, we do it in
Speaker 1: a way that provokes more anxiety. Like for me, I'm
Speaker 1: panic scrolling, which makes me feel connected to the other
Speaker 1: people on Facebook sort of, but it also really increases
Speaker 1: our anxiety. Yeah, I think you're totally right. I've panic
Speaker 1: scroll the fair amount myself recently. Panic scrolling, first of all,
Speaker 1: is an overload of really anxiety provoking information all at once,
Speaker 1: like a tsunami of just distressing facts and figures. But
Speaker 1: I do think that there are ways that we can
Speaker 1: more intentionally engage in ways that build social connection rather
Speaker 1: than just making us feel even more alone and worked up.
Speaker 1: And I think ironically right. A lot of us have
Speaker 1: spent most of the twenty first century blaming technology for
Speaker 1: like tearing apart our social fabric, and right now it
Speaker 1: might be our best shot for keeping that social fabric together. Right.
Speaker 1: So I write a lot in my book about how
Speaker 1: technology can build empathy, and a lot of it really
Speaker 1: depends on the way that we use it. So around
Speaker 1: moments like this, around the coronavirus and social distancing, one
Speaker 1: thing that I think we could really try to pay
Speaker 1: attention to is how can we use technology to have
Speaker 1: the types of interactions that we would have in person? Right?
Speaker 1: So we don't normally just scroll through each other as minds, right,
Speaker 1: We interact live and try to share experiences together. Right.
Speaker 1: So I think that FaceTime zoom in these moments are terrific, right,
Speaker 1: But not just using those technologies to like check in
Speaker 1: and say, ask people how they're doing, We should do that,
Speaker 1: but also just to hang around together, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: when we have a research meeting in person, right, we
Speaker 1: don't just talk about work and then leave. We dawdle,
Speaker 1: you know, we kibbits, We goof off together, and those
Speaker 1: in between moments are what matter most sometimes to our
Speaker 1: sense of connection. To each other. So my thing has been,
Speaker 1: let's try to get online and do nothing together, watch
Speaker 1: a TV show with your cousin, or or go on
Speaker 1: FaceTime with somebody and make the same meal together and
Speaker 1: then drink some wine together. Right. I mean my lab,
Speaker 1: you know, we have a coffee room where we all
Speaker 1: used to just kind of hang out, and so we've
Speaker 1: created a Zoom channel that's just called the coffee room. Right,
Speaker 1: It's just for people to take a break together. Right.
Speaker 1: So I think that if we can use technology to
Speaker 1: recreate at least some of the informality and sense of
Speaker 1: togetherness we have in the analog world, that would be
Speaker 1: one really helpful strategy. What's so funny about this idea
Speaker 1: to do more of our social events via Zoom and
Speaker 1: things like that is that our workplaces have figured it out. Right.
Speaker 1: We instantly translate to doing like you know, distance learning
Speaker 1: or kind of distance like meetings, But we forget that
Speaker 1: we can do our social events at distance too. I
Speaker 1: know it doesn't feel as natural, right, I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that we're used to using technology to work, not
Speaker 1: to live, and I think a lot of us have
Speaker 1: the stereotype that technology is kind of anti social and
Speaker 1: I think that this moment is going to require us
Speaker 1: to really try to get over that perception and challenge
Speaker 1: it and push on it and see how much we
Speaker 1: can just be there with each other online. I mean,
Speaker 1: this even goes for kids, right, I mean, so schools
Speaker 1: are closing and a lot of us are going to
Speaker 1: be hang out with our kids while their eyesolated too,
Speaker 1: And that's I mean, if it's hard for us, imagine
Speaker 1: how hard it is for them. Right. Kids depend on
Speaker 1: their social interactions to like build their sense of self. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, one thing that we're doing is with some
Speaker 1: of our kids really good friends, we're buying the same
Speaker 1: our kids are very young, so we're buying the same
Speaker 1: coloring books, we're buying the same games, and we're going
Speaker 1: to try to see whether we can do FaceTime play dates,
Speaker 1: where again, it's a coactivity. It's not just talking because
Speaker 1: you know, a two year old and another two year
Speaker 1: old aren't necessarily going to make scintillating conversation for hours,
Speaker 1: but maybe they can compare what colors they choose to
Speaker 1: draw the unicorn that they're working on. Yeah, but the
Speaker 1: adults still have to make scintilating conversation either, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: you forget that you can just PLoP down and like
Speaker 1: Watchmpaul's drag race with someone else, but just over FaceTime exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think we should lower our expectations from Maybe
Speaker 1: that's another issue with online interaction is we don't just
Speaker 1: overprofessionalize it, we overpressure it. We feel as though we
Speaker 1: should only be interacting so long as there's something to say.
Speaker 1: But that's not what we do in real life. So
Speaker 1: I just want us to bring the casualness in the
Speaker 1: informality of life offline into our technological space. And I
Speaker 1: think that's a really great shot we have for retaining
Speaker 1: connection right now. So what do we know scientifically about
Speaker 1: whether or not this technology works. Is there research showing
Speaker 1: that you can get this kind of empathic connection from
Speaker 1: people online just as much as in real life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that again, we have stereotypes about
Speaker 1: online connections and we feel as though they're necessarily shallow,
Speaker 1: or it's just a bunch of people posting cpatne selfees
Speaker 1: or pictures of their last meal or whatever. But there's
Speaker 1: a long tradition of people using the Internet to find real,
Speaker 1: deep connections, maybe connections they can't find offline. So One
Speaker 1: example of this that I write about in my book
Speaker 1: is rare illness communities. So it turns out that rare
Speaker 1: illnesses are any illness that affects less than one in
Speaker 1: one thousand people, But there are hundreds of rare illnesses,
Speaker 1: which means paradoxically, some like big proportion of our community
Speaker 1: has an illness where their friends and neighbors don't know
Speaker 1: much about that illness and don't share their experiences. Some
Speaker 1: of those folks also have to self quarantine for reasons
Speaker 1: that have to do with those illnesses, so they can
Speaker 1: be extremely isolated. But many of those folks take to
Speaker 1: online communities like Facebook groups or standalone websites like rare
Speaker 1: connect dot org, And there's a lot of evidence that
Speaker 1: on those communities, people don't just share like information about
Speaker 1: the latest treatments or whatever. They share their stories and
Speaker 1: it's an opportunity for them to feel seen, And you
Speaker 1: can think of them as basically oacs of empathy in
Speaker 1: a desert of connection for a lot of people. And
Speaker 1: it's not just people with illnesses. There are a lot
Speaker 1: of us who have parts of our identity that we
Speaker 1: don't feel comfortable sharing with the people in our lives,
Speaker 1: and ironically, the nanimity of being online actually makes some
Speaker 1: people feel free to express vulnerabilities that they don't feel
Speaker 1: like they can talk about in other settings. So there
Speaker 1: is a tradition of real, true, and deep empathy on
Speaker 1: the internet. It's one that we will all have to
Speaker 1: tap into more. Now you've seen examples of this even
Speaker 1: at your university, where folks are using technology to bring
Speaker 1: students together. That's right. Yeah, So I teach a little
Speaker 1: seminar for Stanford freshmen called Becoming Kinder, and it's all
Speaker 1: about designing experiences and interventions to help people tap into
Speaker 1: their really deep seated desire to help with and connect
Speaker 1: with one another. And so, of course, when coronavirus hid
Speaker 1: and we were all meeting by zoom, the first thing
Speaker 1: we were talking about is how do we recover this?
Speaker 1: And they spontaneously said, well, you know what, we eat
Speaker 1: together all the time? You know, the dining halls are
Speaker 1: sort of the arteries of social life on a college campus.
Speaker 1: Why do we need to be eating alone just because
Speaker 1: we're in different parts of the country. So they've now
Speaker 1: created but it's awesome. I mean, they've created dining halls
Speaker 1: that are virtual and They've created dorm lounges that are
Speaker 1: virtual as well, so they actually do different types of
Speaker 1: hanging out in different in different places. I mean, this
Speaker 1: coronavirus thing is incredibly scary, both in terms of our
Speaker 1: physical health but also in terms of our mental health.
Speaker 1: Are you hopeful that we can really use these technologies
Speaker 1: to bring ourselves together in the scary time? I mean, look,
Speaker 1: this is a scary time. It will continue to be
Speaker 1: scary and it will be sad, and I think that
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful that we can work together. I'm always hopeful
Speaker 1: that we can work together. That's what our species is
Speaker 1: best at, and I think that we can work together
Speaker 1: at this as well. I think it will be important
Speaker 1: to do a couple of things. One to bring the
Speaker 1: most vulnerable people into these conversations. Right, So, my kids
Speaker 1: are digital natives, my college students are digital natives, my
Speaker 1: parents are not. And older people are not just the
Speaker 1: most susceptible to really dangerous symptoms from coronavirus, they're the
Speaker 1: most susceptible to sellation. So I think it's going to
Speaker 1: be important for us to be inclusive in the way
Speaker 1: that we generate whatever digital or other types of interactions
Speaker 1: we can manage. There's one more point that I want
Speaker 1: to make, which is that you know, as you said earlier,
Speaker 1: one of the tough things about an epidemic is that
Speaker 1: we have this desire to be kind to help others
Speaker 1: when we need to, when when we're going through something
Speaker 1: together that allows us to assert community, to gain control
Speaker 1: in a time that we otherwise feel helpless. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that it is hard about this moment
Speaker 1: is that it's hard to find ways to help other people.
Speaker 1: But I want us to remember something. Social distancing from
Speaker 1: many of us is something that we're doing to be
Speaker 1: kind to others. Very young, healthy people don't have that
Speaker 1: high a risk of really developing severe symptoms from coronavirus,
Speaker 1: so their decision to engage in social distancing is really
Speaker 1: a way to protect vulnerable individuals in our community. So
Speaker 1: I think that one thing we can do is just
Speaker 1: remember that even our choice to be alone is something
Speaker 1: that we're doing together, and it's something that we're doing
Speaker 1: for each other. I hope this conversation has given you
Speaker 1: some practical tips for fighting loneliness and feeling more connected
Speaker 1: in this tough time. Talking to Jamille over a video
Speaker 1: call certainly made a rough day brighter for me, and
Speaker 1: so I'm super grateful that he took the time to connect.
Speaker 1: We'll return for another special episode of The Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: really soon because I want to bring you even more
Speaker 1: science back tips for getting through this worrying time. I
Speaker 1: plan to talk with leading experts as often as I
Speaker 1: can over the coming weeks and to share all their
Speaker 1: important evidence back advice with you. But I also want
Speaker 1: to be sure we're tackling all the big challenges you're
Speaker 1: facing during this pandemic. So if there's a question or
Speaker 1: topic you think The Happiness Lab needs to address in
Speaker 1: the coming weeks, let me know. Tweet us at Laurie
Speaker 1: Santo's or at Pushkin Pods, and please include the hashtag
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab Pod. Until then, stay safe. The Happiness Lab
Speaker 1: will be back soon. The Happiness Lab is made by me,
Speaker 1: doctor Laurie Santos. It's produced and co written by Ryan Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our original music is by Zachary Silver. We're a Pushkin podcast,
Speaker 1: so special thanks go to Jacob Weisberg, Miel LaBelle, Heather Faine,
Speaker 1: Carli mcgliori, Julia Barton, and the rest of the team.