Speaker 1: Pushkin. If there's one holiday I adore, and you can
Speaker 1: ask anyone who knows me well, it has to be Halloween.
Speaker 1: The candy, the costumes, all the general creepiness. I love it. Sadly,
Speaker 1: I've never been all that enthusiastic about Christmas. It's never
Speaker 1: really been my thing. I also know a lot of
Speaker 1: people who have a really tough time during the Christmas season,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to do something to change that. So,
Speaker 1: even though we're busily working on a special New Year's
Speaker 1: season of the Happiness Lab, one that will launch January sixth,
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring you a few super super quick
Speaker 1: tips for how you can feel a little bit happier
Speaker 1: this holiday season. So, without further ado, welcome to The
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab's very very short guide to having a merrier
Speaker 1: Christmas with me, Doctor Laurie Santos. The Christmas season provides
Speaker 1: lots of opportunities for improving your well being, things like
Speaker 1: getting together with other people, taking time off to celebrate,
Speaker 1: and relax. All of these are practices that science shows
Speaker 1: can make us feel happier. But the holidays can also
Speaker 1: be really stressful, and so here are some useful things
Speaker 1: that might help the first lesson involves the power of giving.
Speaker 1: Finding Christmas presents for everyone on your list can feel
Speaker 1: like a stressful chore for a distraction from the thing
Speaker 1: we really want to do, which is buying stuff for ourselves.
Speaker 1: But research shows that this might be another spot where
Speaker 1: our minds lead us astray. Liz Done, a professor at
Speaker 1: the University of British Columbia, has done some great research
Speaker 1: on this. You know, I don't think treating ourselves is
Speaker 1: a terrible idea, like spending money on ourselves can be good.
Speaker 1: It's just that spending money on somebody else could actually
Speaker 1: be helpful, I think is especially easy to overlook. She
Speaker 1: asks people to spend money either on themselves or on
Speaker 1: a gift for someone else. People predict that treating themselves
Speaker 1: will feel the best, but it turns out they're wrong.
Speaker 1: Subjects who buy nice things for others report feeling happier
Speaker 1: at the end of the day than people who buy
Speaker 1: nice things for themselves, and that effect holds even when
Speaker 1: relatively large amounts of cash are involved. Liz also finds
Speaker 1: that doing nice stuff for others doesn't even need to
Speaker 1: involve money. In fact, she's run these same kinds of
Speaker 1: gifting studies with very young children using the kiddy equivalent
Speaker 1: of cold hard cash goldfish crackers, And so we gave
Speaker 1: these little kids a windfall of goldfish for themselves, as
Speaker 1: well as a chance to give some of those goldfish
Speaker 1: away to a puppet named Monkey. Even children under the
Speaker 1: age of two seem to exhibit pleasure from giving their
Speaker 1: resources away. It's kind of just reassuring. As many problems
Speaker 1: as we have in the world right now, it's like
Speaker 1: the tiny humans are starting out with this proclivity to
Speaker 1: derive joy from giving their stuff away like that. To me,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it makes me optimistake again about the world.
Speaker 1: So the big happiness lesson is that giving feels better
Speaker 1: that our lying minds realize, and science shows that the
Speaker 1: price tag isn't the important part. It really is the
Speaker 1: thought that counts. My second Christmas tip is about the
Speaker 1: kinds of gifts we should be giving others. It turns
Speaker 1: out that there's one kind of holiday present that can
Speaker 1: be super valuable and hugely happiness inducing, and that is
Speaker 1: the gift of time. Psychologist Ashley Willins from Harvard Business
Speaker 1: School looked into this. So we ran this experiment where
Speaker 1: we gave people forty dollars in one week to spend
Speaker 1: in a way that would save them time, and forty
Speaker 1: dollars in another week to spend on a material purchase
Speaker 1: for themselves. And what we found is that on weeks
Speaker 1: where people made this time saving purchase, they felt happier,
Speaker 1: less stressed. But it wasn't about the objective amount of
Speaker 1: time they saved. It was that these time saving purchases
Speaker 1: getting a house cleaner, ordering takeout help people feel like
Speaker 1: they were more in control of their time, and that
Speaker 1: was what was driving the happiness benefits, not the fact
Speaker 1: that people saved an hour and a half from cooking,
Speaker 1: but that people all of a sudden felt like they
Speaker 1: had a windfall of time, that they were more in
Speaker 1: control of their schedule. Our third holiday tip is to
Speaker 1: take time this Christmas season to experience gratitude. The reason,
Speaker 1: according to gratitude expert Robert Emmons, is that feeling thankful
Speaker 1: can give us the strength we need to weather tough situations.
Speaker 1: For me, I think the most important good of gratitude
Speaker 1: is that it helps us live resiliently. There's no resilience
Speaker 1: without gratitude. I mean, it's just impossible gratitude is absolutely
Speaker 1: indispensable for I think you know, just for growing an
Speaker 1: unshakable center, a core of calm, strength, and happiness. And
Speaker 1: it helps us to deal with the slow trip of
Speaker 1: every day's stress, as well as the massive trials and tribulations.
Speaker 1: And also it widens our perceptual feel. It helps us
Speaker 1: see the big picture and the opportunities in it, and
Speaker 1: of course it connects people together. Robert's work has shown
Speaker 1: that taking time for gratitude can have an important impact
Speaker 1: on your happiness, whether you're trying to navigate the usual
Speaker 1: seasonal aggravations or even facing a more profound sense of
Speaker 1: holiday malaise. So take a second to jot down a
Speaker 1: few things you're thankful for each night this season, or
Speaker 1: steal a fantastic gratitude tip from my colleague here at
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries, the economist Tim Hartford, who has a fantastic
Speaker 1: new podcast called Cautionary Tales, which I hope you'll check out.
Speaker 1: Tim's holiday gratitude hack is making his children write a
Speaker 1: thank you letter whenever they open a present, not the
Speaker 1: end of the whole pile, but each time an individual
Speaker 1: gift is unwrapped. I really love this idea. It lets
Speaker 1: Tim and his family savor more time together by slowing
Speaker 1: down the whole unwrapping process. It forces Tim's kids to
Speaker 1: think about what we're seeing each gift feels like, and
Speaker 1: the act of writing a thank you note, organizing our
Speaker 1: feelings of gratitude and setting them down on paper. That's
Speaker 1: great for our happiness too. Now this might seem like
Speaker 1: a hokey family ritual, but that gets to my final
Speaker 1: Christmas tip, which is that if we want to be
Speaker 1: happier this holiday season, then we need to embrace dumb
Speaker 1: rituals just like this. In fact, research from Harvard Business
Speaker 1: School professor Mike Norton shows that rituals have a way
Speaker 1: of making us feel a little bit more connected during
Speaker 1: the holiday season. If you report having a ritual, you're
Speaker 1: more likely to keep getting together with your family for
Speaker 1: the holidays, and it's more likely to go well when
Speaker 1: you do get together. If you've ever been to a
Speaker 1: family holiday, after a few years, sometimes it occurs to
Speaker 1: you in your head that you have nothing in common
Speaker 1: with these people. You know, they have different political beliefs,
Speaker 1: they have different lifestyle choices. You're kind of wondering, why
Speaker 1: am I related to them. It seems as though rituals
Speaker 1: provide kind of a framework for the fact that we're
Speaker 1: a family, because as we've always been eating Nana's roles
Speaker 1: for the past fifty years, so I guess it's something
Speaker 1: that we all do together. The other thing the rituals
Speaker 1: do for family events like that is which is almost
Speaker 1: as important as they tell you what to do at
Speaker 1: each moment. So again, if you've ever been to a
Speaker 1: family holiday, mainly it's people standing around awkwardly hoping that
Speaker 1: arguments don't start based on something that happened in seventh grade.
Speaker 1: Rituals tell everyone exactly what they should do at all time.
Speaker 1: So it's you and you go out and do that,
Speaker 1: and then we'll do this in the kitchen while you
Speaker 1: do that over there, and then we'll get picked together
Speaker 1: at four and watch the thing, and then dinners over
Speaker 1: at six and then we're done. And it actually allows
Speaker 1: the day to happen where everyone kind of sorts themselves
Speaker 1: in a way that's optimal, and then suddenly it's all
Speaker 1: over and nobody killed anybody. Ah, yes, the true meaning
Speaker 1: of Christmas. We got through it and nobody killed anybody. Anyways,
Speaker 1: I hope you found these short tips helpful. The Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab will be back on January sixth for four special
Speaker 1: shows exploring how you can become happier in twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll join me in the new year to
Speaker 1: learn how the science of psychology can boost your well being,
Speaker 1: and if you can't wait, sign up for our newsletter
Speaker 1: right away at Happiness Lab dot fm. So until we return,
Speaker 1: Happy holidays from the Happiness Lab with Doctor Laurie Santos.