Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Psychology Podcast with doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, where we give you insights into the mind, brain, behavior,
Speaker 1: and creativity. Each episode will feature a new guest who
Speaker 1: will stimulate your mind and give you a greater understanding
Speaker 1: of yourself, others, and the world we live in. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening and enjoy the podcast. Today, I'm so excited
Speaker 1: to have Emma Seppal on the show. Emma is the
Speaker 1: science director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research
Speaker 1: and Education at Stanford University. She's the founder of the
Speaker 1: popular news site Fulfillment Daily and our frequent contributor to
Speaker 1: Harvard Business Review. In Psychology Today, and I also am
Speaker 1: honored to call her my friend. Thanks Emma for being
Speaker 1: on my podcast. Oh, thanks so much, Scott. I'm happy
Speaker 1: to be here. We go way back, don't we. Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: we do. And You've always been a source of inspiration
Speaker 1: for me, even like ten years ago, two thousand and three.
Speaker 1: I think I met you two thousand and three, Is
Speaker 1: that right? I think? So? Oh, Mike, why Scottie. Yeah,
Speaker 1: You've always been such a bright light, and so I'm
Speaker 1: so excited that you have a new book out and
Speaker 1: A big thesis of your book is that happiness is
Speaker 1: the fast track to success, not the other way around.
Speaker 1: I thought we could unpack that a little bit. It's
Speaker 1: a sentiment that needs to be heard, but it's not
Speaker 1: very prominent. I don't think in our work culture today, right,
Speaker 1: this misconception that in order to be successful we have
Speaker 1: to postpone our happiness. And what research is really showing
Speaker 1: is that if we do end up taking care of
Speaker 1: our well being first, the result is that we will
Speaker 1: be more successful in a number of different ways. Right.
Speaker 1: First of all, I wanted to find what is happiness
Speaker 1: in your definition? Then what is success in your definition?
Speaker 1: I like my asl was definition of success as liking yourself,
Speaker 1: liking what you do, and liking how you do it.
Speaker 1: And that's how you open up the book. Is that
Speaker 1: how you define success? Yes, and I think success looks different,
Speaker 1: you know, whether you're a ballerina in New York City
Speaker 1: or an investment banker. You know, it could also vary
Speaker 1: depending on whether you're a stay at home mom for example.
Speaker 1: So really everybody will have their own version of what
Speaker 1: it is that they want to accomplish in their life
Speaker 1: and what it looks like for them to be their
Speaker 1: best selves. So that's how I'm defining success in particular,
Speaker 1: and ask what is happiness? Well? As for happiness, again,
Speaker 1: it's such a fluid definition that we all have, and
Speaker 1: again everyone will have their own personal feeling of what
Speaker 1: happiness is. But what I explore in the book is
Speaker 1: that really happiness that is long term and that leads
Speaker 1: to a more fulfilling life in addition to a more
Speaker 1: successful life, is a life in which you are taking
Speaker 1: good care of yourself and also caring for others, and
Speaker 1: the results of both of those things really go a
Speaker 1: long way. Sure, And again success can be defined in
Speaker 1: different ways. So if we define it just as publicly
Speaker 1: recognized success, which I don't think is how you solely
Speaker 1: define it in your book at all, but some people
Speaker 1: do define it as achievements, publicly recognized achievements. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I think there are lots of instances I can think
Speaker 1: of examples off the top of my head. I won't
Speaker 1: name any names of people who are widely successful who
Speaker 1: are not happy whatsoever. So it's not always concominent with happiness, right,
Speaker 1: That's absolutely right, Like, are there some forms of success
Speaker 1: that you could be like as happy as can be,
Speaker 1: and it still won't help with that. Like, if I'm
Speaker 1: like the happiest person in the world, will that help
Speaker 1: me be a good physicist whatsoever? So it probably will.
Speaker 1: I guess what I know is that many of us
Speaker 1: live according to very popular but also false theories of success.
Speaker 1: For example, we believe we have to work ourselves into
Speaker 1: the ground. We have to believe we have to focus NonStop,
Speaker 1: always get more done. We believe that we can't have
Speaker 1: success without stress, that living a high adrenaline overdriven life
Speaker 1: is the only way to go. We believe we have
Speaker 1: to look out for ourselves as number one, even if
Speaker 1: that sometimes means elbowing people out of the way. We
Speaker 1: believe we have to be self critical and hyper focused,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. So all these are commonly held notions,
Speaker 1: but what research is showing is that they run current
Speaker 1: counter to current research, and so I, you know, I
Speaker 1: can go into those in more detail. I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we'll do this organically. Yeah great. So what
Speaker 1: are the other benefits of happiness other than success? Well,
Speaker 1: it depends, you know, again, depends how you're defining happiness.
Speaker 1: I think broadly, you know, as the positive psychology has divided,
Speaker 1: you know that happiness into two kind of spheres, one
Speaker 1: being more you know, hedonic happiness. That for your real
Speaker 1: chocolate cake, which I know you very much enjoy scutty,
Speaker 1: so do I. And you know that brings a lot
Speaker 1: of pleasure, and you know, sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Speaker 1: That kind of pleasure is wonderful, but it's also very fleeting,
Speaker 1: and it can lead us to keep wanting more, keep
Speaker 1: seeking it out, and yet never being fully satisfied because
Speaker 1: it never brings long term as that long term feeling
Speaker 1: of well being. And then you monic happiness is that
Speaker 1: happiness that's derived out of close relationships with others, out
Speaker 1: of feelings of love and connection, out of feelings of
Speaker 1: service for others, and out of a life that seems
Speaker 1: to have a greater meaning, a greater purpose, living beyond
Speaker 1: just your own immediate needs and wants, but doing something
Speaker 1: for a greater purpose. For some people it takes the
Speaker 1: form of spirituality. So those are the ways that you
Speaker 1: can think of for happiness. But that more you tomonic.
Speaker 1: It's great to have a balance of both. There's no
Speaker 1: reason we shouldn't enjoy this planet to its fullest, but
Speaker 1: at the same time making sure we have enough of
Speaker 1: that you demonic experience in our life will help us
Speaker 1: be happier in a more long term, sustainable way, and,
Speaker 1: as I'll argue in the book, also help you bring
Speaker 1: up the very best in you so that you can
Speaker 1: achieve your goals. I think that's a big goal pose
Speaker 1: of psychology is bringing out the best in yourself and others.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been reading Aristotle's writings on you'd aemonia.
Speaker 1: I don't think he focused much on social relationships. He
Speaker 1: kind of defined it as bringing out the best in
Speaker 1: yourself for sure. In terms of virtues, maybe one of
Speaker 1: his virtues was kindness. I'm trying to remember his list
Speaker 1: of twelve and eight virtues that yet, but I don't
Speaker 1: recall him when he talked about pneumonia talking too much
Speaker 1: on the social relationships aspect. Well, and virtues are always,
Speaker 1: not always, but often in relation to other people, for example,
Speaker 1: like you said, kindness. And what research is showing now
Speaker 1: overwhelming amount of research on social connection is that we
Speaker 1: have such a profound need to connect in a positive
Speaker 1: way with others from the moment we're born until the
Speaker 1: very last days of our life impacts our health or
Speaker 1: well being, our longevity, you know, the inflammation at the
Speaker 1: level of ourselves and so forth. So it's such an
Speaker 1: important one to focus on. And research also shows that
Speaker 1: if you are relating to others in a way that
Speaker 1: actually involves a service component, an altruistic component, a compassionate component,
Speaker 1: you reap the benefits. Perhaps even more, one interesting study
Speaker 1: showed that they compared volunteers to non volunteers who had
Speaker 1: both gone through very stressful life experiences, and those who
Speaker 1: engage in more volunteer work in their life actually did
Speaker 1: not experience the fact of stress is negative consequences on
Speaker 1: their health. In other words, the fact that they volunteered
Speaker 1: buffered them from the negative impact of stress in their lives.
Speaker 1: But another study showed that if people volunteer for selfish
Speaker 1: reasons in other words, maybe they donate money because they
Speaker 1: want their name on a big plaque, they don't get
Speaker 1: the benefits. So it has to come from a place
Speaker 1: of authenticity and errors, and that aristentilian view of has
Speaker 1: to be like this true virtue within you, not just
Speaker 1: a facade you said. They don't get the benefits in
Speaker 1: terms of like personal well being and health Oh wow,
Speaker 1: that's really interesting. It's very interesting. It has to be
Speaker 1: an authentic feeling. And again, you know, what research on
Speaker 1: compassion does show is that altruism and compassion are very
Speaker 1: natural to states, to us, they are states that we are.
Speaker 1: They're like an impulse within us, and you can see
Speaker 1: that in kids. So you can see that even in
Speaker 1: the animal world, that we are driven to help another
Speaker 1: one who's in pain, even sometimes at the cost to ourselves.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons we often don't see adults
Speaker 1: doing that is, you know, sometimes there is a sense
Speaker 1: of being overwhelmed by the amount of help needed. But
Speaker 1: the other thing is that we often stop ourselves from
Speaker 1: helping others because we worry about what people will think
Speaker 1: about us. We're worried about what people think of us
Speaker 1: simply help others. Yeah. It's researched on by Dale Miller
Speaker 1: on the norm of self interest? Have you heard of that? Interesting? Well,
Speaker 1: he found that people have this natural impulse to want
Speaker 1: to help others, but then they'll stop themselves because they'll
Speaker 1: think other people are believe they're doing it out of
Speaker 1: self interest because there's this norm of self interest. So,
Speaker 1: for example, in one of the studies He asked men
Speaker 1: if they would be willing to attend a breast cancer
Speaker 1: awareness meeting of some sort, and the men were. Their
Speaker 1: first impulse was to say yes, of course, but then
Speaker 1: later they were more likely to say, well, no, because
Speaker 1: people will probably think I'm trying to pick someone up there,
Speaker 1: because Parson reply, it's all women. And so there's this
Speaker 1: norm of self interest. Everyone is going to believe I'm
Speaker 1: doing something out of self interest because we don't. You know,
Speaker 1: what research really shows is we really should have more
Speaker 1: of a norm of the norm of compassion is more realistic.
Speaker 1: We are driven to help others. We do stop ourselves
Speaker 1: for various reasons, not just the normal self interest. But
Speaker 1: if you give people, you know, just a few seconds
Speaker 1: to decide whether or not they're going to act fairly.
Speaker 1: For example, in a prisoner's dilemma game, if you give
Speaker 1: them just a few seconds, they're more likely to make
Speaker 1: the fair choice. But if you give them a little
Speaker 1: longer and they have time to think about it, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe they'll change their mind. This is an economics game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so your book highlights a lot of good of human nature,
Speaker 1: which is very refreshing. Well, I would say that is
Speaker 1: our natural tendency. It's just that it gets covered up
Speaker 1: for various reasons. Yes, we have lots of natural tendencies.
Speaker 1: I think we also have some natural tendencies towards insecurity
Speaker 1: and more darker emotions. I think those are natural tendencies too.
Speaker 1: You're right that they can get These other tendencies you're
Speaker 1: talking about in your book that are really important to
Speaker 1: highlight can get covered up by these other tendencies. Natural tens. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I think stress is a really big one, and
Speaker 1: that's what we're seeing in the current day and age.
Speaker 1: Everybody is running, everybody has got too much on their
Speaker 1: to do list, their schedules, they're overscheduled, and there's because
Speaker 1: of technology. I think that we are living at a
Speaker 1: faster pace than ever before. In fact, there's a study
Speaker 1: I'm forgetting now the exact cool, but the pace of
Speaker 1: life has been increasing at a huge rapidity over the
Speaker 1: last few decades, and technology, of course is something to
Speaker 1: do with that. But what we see is that when
Speaker 1: we are in a situation where we are highly stressed,
Speaker 1: we become more self focused naturally because we're instinctively driven
Speaker 1: to protect ourselves. But as a consequence, we have less
Speaker 1: of a natural ability to connect with others. The other
Speaker 1: thing is that under a lot of stress, our empathy
Speaker 1: can decline as well. So you know, after food and shelter,
Speaker 1: we derive our greatest sense of well being from social connection.
Speaker 1: Yet stress is making us more self focused and less
Speaker 1: able to connect. So that's why it's really important to
Speaker 1: address that. And I'm not talking about you know, short
Speaker 1: term boosts of stress that help us, you know, get
Speaker 1: through a deadline or save our lives or like the
Speaker 1: good stress. I'm talking about this chronic, lasting stress that
Speaker 1: many of us are on because of the pace of life. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you argue that we have simply accepted over extension
Speaker 1: as a way of light. Yeah, that don't sound good.
Speaker 1: Doesn't sound good. Yeah, And in fact, I would even
Speaker 1: say that we want to live in an overdriven way
Speaker 1: because we believe that's the only way to be productive.
Speaker 1: So in a sense, it's like we're always tapping into
Speaker 1: our sympathetic nervous system. We're constantly in fight or flight
Speaker 1: because we believe that's the only way we can function
Speaker 1: and get things done. And that's why we're you know,
Speaker 1: fueling up with caffeine and just overscheduling ourselves waiting till
Speaker 1: the last minute to get things done because we believe
Speaker 1: that's the only way we can be productive. What we're
Speaker 1: really doing is wearing ourselves out terrifically, really exhausting our
Speaker 1: nervous system and even creating imbalance in our bodies. So
Speaker 1: many people come home at night they're so wound up
Speaker 1: that they can't sleep, and they need alcohol to wind down,
Speaker 1: and then they need sleeping pills to go to sleep.
Speaker 1: So you know, we've sometimes forgotten how to calm down.
Speaker 1: And yet we weren't like that as kids, and we
Speaker 1: also we don't see that in the animal world, but
Speaker 1: fueling ourselves both with our habits and also with the
Speaker 1: substances that we're taking in to be in a state
Speaker 1: of constant, extremely high adrenaline mode, which is further exhausting
Speaker 1: us when what we actually want is more energy. So
Speaker 1: I do make that point in the book that we
Speaker 1: are really kind of wearing and tearing on our body
Speaker 1: and that there's a better way to do this. I'll
Speaker 1: mestering ima. I want to think this through. So at
Speaker 1: the highest levels of achievement in some fields, don't you
Speaker 1: certainly have to make some sacrifices in well being? I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of what you're saying is really awesome.
Speaker 1: But like if I have Elon Musk here right now,
Speaker 1: you know, and I know he says, I will find
Speaker 1: my workers if they won't work like more than sixty
Speaker 1: hours a week and won't do this. This is this,
Speaker 1: Like wouldn't he make the case that like, look, you know,
Speaker 1: like I wouldn't create it a rocket if I just
Speaker 1: daydreamed all day. Yeah, absolutely well. And you know, I
Speaker 1: don't know Ellen Musk, and he seems like an extraordinary
Speaker 1: individual and there are extraordinary individuals who don't need much
Speaker 1: sleep and so forth in talk, but I've also read
Speaker 1: interviews of him where he says that he spends time
Speaker 1: with his five kids and answers email at the same time,
Speaker 1: and that he feels like he can do both things
Speaker 1: at once. Now I don't know whether I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly the situation in his personal life, nor do I
Speaker 1: know if he's happy. But one thing that I would
Speaker 1: say that in general, you are able to access your
Speaker 1: best self and to be you know, as genius as
Speaker 1: you are, maybe like Ellen Musk or not, but you
Speaker 1: don't have to do so at a cost yourself. And
Speaker 1: in fact, if you don't do so to cost yourself,
Speaker 1: you'll probably do better. And if you foster resilience within
Speaker 1: yourself instead of always you know, pumping yourself up with
Speaker 1: adrenaline so that you're just exhausting yourself. If you cultivate
Speaker 1: more calmness in your life so that you're managing your
Speaker 1: energy better, and if you take time to detach from work,
Speaker 1: you're probably going to do better. And that's all based
Speaker 1: on the data that I've been researching, especially detachment from work. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's funny because people have in the field have different
Speaker 1: theories about that, about what the determinists of success are. So,
Speaker 1: you know, if we had like Angela Duckworth here right now,
Speaker 1: she would say it's great. She wouldn't say it's happiness.
Speaker 1: She'd say it's always, you know, persevering, persevering person. You know,
Speaker 1: how do we tease apart all of these determinants of success. Well,
Speaker 1: I also think it has to come from a you know,
Speaker 1: for a reader, for example, it has to come from
Speaker 1: their own experience. I think that most of us, and
Speaker 1: most people that I've seen in academia, whether it was
Speaker 1: at Yale or Stanford or in Silicon Valley, is that
Speaker 1: grit is definitely something that people have. And people are
Speaker 1: also extremely stressed, and they're also extremely exhausted. They also
Speaker 1: don't have a life, and they also burn out. And
Speaker 1: we're seeing across professions, whether we're talking about nonprofits, we're
Speaker 1: talking about academia, we're talking about the medical world. Over
Speaker 1: fifty percent of people have burnout. And this is kind
Speaker 1: of crazy. It's a time and age when burnout has
Speaker 1: become something normal. We've come to accept that all of
Speaker 1: this is normal, and yet it's not normal, and there
Speaker 1: is a better way. We can't change the demands put
Speaker 1: on us, and we can't change our own personal ambitions.
Speaker 1: We should go for our goals, no reason not to. However,
Speaker 1: we can't change how we go about doing so so
Speaker 1: that we don't burn out and so that we can
Speaker 1: be successful in the long term rather than crashing and
Speaker 1: maybe sacrificing not just our happy small thing but also
Speaker 1: our health appreach it sister, Yeah, no, for sure. And
Speaker 1: there you know your research in reading your book, maybe
Speaker 1: think of the literature and harmonious versus obsessive passion that
Speaker 1: Robert Dolren has conducted. And you know, I look at
Speaker 1: his structural pathways and everything between harmonious obsessive and the
Speaker 1: harmonious path. And he's looked at performance, high performance and
Speaker 1: sports in psychology, among psychology majors, amongst musicians, and he
Speaker 1: finds that it is a much more direct path to
Speaker 1: success when you're harmoniously passionate and it's connected to vitality
Speaker 1: and well being and gratitude, lots of things you talk about,
Speaker 1: whereas the obsessively passionate path is related to greater burnout,
Speaker 1: greater stress, and it's a much more circuitous route to performance.
Speaker 1: It could still lead to performance. It's still a path
Speaker 1: to performance. Unhappiness is still a path that it could
Speaker 1: be a path of performance, but it's more circuitous and
Speaker 1: it's not driven with as much vitality in life. So
Speaker 1: I see great linkages there between that literature and the
Speaker 1: stuff you're talking about. Yeah. Absolutely, And besides the like
Speaker 1: you're saying, it leads to burnout the obsessive one, and
Speaker 1: once you burnout, you really aren't able to too much.
Speaker 1: So it's not a path to success that really we
Speaker 1: should recommend to people. I would probably also think there's
Speaker 1: a tie here with intrinsic motivation and extrinsic Yeah, where
Speaker 1: harmonious productivity versus obsessive harmonious is probably much more driven
Speaker 1: by intrinsic motivation. And I think that a lot of
Speaker 1: things I'm talking about in my book are meant to
Speaker 1: foster that intrinsic motivation within. You know, when you feel
Speaker 1: better because you have detached from work, you're more intrinsically
Speaker 1: engaged with what you're doing it. You know, when you've
Speaker 1: taken time to have fun, you're going to you're just
Speaker 1: going to have a much more intrinsically motivated approach to
Speaker 1: the things that you're doing in your life. Wonderful. And
Speaker 1: you talk about six keys to happiness and success, and
Speaker 1: I mean, that's most of your book is the six
Speaker 1: keys that I don't want to give it all away.
Speaker 1: I like people to read your book, which is a
Speaker 1: really terrific book. But let's go through the six Let's
Speaker 1: just like touch on them and I'll read each one out,
Speaker 1: and you know, let's just have a little bit short
Speaker 1: of conversation on it. One is to live or work
Speaker 1: in the moment. Yeah, can you tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit more like expanded that a little bit. Sure it
Speaker 1: can sound simplistic, but it's actually really something to think
Speaker 1: about because we're so driven to achieve, we're constantly trying
Speaker 1: to just check off that next thing on our to
Speaker 1: do list, constantly thinking about, Okay, what's next, what's my
Speaker 1: next thing, what's my next thing, And so we're so
Speaker 1: focused on the future. And research shows that you know,
Speaker 1: when you're constantly your mind is constantly in the future,
Speaker 1: you're actually far less happy, for one than if your
Speaker 1: mind is in the present. But if you think about
Speaker 1: it too, a mine is constantly in the future as
Speaker 1: a mind that's anxious, So if you're stressed or anxious,
Speaker 1: it's because of something in the future. But what also
Speaker 1: happens is that when your mind is constantly in the
Speaker 1: future is that you actually are less present to be
Speaker 1: more productive and focused in that present moment because your
Speaker 1: mind is so used to jumping around and you're less
Speaker 1: able to achieve what you're doing in a more effective
Speaker 1: and efficient way. The other thing, too, is relationships. So
Speaker 1: relationships are key no matter what feels you're in, whether
Speaker 1: it's clients or employees or colleagues, et cetera. And what
Speaker 1: we see is that if you're able to be more present,
Speaker 1: you're also able to be much more charismatic. So if
Speaker 1: you think of like the quintessential charisma example, people will say, Oh,
Speaker 1: I met President so and so, and I felt like
Speaker 1: I was the only person in the room when I
Speaker 1: was talking to that A lot women say that a lot, right,
Speaker 1: And so what is it? Why is it that they
Speaker 1: felt like the only person in the room because he
Speaker 1: was one hundred percent present with them at that moment.
Speaker 1: And what happens is that makes you charismatic. It makes
Speaker 1: you magnetic, and it makes you actually have deep relationships
Speaker 1: with people who start to trust to be loyal to you.
Speaker 1: You're able to empathize with them because you're present. You
Speaker 1: actually can listen to someone, you can hear the nuances
Speaker 1: in their tone, you look at them, you can actually
Speaker 1: empathically much more clearly understand where they're coming from. You're
Speaker 1: much less likely to miss out on something. So it
Speaker 1: makes you a much more powerful presence as well, not
Speaker 1: just professionally in terms of when you're working on a
Speaker 1: particular project, but also in terms of your interactions with people,
Speaker 1: which we know are so key to success as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love how you brought in the chrisma thing. I
Speaker 1: was going to compliment you on that Actually a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't make that linkage too much, and I
Speaker 1: wouldn't even say so much Christmas. It kind of sometimes
Speaker 1: has also connotations like a superficial thing, right, But really,
Speaker 1: what you're talking there about social connection, And yeah, I
Speaker 1: loved how you brought that in there. So another thing
Speaker 1: you talk about is resiliency as important. How can someone
Speaker 1: train their nervous system to bounce back from setbacks? What's
Speaker 1: like one thing someone could do to flex that muscle.
Speaker 1: So at this point relates back to what I was
Speaker 1: talking about earlier about how we are so overdriven and
Speaker 1: we're so used to tapping into our sympathetic nervous system
Speaker 1: and we're pumped up adrenaline both through our habits but
Speaker 1: also through our consumption of caffeine and other forms of
Speaker 1: stimulants that we've forgotten to tap into and really become
Speaker 1: familiar with and learn how to tap into our parasympathetic
Speaker 1: nervous system, our very natural ability to calm down so
Speaker 1: that we can restore ourselves, so that we can regain balance,
Speaker 1: so our body can rebuild this resources to our mind
Speaker 1: also can do the same. And that's what I talk
Speaker 1: about in terms of resilience we were overdoing one, we're
Speaker 1: forgetting how do the other, which is again why people
Speaker 1: are using so much anxiety different and anti anxiety medication
Speaker 1: at the moment, having taking sleep medications, and also finding
Speaker 1: that they need alcohol at night to unwind. So you
Speaker 1: know what I'm agreeing is it's very natural for us
Speaker 1: to be able to tap into that system. We just
Speaker 1: have to remind ourselves of how to do so. And
Speaker 1: one very simple way and very effective way is through breathing.
Speaker 1: The breath is one of the only systems in our
Speaker 1: body that we can both control voluntarily but that's also
Speaker 1: automatic yep. And emotions are actually tied to our breath
Speaker 1: in a very powerful way. So different emotions are tied
Speaker 1: to different rhythms of breath and different types of breathing.
Speaker 1: So for example, if you're feeling angry, you'll probably be
Speaker 1: breathing faster and in a more shallow way, versus when
Speaker 1: you're feeling relaxed, for example. So in this one particular study,
Speaker 1: participants were told to come into the lab and we're
Speaker 1: given the instruction to recall different emotions, and as they
Speaker 1: did so, the psychologists measured how they were breathing in
Speaker 1: various different ways found that low and behold, yes, every
Speaker 1: single emotion that they tapped into, which was sin, the
Speaker 1: five basic emotions, anger, sadness, happiness, anxiety, and one more
Speaker 1: that I'm not recalling right now, And they found that
Speaker 1: when they had them breathe in this way, that there
Speaker 1: was a very distinct pattern for each emotion. The more
Speaker 1: interesting part of the study was the second part. Different
Speaker 1: people came in and different participants and they were only
Speaker 1: given the breathing instructions and then they were asked, how
Speaker 1: do you feel. What the scientists found was that the
Speaker 1: participants started to generate the emotions through the breathing patterns
Speaker 1: they were given. So I think this is a revolutionary study, honestly,
Speaker 1: because a lot of research on emotion regulation right now
Speaker 1: just talks about talking yourself out of a situation, reframing
Speaker 1: the situation. But all you need to do is be
Speaker 1: really pissed off or really stressed out. And you know
Speaker 1: that that doesn't really work when you're in a very
Speaker 1: high intensity emotion, right yeah, oh yeah, right, So it's
Speaker 1: so hard to talk yourself out of something. In fact,
Speaker 1: it can make things worse. So the breath is very
Speaker 1: powerful because what this research shows is that through breathing
Speaker 1: you can change how you feel. One of the important
Speaker 1: things that it can do is help you to calm
Speaker 1: your nervous system down very quickly. And so that's what
Speaker 1: I talk about. And I've also conducted a research study
Speaker 1: with arguably some of the most stressed out people in
Speaker 1: our society, which are veterans who return from Iraq in
Speaker 1: Afghanistan with combat trauma, and we did a breathing intervention
Speaker 1: with them which helped them sleep better almost immediately and
Speaker 1: reduce their anxiety and PTSD scores very right. And when
Speaker 1: we followed up with them a year later, even though
Speaker 1: the intervention just lost one week it was one week
Speaker 1: workshop about a twenty hour twenty four hour workshop, their
Speaker 1: benefits were still held. So the breath is something very
Speaker 1: powerful that people really need to learn to use more.
Speaker 1: Even in the moment. You know, you can be in
Speaker 1: a meeting, in a stressful situation, lengthen your breathing, deep
Speaker 1: in your breathing, breathe into your belly, and lengthen the
Speaker 1: exhale in particular, because the exhale is linked more to
Speaker 1: the soothing mechanisms of parasympathetic people can't see right now
Speaker 1: but I'm practicing it. I can see. Yeah, there's not
Speaker 1: gonna be video. This is audioly, but I'm practice. I'm trying.
Speaker 1: I'm trying. Thanks Emma. Do you teach this? Do you
Speaker 1: do you do courses? Yeah? Well, especially after leading the
Speaker 1: Veterans Study and having so many veterans contact me after
Speaker 1: that and asking if they could learn, I became an
Speaker 1: instructor and I myself practice breathing every day because I
Speaker 1: find that it's made a huge impact on my ability
Speaker 1: to exactly bounce back from stressful episodes and my ability
Speaker 1: to stay commerce throughout the day in general. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this is related to your next thing on managing your energy, right,
Speaker 1: and so I think we covered that a lot. Let's
Speaker 1: go move on to the next one, which is my
Speaker 1: favorite one, and that's doing nothing. I just love doing nothing.
Speaker 1: But no, what you talk about there is it's not
Speaker 1: really nothing. You say that it's good to have what
Speaker 1: you refer to as purposeful mind wandering. What is purposeful
Speaker 1: mind watering and how is it actually beneficial to creativity? Yes? Well,
Speaker 1: I interview you a lot in this chapter, so you
Speaker 1: may be able to answer this question better than I.
Speaker 1: But I again, this goes against the theory that you know,
Speaker 1: this idea that we have to focus constantly on your
Speaker 1: niche keep learning about it, keep stay one pointed, and
Speaker 1: focus all the time so that you can become an
Speaker 1: absolute expert. But you know, what research is showing is
Speaker 1: that if we want to have more creative, innovative breakthroughs,
Speaker 1: we really need to create time in our life for
Speaker 1: our mind to go into a space that's more idle.
Speaker 1: That's it's that space that we go into when we daydream,
Speaker 1: that place right before sleep, when we're really quite really
Speaker 1: in sort of a relaxed I would even say sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a bit of a daze, and it's the proverbial
Speaker 1: idea that comes to you in the shower. It comes
Speaker 1: when you're not thinking about it. And this is something
Speaker 1: we've forgotten to do because because we can focus all day,
Speaker 1: even when you're not at work, you're on your phone.
Speaker 1: You know, in the past, maybe we waited for the
Speaker 1: bus and we're just kind of gazing around, or we
Speaker 1: you know, we're at the doctor's office and we just
Speaker 1: sort of sat there and think about anything in particular.
Speaker 1: But nowadays we can be focused twenty four to seven
Speaker 1: from the moment you wake up, you can start looking
Speaker 1: at your phone until you go to you're checking your
Speaker 1: social media or your email, et cetera. We have completely
Speaker 1: created a situation where we may never have the time
Speaker 1: to be idle to daydream. But what research shows is
Speaker 1: that if you do make purposefully give yourself time to
Speaker 1: be idle, to let your mind wander. For example, that's
Speaker 1: been the big secret of authors like J. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis,
Speaker 1: Charles Dickens. They always took walks every day religiously. Presumably
Speaker 1: one of the reasons for that is just to let
Speaker 1: their minds, you know, be free for a moment and
Speaker 1: generate those creative insights that they're so well known for.
Speaker 1: A couple other things that I do tap into in
Speaker 1: that chapter is that another way to do that is
Speaker 1: to just have more fun and play more and we
Speaker 1: know better, yeah, which I know you also love and
Speaker 1: which as adults many of us don't do anymore, you know,
Speaker 1: And we're the only mammals, by the way, who don't
Speaker 1: play into adulthood. And you know, unless it's a scheduled
Speaker 1: Saturday morning soccer game or some kind of alcohol induced
Speaker 1: party or something we've forgotten to just make time to play.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just encourage people to just play with
Speaker 1: your kids, authentically, play with your dog, do some fun,
Speaker 1: silly stuff. And then well, the third thing is diversifying
Speaker 1: your activities too, just doing things that read outside your field. Learn,
Speaker 1: you know, take up a pottery class, do something completely different.
Speaker 1: That's how you stretch your mind. That's how you stretch
Speaker 1: your imagination. It's how you come up with creative insights.
Speaker 1: One example that I get in the book that I
Speaker 1: only learned about when I was writing I thought was
Speaker 1: so interesting, was this one company that asks people to
Speaker 1: come up with novel concepts to solve problems and technology.
Speaker 1: And what they found is that those people more likely
Speaker 1: to solve the problems are people who are not in
Speaker 1: the field. So if let's say it's a biochemistry problem,
Speaker 1: it's more likely someone who's outside of the field of
Speaker 1: biochemistry who is able to solve that problem the outsider's mindset. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. You also talk about
Speaker 1: the importers of being good to yourself, and that actually
Speaker 1: can improve your ability to be capassion to others. You know,
Speaker 1: there's this myth that you know you to be good
Speaker 1: to others. You know, you like it's that it's selfish
Speaker 1: if you're just being good to yourself, you know, but actually,
Speaker 1: like increasing your own well being can actually increase chances
Speaker 1: that you can help others too, right one particular, a
Speaker 1: lot of people think self criticism is essential for self improvement,
Speaker 1: but what research is showing is that overwhelmingly if you
Speaker 1: are self critical, you're basically self sabotaging as well, you're
Speaker 1: less likely to be resilient in the face of failure.
Speaker 1: I mean, just think about it, and so you're running
Speaker 1: a marathon and you have a friend next to you
Speaker 1: just constantly criticizing you, and when you fall, they tell
Speaker 1: you're a failure. I mean, what are the chances you're
Speaker 1: going to have the enthusiasm and the momentum to keep going. Right,
Speaker 1: and research in self compassion, which sounds really soft, but
Speaker 1: again the data on it is really hard. Is that
Speaker 1: if you treat yourself as you would a friend, with
Speaker 1: more kindness and concern and more understanding, then you're actually
Speaker 1: going to be much more resilient when you make a
Speaker 1: mistake or when you fail. You're going to have much
Speaker 1: greater psychological well being in health, and you're going to
Speaker 1: ultimately be able to be more productive and be able
Speaker 1: to achieve your goals much more easily than through self criticism.
Speaker 1: I'm in I'd love to not have as much self criticism,
Speaker 1: that's for sure. And of course Christineth, who is going
Speaker 1: to be on the podcast and at a later at
Speaker 1: some point, done tremendous work on that topic work. Yeah, absolutely, so,
Speaker 1: I just want to wrap it up here. It's a
Speaker 1: terrific book. You say. These strategies are not complex. These
Speaker 1: are things that people can like read your book and
Speaker 1: really adopt in a fast way that can make huge strides. Now,
Speaker 1: when you say fast track, you're not trying to say
Speaker 1: like there's like it shortcuts to success, you know, right,
Speaker 1: That's not what you're saying. You're saying that it will
Speaker 1: greatly facilitate success and fulfillment in a way that if
Speaker 1: you just shoot for the fulfillment or just shoot for
Speaker 1: the success, it could actually lower your well being right
Speaker 1: as well. Well yeah, well, in particular, I mean, like
Speaker 1: we talked about the beginning, there's two ways of achieving success,
Speaker 1: one but burning yourself out, and one that can be
Speaker 1: of long term, sustainable and fulfilled at the same time
Speaker 1: and bring out the best in you so really I
Speaker 1: would say this, this is the way to go. I
Speaker 1: love that. I just want to ender that note because
Speaker 1: I just I think that's the point here. We want
Speaker 1: to bring out the best in people, and we are
Speaker 1: at our best when we're happy. Right. Oh. Thanks Evan.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy to be your friend. It's wonderful to
Speaker 1: be your friend, Scottie, And thanks for everything that you
Speaker 1: do and all your support and encouragement. Thanks for listening
Speaker 1: to The Psychology Podcast with Doctor Scott Barry Kaufman. I
Speaker 1: hope you found this episode just as an informative and
Speaker 1: thought provoking as I did. If you don't like to
Speaker 1: read the show notes for this episode or here past episodes,
Speaker 1: you can go to the Psychology Podcast dot com