Happiness Blog

The World Happiness Report 2022 – happiness is about benevolence and trust

31/03/2022 by Marie

About the World Happiness Report 2022

On 19 July 2011, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted Resolution 65/309, “Happiness: Towards a holistic approach to development.” This resolution called on national governments to “give more importance to happiness and wellbeing in determining how to achieve and measure social and economic development.”

The following year, the first World Happiness Report was released. This year marks the 10^th anniversary of the report, which is released every year around March 20th to align with International Day of Happiness celebrations.

“A decade ago, governments around the world expressed the desire to put happiness at the heart of the global development agenda, and they adopted a UN General Assembly resolution for that purpose. The World Happiness Report grew out of that worldwide determination to find the path to greater global well-being. Now, at a time of pandemic and war, we need such an effort more than ever. And the lesson of the World Happiness Report over the years is that social support, generosity to one another, and honesty in government are crucial for well-being. World leaders should take heed. Politics should be directed as the great sages long ago insisted: to the well-being of the people, not the power of the rulers,” said report co-author Jeffrey Sachs about the origin and purpose of the report.

The report uses global survey data to report how people evaluate their own lives in more than 150 countries worldwide. The report authors then assess the extent to which six key variables contribute to explaining life evaluations: GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption.

The World Happiness Report 2022 – benevolence and trust

The World Happiness Report 2022 reveals a bright light in dark times. The pandemic brought not only pain and suffering but also an increase in social support and benevolence. As we battle the ills of disease and war, it is essential to remember the universal desire for happiness and the capacity of individuals to rally to each other’s support in times of great need.

Past reports have looked at the links between people’s trust in government and institutions with happiness. The findings demonstrate that communities with high levels of trust are happier and more resilient in the face of a wide range of crises.

This year’s report, which comes yet again in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, also focused on benevolence. “COVID-19 is the biggest health crisis we’ve seen in more than a century,” said co-author John Helliwell. “Now that we have two years of evidence, we are able to assess not just the importance of benevolence and trust, but to see how they have contributed to well-being during the pandemic.”

A central finding in this year’s report continues to be the extent to which the quality of the social context, especially the extent to which people trust their governments and have trust in the benevolence of others, leads to higher happiness levels. This supported and maintained people’s happiness before and during the pandemic, and the report authors believe this will continue to support people’s happiness after the pandemic.

Countries where people trusted their governments and each other experienced lower COVID-19 death tolls and set the stage for maintaining or rebuilding a sense of common purpose to deliver happier, healthier and more sustainable lives. This forward-looking part permits an optimistic tinge based on the remarkable growth in prosocial activities during 2021.

“We found during 2021 remarkable worldwide growth in all three acts of kindness monitored in the Gallup World Poll. Helping strangers, volunteering, and donations in 2021 were strongly up in every part of the world, reaching levels almost 25% above their pre-pandemic prevalence. This surge of benevolence, which was especially great for the helping of strangers, provides powerful evidence that people respond to help others in need, creating in the process more happiness for the beneficiaries, good examples for others to follow, and better lives for themselves,” said Helliwell.

The happiest countries in the world

For the fifth year in a row, Finland took the number one spot as the happiest country in the world – significantly expanding its lead ahead of other countries in the top ten. Denmark was second and Iceland moved to third from fourth while Switzerland dropped to fourth. The list is rounded out by the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Norway, Israel and New Zealand.

Finland (7.821)

Denmark (7.636)

Iceland (7.557)

Switzerland (7.512)

Netherlands (7.415)

Luxembourg (7.404)

Sweden (7.384)

Norway (7.365)

Israel (7.364)

New Zealand (7.200)

The next five are Austria, Australia, Ireland, Germany and Canada. This marks a substantial fall for Canada, which was 5th ten years ago. Overall, the three countries with the biggest gains were Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania. The biggest losses were in Lebanon, Venezuela, and Afghanistan.

Co-author Jan-Emmanuel De Neve said, “At the very bottom of the ranking we find societies that suffer from conflict and extreme poverty, notably we find that people in Afghanistan evaluate the quality of their own lives as merely 2.4 out of 10. This presents a stark reminder of the material and immaterial damage that war does to its many victims and the fundamental importance of peace and stability for human wellbeing.”

Read the full report: World Happiness Report 2022

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Three essential return to work resilience building activities

24/03/2022 by Marie

Want to keep your employees through the Great Attrition? Help them build resilience.

In a recent McKinsey article about the turmoil of returning to work post-Covid, army veteran Adria Horn makes a case for why the Great Attrition is happening – blaming it on the return to work, which she says is psychologically similar and just as unnerving as returning from war.

“Coming back from deployment is hard. You’re expecting it to be great. You’re home again, this should be great! But the biggest feeling is that things are different. The kids are different. Your favourite restaurant closed, your pet died, and your softball team broke up. The couch your partner bought while you were away is great—but it’s not the couch you knew. Home isn’t normal, it isn’t as it was. Things don’t meet your expectations, and you seem to have lost control, so your return experience doesn’t feel good at all,” says Horn, who served five tours of duty overseas.

For many people in the U.S. and the U.K. who have been asked to return to the office, this is how they’re also feeling, and according to Horn, this is the reason millions of people are leaving their jobs in droves. The big issue, however, is that many of them don’t know why they’re leaving and more than that, many employers don’t know either. As we all know, we can’t manage what we don’t understand.

“People’s hopes and expectations are going unmet in ways that many don’t realize and can’t articulate. Being off balance that way puts people on edge; it throws them off-kilter,” said Horn.

Addressing inequity

Before we go into what employers can do to avoid losing all their best talent (if it’s not too late already), it’s worth mentioning that any return-to-work plan needs to be flexible and cater to unique employee needs – yes, we’re talking equity.

Everyone’s experience of working from home was different. While some people enjoyed the quiet and convenience of working from a home office and not having to commute, others struggled with the distractions of overcrowded homes and uncomfortable multi-purpose workspaces (and everything in between).

Covid shone a light on systemic inequity throughout society, both pre-Covid and during Covid. Women in particular have suffered burnout at increasing rates as they have tried to juggle family and work commitments. Not only that, but research shows that at work, “women senior leaders do more to help their employees navigate work–life challenges, relative to their male peers. Similarly, they spend that additional time helping manage workloads, and they’re 60 percent more likely to be focusing on emotional support.”

But it’s not only women who experience inequity in their careers and work life, there’s also people of colour, people with disabilities, people who identify as LGBTQ+, and many more. These groups have historically faced discrimination and lower levels of representation in senior management. All of these groups also experienced similar, yet unique, challenges during Covid.

If employers want to both retain and attract the best talent, they need to start by understanding that individuals have different needs. Some people are clamouring to come back into the office five days a week, while others will quit if they’re forced to return for even one day a week. Thankfully, we know from hundreds of employee surveys around the world that most employees sit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, so it is possible to find an operating rhythm and standard, even while catering to individual needs.

Covid has shepherded in a new age of work reform – one where employees have the power and expect more from their employers. Return to work policies and conversation must be employee centred, and companies that care only for profit or that don’t ‘walk the talk’ of their stated values will quickly lose the war for talent, if they haven’t already.

Simply, this means asking individual employees “what would you prefer?” or “what do you need to perform at your best?” Without this approach, and as we have seen in the U.S. and U.K, employees will leave to find other companies which are willing to meet their needs. Period.

Flexible return to work policies are the first step. The second steps is ensuring employees’ return to work meets their expectations. This takes effort and understanding from managers.

Read on to uncover three essential return-to-work resilience building activities to help your team reconnect and build resilience.

Three essential return-to-work resilience building activities

Building resilience to avoid the Great Attrition

If there is one lesson the rest of the world can learn from the U.S. and U.K., it’s that we can’t wait to see what will happen when everyone returns to the office. To retain employees, we need to be proactive about building our office culture and manageing people’s expetations.

As Horn pointed out, the problem is that people see ‘coming’back’ to work as a known thing. They feel it will be a return to normal, a known quantity, comfortable, safe. Yet employees will not be coming back to the same team, the same office and the same work as when they left. Everything has changed, and this disconnect will leave people feeling unease and off kilter, without knowing why.

The reality is that employees will actually experience significant change, and we know that some will even be grieving what they’ve lost during her return to work (see the Kubler-Ross change curve). Good leaders will retain employees by putting in place interventions to negate the negative impacts of this change and help build employees’ resilience and wellbeing through this time.

Here’s how…

Reconnect employees with meaning and purpose

Reconnect your team members with their jobs by helping them connect with the meaning and purpose they get from their work. Help employees gain a renewed sense of passion for their work and the company. A simple way to do this is to focus on aligning character strengths with role tasks. Employees who know and apply their top character strengths in their work have better job satisfaction and wellbeing (Peterson & Seligman, 2004).

Research also shows that using character strengths can help:

Improve relationships
Enhance health and overall wellbeing
Buffer against, manage and overcome problems

Additionally, research shows that employees who use four or more of their signature strengths have more positive work experiences and report their work is a calling in their life.

ACTIVITY:

STEP 1: Before the team comes back into the office, ask them to complete the free VIA Character Strengths survey.
STEP 2: Once back in the office, book a ‘real-life’ meeting with the team and ask each team member to share their top character strengths and how they apply these in their job.
STEP 3: Follow up with one-on-one meetings with your team members and if needed, explore opportunities for growth or stretch work that uses their top strengths.

Reconnect with the team

The biggest employee benefit of a real office environment is being able to interact with people face-to-face. Yet as Adria Horn mentioned, for a while this will feel strange. The first step to building up that team environment and comradery is to acknowledge the weirdness. Let’s call a spade a spade. Some people will wear masks, some won’t. Some will still dial in to meetings from their desks, while others will find conference rooms to share. Some will want to hug colleagues, while others will bump elbows… it’s all going to be different, and that’s OK.

Next, teams need to reconnect. Set aside dedicated time to get to know each other better and deeper over the first few months. Plan a variety of team activities for the whole team (don’t forget to make sure the activities are accessible to all – afterwork drinks might not work for parents, be mindful of food allergies when booking lunch, ensure any physical activities take into account everyone’s physical limitations, etc…). Make sure there is time for meaningful interaction.

ACTIVITIES:

Try learning something new as a team. You could watch and discuss a Ted Talk or take a LinkedIn Learning course and share notes.
Check out these 5 Easy Resilience Activities for the Workplace or Google some team building activities.
At the beginning of your team meetings, do a ‘round the grounds’ and ask your team to share their thoughts on various topics. You can pick anything, but here are some suggestions: What are you most proud of in the past year? What are you most looking forward to this year? In one word, how are you feeling today? Where is your favourite place to travel and why? What excites you the most about your work goals in the next year? What’s the one thing people don’t know about you?

Role model healthy mind and body habits

Change can be stressful, but people who prioritise healthy mind and body habits tend to cope better with change and stress than those who don’t. During times of change it’s especially important to support employees to find work-life balance. Yet ironically, when things get busy and life feels stressful, the first thing many people do is stop exercising, stop cooking healthy meals, stop sleeping enough hours each night… yet that is when these healthy habits are most important.

Thankfully, all that’s needed here is some proactive and visible role modelling from leaders. To build an office culture where work-life balance is valued, role-modelling work-life balance and healthy mind and body habits is critical, particularly in front of younger workers who often take the lead from their bosses. If you’re leaving work early on a Friday to see your kids’ school play, let your team know. If you start early on a Thursday so you can leave early for soccer league or go to the gym, tell the team. If you are feeling burnout lapping at your heels, tell your team, and then find a way to take a mental health day – this is being vulnerable and it’s good leadership. Most importantly, don’t just head out the door on these days, make sure you say something, otherwise it may go unnoticed.

Want to learn more about the science of happiness? Make sure to subscribe to my podcast Happiness for Cynics and weekly email newsletter for regular updates and news!

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‘Do what you love’ could be contributing to the great resignation

17/03/2022 by Marie

“Do what you love,” is no longer just advice.

High school students learn early on that their future careers should be passion-driven. Self-help books counsel job searchers to start with reflection on what they love. And Hollywood films teach people, in romantic fashion, to aspire to work that is intrinsically satisfying and expresses our authentic selves.

Researchers call this way of thinking about work the passion paradigm, and studies show it has become pervasive in modern societies. The passion paradigm emerged in the 1960s. During this time, there was widespread questioning of social and cultural norms — especially among youth — which helped develop a new way of thinking about the role of work in human life.

This trend was spearheaded by the scholarship of humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow, who applied his theory of the “hierarchy of needs” to the modern workplace. In Eupsychian Management, Maslow argues that work should be thought of as a key source of personal growth and self-actualization.

Maslow envisioned a world where individuals derive deep satisfaction from their working lives, and who treat their work as a sacred activity. Since early 2021, I have conducted interviews with over 90 professionals and managers in Toronto, to learn how they think about work. Although there are exceptions, what the data shows, in general, is that Maslow’s theory has increasingly become common.

The downsides of the passion paradigm

Because the rising popularity of the passion paradigm has coincided with both increasing economic inequality and a steep decline in the power of unions, it has attracted a host of criticism.

Sociologist Lindsay DePalma contends that the passion paradigm encourages workers to romanticize their work while blinding them to the unequal distributions of power that characterize their working lives. In her book Work Won’t Love You Back, journalist Sarah Jaffe argues that loving your job is a bad idea because it is a recipe for (self)exploitation.

Derek Thompson, a staff writer at The Atlantic, maintains that the passion paradigm has fuelled a new religion — “workism” — which is responsible for causing burnout and depression even among high-wage earners. These commentators rightly fear that the passion paradigm can (and does) lead workers to accept harmful working conditions, poor treatment from their employers and unrealistic expectations from themselves — basically to put up with what they shouldn’t.

When people aspire to love their work, they may prioritize work at the expense of other important aspects of life — family, friends and hobbies. An overvaluation of work can lead people to see those who cannot work as lazy, stupid or undeserving of concern.

And yet, despite these evident pitfalls, the passion paradigm can also have the opposite effects. In fact, I would argue that it is one cause of what has been dubbed the “Great Resignation.”

The Great Resignation

In August 2021, 4.3 million American workers quit their jobs, the highest ever recorded. And similar waves have hit the U.K.. In Canada it’s not clear whether the Great Resignation is taking place with equal intensity, but some studies show that Canadian workers are increasingly considering leaving or switching their jobs. There are many factors causing the Great Resignation. Among the most notable are wage subsidies which have given workers more freedom to choose the kind of work they want to do, the added work stress caused by the pandemic, the need to stay home with young children and the shift to remote work.

However, I think another reason has to do with the expectations workers have around work — expectations which derive from the passion paradigm.

The passion paradigm and the Great Resignation

By disrupting people’s routines, the pandemic has reawakened in many the deep-seated desire for a job they actually enjoy — a desire that has long been suppressed. My interviews make it clear that many Canadian workers are looking at their jobs and asking themselves, “Is this really what I’m passionate about?” “Do I want to spend the majority of my waking hours doing this?” “Does my job bring me meaning?”

And this isn’t just managers. The highest number of resignations in Canada have taken place within the accommodation and food service industries. And as a recent article in The Atlantic put it, “this level of quitting is really an expression of optimism that says, ‘We can do better.’”

In a sense, the passion paradigm is paradoxically fuelling the demand for better, more satisfying, and more meaningful work. It is because workers expect more that they are no longer willing to put up with the status quo. The passion paradigm requires a strong safety net Of course, none of this could have happened without the government supports that reweighed the balance of power between workers and bosses.

Since the 1980s, workers have had less and less power to negotiate. So, while the passion paradigm may have grown in popularity, it grew in economic conditions that were largely determined by employers, not employees.

But in the wake of the pandemic this has slowly begun to change. Faced with labour shortages, employers are forced to take workers’ seriously when it comes to demands around pay, flexibility, autonomy and scheduling. They are receiving the message that “business as usual” is no longer acceptable — and, in some cases, they’re caving.

The crucial takeaway is that the passion paradigm can fuel demands for better, more meaningful work, but this is only possible when it’s accompanied by a strong social safety net.

Workers don’t need to stop loving their jobs. But they should ask whether their jobs are themselves loveable. And this is easier to do when you have real economic freedom.

Want to learn more about the science of happiness? Make sure to subscribe to my podcast Happiness for Cynics and weekly email newsletter for regular updates and news!

The passion paradigm and the great resignation (E106)

15/03/2022 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Join Marie and Pete as the discuss the passion paradigm, and how it could be contributing to the great resignation we are currently experiencing.

Show notes

Transcript

Coming soon

Prioritising happiness, interview with Tal Ben-Shahar

10/03/2022 by Marie

Interview with Tal Ben-Shahar, best selling author and founder of The Happiness Studies Academy and Potentialife

Tal Ben-Shahar is an author and lecturer. He taught two of the largest classes in Harvard University’s history, “Positive Psychology” and “The Psychology of Leadership.” His books have been translated into more than thirty languages, and have appeared on best-seller lists around the world. His latest books are “Happiness Studies” and “Happier, No Matter What.”

Tal consults and lectures to executives in multi-national corporations, the general public, and at-risk populations. The topics he lectures on include leadership, education, ethics, politics, happiness, self-esteem, resilience, goal setting, and mindfulness. He is the co-founder and chief learning officer of The Happiness Studies Academy and Potentialife.

An avid sportsman, Tal won the U.S. Intercollegiate and Israeli National squash championships. He obtained his PhD in Organizational Behavior and BA in Philosophy and Psychology from Harvard.

The wholebeing approach — Tal Ben-Shahar

Q: All the way back in 2007 when you published Happier, which went on to become a New York Times bestseller, in the preface you wrote, “People are sensing and have been sensing for a while that we’re in the midst of some sort of revolution, and they’re not sure why.” So that was almost 15 years ago. And unfortunately for many people, the study of positive psychology hasn’t revolutionised their lives, in fact it seems to have remained the world’s best kept secret. So, I’m wondering, why do you think the science of happiness and wellbeing hasn’t had a bigger impact on humanity yet?

A: Thank you Marie for the question because it is an important one. You know, when you look at change, the way it happens is usually that it’s slow, slow, slow and then very fast. In other words, at some point there is… it tips, as, as Malcolm Gladwell puts it, it hasn’t tipped yet for the science of happiness.

However, I think we’ve gone through at least a few of the slow, slow, slow, which gets us closer to the very fast. And unfortunately, it seems like things need to get worse before they get better. What the pandemic has done is it has made things worse in terms of mental health, whether it’s stress and anxiety, whether it’s depression and what we’re beginning to see. And I can certainly feel there is much more interest, whether it’s from politicians or teachers, parents, businesses, much more interest in the field. So, I suspect that we’re getting a lot closer to that tipping point.

Q: I hope so. As you can probably tell from the title of this podcast. I was a cynic for so many years. I saw the T-shirt slogans and I didn’t understand the science behind it, and it’s been revolutionary in my life, and I just I want to scream from the rooftops to everyone else. “This stuff matters and it makes a difference!” So, what do you think, as we’re reaching this tipping point, will need to happen in the next few years for us to pick up the speed of adoption?

A: Yes. So, the key is really to connect this field to tie it to science. You know, the self-help or New Age movement has been around for a long time. People are talking about, preaching about, the good life. That’s been going on for millennia.

The difference now is that we have a science of happiness. You know, it’s imperfect as every scientific endeavour is. But the nice thing, or the important thing rather, about science is that you get closer and closer to getting the results, the sought-after results, which, when it comes to positive psychology, it’s higher levels of wellbeing.

So, as long as we stay committed to the scientific pursuit of happiness, then the progress initially maybe a little bit slower than it could have been if we had reverted to the self-help, new age, relying on charisma and promises. So, we are going a little bit slower, but I think it’s a much healthier route to pursue.

Q: So, what do you think needs to change apart from awareness of the science. Are we talking changes at schools in organisations, you know, the systemic ways that we organise our countries and our governments that needs to change next? What’s the future of this movement look like?

A: As far as I’m concerned, the most important thing is education and for that to change, universities need to recognise the importance of the science of happiness. Schools need to recognise it, and governments need to recognise it, and politicians, because most of the schools are public schools and the curriculum is determined often by politicians or their aides. So, it’s all about education. You know, Janusz Korczak, the famed Polish educator, said almost 100 years ago, “If you want to reform the world, you must first change education.”

And it certainly applies to the science of happiness. Now how do we do that? I’ll share with you a quick anecdote when we created our program for schools and we tried to get schools to buy in and when I say buy in, I just meant they didn’t even have to pay for it, so it was just to give us the time, which was an hour or two to a week.

We had real difficulties doing that, because principals said, “you know, we don’t have time, you know, we need every minute.” We need it to do extra math classes or writing classes or… and so on. And it was really challenging. And then I ended up basically asking friends of mine to introduce it. You know, friends of mine who were school principals. And there were three of them and they introduced it in their schools. They knew the content, but more as a favour to me than anything else.

And we did research on these on these three schools and over 1000 students. And the results we found were remarkable. So, we saw levels of resilience went up. Happiness, of course, went up. Anxiety and depression went down and interestingly, not surprisingly, I must add for us, but interestingly, grades went up.

Now as soon as we showed that grades went up and we published this in a couple of the top educational journals, as soon as people read that we had a long, we have still, a long line of schools vying for the program. So, you know, it wasn’t about anxiety, depression, happiness, resilience. It was mostly about grades. And frankly, I don’t care. If this is why schools come, then that’s fine. If organisations introduce a program in happiness because it increases profits, that’s great. Whatever it takes. Just introduce this program.

Q: I have to admit, I recently finished the Happiness practitioner certificate at the Happiness Studies Academy. I particularly love how you teach modern Western hard science and fact, alongside philosophy, religion, history, Eastern thinking. In your course, everything is really anchored around what you call the SPIRE model. Could you tell our listeners a little bit more about SPIRE? In particular, starting with what the acronym stands for, and maybe some examples of how to put it in practise?

A: Yes. So, SPIRE, the acronym stands for the five elements of happiness.

The first, S is the spiritual wellbeing.
P is physical wellbeing.
I stands for intellectual wellbeing.
The R is relational wellbeing.
And finally, the E is emotional wellbeing.

So, spiritual, physical, intellectual, relational and emotional. All of them are important for happiness but we don’t need to focus on all of them all of the time. In fact, it would be near impossible to do so. But at different times either throughout the day or throughout the week, we need to spend some time at least cultivating all five.

So, Spiritual wellbeing. Of course, it can come from religion, and it does for many people. But spiritual wellbeing is about a sense of meaning and purpose, first and foremost. And you can find that in a church, synagogue, or a mosque. Or you can find it in important work that you do or spending time with your loved ones or saving the world or enhancing the wellbeing of one person. You know, this is about finding meaning and purpose, which is important for spiritual wellbeing, which is important for happiness.

Another aspect of spiritual wellbeing is presence, being in the here and now. You know, if I pay attention to a tree that I walk by or to a person sitting across from me or to the fact that we’re alive and can, can hear or see or walk. These are all miracles if you think about it. You know, Albert Einstein once reportedly said, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” And being present certainly brings out the miraculous in our in our life. So that spiritual wellbeing is about purpose and presence.

Physical wellbeing is about nutrition and about exercise and sleep, and recovery in general. For example, regular physical exercise has the same effect on our psychological wellbeing as our most powerful psychiatric medication. Working in the same way, releasing norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, the feel-good chemicals in the brain. So, physical wellbeing is a very important part of overall happiness.

Intellectual wellbeing is about curiosity, about learning. You know that people who learn who are constantly asking questions or curious; are not just happier, they’re not just more successful, they also live longer. So, curiosity may kill the cat, but it does the opposite for us humans. Intellectual wellbeing is about deep learning, spending time, whether it’s reading a book, engaging in a text or observing and studying a work of art or walking in nature. Again, being present to it and exercising our rational faculty, our intellectual faculty and really learning about the world around us. So, that’s intellectual wellbeing.

Then there is Relational wellbeing. Number one predictor of happiness, quality time we spend with people we care about and who care about us. And that can be a romantic partner, it can be family, it can be friends, it can be colleagues at work. It actually doesn’t matter, as long as we have close, intimate, supportive relationships. Number one predictor of happiness.

Under relational wellbeing is kindness and generosity. One of the best ways to help ourselves, is to help others. Two sides of the same coin. You know, there’s a lot of talk around, you know, selfishness or selflessness. One is bad, the other is good. Well, I don’t buy either. What we need is not selfishness or selflessness. What we need is self-fullness, because when we help, others were also helping ourselves. When we help ourselves, we’re also indirectly helping others more likely to help others. So that’s relational wellbeing.

And finally, Emotional wellbeing is about embracing painful emotions, accepting them, giving them, giving ourselves the permission to be human. And why, Because of a paradox that if we reject or when we reject painful emotions, they simply intensify and grow stronger. And then it’s about embracing pleasurable emotions like gratitude, like joy, like love, like excitement.

And happiness is about all of these. And as I said earlier, we don’t need to do it all, all the time. But we do need to pay attention to all of them at different times.

A: Yeah, the key with happiness and that I always, even, you know today in online webinars with students, I emphasise with the students that how you define happiness is up to you. Meaning there are many ways, there isn’t one right way, and you need to find a definition that works for you. So, Seligman uses the PERMA model. You know, the P being Positive emotions, the E is for Engagement for being in the here and now for being in flow, R is for Relationships, M is for Meaning and A is for accomplishments or Achievements.

The SPIRE model. Visit the wholebeing institute to download your mini workbook.

Q: So, there are lots of different life satisfaction or wellbeing or happiness models out there. And probably the most famous is Martin Seligman’s PERMA model. I’m interested to know when it comes to SPIRE versus PERMA or other models, is it all just supporting the cause? Or are there differences in SPIRE and PERMA that you particularly wanted to focus in on that you think matter more or less?

And the key is to… First of all, obviously, they’re all valid and important elements of happiness and the SPIRE model that I came up with with my colleagues focuses on other things. For instance, PERMA doesn’t have the physical wellbeing element in it, which I think is critical for a happy life. You know, if I don’t exercise for more than two days. I feel it. I mean, I feel more anxious, you know, less calm. I feel like I’m not my best self. Far from it. We know that physical exercise effects our wellbeing. And also, when it comes to accomplishments and achievements, which is part of PERMA. I don’t see it as that important. In fact, it’s one of the biggest myths that people believe that the path to happiness lies in the achievement. Now, if you if you’re working towards something that is personally meaningful to you, where you’re finding you’re exercising your best self and your path to your purpose, that’s a different story. That’s not about the accomplishment or the achievement itself.

So, you know, we differ. We disagree. We’re still friends and supporting one another’s work. And I point out to my, to my students, you know if PERMA is more suitable for your temperament, by all means. If you want to, you know, create another model which will be, you know your own, then by all means [do that]. The key is to identify what’s important for us and then, more importantly, to cultivate that element.

Q: So, on that note, you taught hundreds of students at Harvard, so you’ve got firsthand experience with how people have implemented your teachings. Is there one thing that stands out above the rest that made the biggest impact in your student’s life? One intervention or area that you saw across the board came out on top more often. Even though everyone has a subjective understanding, and everyone is different. Is there something that stands above the rest?

There are a couple with your permission. So probably if I had to choose one, it would be what you mentioned earlier, which is the notion of the permission to be human. In other words, there are no good or bad emotions. There can be good or bad behaviour, but not emotions. Emotions are amoral. So, you know, feeling, experiencing envy towards my friend does not make me a bad or immoral person. If I act on that envy and hurt my friend, that’s a whole different story. And paradoxically, it’s when we accept and embrace painful emotions that we have most control over our behaviour. In other words, saying to myself, I should not experience envy not only intensifies that emotion, it’s also more likely to control me then similarly with fear. You know, experiencing fear doesn’t make me a coward. It simply makes me a human being. And courage is not about, not having fear, but about having the fear and then going ahead anyway. And then the paradox works in the same way here, when I reject fear when I say to myself, well, I shouldn’t be afraid, shouldn’t be anxious. The anxiety and the fear only intensify, and then they are more likely to impact my actions and rather induce lack of action. So, I think that’s the, that’s the main thing.

Other big ones would be the importance of physical exercise and physical exercise certainly during challenging times. And I would always ask my students, so when is the time you’re least likely to exercise? And inevitably they would say exam period, and I would emphasise and that this is the most important time to explode. Just like today, people say, “well, I’m not exercising because of lock down or because my favourite gym is closed.” And my response is, now is the most important time when their stress levels are at an all-time high.

And I’ll just say one more thing, which is more general. I talk a lot about, as you know, about emotions and the importance of permission to be human and about the importance of cultivating gratitude and love and the pleasurable emotions. And yet, I also emphasis that behaviour is more important than feelings, that what we do matters more than what we feel. In other words, it’s okay to experience fear, not the end of the world. It’s natural. It’s okay to experience envy. It’s okay to experience sadness and anxiety. We can still choose to act in a way that is most appropriate or most moral or most helpful and beneficial to us and the world. “So, behaviour trump’s emotions.”

Q: I think what I love most about that is it also addresses what the naysayers say about the toxic positivity movement. We’re really saying it’s okay to feel anger and pain and sadness and all of those, and in fact, it is encouraged and human to do so. And this model addresses that.

And it’s one of the central myths around happiness, namely, that a happy life is a life devoid of pain or frustration or disappointments. And in fact, the first step towards happiness is allowing in unhappiness.

Q: All right, so I think I know where this is going, but you might surprise me. So, I’ve asked what has been impactful in others. I’m interested to know what happiness habit you always personally prioritise in your week?

A: Yeah. You know, the happiness habit that I prioritise in my week is prioritising happiness. And what I mean by that is prioritising doing the things that contribute most to what I’ve come to call life’s ultimate currency, the currency of happiness. Specifically, it’s about, you know, first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, I meditate. I exercise three times a week during regular times and over the past year and a half have not been regular times. I do it five times a week. I put time aside for family and friends. And when I mean aside, it means that I disconnect from technology so that I can connect to people. I keep a journal, regularly. I do all the things that I teach, practise yoga, you know, three times a week. So, all these things I prioritise, and they help me then be a better version of myself, which is, you know, a kinder, more generous calmer version.

And, I said that behaviours trump emotions. I don’t always feel great. Just like anyone, anyone else. I feel anxiety, I feel, you know, fear, frustration, anger like everyone else. The difference, though, between you know, where I was 20, 30 years ago and today is that I realised that I first need to accept these emotions and then second ask, “What is the kind of person that I would like to be in the world?” and then act accordingly.

Q: I love that you said you practise what you teach. A lot of people don’t and again going back to this being a field where you’ve got to find what works for you. I think it was a real wake up moment when I read that Sonja Lyubomirsky doesn’t have her own gratitude journal even though she teaches about the importance of gratitude. Although I’m sure she practises gratitude in other ways.

A: She does it in other ways, and she’s very authentic about it. And she said, “Look, I saw the results in my studies. I personally cannot connect with it. I’ve tried.” And she has tried. I know that and she does other things, whether it’s meditation or she exercises regularly, she cultivates relationships in her life. Yeah, she gets an A for, for more than effort.

Q: I want to acknowledge no one is perfect and new habits are not easy to form. You do spend some time talking about forming new habits in your course and I’d love you to impart some final words of wisdom for someone who’s found a nugget in our discussion and would like to implement that in their lives for how they can successfully do that. What are your tips and helpful advice?

A: So, the first thing is to recognise that that many of the things that we know will make us happy are right in front of us. They’re accessible, and yet we don’t do them. Why? It’s because what I’ve come to call the rhetorical choices in our life.

So, if I if I said to you Marie, tell me, you have a choice, do you want to be grateful and appreciative of all the good things and the good people in your life? Or would you like to take them all for granted? Now it’s a rhetorical choice, you know, you and eight billion other people around the world, of course, would want to appreciate rather than take things for granted. And yet most people, most of the time, take the good things in their lives for granted.

So, we have a rhetorical choice here, and yet we choose unwisely. Why? Not because we don’t think it’s important, but because we forget, because we neglect, because we’re distracted and therefore the first thing we need to do is create reminders. Reminders can come in the form of a bracelet that I wear that will remind me to be appreciative or to be present in the here and now, rather than always distracted. Or to be kind and because we all want to be kind and generous, it’s a rhetorical choice to be so. And yet we forget, so we need a reminder. It could be a bracelet. It could be a screen saver. It could be a picture on the wall that symbolises the value that we want to incorporate or whatever it is. The first is reminder.

Then we need to think about repetition. It’s not enough to do something once or twice. We need to do it over and over again. If we want to have it become part of who we are, quite literally second nature, just like in sports. You want to become a better tennis player, you have to hit that ball, repetitively. The coach may need to remind you how to hit it, but after that you need to hit it over and over again. And after you repeat that action after you play that piano sonata, after you hit that ball, after you exercise gratitude repeatedly, then comes the ritual.

Ritual is, quite literally, neural pathways that have been formed and that make an activity automatic, habitual. But in order to do that, we need many repetitions, you know, whether it’s 30 repetitions or 21 repetitions or 80 repetitions. But we need repetition before it becomes second nature, whether it’s repetition of brushing our teeth before it became second nature, a ritual in our life, whether it’s the repetition of hitting a tennis ball before it becomes second nature, or whether it’s repeating, expressing gratitude or being kind.

So, we have the three R’s of change, first Reminders, then Repetition and finally Rituals.

Q: Thank you very much. Is there anything that you would like to add in that I haven’t asked you? I think we’ve covered quite a broad spectrum of happiness questions.

A: Yes, one thing. And that is to pick one thing or maximum two things from what you’ve heard, either in this podcast or elsewhere that you would like to introduce into your life, not more. Not over doing it. And pick that one or two things and create reminders around it. Repeat it often and much until it becomes a ritual. And only then you can move on to the second thing or the third thing that you want to introduce, gradually, slowly.

Want to hear more from Tal?

Visit:

Twitter: @TalBenShahar and @Potentialife

The wholebeing approach – Interview with Tal Ben-Shahar (E105)

08/03/2022 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Join Marie this week as she interviews happiness advocate Tal Ben-Shahar who shares his insights on happiness and the wholebeing approach.

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background]

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

Marie: Welcome back to our show, I am so excited about our guest. Tal Ben-Shahar is an author and lecturer.  He taught two of the largest classes in Harvard University’s history, “Positive Psychology” and “The Psychology of Leadership.”  His books have been translated into more than thirty languages, and have appeared on best-seller lists around the world.  His latest books are “Happiness Studies” and “Happier, No Matter What.”

Tal consults and lectures to executives in multi-national corporations, the general public, and at-risk populations.  The topics he lectures on include leadership, education, ethics, politics, happiness, self-esteem, resilience, goal setting, and mindfulness.  He is the co-founder and chief learning officer of The Happiness Studies Academy and Potentialife.

An avid sportsman, Tal won the U.S. Intercollegiate and Israeli National squash championships.  He obtained his PhD in Organizational Behaviour and BA in Philosophy and Psychology from Harvard.

Tal Ben-Shahar: Hi.

Marie: Hello. How are you?

Tal Ben-Shahar: I’m doing okay, thank you. How are you?

Marie: Good. Thank you so much for joining us on the Happiness for Cynics podcast. We’ll get right into it. I’ve been a fan, a huge fan of your work, and you’ve definitely been instrumental in the positive psychology movement and all the way back in 2007 when you published Happier, which went on to become a New York Times bestseller. In the preface you wrote,

“People are sensing and have been sensing for a while that we’re in the midst of some sort of revolution, and they’re not sure why.” [Happier – Tal Ben-Shahar]

So that was almost 15 years ago. And unfortunately for many people, the study of positive psychology hasn’t revolutionised their lives, and it seems to have remained the world’s best kept secret. So, I’m wondering, why do you think the science of happiness and wellbeing hasn’t had a bigger impact on humanity yet?

Tal Ben-Shahar: Thank you, Marie. First of all, for having me here, and second for the question because it is an important one. You know, when you look at change, the way it happens is usually that it’s slow, slow, slow and then very fast. In other words, at some point there is… it tips, as, as Malcolm Gladwell puts it, it hasn’t tipped yet for the science of happiness.

However, I think we’ve gone through at least a few of the slow, slow, slow, which gets us closer to the very fast. And unfortunately, it seems like things need to get worse before they get better. And what the pandemic has done is it has made things worse in terms of mental health, whether it’s stress and anxiety, whether it’s depression and what we’re beginning to see. And I can certainly feel, there is much more interest, whether it’s from politicians or teachers, parents, businesses, much more interest in the field. So, I suspect that we’re getting a lot closer to that tipping point.

Marie: I hope so. As you can probably tell from the title of this podcast. I was a cynic for so many years. I saw the T-shirt slogans and I didn’t understand the science behind it, and it’s been revolutionary in my life, and I just I want to scream from the rooftops to everyone else. “This stuff matters and it makes a difference!”

So, what do you think, as we’re reaching this tipping point, will need to happen in the next few years for us to pick up the speed of adoption and buy in from people?

Tal Ben-Shahar: Yes. So, the key is really to connect this field to tie it to science. You know, the self-help or New Age movement has been around for a long time. People are talking about, preaching about, the good life. That’s been going on for millennia.

The difference now is that we have a… we really have a science of happiness. You know, it’s imperfect as every scientific endeavour is. But the nice thing or the important thing rather about science is that you get closer and closer to, to getting the results, the sought-after results, which, when it comes to positive psychology, it’s higher levels of wellbeing.

Marie: So, what do you think needs to change apart from awareness of the science. Are we talking changes at schools in organisations, you know, the systemic ways that we organise our countries and our governments that needs to change next? What’s the future of this movement look like?

Tal Ben-Shahar: As far as I’m concerned, the most important thing is education and for that to change, universities need to recognise the importance of the science of happiness. Schools need to recognise it, and governments need to recognise it, [and] politicians, because most of the schools are public schools and the curriculum is determined often by politicians or their aides. So, it’s all about educational. You know, Janusz Korczak, the famed Polish educator, said almost 100 years ago,

“If you want to reform the world, you must first change education.” [– Janusz Korczak]

We had real difficulties doing that, because Principles said you know, we don’t have time, you know, we need every minute. We need it to do extra math classes or writing classes or… and so on. And it was really challenging. And then I ended up, you know, basically asking friends of mine to introduce it. You know, friends of mine who were school Principals. And there were three of them and they introduced it in their schools. You know more, I mean, they liked the content. They knew the content, but more as a favour to me than anything else.

Marie: Mmm hmm.

Tal Ben Shahar: But there was… This was enough for us to actually do research. And we did research on these on these three schools and over 1000 students. And what we found, the results we found were remarkable. So, we saw levels of resilience went up. Happiness, of course, went up. Anxiety and depression went down and interestingly, not surprisingly, I must add for us. But interestingly, grades went up.

Marie: Mmm hmm. Yes.

Tal Ben-Shahar: So, you know, it wasn’t about anxiety, depression, happiness, resilience. It was mostly about grades. And frankly, I don’t care.

Marie: Mmm hmm.

Tal Ben-Shahar: If this is why schools come, then that’s fine. If organisations introduce a program in happiness because it increases profits, that’s great. Whatever it takes. Just introduce this program.

Marie: Sure. All right, I have to admit, I recently finished the Happiness practitioner certificate at the Happiness Studies Academy, and I am a huge fan and I particularly love how you teach modern Western hard science and fact, alongside philosophy, religion, history, Eastern thinking. And the whole time was taking your course, I was thinking, I’m really getting an arts degree here, not just a social science psychology degree. But in your course, everything is really anchored around what you call the SPIRE model.

So, I wonder if you could tell our listeners a little bit more about SPIRE? In particular, starting with what the acronym stands for, and maybe some examples of how to put it in practise.

Tal Ben Shahar: Yes. So, SPIRE, the acronym stands for the Five elements of happiness.

The first, S is the spiritual wellbeing.
P is physical wellbeing.
I stands for intellectual wellbeing.
The R is relational wellbeing.
And finally, the E is emotional wellbeing.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” [– Albert Einstein]

And being present, uh, certainly brings out the miraculous in our in our life. So that spiritual wellbeing is about purpose and presence.

Under intellectual wellbeing is about deep learning, spending time, whether it’s reading a book, engaging in a text or observing and studying a work of art or walking in nature. Again, being present to it and exercising our rational faculty, our intellectual faculty and really learning about the world around us. So, [that’s] intellectual wellbeing.

Then there is, under Relational wellbeing. Number one predictor of happiness, quality time we spend with people we care about and who care about us. And that can be a romantic partner, it can be family, it can be friends, it can be colleagues at work. It actually doesn’t matter, as long as we have close, intimate, supportive relationships. Number one predictor of happiness.

And happiness is about all of these. And as I said earlier, we don’t need to do it all, all the time. But we do need to pay attention to all of them at different times.

Marie: I love E [Emotional wellbeing]. It came late in the course because it’s the last one, but something that really stuck with me that you said, was that,

“There are no bad emotions, only bad behaviours.” [– Tal Ben-Shahar]

And I’ve said that too many people and discussed the learnings, which I think is part of the I [Intellectual] of SPIRE, is taking what you’ve learned and having those deep discussions with others is part of my joy of learning. And when I’ve mentioned that to people, it’s one thing that they really stop, and they take it in, and they think about it. And there were so many nuggets throughout the year and my friends have gone, “Oh, that’s really deep.” They have prompted some wonderful discussions as well.

So, there are lots of different life satisfaction or wellbeing or happiness models out there. And probably the most famous is Martin Seligman’s PERMA model. I’m interested to know when it comes to SPIRE versus PERMA or other models. Is it all just supporting the cause? Or are there differences in SPIRE and PERMA that you particularly wanted to focus in on that you think matter more or less?

Tal Ben Shahar: Yeah, the key with happiness and that I always, even, you know today in a in online weapons are with students. I emphasise with the students that how you define happiness is up to you, meaning there are many ways there isn’t one right way, and you need to find a definition that works for you. So, Seligman uses the PERMA model. You know, the P being Positive emotions, the E is for Engagement for being in the here and now for being in flow, R is for Relationships, M is for Meaning and A is for accomplishments or Achievements.

And the key is to… First of all, obviously, they’re all valid and important elements of happiness and the SPIRE model that I came up with, with my colleagues focuses on other things. For instance, PERMA doesn’t have the physical wellbeing element in it, which I think is critical for a happy life. You know, if I don’t exercise for more than two days. I feel it.

Marie: Mmm hmm.

Tal Ben-Shahar: I mean, I feel more anxious, you know, less calm. You know, I feel like I’m not my best self. Far from it. We know that physical exercise effects our wellbeing. And also, when it comes to accomplishments and achievements, which is part of PERMA. I don’t see it as that important. In fact, it’s one of the biggest myths that people believe that the path to happiness lies in the achievement. Now, if you if you’re working towards something that is personally meaningful to you, where you’re finding you’re exercising your best self and your path to your purpose, that’s a different story. That’s not about the accomplishment or the achievement itself.

Marie: So, on that note, you taught hundreds of students at Harvard, so you’ve got firsthand experience with how people have implemented your teachings. Is there one thing that stands out above the rest that made the biggest impact in your student’s life? One intervention or area that you saw across the board came out on top more often. Even though everyone has a subjective understanding, and everyone is different. Is there something that stands above the rest?

Tal Ben-Shahar: There are a couple with your permission.

Marie: Mmm hmm. Of course.

Tal Ben Shahar: So probably if I had to choose one, it would be what you mentioned earlier, which is the notion of the permission to be human. In other words, there are no good or bad emotions. There can be good or bad behaviour, but not emotions. Emotions are amoral.

So, you know, feeling, experiencing envy towards my friend does not make me a bad or immoral person. If I act on that envy and hurt my friend, that’s a whole different story.

Marie: Mmm hmm.

Tal Ben-Shahar: And paradoxically, it’s when we accept and embrace painful emotions that we have most control over our behaviour. In other words, saying to myself, I should not experience envy not only intensifies that emotion, it’s also more likely to control me then similarly with fear. You know, experiencing fear doesn’t make me a coward. It simply makes me a human being. And courage is not about, not having fear, but about having the fear and then going ahead anyway. And then the paradox works in the same way here, when I reject fear when I say to myself, well, I shouldn’t be afraid, shouldn’t be anxious. The anxiety and the fear only intensify, and then they are more likely to impact my actions and rather induce lack of action.

Marie: Mmm hmm.

Tal Ben-Shahar: So, I think that’s the, that’s the main thing. Other big ones would be the importance of physical exercise and physical exercise certainly during challenging times. And I would always ask my students, so when is the time you’re least likely to exercise? And inevitably they would say exam period, and I would emphasise and that this is the most important time to explode. Just like today, people say, “well, I’m not exercising because of lock down or because my favourite gym is closed.” And my response is, now is the most important time when their stress levels are at an all-time high.

“So, behaviour trump’s emotions.”

Marie: I think what I love most about that is it also addresses what the naysayers say about the toxic positivity movement. We’re really saying it’s okay to feel anger and pain and sadness and all of those, and in fact, it is encouraged and human to do so. And this model addresses that.

Tal Ben-Shahar: And it’s one of the central myths around happiness, namely, that a happy life is a life devoid of pain or frustration or disappointments. And in fact, the first step towards happiness is allowing in unhappiness.

Marie: All right, so I think I know where this is going, but you might surprise me. So, I’ve asked what has been impactful in others. I’m interested to know what happiness habit you always personally prioritise in your week.

Tal Ben-Shahar: Yeah. You know, the happiness habit that I prioritise in my week is prioritising happiness. And what I mean by that is prioritising doing the things that contribute most to what I’ve come to call life’s ultimate currency, the currency of happiness. Specifically, it’s about, you know, first thing I do when I wake up in the morning, I meditate. I exercise three times a week during regular times and over the past year and a half have not been regular times. I do it five times a week. I put time aside for family and friends. And when I mean aside, it means that I disconnect from technology so that I can connect to people. You know, I keep a journal, regularly. You know, I do all the things that I teach, practise yoga, you know, three times a week. So, all these things I prioritise, and they help me then be a better version of myself, which is, you know, a kinder, more generous calmer version.

And, you know, I said that behaviours trump emotions. I don’t always feel great. Just like anyone, anyone else. I feel anxiety, I feel, you know, fear, frustration, anger like everyone else. The difference, though, between you know, where I was 20, 30 years ago and today is that I realised that I first need to accept these emotions and then second ask, “What is the kind of person that I would like to be in the world?” and then act accordingly.

Marie: I love that You said you practise what you teach. A lot of people don’t and again going back to this being a field where you’ve got to find what works for you. I think it was a real wake up moment when I read that Sonja Lyubomirsky doesn’t have her own gratitude journal, laugh, even though she teaches about the importance of gratitude.

Tal Ben-Shahar: Laugh.

Marie: I’m sure she practises gratitude in other ways.

Tal Ben-Shahar: She does it in other ways, and she’s very authentic about it. And she said, “Look, I saw the results in my studies. I personally cannot connect with it. I’ve tried.” And she has tried. I know that and she does other things, whether it’s meditation or she exercises regularly, she cultivates relationships in her life. Yeah, she gets an A for, for more than effort.

M: Laugh. Okay, so before we go, I want to acknowledge no one is perfect and new habits are not easy to form. So, I do want to. We normally end on what are your recommendations for introducing a new happiness habit? Or what’s the one piece of advice? But you do spend some time talking about forming new habits in your course and I’d love you to in part some final words of wisdom for someone who’s found a nugget in our discussion and would like to implement that in their lives for how they can successfully do that. What are your tips and helpful advice?

Tal Ben-Shahar: So, the first thing is to recognise that that many of the things that we know will make us happy, are right in front of us. They’re accessible, and yet we don’t do them. Why? It’s because what I’ve come to call the rhetorical choices in our life.

So, if I if I said to you Marie, tell me, you have a choice, do you want to be grateful and appreciative of all the good things and the good people in your life? or do you or would you like to take them all for granted? Now it’s a rhetorical choice, you know, you and eight billion other people around the world, of course, I want to appreciate rather than take things for granted. And yet, and yet most people, most of the time, take the good things in their lives for granted.

So, we have a rhetorical choice here, and yet we choose unwisely. Why? Not because we don’t think it’s important, but because we forget, because we neglect, because we’re distracted and therefore the first step in introducing change. Based on many of the changes that we know, we want to introduce many of the choices that we know we want to make.

The first thing we need to do is create reminders and reminders can come in the form of a bracelet that I wear that will remind me to be appreciative or to be present in the here and now, rather than always distracted. Or to be kind and because we all want to be kind and generous, it’s a rhetorical choice to be so. And yet we forget, so we need a reminder. It could be a bracelet. It could be a screen saver. It could be a picture on the wall that symbolises the value that we want to incorporate or whatever it is. The first is reminder.

Then we need to think about repetition. It’s not enough to do something once or twice. We need to do it over and over again. If we want to have it become part of who we are, quite literally second nature, just like in sports. You want to become a better tennis player. you have to hit that ball, repetitively. The Coach may need to remind you how to hit it, but after that you need to hit it over and over again. And after you repeat that action after you play that Piano sonata after you hit that ball after you exercise gratitude repeatedly, then comes the ritual.

So, we have the three R’s of change, first Reminders, then Repetition and finally Rituals.

Marie: Thank you very much. Is there anything that you would like to add in that I haven’t asked you? I think we’ve covered quite a broad spectrum of happiness questions.

Tal Ben-Shahar: Yes, one thing. And that is to pick one thing or maximum two things from what you’ve heard, either in this podcast or elsewhere that you would like to introduce into your life, not more. Not over doing it. And pick that one or two things and create reminders around it. Repeat it often and much until it becomes a ritual. And only then you can move on to the second thing or the third thing that you want to introduce, gradually, slowly.

Marie: Perfect. Well, thank you so much for your time and for talking to our listeners. It’s been truly a pleasure. And I know that you have a very busy schedule full of happiness habits, so really appreciate. And I’m grateful for the time that you spent with us today.

T: Thank you, Marie.

M: Thank you.

[Happy exit music – background]

M: Thanks for joining us today if you want to hear more, please remember to subscribe and like this podcast and remember you can find us at www.marieskelton.com, where you can also send in questions or propose a topic.

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]

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How to build a positive mindset

03/03/2022 by Marie

Do you stay awake at night replaying conversations? Do you find yourself ruminating over things people said to you? Or perhaps you worry about the future, thinking about all the ways something might go wrong?

If so, you’re not alone. Over the past few decades, around the world there’s been an increase in levels of anxiety. The world has changed dramatically, and it can be overwhelming and worrying.

But the research is showing that you can combat these thoughts by taking more control over your mindset. If your natural inclination is to ruminate and think of all the negatives, you can balance these thoughts by proactively thinking positive thoughts throughout the day. You can train your brain to think more positively!

There is a raft of health benefits to building a positive mindset.

You’ll live healthier and longer: Optimists tend to live healthier lives and have a lower risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease than pessimists. On the flip side, pessimists tend to have shorter telomeres, which means they age faster. “Cells with shorter telomeres circulate and release large amounts of inflammatory proteins that contribute to inflammation, which is a mechanism of aging,” says Aoife O’Donovan, Ph.D., a professor at University of California, San Francisco.

You’ll be less stressed: People who have positive mindsets cope with the day-to-day turmoil of life better. They are also less anxious and less likely to suffer from depression.

You’ll be more successful: Compared to pessimists, optimists are more successful in school, at work and in athletics. They are also more successful in their marriages and tend to have more friends and more supportive relationships.

So how can you build a positive mindset?

Get good sleep

Is there a link between poor mental health and sleep? Could getting a bad night’s sleep really be as bad as smoking? Does driving tired really put you in as much danger as driving drunk? According to the latest science, yes! Not only that, but not getting a good night’s sleep can significantly impact your happiness levels and your ability to cope with anything life throws at you – which let’s face it, has been a lot in 2020. In an increasingly hyperconnected world, in which many companies now expect their employees to be on call and to answer emails 24/7, Global consulting firm McKinsey argues that sleep is an important organizational topic that requires specific and urgent attention. 

Limit social media

Have you found yourself turning to social media to while away the long hours of Covid lockdown? Are you noticing some negative effects? If so, you may need a social media detox. Even before Covid, social media was well ingrained in most societies around the world. In Australia, as of January 2019 there were 18 million active users of social media websites (69% of the population). Facebook is the most popular social media platform, with ~16 million monthly users of the website. In the U. S., about 70 percent of adults say they use Facebook and YouTube, while Instagram and Snapchat are growing in popularity among 18–24-year-olds. Social media can be an important part of modern life, but unfortunately, the research also tells us that it can also be destructive to our mental wellbeing. Many studies have linked excessive social media use to increased depression, anxiety, loneliness, sleeplessness, and many other mental health issues.

Spend time with positive people

In a recent New York Times article, researcher stated that people laugh five times as often when they’re with others as when they’re alone. Peak happiness lies mostly in collective activity. Not only that, but researchers have also found that the use and appreciation of humour is positive for overall wellbeing and psychological health. Humour is observed in all cultures and at all ages. But only in recent decades has experimental psychology respected it as an essential, fundamental human behaviour. According to positivity strategist Paul Osincup, “Humour is the new mindfulness.” You can actually train your brain to see and experience humour more often. So go on, have a laugh with some positive people.

Don’t suppress negative emotions

One of the biggest misconceptions about the positive psychology movement is that people should always aim to be happy and negative emotions are to be avoided.

This is a load of rubbish. Firstly, only being happy is impossible. Secondly, trying to suppress negative emotions can be really detrimental for mental health. The reality of life is that it’s messy, and even the people who are the happiest, most joyful and most fulfilled experience appropriate negative emotions when the situation calls for it.

The key is to process negative events and emotions in a healthy way so you can move forward. So how can you process your emotions when times are tough? Simple, start a practice of journaling. Over the last few decades, many studies have shown that journaling is a great tool to help you understand yourself better, unpack old issues and let them go, and give your mind the knowledge to understand how you see and react to the world around you. It has also been shown to increase happiness, help to reach goals and even have some positive physical health benefits. And if you’re someone who is generally not comfortable opening up to people, studies show that journaling might be the most beneficial to you.

“When we put our thoughts and feelings down on paper, we’re not just transferring them—we’re also transforming them. Writing forces us to arrange our ideas into a sequence, one after another; over time, themes and patterns start to emerge; new insights and perspectives start to bubble up,” according to Kira M. Newman, Greater Good Magazine.

Movement and exercise

There’s a whole lot of research into the physiological and physical health benefits of exercise, but exercise can also it can make us happier. It is great for our mood and our mental state. Exercising released dopamine (DA), noradrenaline (NE), and serotonin (5-HT) – the happy drugs! They’re the things that make us feel joyful and they’re present when we exercise. They increase in their production when we move our bodies and do exercise.

Learn something new

As Einstein famously said: “The important thing is to never stop questioning.” Learning something new is an essential part of creating a happy environment for yourself and a great way to start your day in a happy mood. Our brains develop more and release happy chemicals when we learn something new or stimulate them with exciting information. This doesn’t have to be a complicated or expensive happiness habit; it can just include watching a Ted Talk during breakfast or listening to a podcast on your way to work. This type of habit will put you in a happy mood just by stimulating your brain and getting your gears turning. Multiple studies and research suggest that consistent curiosity goes hand in hand with happiness.  

Get outdoors

It’s easy to forget how the little things – like taking a walk – can have such a huge impact on our mental health and make us happier. Studies show that brain structure and mood improve when we spend time outdoors. This has positive implications for concentration, memory and overall psychological wellbeing. Also, getting outdoors means getting natural light, which may be key to improving mood and reducing insomnia. A recent study showed more time spent outside in natural light was associated with improved mood, better sleep quality, and ease of waking. 

Practice gratitude

The science is clear. Practicing gratitude makes you happier and less stressed. It leads to higher overall wellbeing and satisfaction with your life and social relationships. Yet many of us don’t make gratitude a part of our weekly practices. And it can be really simple, research suggests that expressing gratitude by texting may be just as beneficial as an in-person show of appreciation. 

Want to learn more about the science of happiness? Make sure to subscribe to my podcast ***Happiness for Cynics*and weekly email newsletter for regular updates and news!**

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9 Ways to improve your mindset (E104)

01/03/2022 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Join Marie and Pete this week as they discuss 9 ways to improve your mindset and live a longer, happier, and more productive life.

Show notes

Sleep deprivation and genes

Study reveals sleep deprivation is associated with lower DNA repair gene expression and more breaks in DNA. The damage to DNA may explain the increased risk of cancers and neurodegenerative diseases in those who are sleep deprived.

Sleep is your superpower – Matt Walker

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background]

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

P: Hi!

M: Welcome back.

P: Here we are.

M: Here we are again!

P: Laugh, and again and again and again.

M: Every week, laugh.

P: Encore une fois. [Once more] Laugh!

M: So, what are we talking about today, Pete?

P: Ooh! What are we talking about today? The nine ways to build a positive mindset.

M: Are you sure we have nine?

P: I’ll invent one, laugh. I’ll create one.

M: Laugh.

P: Just give me five minutes, laugh.

M: Love it. All right, positive mindset.

P: Mmm.

M: What are the reasons why you want a positive mindset?

P: Because unhappy people die?

M & P: Laugh!

M: I don’t know why we laugh so hard.

P: Laugh, it’s our catchphrase!

M: It’s not really appropriate, laugh. [But] yes, they tend to not live as long, how about that.

P: But a positive mindset also has positive implications for your health.

M: Yes.

P: There’s a lot of studies that support that outwardly positive and, um, uh –

M: Optimistic.

P: – optimistic was the word I was looking for. People live better quality of lives and have better health outcomes.

M: Absolutely. And the research shows that you can train your brain to think more positively.

P: Yes.

M: So, if you balance negative thoughts with positive thoughts, then you can change your mindset. So, really, this is about creating those neural pathways in your brain again that we’ve talked about to counterbalance.

P: Mmm.

M: What is a natural tendency to think things are bad in a lot of people? Some people are just natural optimists, and they born that way. Or they grow up and learn that.

P: Yep.

M: A lot of us do tend to spend a lot of time ruminating over things or thinking about all the negatives. And we’ve seen a huge increase in anxiety and depression in all people around the world since, you know over the last 20 years or so. And so actively and proactively, creating a positive mindset or balancing your negative thoughts with positive thoughts is so important to learn how to do.

P: It also creates opportunity.

M: Yes, if you see a door opening and someone else sees the door shutting. You know, there’s two outcomes.

P: There are, yeah.

M: Two very different outcomes from that.

P: Yep. It’s a positive feedback loop.

M: Yeah, absolutely. So, you mentioned that they live healthier and longer. So, we do know that research shows that optimists tend to have healthier lives and lower risk of chronic diseases like diabetes and heart disease as the pessimists.

P: Yep.

M: And on the flip side, pessimists tend to have shorter telomeres.

P: Ah ha ha ha. What are telomeres?

M: Laugh.

P: Shorter bracelets!

M: Laugh. As we discussed a few episodes ago, that means that pessimists age faster.

P: Yes.

M: So, cells with shorter telomeres circulate and release large amounts of inflammatory proteins that contribute to inflammation, which is a mechanism of ageing.

P: So, if you don’t want wrinkles, you want long telomeres.

M: Yes.

P: Add some more beads to your bracelet.

M: By changing your mindset and becoming more positive.

P: Yes.

M: All right, what else we got?

P: Oh. I’m leading? I’m going on this one.

M: So, Pete hasn’t done his homework.

P: Oh, rude!

M: Laugh.

P: Laugh, so rude.

M: You’ll be less stressed. So, people who have positive mindsets cope with the day-to-day turmoil of life better, and they’re also less anxious and less likely to suffer from depression. And so, I think throughout Covid, there have been two very different yet typical responses.

P: Mmm.

M: There are those who have thrived throughout Covid, who have had the skills and the knowledge and the self-awareness to find ways to be positive and proactive about their mental health and their physical health and everything that their body needs. And you’ve had a lot of people who floundered.

P: It’s the same is dealing with crises in general, really, isn’t it?

M: Mmm hmm.

P: There are those people that deal with crisis better or deal with it in a proactive way in a positive.

M: Rise to the challenge.

P: Yeah, and it is. It’s the way you interpret it, as we’ve talked about before, stress is an interpretation. And some people will see a crisis as an opportunity to exercise their brain muscles or their opportunistic, outwardly going selves… don’t know where I was going with that.

M: Laugh.

P: I was reaching, totally reaching.

M & P: Laugh!

P: But yeah, it’s about looking at the situation going right, ‘I’m going to take this. I’m going to drive with this challenge and see where I end up’, as opposed to those who were running away from the tidal wave going, ‘No! Don’t come at me!’

M: Or those who don’t know that they have to take action and therefore end up in a situation that they didn’t know they needed to avoid.

P: Yes, they’re not enabled.

M: Yep, absolutely. And then, lastly, do you want to go now?

P: Yeah. I’m up to the page now, laugh.

M: You’re reading your notes.

P: I was reading Harry Potter before.

M & P: Laugh!

M: If you’re not going to be interested in our show, no one else will be.

P & M: Laugh!

P: You’ll be more successful, yay!

M: Yay, third benefit of a positive mindset. So, tell us what the science says here.

P: Well, compared to pessimists, optimists are more successful. They create social connections. They create communities, they engage with people which allows for more opportunities. They’re also more successful in issues such as marriages –

M: Marriage is an issue?

P: Issues? Yeah.

M: Laugh!

P: It’s an issue. Sure, why not?

M: I’m going to tell my husband he’s an issue. Laugh.

P: There’s a cat next to me. Of course, I’m getting flustered.

M & P: Laugh.

M: So, they’re more successful. There’s a great book by Shawn Achor that makes the case and shows the science behind optimists being more successful in school, at work and in athletics. So, people who are more positive just do better at life.

P: Mmm.

M: Not only at issues like marriage.

P: Laugh! Well, some marriages are an issue.

M & P: Laugh!

M: Very true. Maybe you don’t want to be successful at those.

P & M: Laugh.

M: Alright, so how can you build a positive mindset? Let’s get to our nine, our nine steps.

P: Oh, can we get to number nine first? Because that’s the fun one.

M: How about we leave that right for the end?

P: Aww, but it’s so good!

M: Laugh.

P: Stay tuned, folks. It’s gonna get better!

M: All right, number one, no brainer. It’s get good sleep.

P: Yes, we talked about this a lot. Just one hour of sleep deprivation has big impacts on our genetics on our ability to re-create cells, our regeneration, all those big things.

M: On our genes.

P: On our genes?

M: Not our genetics, they’re set from birth.

P: Uh, no, they do have some impact on … our genetic code.

M: On our genes.

P: Yes… Oh, I see I’m sorry. OK, I got it wrong, I’m just going to be quiet now.

M: Laugh! But we understand what you’re trying to say here.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: It impacts you right down to the cellular level.

P: There we go. Keep talking.

M: Yeah, also, I don’t know about you, but I am just grumpy as all get up after a bad night’s sleep.

P: Laugh.

M: I’m not fun to be around. And I find it really hard to be an optimist if I haven’t gotten enough sleep.

P: Mmm, yeah. Resilience is always low when you don’t have enough sleep as well. You’re just not firing on all cylinders. You’re not seeing opportunities. You’re not seeing those. You’re not resilient enough to actually turn things into an opportunity rather than going, ‘Oh my God, my life sucks!’

M: Yep, or falling apart. You lose your resilience. So global consulting firm McKinsey, has done a bit of work on this in the past few months, and they’re arguing that sleep is an important organisational topic that requires specific and urgent attention.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And it is so true. We have this hyper connected, always on world and this expectation now that everything has gone digital, that people can answer a call or an email 24/7 and that constant low-level stress is impacting our sleep. And also, people are sending messages and emails at all times of the day and night.

P: Mmm yeah.

M: And we need to change that work culture in order to enable people to have better sleep.

P: Yeah, there’s a really good Ted talk on this by Matt Walker. If anyone wants to look it up, it talks a lot about sleep being your superpower.

M: Mmm,

P: Really good on this topic.

M: Absolutely. All right, number two.

P: Number two.

M: Limit social media.

P: Ooh, I love this one.

M: Yeah, you do. This is your favourite, isn’t it?

P: Yeah. Get off Facebook people.

M: Laugh.

P: It’s evil!

M: Even before Covid social media was well ingrained in most societies around the world. So, in Australia in January 2019, there are 18 million active users of social media websites. Facebook is the most popular with 16 million monthly users in the US, about 70% of adults say they use Facebook, and YouTube. And Instagram and Snapchat are growing in popularity.

P: Mmm.

M: It is such an important part of modern life, and I think people definitely feel FOMO [Fear of Missing Out]. They feel like they’re missing out if they’re not on these channels that everyone around them is using. But the problem is excessive social media use leads to increased depression, anxiety, loneliness, sleeplessness, and many other mental health issues.

P: Yep.

M: And so, if you want to be an optimist and positive, you really need to take control of that social media use and not let it control you and your moods.

P: Be an active user and not a passive user.

M: Yeah, absolutely. All right number three of ways to change your mindset.

P: [Mickey Mouse voice] Surround yourself with positive people, yay!

M: I think we’re doing well on this one.

P: Laugh! Like attracts like they say.

M: Yes.

P: So, bringing positive people into your sphere of influence means that you’re going to be more inclined to pick up on those vibrational, energetic connections. Oh, she’s getting down!

M & P: Laugh.

M: Talking energy.

P: Here we go, we’re going there. Cough-meditation-cough!

M: Laugh!

So, speaking about positive people, one of the best things that you can do with positive people is laugh.

P: Ah, yes. Laughter is contagious.

M: It is, it is. In a recent New York Times article, researchers found that people laugh five times as often when they’re with others, as when they’re alone.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: So, you’ll find if you’re watching a funny movie by yourself, you won’t laugh as much as if you’re watching a funny movie with friends or in a movie theatre. Because, as you mentioned, laughter is contagious.

P: See I’m the person that laughs out loud on his own.

M & P: Laugh!

M: But you won’t laugh as much as when other people are around.

P: True. I also laugh on public transport.

M: Laugh!

P: Maybe that’s my public laughter. I’ll just burst out… usually into song, but laughter as well.

M: Pete believes he’s in a musical.

P: My life is a musical.

M & P: Laugh!

M: The other thing to think about also is humour and the appreciation of humour. So, humour is one of the few things that is observed in all cultures and at all ages. And a lot of research has gone into humour more recently. And it’s one of the top five strengths of happy people, actually.

P: Ahh.

M: So, if you look at Martin Seligman and his work on strengths, you can actually do a lot of that online for free and work out what your strengths are. But if humour is one of your top five, you’re more likely to be happier and more likely to be an optimist.

P: So, Patch Adams was right.

M: Absolutely.

P: Humour is the best medicine. Or was that laughter is the best medicine?

M: Both? Both is fine.

P: We’ll take it.

M & P: Laugh.

M: All right. The next one is really important I think, especially when we talk about happiness and the importance of happiness. Really important, though number four, don’t suppress negative emotions.

P: Yep, they’re there for a reason.

M: Mmm hmm. One of the biggest misconceptions about the positive psychology movement is that people should always aim to be happy, and negative emotions are to be avoided. It’s a load of rubbish.

P: Yep, no. Can’t avoid them. They’re going to be there. They’re going to come up. You have to process them.

M: Absolutely. So, firstly, being happy all the time is impossible. We don’t live in a trouble-free world. And secondly, trying to suppress negative emotions can be really detrimental for mental health. So, the reality is, life is messy and sad and not what we expect and disappointing as well as good and beautiful and all of the other positive emotions. And we really need to make sure that we’re having an appropriate reaction to the situation.

P: Mmm yeah, that’s a good word. Appropriate.

M: Yeah, and that means processing negative events and emotions in a healthy way so you can move forward.

P: And having the skills to do that. And sometimes to have those skills, you need to do a little bit of work behind that.

M: Yep.

P: You actually need to spend some time contemplating, reading around it, going ‘how do I feel about grief? How do I feel about death? How am I going to process that when it comes to call or when it affects my life?’ And if you’ve done a little bit of that background work, it becomes a little bit easier to process your negative emotions and then by processing you get to the other side a little bit more easily.

M: Yeah, and two really good ways to help processes, journaling and talking to people, talking about it.

P: Yeah.

M: Number five.

P: Let’s exercise. [Starts singing] Let’s get physical, physical.

M & P: [Singing] I want to get physical.

P: [High pitched singing] Let’s get into physical!

M: Laugh!

P: There we go, musical theatre degree. Olivia was right.

M: Laugh, oh dear.

P: Movement and exercise if you didn’t get what that was about people.

M & P: Laugh.

P: Moving is good.

M: Absolutely.

P: Motion is lotion. Boom, Boom! Laugh. Thank you, Dan Horne.

M & P: Laugh.

M: So not only are there physical benefits to moving in exercise, but it’s great for your mood and your mental state. So, if you want to increase your positive vibes, if you want to become more of an optimist or increase your positive mindset, go get some exercise into your week or your day. And it doesn’t have to be a lot.

P: Nope.

M: But exercising releases dopamine nor-adrenaline and serotonin, and they’re all the happy drugs.

P: Happy drugs, laugh.

M: So, if we’re talking mindset and positive mindset, this is the fastest way to trick your brain into being happy.

P: Absolutely. You can do that really simply by getting yourself up and shaking the crap out of yourself, literally getting up and vibrating and throwing your arms around and getting really, really elevated with your heart rate.

M: Dance.

P: Actually, dance is one of the best ones. I wasn’t gonna go there because, you know I’m biased towards dance. But yeah, literally jumping up and down for 30 seconds is enough to actually get those endorphins going.

M: Yep, absolutely. All right, number six,

P: Learn something new.

M: I’ve got a quote.

P: Oh.

M: Einstein.

P: Mmm.

M: Mmm hmm. So, he famously said,

“The important thing is to never stop questioning.”

– [Albert Einstein]

M: And he was really smart.

P: Laugh! He was a scientist.

M: Don’t know if he was happy.

P & M: Laugh!

M: But I love the quote.

P: Laugh, he had crazy hair.

M: It is so important to add new things into your environment. So novel things. We’ve spoken about this before and learning a new skill or giving yourself something where you have autonomy and ownership over getting deeper experience and better skills at something is a great way to do that.

P: Mmm.

M: So, when we say learning, you could simply read a book or watch a documentary, you could listen to Ted talks. You could join a class. Or a course, you don’t have to go to a university degree there’s plenty of free classes out there and lots of micro learning nowadays as well. So, you could learn how to put floating shelves on your wall. Or you could go to your local TAFE and do a mechanics course and everything in between.

P: Yep, totally agree. I’m there, laugh.

M: And you know, you’ve just started back at university again, late life haven’t you.

P: Yep.

M: Does that –

P: Oh, huge amounts of mission and purpose.

M: Yep.

P: When we talk about mission and purpose is being one of the pillars of our happiness building. It’s so true because you wake up and you’ve got somewhere to go and somewhere to be, laugh.

M: I found one of the best parts of UNI was just the conversations you have. You have these new ideas running through your head and you’re wrapping your head around your values and how they fit into these new ideas and whether you believe them or not, and you’re forming your own ideas and bouncing them off other people.

It was one of the favourite things was sitting out in the quad on the grass, sometimes with the beer.

P: Laugh.

M: Often with a beer.

P & M: Laugh.

M: And debating these new ideas that we were discovering every day.

P: Yeah, I like the idea of it being reflective. It’s around your values and beliefs. I mean, that’s a great thing, because it does challenge your values and beliefs as well. And that’s a really great way to provide self-reflective practise.

M: Yep, and there are multiple studies and pieces of research that suggests that consistent curiosity goes hand in hand with happiness.

P: Yep.

M: Yep. All right, number seven.

P: Getting outdoors.

M: Ahh.

P: [Singing] Forest bathing.

M: Laugh. It’s the little things right. Taking a walk can have such a huge impact on your mental health and make you happier.

P: Yep, yeah. Go out and hug a tree. Sniff a leaf.

M: Yep. So, the studies show that brain structure and mood improved when we spend time outdoors, and this has positive implications for concentration, memory and overall psychological wellbeing. Also, when you get outdoors, it’s not only the trees and the air, but it’s also the light. So having more sunlight in your day has been shown to improve sleeplessness and mood. So, if you have insomnia, get outside.

P: Yeah, definitely.

M: Number eight.

P: Oh, you take this one. This is yours.

M: Gratitude!

P: Laugh.

M: Practise gratitude. And as we said before, it’s about rewiring your brain so that it’s not constantly focusing on the negative, and the science is really clear on this one. Practising gratitude makes you happier and less stress… Less stressed.

P: Laugh.

M: It leads to higher overall wellbeing satisfaction with your life and social relationships, so making it part of even just a weekly practise can give you all of those benefits and help you balance that negative way of thinking with some more positive and over time, that reinforces, and you start seeing more positive things in your day to day.

P: Yeah.

M: All right, Pete, and what’s your made up number nine?

P: It’s not made up, it’s backed by science.

M & P: Laugh.

P: Drink champagne! Laugh!

M: I think, I think this is my favourite way to improve your mindset.

P: So, a recent study came out in The Guardian in the UK that was talking about when we reach the alcohol, what it is that we’re doing. And studies showed that most people will have a drink when they’re actually feeling happier. So, alcohol can actually lead us to being a little bit more contented. Sure, there is the flip side of that where we do reach for the bottle as a negative coping mechanism for depression or grief or whatever.

But on the whole, most people will have a glass of wine or a beer in the day to increase their happiness.

M: Sorry. Just to be clear, the study showed that people are more likely to drink when they’re happy.

P: Yes.

M: Not the other way around. Not the flip way. So, there’s no causality. Yeah, there’s no causality here.

P: Champagne makes me happy.

M: Laugh.

P: I hear a pop and I’m ready, laugh.

M: Unless you’re Pete.

P & M: Laugh!

P: We don’t want to be encouraging people to be alcoholics.

M: No. [meaning yes] And if you’re feeling sad, reaching for the bottle isn’t going to make you happy.

P: No, that doesn’t work. If you’re already negative, then no.

M: So, I guess what we’re saying is, if you’re happy, you’re more likely to have a drink.

P: Don’t berate yourself if you’re going to have a glass of wine out in the sunshine when you’re out sniffing the trees or being in the ocean whilst expressing gratitude and having a sleep.

M & P: Laugh.

P: All the nine steps above. It’s okay, laugh.

M: And on that note, we’ll finish up for the week. Thanks for joining us again.

P: Have a happy week.

M: And stay cynical.

[Happy exit music – background]

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]

Want to learn more about the science of happiness? Make sure to subscribe to my podcast Happiness for Cynics and weekly email newsletter for regular updates and news!

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How to remain youthful and resilient despite stress

25/02/2022 by Marie

Jolanta Burke, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences and Padraic J. Dunne, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences

A bit of stress can be good for your mental and physical wellbeing, but too much can lead to anxiety, depression and other health problems. It can also make you age faster. So learning to become more stress-resilient is important if you’re not in a hurry to grow old fast.

Studies have shown that people who aren’t good at managing their stress can increase their risk of dying prematurely by 43%. The increase in deaths might in part be due to the effect stress has on DNA.

DNA, which is found in nearly every cell (except red blood cells), contains genes that code for the building blocks (proteins) that comprise your body. DNA consists of two strands woven together in the famous “double helix”. Your cells are constantly making copies of themselves, and when a cell divides, the two strands unravel and an identical copy is made of each – well, most of the time.

Sometimes mistakes happen during the replication process, especially at the end of DNA strands. These mistakes can cause mutations in the copied DNA, leading to the cell becoming cancerous. Luckily, cells have protective caps called telomeres at the ends of the DNA strand that are designed to ensure these mistakes don’t happen.

Telomere caps are like sequences of beads (telomeric repeats). Each time the cell divides, the next generation loses one bead of telomeric repeats. Unfortunately, each cell has a fixed number of these repeats, meaning that it can only replicate a certain number of times before the protective telomere caps are eroded. This number of cell divisions is called the Hayflick limit. Once a cell reaches the Hayflick limit (up to 60 cell divisions, for most cells), it self-destructs (safely). This is the essence of ageing.

Some cells in the body, especially the immune cells that fight infection, possess molecules called telomerase. Telomerase can add the beads back (telomeric repeats) in immune cells (and some others, such as cancerous cells), meaning that ageing can be reversed in these cells. Telomerase can add the beads back, meaning that ageing can be reversed in the cells in question.

This makes sense as immune cells have to replicate many times to fight viruses and bacteria. Without telomerase, they would reach their Hayflick limit and disappear, leaving organisms with no protection. Unfortunately, however, even telomerase stops working properly when people reach their 80s and lose their immune cells to ageing.

It’s not all beyond your control

Smoking, excess alcohol consumption, being overweight and stress are all associated with telomere loss. Telomerase does not work as efficiently when a person suffers from excessive stress, and this causes premature ageing.

Adopting a healthy lifestyle, such as eating a plant-based diet, can stop and even reverse the process. And physical activity, especially intense exercise, can also increase telomerase activity. So leading a healthy life can decrease the speed of ageing as can managing your stress.

As we mentioned earlier, not all stress is bad. In psychology, we differentiate between “eustress” (positive stress), which is necessary for us to succeed at work, in sport and relationships, and “distress” (negative stress), when pressure becomes too much for us to manage. Distress is what most of us mean when we say or feel that we are stressed; it is also what might speed up ageing in your cells.

So there is no need to protect yourself from all stress, only the distress that lasts for a long time, is relentless and prevents you from living your life to the full.

Embracing stressful events and using coping strategies such as seeking help from friends or becoming resourceful when dealing with challenges, can create stress resilience, which in turn is associated with longer telomeres. Also, reappraising an anxiety-provoking event, such as taking on a public speaking engagement, by perceiving it as exciting can help you to manage stress. These techniques can stop eustress from becoming distress and enhance stress resilience.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back after adversity and become resistant to daily stressors. Besides problem-solving, social support and effective use of coping strategies, mindfulness can also help you become more resistant to daily stressors.

Other techniques include doing things that enhance your positive emotions, such as reading a book, listening to music, or playing a computer game. Experiencing positive emotions broadens your mind, allowing you to perceive and draw from your psychological, intellectual and social resources, especially when experiencing adversity.

Ways to improve your wellbeing and happiness

We can’t yet be sure that these psychological strategies affect telomeres and by extension the ageing process. However, telomere length and telomerase activity in your cells do seem to be negatively affected by stress and positively affected by stress management. So if you have lifestyle changes you can make to help you develop stress resilience, you might want to adopt them. They might not make you live as long as an Arctic shark, but they could add some precious years onto your life.

Jolanta Burke, Senior Lecturer, Centre for Positive Psychology and Health, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences and Padraic J. Dunne, Lecturer, Centre of Positive Psychology and Health, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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How to remain youthful and resilient despite stress (E103)

22/02/2022 by Marie

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Join Marie and Pete this week as they discuss a recent scientific article on how to remain youthful and resilient despite stress.

Show notes

Telomeres and telemerase

Telomeres, the specific DNA–protein structures found at both ends of each chromosome, protect genome from nucleolytic degradation, unnecessary recombination, repair, and interchromosomal fusion. Telomeres therefore play a vital role in preserving the information in our genome.

Telomerase is the enzyme responsible for maintenance of the length of telomeres by addition of guanine-rich repetitive sequences.

Good stress

During the podcast Marie and Pete discuss a great ted talk on good stress (eustress) by Kelly McGonigal: How to Turn Stress Into an Advantage

Hayflick Limit

The Hayflick Limit is a concept that helps to explain the mechanisms behind cellular aging. The concept states that a normal human cell can only replicate and divide forty to sixty times before it cannot divide anymore, and will break down by programmed cell death or apoptosis.

Transcript

[Happy intro music -background]

M: Welcome to happiness for cynics and thanks for joining us as we explore all the things I wish I’d known earlier in life but didn’t.

P: This podcast is about how to live the good life. Whether we’re talking about a new study or the latest news or eastern philosophy, our show is all about discovering what makes people happy.

M: So, if you’re like me and you want more out of life, listen in and more importantly, buy in because I guarantee if you do, the science of happiness can change your life.

P: Plus, sometimes I think we’re kind of funny.

[Intro music fadeout]

M: Three! Two! One! Go!

P: A hoy, hoy.

M: A hoy, hoy.

P: And here we are.

M: Yeah.

P: We’re back and here for another week of happiness.

M: Yay! I need happiness tonight I’m feeling a bit flat.

P: Are you? Aww.

M: My day was so full of happiness, but I’m just over happy.

P: Laugh, this is the natural ebb to your flow. Laugh!

M: It is. I woke in a good mood, slept well, I played with the cats a little bit, made my coffee. Got straight to work which is unusual for me, I normally do some writing and stuff like that. I was just like, ready to tackle the day.

P: Here I go!

M: And then we popped out for a bit of sun in the pool.

P: We did, we had a little happiness date today. That was lovely.

M: We did.

P: Yeah.

M: And then I was just in the zone all afternoon and feeling really productive. And yeah, it was a good day, good day. And I think also summer does this to me because I get out more with friends, which is that social side of things. But also, I do more physically. I’m just out and about and moving more.

P: See I’m the opposite, I do more in winter. I know I’m weird. I’m much more motivated to do physical activity and the sporty. Laugh, don’t pull a face at me like that!

M & P: Laugh!

P: I just got, like, the most judgmental face you’ve ever seen from Marie Skelton folks, laugh.

M: It was confusion.

P: Yeah, no. I get really motivated for that in winter, which is odd as well. Like summer is like, ‘Oh, I just want to sit down.’

M: Nah, nah. I’m the opposite.

P: Really.

M: Anyway. So, I am at the moment just in a really positive mood, which is excellent.

P: But an exhausted positive.

M: Now I’m tired.

P: Laugh.

M: It’s like the kid who was on a sugar rush and is now like, “now I’m cranky.”

P: Laugh! And now is like, “I wanted it to last forever!”

M & P: Laugh.

M: So, what are we talking about today?

P: Well, good segway. We’re talking about being youthful today and remaining youthful. We’re talking about beauty, people. Hair, nails, lips. What’s the next one? I can’t remember the next one.

M: I have no idea what you’re talking about.

P: It’s in a song somewhere. There’s always a song. [Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels by Todrick Hall]

But now we’re looking at an article written by a Jolanta Burke and Padraic Dunne in the conversation, ‘How to remain youthful and resilient.’

M: And they’re both from RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences.

P: Mmm, scientists.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: We’re going to get sciency, laugh.

M: That’s why we’re here.

P & M: Laugh.

P: So, what? What’s people’s impressions of youthfulness?

M: Not dying!

P: Laugh!

Okay, but if someone was youthful, what characteristics would they have? What would they be doing?

M: Well, they wouldn’t have done what I did earlier today, which was wander around my house thinking, where did I put my glasses?

P: Laugh.

M: Where on earth did put glasses. And I told you before we got on this podcast that was just feeling particularly old, wandering around the house, squinting at things, looking for my glasses, to the point where I looked across the room was like, oh, is that my glasses? And as I got closer, I realised it was a spoon.

P: Laugh!

M: Not my glasses…

P: Laugh!

M: And that made me feel even more old because I think during covid a lot of people that I work with in particular, who have spent hours sitting at computers and a lot less time getting up to go to the bathroom or interacting with colleagues, et cetera. We really are spending a lot more uninterrupted time in front of screens, since covid.

P: Yeah, yeah.

M: A lot of people that I work with have noticed a decline in their eyesight.

P: Laugh.

M: So that’s making me feel a bit old.

P: Laugh.

M: The grey hairs.

P: Oh yeah.

M: The random hairs.

P: Laugh, in different places.

M: That starts in your thirties, I will say for any women out there, you know, the hair that springs up in a place that shouldn’t. You’re like, how did that get there?

P: Laugh.

M: Why is that there? So, you pluck it. And then, the wrinkles.

P: Okay, so these are all things that young people don’t have?

M: That’s the bucket for me. Yep.

Also, the aches in the muscles.

P: Laugh.

M: They have flexibility, young people.

P: Laugh.

M: There’s a lot that young people have that I’m missing.

P & M: Laugh.

P: Ok.

M: Stamina.

P: Laugh.

Ok, well let’s turn that frown upside down.

M: Healthy liver.

P: Laugh.

There is a way –

M: You asked!

P: Yeah, well I did. I opened Pandora’s box. I’ll give you that.

M: Laugh.

P: So, there is a way to… I guess what the authors are talking about here is there is a way to retain that youthfulness or that… it’s not all about the doldrums of feeling arthritic and grey hairs and wrinkles and so forth, but in our mental health, maintaining a youthful exuberance for life or a youthful perspective on buoyancy and resilience.

M: So definitely perspective and how you view yourself plays a factor. But what the article that we’re talking about today is about is about stress.

P: Mmm.

M: It’s about how stress can impact your DNA all the way down to your core. So, there’s good stress, which is:

P: Eustress.

M: And bad stress, which is:

P: Distress.

M: Yes.

P: As in dis – ease.

M: Yes. So, eustress and distress. And if you’re in a heightened state of distress for too long. So, if you work in a job like our healthcare workers right now have spent two years in a heightened state of stress.

P: Mmm, yep.

M: A lot of people have. People who are dealing with financial insecurity are just in a constant state of stress. So, we’re talking about prolonged amounts of distress, and that impacts you all way down to your DNA and can make you… die!

P & M: Laugh!

M: It can impact your longevity.

P: Absolutely.

M: Let’s not be so dramatic.

P: Laugh, well it is reasonably dramatic, and I guess this is what the science is behind, and this is what the movement of positive psychology is doing for us now. Is that we’re paying more heed to our mental health and so forth.

M: Mmm hmm.

P: And this just proves that, those sort of situations where you are under emotional distress are just as bad as being under physical distress.

M: Yes.

P: And they have the same impact going down to our DNA at a cellular level that ages us or makes us less buoyant or less resilient.

M: Absolutely. So, studies, because we like studies, –

P: Laugh.

M: – have shown that people who aren’t good at managing their stress can increase their risk of dying prematurely by 43%.

P: Mmm hmm, yep.

M: So, you’re 43% more likely to die prematurely.

P: And this is partly –

M: 43%!

P: Laugh.

M: That’s huge.

P: It is, [almost] half. Yeah.

M: And so, these wonderful researchers have done a lot of research into the effects of stress on our DNA and we’re going to talk about a little bit of more scientific stuff Pete. So, I’m going to hand to you.

P: We’re gonna try. We’re going, we’re going to give this a go. It’s going to be really basic.

M: Laugh.

P: So basically, when we’re talking about DNA, there are these little things called telomeres, and they’re like little barriers that stop the DNA from replicating too much basically. Whenever we have cell damage it reorganises itself, we can do that around 60 times.

M: If you think of your DNA as the bracelet, the telomere as the bead on the end.

P: Okay, Yeah, we can go with that.

M: So, it’s a sequence of beads, right?

P: Yeah, we’ve got about 60 of them let’s say.

M: Yep.

P: And we can reproduce, and we could lose them. We lose a bead every time we [the cell] reproduce.

M: 60 reproductions?

P: Yeah, around there.

M: Before a cell dies.

P: That is called the Hayflick Limit.

M: Yes.

P: Of telomere reproduction.

M: Yes.

P: And if we have short telomeres, if we’ve only got a few beads left on the bracelet, these are the sorts of things that make us less resilient, less buoyant, getting grey hairs, getting wrinkles, showing the signs of ageing.

M: In the cell.

P: Yes.

So, there is a molecule in our DNA, which has telomerase, which can put beads back on the bracelet. So, we had this and these are things like our immune cells and if we didn’t have that our immune cells would die, and we wouldn’t be able to defend ourselves against bacteria or pathogens. So, these telomerases [stop, extend and may] reverse the ageing process. And there are things that we can do that increase that telomerase being active in our body. And these are a lot of things that we talk about with positive psychology.

M: So why don’t we all just drink telomerase every day?

P: Laugh, good question. I don’t think we’ve been able to bottle it, to be honest.

M & P: Laugh.

M: This is the elixir of life.

P: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. The fountain of eternal youth. I guess that would, that would work if you can do that.

M: Sure. And look, it does sound like the solution to ageing. But telomerase does stop working properly when people reach about their eighties. So even immune cells, which produce a lot of telomerase, the molecule telomerase stop producing that and begin to age.

P: Yep.

M: So, my lovely grandma, shout out. She just turned 97.

P: Oh, wow.

M: She had shingles last year, and they said not to worry about getting the vaccine for shingles. She’s 97, it’s not going to make any difference.

P: No.

M: So, as you get older things still do… We still have a shelf life, unfortunately, laugh.

P: Yeah, we do. There’s a used by date on all of us, laugh.

M: So unfortunately, there are things that we can do in our environment and as habits and behaviours that have the opposite effect from telomerase, which are things like smoking, drinking too much alcohol, being overweight and stress.

P: Yep.

M: And all of those things impact or are associated with telomere loss.

P: Mmm hmm.

M: And telomerase not working as effectively.

P: Yep. If you’re losing beads at a high rate, no matter how many beads you put back on, you’re still losing beads.

M: Yeah, so the solution here is to manage your stress.

P: It is. And how do we do that, Marie?

M: Well, I’m glad you ask.

P: Laugh.

M: So, obviously adopting a healthy lifestyle. So, not only [are you] going to have a better quality of life, you’re going to have a longer life as well by doing a lot of things we talk about.

P: Yeah.

M: In particular, it’s worth noting that in today’s day and age, we are experiencing more low-level stress in our life and more high impact stress more often. We are more likely to divorce. We are more likely to move interstate or overseas. We are more likely to lose our jobs nowadays as well.

P: Yep.

M: And the list goes on and on. And then there’s that low level stuff like climate change, something that’s completely out of a lot of our control.

P: But ever present.

M: Always there… Political unrest right now. This whole debate about the media and who can say what and whether we can lie and how much lying is happening.

P: Access to information.

M: And how dumb our relatives are.

P: Laugh.

M: Anti-vaxxer’s and QAnon and all of that’s going on in the background and is just creating this high level of stress. And that’s what I think we’ve talked about before, I refer to it as the change storm. We’re just in the middle of this storm of stuff and what we can do and what we’re learning now and is critical in this new world is for us to be far more diligent about controlling what we allow to impact us. So, as we’ve discussed before, turning off your notifications on your social media, not being on every single social media channel and feeling that you have to participate on them all.

P: Gosh yes. I’ve been off social media for a long while, I feel so good. Laugh.

M: Really time blocking your use of things and being deliberate about it.

P: A client did that recently, shout out to Dimitry. We had a conversation about social media use, and he actually put a timer on his usage, and now he’s gone from six hours down to an hour and he’s loving it.

M: Yep.

P: He said, it’s just that constant information coming at me that I don’t need and processing of that information, that’s low-level stress.

M: Mmm hmm. Yep, absolutely. Particularly because a lot of it is talking about negative things in our environment that we have no control or influence over.

P: Mmm. And sensationalism.

M: Yep. You know, if you remember the watermelon and the orange and the M&M.

P & M: Laugh.

M: It’s the big stuff that you just no matter what you do, you can recycle, and you can do a whole lot of things. But really, it’s not going to change what happens in the news every day.

P: Mmm.

M: So, all of that is in our environment right now. So, listening to the news less.

P: Yep.

M: Controlling your social media, controlling how your technology that you use during the day, a lot of us spend a lot of time in meetings and on email and being contactable by people at work, really saying no and being okay to say no to a lot of these things in our lives as well as the other side that we talk about so controlling stress. It’s going to happen.

P: Mmm.

M: You could go live under a rock and stress would still find you nowadays.

P: Laugh.

M: Yeah, so it’s about then managing things when they do go bad as well.

P: It is, and in that way, and along those lines, let’s talk about eustress a little bit here. Let’s talk about the positive stress.

M: Yes.

P: Sometimes stress is good for us. We can take it and we can use it to actually benefit ourselves. And the authors talk about this in terms of the psychology of embracing stressful events, leading to matters that make us more resilient and resourceful, such as seeking out friends when we need help or creating resources within ourselves so that when stress comes at us, we have the tools to be able to deal with it a little bit more.

M: Yep. So, mindfulness is a great one.

P: Mmm.

M: So, when you can feel your heart racing or you’re not sleeping well at night, or there’s too much going on, and it’s just out of your control to fix it because you’ve got a deadline coming up or something like that, or, you know something is going wrong or bad in your life at that point. Deep breathing. I’m saying it, there you go.

P: Laugh.

M: Meditation has been proven. Yoga, Pilates, a lot of these lighter exercises or going for a walk, getting out in nature and getting some sun. Those kinds of things are really good for balancing out the negative stress.

P: Yeah.

M: And then, as you just said, then the good stress. So, we had spoken way back early on in our podcast episodes about Kelly McGonigal, who has a great Ted talk talking about good stress. So, if you google Kelly McGonigal and Good Stress and Ted X, you’ll find her.

P: It’s really worth a listen.

M: Yes, and she looks at how, studies actually that point to how we perceive stress. And if we see stress as good. Like if you’re gearing up for your grand final on sports day and you’re a bit nervous and a bit stressed, but you’re excited by that your body responds differently, and it’s exactly the same physiological response to that deadline at work.

P: Mmm.

M: But how we frame it in our minds and how we see it, is how our bodies react to it.

P: Yep definitely, and that actually has a link to telomerase in actually getting those beads back on the bracelet we can actually influence that response. And we can do that via intense exercise as well.

M: Yes.

P: So, it can be a good or it can be bad. It depends on how you frame it and how you use it.

M: Yep. So, Kelly McGonigal talks about a study where they tracked 30,000 adults in the US for eight years, and they started by asking people how much stress have you experienced in the last year?

And I don’t know anyone in the world today who hasn’t experienced higher than usual levels of stress over the last two years, right?

P: Mmm.

M: So, how much stress have you experienced in the last year? And they also asked, do you believe that stress is harmful for your health? And then they used public death records to find out who died.

P: Laugh. What a lovely thing to do a study about.

M: I love how blunt she is as well, right?

P: Laugh!

M: I think we’d be friends.

P & M: Laugh!

M: And so, people who experienced a lot of stress had that 43% increased risk of dying that the study that we’re looking at today mentions.

P: Yep.

M: But it was only truth people who also believe that stress is harmful for your health. So, really important thing to note there. If you’ve got high levels of stress, you don’t want to die. You want to live forever.

P: Laugh.

M: At least into your eighties, there’s two things you can do:

Reframe how you see that stress in your life.
And secondly, learn some of those techniques that are going to help you control the bad stress.

P: Yep.

M: And bad stress will happen. And there’s some things that you can’t refrain. Grief is probably one of… divorce again is one of the most stressful times, and they suck and they’re bad.

P: Yep. And getting through those and recognising the down in the negative. Getting through those is what we’re talking about.

M: Yep.

P: Read a book, play a computer game, go for a walk.

M: Play your favourite music in the morning.

P: Get through it.

M: Yep, put some put some habits in place that bring some joy into your life as well.

P: Use your tools, and then come to the other side and then you can… Then you can do the reinterpretation and reframing.

M: Well, if it’s appropriate. There’s some stuff that I acknowledge, you can’t refrain. It’s crap.

P: Laugh.

M: To use a PG word.

P: Laugh. So, there we go. If you want to be youthful and do well with your telomere length and have good ageing qualities. Be a model for long term, get into some distressing stuff.

Reframe,
meditate,
mindfulness.

And dance a little bit in your underwear.

M: Laugh. The cynic in me is like, I can’t believe we’re spouting this shit.

P: Laugh!

M: But it is science.

P: It is science, yep. Look it up.

M: That’s why we’re here.

P: Laugh!

M: It is all convincing me that one day I will need to do some meditation.

P & M: Laugh!

P: It’s alright, just run around in your underwear, and that’s just as good.

M: I can do that, laugh!

P: And on that note, laugh!

M: Have a happy week.

P: And stay cynical.

[Happy exit music – background]

P: And if you like our little show, we would absolutely love for you to leave a comment or rating to help us out.

M: Until next time.

M & P: Choose happiness.

[Exit music fadeout]

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Show notes

Transcript

Interview with Tal Ben-Shahar, best selling author and founder of The Happiness Studies Academy and Potentialife

Q: So, what do you think needs to change apart from awareness of the science. Are we talking changes at schools in organisations, you know, the systemic ways that we organise our countries and our governments that needs to change next? What’s the future of this movement look like?

Q: I think what I love most about that is it also addresses what the naysayers say about the toxic positivity movement. We’re really saying it’s okay to feel anger and pain and sadness and all of those, and in fact, it is encouraged and human to do so. And this model addresses that.

Q: All right, so I think I know where this is going, but you might surprise me. So, I’ve asked what has been impactful in others. I’m interested to know what happiness habit you always personally prioritise in your week?

Q: Thank you very much. Is there anything that you would like to add in that I haven’t asked you? I think we’ve covered quite a broad spectrum of happiness questions.

Want to hear more from Tal?

Happiness for Cynics podcast

Transcript

“People are sensing and have been sensing for a while that we’re in the midst of some sort of revolution, and they’re not sure why.” [Happier – Tal Ben-Shahar]

“If you want to reform the world, you must first change education.” [– Janusz Korczak]

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” [– Albert Einstein]

“There are no bad emotions, only bad behaviours.” [– Tal Ben-Shahar]

“So, behaviour trump’s emotions.”

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So how can you build a positive mindset?

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Happiness for Cynics podcast

Show notes

Sleep deprivation and genes

Sleep is your superpower – Matt Walker

Transcript

“The important thing is to never stop questioning.”

– [Albert Einstein]

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It’s not all beyond your control

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Happiness for Cynics podcast

Show notes

Telomeres and telemerase

Good stress

Hayflick Limit

Transcript

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Podcast: Happiness for Cynics

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