5 Steps to Instant Happiness | Dr. Laurie Santos EP 367

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation show.

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0:52What would you say are the five things that if people did these five things every single day on a consistent basis, their happiness level would go up a point or two consistently over time. and it doesn't cost any money and it doesn't take a ton of time. But if you did these five things, your life would start to be a lot happier. I think this act of becoming other oriented, however that works for you, whether that's, you know, donating an hour of your time or just like holding the door open for somebody, you know, giving some money, like we all can probably, you know, have enough disposable income to spare a teensy weensy bit.

1:25And so what can you do to spend that money on or that time or whatever on other people's that that would be topic. That'd think number two would be another thing you just echoed in terms of how you're talking about changing your life, which is to show up for other people. So all the research suggests that happy people are really social. They tend to talk to random strangers, they tend to be around other people, and they really make time for the people that they care about in their life. And so I think this would be kind of big change number two is like, how can you just be reaching out to people more often?

1:56This is one of these things where like we kind of know it, but we don't often put it into practice, right? You know, if you found out you were on your deathbed, you know, this week, and you knew you had a week to live, you'd probably like want to focus on those people you care about in your life, like whoever they are, you would see your friends, you would hang out with your family that you care about, you know, you put time into your romantic relationship, whatever, that's what you do. But if you look at how we tend to spend our time, it's, you know, we're caught up in work, sometimes we're not even present with our family members when we're around them, you know, because we're like, you know, let me put the phone down kind of thing.

2:28And so but but happy people don't do that they're prioritizing right now and so whatever you can do to shift to being a little more social and a little more connected with the people you care about the third one would be uh to kind of focus on the power of gratitude our instinct when things are good and when things are bad is that it's funny to kind of gripe about stuff right you know like it's funny to kind of complain you probably even have people in your life that whenever you see them you just start like the complaining fest like happens but that's not what happy people do happy people are spontaneously counting their blessings and this is a spot where i think popular culture has gotten on to something with things like gratitude lists or gratitude journals just taking time to count your blessings even if it's like 30 seconds at night you can see statistical boosts in happiness within about two weeks of that practice you're right the power of gratitude this is something that I swear by.

3:23And without it, I'd be unhappy. Number four is kind of a smushed one, but I'll throw together a bunch of things under the context of like healthy habits. By that, what I mean is like things we know are good for our physical health, but we often forget that our physical health and our mental health are intertwined. So, you know, getting some regular exercise and movement in, making sure you're prioritizing sleep and having good sleep habits. So it's not just like you plop down for a certain number of hours a night, but you're really trying to do things before you go to bed and during your day to make sleep better.

3:55You know, even healthy eating, like we forget the connection between our gut and our brain, between our bodies and our brain, between our stress levels and our brain. And so we really have to kind of make sure we're protecting our physical health because that has a huge implication on our mental health. I mean, there's evidence suggesting that like a half hour of cardio every day is as effective as a prescription of Zoloft for reducing depression symptoms, right? So these psychiatrists, you know, might not make as much money if they're prescribing, hey, hop on the treadmill or your Peloton, you know, for a half hour.

4:25But that's what the data suggests. And then same thing with sleep. I feel like we could solve most of the mental health crisis on college campuses if we just got these kids to sleep. Overwhelmed and exhausted is a combination for unhappiness. I think the fifth one would be finding ways to practice being more mindful, being more present. And I mean that in a couple of ways. One is like the standard Buddha meditation-y way to be present where you're paying attention to the present moment. But it's also just like paying attention to your body and where you are with things. After that gripe fest session, I'm like, I feel kind of yucky.

5:00Maybe after you do something nice and give somebody something at Starbucks, you have a presence and notice like, I feel kind of good. Like my heart feels warm. I'm breathing in a different way and so on. And so I think, you know, we constantly have these theories about what we should be doing with our time. But if we actually pay attention to how our bodies feel and be present during it, we can see whether we're going in the right direction or the wrong direction. For me, this is so true on social media. I have this intuition of like, oh, I'm like bored or feeling a little anxious. Like, I'm going to just do a quick Twitter check.

5:31I'm just going to hop on Facebook just for a second. If I notice how I feel afterwards, I'm like, I feel either apathetic or bored or my anxiety has spiked. or I feel kind of inadequate and sort of yucky about myself, like I want to buy something. None of those are good feelings that I wanted. But if you're not present and you don't notice them, then you just act on those urges.

6:10Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description. That will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on The School of Greatness. And if you are loving The Daily Motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

7:00Again, have an amazing day, and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.