Demystifying the Science of Happiness | Dr. Laurie Santos EP 338

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1:14People have been talking about happiness for, you know, in the last decade, I feel like I've seen lots of books out there. There've been other, I guess, happiness educators, teachers, experts, whatever you want to call it, why is this picking up in such with so much steam in lots of different platforms? One answer is like, nothing's new about this, right? I mean, Harvard had a class on the science of happiness taught by this guy, Tal Ben Shahir, over a decade ago. Also, Sean Aker, another famous happiness researcher, was part of that class. And so in some ways, like every time somebody does this, it kind of goes a little viral.

1:48You know, we've been worried about happiness since, I think since we've been human, right? Like basically, you know, chimpanzees aren't out there worried about happiness, but probably we are. You know, it's in the Declaration of Independence. Like Aristotle was talking about eudaimonia back in the day. Like it's in some ways, it's a super not new. I think what is new is that a lot of us are focused on this right now because I think things are pretty good. You know, like on the Internet, there's this idea of like first world problems. Right. And that's the problem that a lot of us face. Right. We feel like, you know, we have food on our table.

2:19We have a roof over our head. We have good jobs and good families, you know, great Internet and Netflix, but something's missing. And like and that when you're feeling those first world problems, I think it's even more profound because you're like everything's supposed to be fine. Right. Everything's supposed to be perfect. Like, why do I not feel like everything's right? Why do I feel like I'm not flourishing? Why do we feel that way? Well, I think the problem is that our mind kind of sucks. We have these really bad intuitions about what makes us happy. I mean, people who are in that state are also thinking, oh, if only I could be like that 19-year-old lottery winner, everything would be perfect, right?

2:52So people are doubling down. They're playing the lottery. They're spending more time at work. They're investing in all this stuff, thinking reasonably based on their intuitions, thinking it's going to improve happiness. But we're just going about it the wrong way. And that's why I think the class can be so powerful. It's not like we don't know what to do to be happier. We have these strong theories. It's just the science suggests they're wrong. It's not like you're not putting the work in. We're putting the work in in the wrong stuff. It sounds like you've had this experience with a thousand different students you've worked with.

3:20Imagine a student right now is feeling so overwhelmed and so insecure about everything they do in their life. They're mentally struggling. They don't feel like they fit in with friends. They don't feel like they feel like they've got so much classwork and they're just struggling. and every day is a battle of how to find joy in the smallest things, but they can't find any joy. Where does a kid like that start of actually being happy? Like what's the even starting process when you're in that situation? Yeah. Well, I feel like step one is to just realize how not alone you are. If you're in that situation, that's why I start this class with the stats, right?

4:03Like, oh, you feeling overwhelmed. Great. 87 % of your college peers are feeling that way too. You know, feeling really depressed, like actually probably a quarter of you are admitting that you're feeling that way, right? Feeling overwhelmed, well, that's three quarters of you. So I think seeing the stats is so powerful. This is another spot where our mind lies to us. There's this wonderful study I share with the students in my class that has you predict how other people are feeling, right? Because we're constantly doing that. Like we're in our own heads feeling depressed and anxious or feeling inadequate.

4:35And then we project onto other people. and whenever we look at other people, we think they're doing fine. And so there's this one study that has college students predict how many good and bad events other people are going through, like how many other people out there got their dream job or got a perfect grade or got invited to a cool party versus bad things, like how many people out there got dissed for a date or are feeling really homesick or something like that. And what you find is people consistently overestimate how many good things other people are getting. In other words, other people aren't doing as well as you think.

5:03But what's worse is people really, really, really seriously underestimate the number of people that are going through bad things. Right. Almost by double digits. And so the problem is like we're all kind of suffering in silence and in stigma, right? Because we don't want to admit like we're feeling like we're not flourishing, but everybody else seems great. But the fact of the matter is the data suggests that's just not the case. So that's kind of step one is like you are not alone. Okay. Step two. What science suggests is that there's ways to intervene in small ways and baby steps that can matter a lot.

5:34And one of those first steps the research suggests is to kind of reach out to other people. I think there's this kind of mistaken notion that happiness is all about self-care and self, self, self, like treat yourself. But what the science suggests is that happy people are really other oriented. You know, they're reaching out, they're making social connections. They're worrying about how they can help other people and other people's welfare. that's what seems to lead to a happy life. Again, it goes against our intuitions, but doing nice for others is better than maybe focusing on ourself.

6:15Thank 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 Podcasts 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.

7:05Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.