#196, The Science of Happiness--with Laurie Santos

This is one of those episodes which keeps me sending in the monthly financial contribution to the podcast—an excellent interview with practical, potentially life-changing information, from a guest I would never have heard of otherwise!

You may not find it quite as much of a revelation, if you find that you can predict much of the findings that his guest discusses. And I'll grant you that for the most part they make perfect sense and you find yourself thinking, "shoot, I probably would have said something very similar, if pressed." But in my mind, those ar ethe best kinds of truths to be exposed to--the kind you realize you should have been able to figure out for yourself. And, if perchance you had done so, then I congratulate you on your maximizing of your wellbeing.

This podcast doesn't get deep into the details of her ideas, and if that was what you wanted, you could probably skip the episode and go straight to Laurie Santos’s podcast, the Happiness Lab. Or you could go to the Yale website and download her classroom (I don’t know if it is free, though).

If on the other hand you're content to begin with a quick thumbnail sketch, then here is a very brief recap of nine points I took to be most important:

1. The level of happiness you experience is something that you can consciously affect.

2. You can measure two different kinds of happiness in your life: how happy you are at the moment (warm, well-fed, relaxed) versus how happy you are with what you are doing with your life, your purpose and your goals and what you take to be your meaning.

3. In general, people‘s happiness improves if they nurture and expand social connections, as opposed to isolating themselves.

4. People tend to derive more happiness and pleasure out of generosity (time, money, etc) to other people, rather than indulging themselves.

5. You can improve your happiness by exercises (such as meditation) to increase your sense of gratitude. T

6. Taking part in religious rituals can increase people’s happiness. (This one strikes me as problematic because I don’t believe in any of the major religions. But maybe we just need an agnostic church. Or maybe an agnostic can get the same beneficial effect by in some other tribal activity, such as volunteering in a soup kitchen.)

7. People’s intuitions about how to increase their happiness has been shown wrong in some common situations like whether to talk to a stranger while standing next to her in line--that usually gives a net increase in happiness, but people often avoid doing so because they’re afraid it might be awkward.

8. Our phones tend to impede happiness by replacing physical interactions (virtual interactions don’t contribute much to wellbeing). 

9. We often don’t have enough faith in our own psychological immune system, and avoid taking risks even when they aren't particularly harmful and often hold beneficial rewards.