My guest today is Laurie Santos, Professor of Psychology and the Head of Silliman College at Yale University. She teaches Psychology and the Good Life, one of the most popular courses at Yale.
Can you accurately identify what aspects of life make you happy? Would you even know if you found true happiness? Leading psychology professor Laurie Santos dives deep on the factors contributing to our happiness, evidence-based methods to boost your happiness, and why it’s crucial to protect yourself from unhappy people.
Listen and Learn: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Transcript
Here are a few highlights from our conversation:
I think happiness takes work. Like all good things you got to put in some work to get there, and part of that work is understanding the misconceptions. But part of that work is, we don’t often have the best instincts about what will make us happy. The things that we want to do in life are not necessarily the things we’re really going to enjoy, or like, or that will give us a meaningful life.
But part of happiness really is about being present. There’s so much evidence that when we’re mind wandering, when we’re not fully present, that that’s a time when we’re also not very happy.
One of my favorite most profound effects is the effect of taking a little time for gratitude, the simple act of counting your blessings. There’s evidence that in as little as two weeks, the simple act of writing three to five things you’re grateful for down on a piece of paper can significantly improve your wellbeing.
I think one thing that’s useful for parents to remember is about the science of emotional contagion, that we naturally catch other people’s emotions. If you are embodying calm and this is going to be fine and everything’s okay, then kids are going to follow that. If you’re embodying anxiety and like, “Oh my gosh, this is so important,” kids are naturally going to catch that too.
