0:15

Pushkin.

0:18

Hello, and welcome to House Calls. I'm

0:21

Vivik Morphy and I have the honor of serving as

0:23

US Surgeon General. I'd

0:25

like to introduce you to doctor Lorie Santos,

0:28

Professor at Yale University and the

0:30

creator of the revolutionary class Psychology

0:33

and the Good Life, better known as the Happiness

0:35

Class. Today, we'll be talking about

0:37

happiness in the context of the mental health

0:40

crisis among you. This

0:42

episode includes lessons on stress,

0:44

burnout and the practice of happiness.

0:47

Hi, Laurie, Welcome to the podcast.

0:49

Hey, thanks so much for having me on the show.

0:51

I have so much time want to talk to you about today,

0:54

but I first just want to ask just about your

0:56

personal story, which is I find so fascinating

0:59

that you went from working

1:01

on non human primates to becoming

1:03

an expert unhappiness, and

1:05

I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about how

1:08

that happened.

1:09

Yeah, it's a kind of strange path, and so yeah,

1:11

I've been an academic psychologist for a

1:14

very, very embarrassingly long time. Most

1:17

of the time I was really interested in this question of what

1:19

makes humans unique, what makes us special? What

1:21

are some of the ways that we make sense of the world that

1:23

no other creature does. And I studied

1:25

that question using monkeys, using

1:27

non human primates. But it was around

1:29

this time, like you know, about ten years ago, that I

1:31

started getting more and more involved in undergraduate

1:34

student life and I took on this new role

1:36

on campus. I became a head of college on

1:38

Yelle's campus, which is this position where faculty

1:40

get to live with students in one of these undergraduate

1:43

houses. And it was just an amazing opportunity,

1:45

right, I get to see student life up close and personal.

1:48

But what was surprising was that I didn't like what

1:50

I was seeing. You know. I assumed college student

1:52

life was like what college life was like back

1:55

you know, when I went to school in the nineties, and it

1:57

was just completely different. You know. So many students

1:59

were reporting feeling depressed and anxious

2:01

and lonely, as you know so well from your work,

2:04

and it just kind of wasn't what I was expecting,

2:06

and so I kind of wanted to do

2:08

something about it. Right, I'm like, living in this community

2:11

with my students, I'm like this benevolent faculty

2:13

aunt who's supposed to take care of them. And I realized,

2:15

like we weren't addressing this crisis

2:17

of student mental health. So I kind of did this sort

2:19

of retraining in positive psychology

2:21

and sort of science of well being, all these evidence

2:23

based strategies you can use to feel

2:26

better, and so I kind of packaged it all together to

2:28

develop a new class for students. I thought, you

2:30

know, forty or so students would take it, but

2:32

the first time I taught it back in twenty

2:35

eighteen, a quarter of the entire

2:37

Yale student body decided to take the class.

2:39

Over. Over a thousand students showed up, and

2:42

that was sort of, you know, a logistical nightmare,

2:44

but it was also kind of humbling and cool,

2:46

and it showed me that students were voting

2:48

with their feet. They don't like this culture of feeling

2:51

lonely and stressed and anxious, and I think they

2:53

really wanted some evidence based ways that

2:55

they could address some of these problems. They were looking

2:57

for solutions, and they wanted those solutions

3:00

to come from science and public health.

3:02

Well, Laurie, you and I both

3:04

I know, are deeply concerned about what's happening

3:06

with young people in their mental health these days

3:09

the country, and I'm

3:11

curious, I think for people out there who

3:13

may have seen the headlines, but for

3:16

whom it's not quite tangible. Y're sure,

3:18

like, what does this actually look like for kids to being crisis?

3:21

Can you paint a picture of what you've been

3:23

seeing on the campus and

3:26

what you're observing the lives of students

3:28

in terms of how this mental health crisis is manifesting

3:30

in their lives.

3:31

Yeah, I mean, I'll start with some of the statistics, because

3:33

I think the statistics are pretty

3:35

dire, right, you know, according to these national

3:37

college health surveys. So these aren't just students

3:39

at ivy League schools like yea, These are students around

3:41

the country and all kinds of different schools. Right

3:44

now, or at least in twenty nineteen,

3:46

which is the last kind of pre COVID data we had,

3:48

you know, over forty percent of college students report

3:50

being too depressed to function most days, Over

3:53

sixty percent say that they're overwhelmingly anxious,

3:55

more than fifty percent say that they're very lonely

3:58

most of the time, and more than one in

4:00

ten has seriously considered suicide in the

4:02

last twelve months. You know.

4:04

So this is what is happening nationally

4:06

and the way I would just see it on the ground We're just students

4:09

are just overwhelmed, you know, they're overwhelmed

4:11

by academics, they're overwhelmed by social stuff.

4:13

I'd see a student in the dining hall and be like, hey, how's

4:16

it going, and be like, Oh, if only I could get

4:18

to the end of the week, or if only I could get to

4:20

midterms. You know, they're kind of fast forwarding this

4:22

this rare and precious time they have as young

4:24

people. And those are the students who aren't

4:26

in crisis, right, you know, crisis really looks

4:29

like students who are unable to get out of bed because

4:31

they have panic attacks, or who are acutely

4:33

suicidal, or who have everything

4:35

going, you know, especially in a school like Yale.

4:37

They're students who are academically achieving,

4:40

but in terms of their mental health, they're falling

4:42

apart. And so I think, you know, we

4:44

really need to as you know all and as

4:46

you've discussed yourself, I mean, I think we really need

4:48

to think seriously about addressing this crisis,

4:50

not just because our young people's mental

4:52

health matters, but as educators,

4:55

we're not really doing our job when

4:57

these are the statistics on the ground, Like as a

4:59

college educator, if I'm trying to teach a psychology

5:01

class or you know, some pre med class, Like,

5:03

my students aren't learning if forty percent

5:05

of them are too depressed to function most days

5:07

and sixty percent expence or experiencing

5:10

overwhelming anxiety, Right, they're just not learning

5:12

in the way I think we had assumed for a very

5:14

long time that they were.

5:16

Yeah, I mean those stats and stories

5:18

are so powerful and so disturbing,

5:20

Laurie, I mean that tells I think anyone out

5:22

there who's listening is wonder it is this more

5:24

the exception or you know, only something

5:27

that affects a small group of people. The

5:29

answer is no. I mean, this is sadly

5:31

becoming the norm, you know,

5:33

if anything, and affecting in some cases

5:35

a majority of young people out there.

5:37

So this is a this is a profound

5:40

crisis, and it's affecting

5:42

our kids. You know, as you think about

5:44

this journey, obviously weren't a bad place now, But how

5:47

did we get here? What's your sense of the road

5:49

that led to the current moment?

5:51

Yeah, I mean I think there's no It'd be nice if there

5:53

was like a you know, a red herring of one thing

5:55

we could point to and be like, oh, this is the factor, Like,

5:57

let's get rid of it. I think it's a variety

5:59

of things. I mean, I think, you know, we have

6:01

a very different relationship with technology

6:04

than we did when you and I were in

6:06

college. Right, this is a generation of students

6:08

who really can't shut off. You

6:11

know. I told this this funny story to students. One of

6:13

my students was in their dorm room and they're

6:15

like, you know, my title is hawk

6:17

Santo's head of college Santo's. They'd be like, hack Santo's. There's

6:19

a weird number on my wall, Like what

6:21

is that? And I was like, oh, that's the phone number.

6:24

You know, people used to call your phone in

6:26

your room. And the students said, well, how could

6:28

they call me when I wasn't in the room. And I was like, well

6:31

they couldn't. Like you could just leave, like you could

6:33

walk away from your social expectations.

6:35

And I think when you think about that difference,

6:38

that students feel like they're on

6:40

all the time, onto their friend group, onto

6:42

the people they're performing with on social media,

6:44

onto just being connected to all the scary

6:47

stuff in the news all the time. Right, that

6:49

alone is a recipe for anxiety.

6:52

It's a recipe for kind of not feeling like

6:54

you can ever shut off right, And so I think I

6:56

think we really need to take a solid

6:58

look at our relationship with technology.

7:00

And it's partly social media, but I think it's

7:03

broader than that. You know, even a student who's not really

7:05

on TikTok or on Instagram or so on,

7:08

you know, there can to their parents who could text

7:10

them at a moment's notice. They're connected to WhatsApp

7:12

when they're kind of connecting with your friend

7:14

group and things like that. So I think that's

7:16

a big change. And if you plot

7:19

just the number of smartphones that

7:21

students tended to have alongside

7:23

these you know, awful mental health statistics,

7:25

you see a really robust correlation. And we know

7:28

correlation isn't causation, but my

7:30

sense is that there's something there we need to analyze.

7:33

I think there's also been some interesting and important

7:35

structural changes to the way childhood

7:38

and education works. You know, I think childhood

7:40

has become much more of an achievement culture.

7:43

You know, in the years since you and I were in college,

7:45

where even from grade

7:47

school students are starting to worry about grades.

7:50

You know, we have words like college readiness and

7:52

things like that, and those things are important.

7:54

You know, we want students to learn, but I

7:56

think we've moved much more away from internal

7:59

rewards like learning and the benefits

8:01

you get from education, to things

8:03

like getting into a perfect school and

8:05

the scores you get on exams and so on.

8:08

And I think that focus on external rewards

8:10

has set students up for, you know, competing

8:13

in really individualistic ways that lead

8:15

them astray from the things that really matter for their mental

8:18

health, things like social connection, things

8:20

like helping others, things like having a sense

8:22

of meaning and purpose that's beyond yourself.

8:25

And so I think those structural changes in the way

8:27

we think about education and what

8:29

students are trying to achieve, those

8:31

things actually matter a lot, and we need to look at

8:33

those really carefully if we're going to think about addressing

8:36

this mental health crisis.

8:38

So let's dig into that for a second, because I like

8:40

what you're talking about regarding internal versus

8:42

external rewards,

8:44

or more so as

8:46

priorities. You know that we ask young

8:49

people to train their minds on and then the chase

8:51

for years and years and years some cases the rest of

8:53

their life. And I think this

8:56

is where I think it's so interesting that. You know, people talk

8:58

about you as the happiness professor, and I

9:00

know that happiness has been your focus. But a

9:02

lot of these priorities are

9:04

part of a narrative that tells us

9:06

that if you achieve those extra

9:09

markers, right, whether it is, you know, winning

9:11

certain competitions, getting certain grades, getting to certain

9:14

school, getting fancy jobs, making a certain

9:16

amount of money, becoming famous, whatever

9:18

the external markers are, the story

9:21

goes that if you achieve those, you will be happy.

9:24

But what is the data actually tell

9:26

us about whether that's true or not?

9:28

Yeah, I mean the data are really clear on

9:31

this one, which is that our circumstances

9:33

don't necessarily make us happy. I think

9:35

the one caveat to that is that if you're in really

9:38

dire circumstances, right, if you don't have enough money

9:40

to put food on the table, if your health

9:42

is terrible, you know, those are

9:44

circumstances that if you change those, of course

9:46

they'll positively affect your well being. But

9:49

you know, if you're not living in poverty,

9:51

the results seem to suggest that getting more money

9:53

isn't necessarily going to help you, or it's definitely not going

9:55

to help as much as we predict it well. The

9:58

same is true for grades and accolades. One

10:00

of the statistics I share with my students is that

10:02

there is a correlation between high

10:05

school grade point average and well being,

10:07

but it's a negative correlation. That

10:09

mean that means as high school GPA goes up,

10:11

your overall well being goes down. You

10:13

also see a negative correlation between high school

10:16

GPA and self esteem and high school

10:18

GPA and optimism. Right, it's not what

10:20

we predict, but you know, they're just student

10:22

achievement is not leading to the kind of well

10:25

being effects we expect. And

10:27

you might say, well, you know that that might be true

10:29

in school, but maybe you know once they graduate from

10:31

college, once they get into the good school, you know in

10:33

the future they'll be much better off. But

10:35

the data don't seem to bear that out either.

10:38

In cases where we have good data. Again, people's

10:40

great circumstances don't tend to lead

10:42

to these well being effects. The things

10:44

that matter for well being are the things that our

10:46

students are often not prioritizing.

10:48

They're the kind of things that get lost in this sort

10:51

of opportunity cost struggle that we're

10:53

sort of setting students up for. They're

10:55

things like social connection, things like

10:57

just getting enough sleep and healthy habits

10:59

like exercise. They're things like

11:01

doing things for others and having a sense of purpose,

11:04

not just kind of individually competing for yourself,

11:06

but really having some bigger goal that

11:08

you're doing something for your community. Again,

11:11

these I think are things that we've lost

11:13

out on in the norms that we set students up

11:15

for today. There are things that have kind of gone by

11:17

the wayside and the structures we've set up in our kind

11:20

of early educational system. But those

11:22

are the things that the research sug just really matter for

11:24

happiness.

11:25

Yeah, And that's incredibly powerful to hear because

11:27

I do think that young

11:30

people, when I talked to them across the country, a lot

11:32

of them have actually really impressive and

11:34

profound insight into the

11:36

structure in which they're operating as structure and a

11:38

culture that are asking them to chase certain

11:41

benchmarks, if you will, of achievement

11:44

with the promise, even if it's in the losory

11:46

promise of happiness that comes thereafter.

11:49

But they're not happy necessarily doing

11:51

that, And so you know, I think about

11:53

this from tube respects.

11:56

One is if they're not happy, they don't want it, where's

11:58

it coming from. Is it

12:00

coming from parents, Is it coming from media?

12:03

Is it coming from you know, some other

12:05

you know, sort of messaging element in society

12:08

that's selling people this is which you have to do. But

12:10

what's your sense of what is driving that culture

12:13

of achievement, even if it's at the expense of happiness.

12:16

I mean, I think there are a couple of factors. It's interesting

12:18

to look at this historically. There's

12:20

a former Stanford gene Julie Lithcott

12:23

Jims, who's looked at this in a lot of detail,

12:25

and what she talks about is like a lot

12:27

of changes that happened to education in the

12:30

in the kind of eighties and nineties that might

12:32

have led to this. One of the big ones was that

12:34

changes to this sort of US News

12:36

and World Report kind of scoring of

12:38

different colleges. Right before, it was kind of like, you know,

12:41

go to college, that's great. Now there's

12:43

like rankings, you can kind of win or lose

12:45

the college game. And I think parents

12:47

pick up on that, students pick up on that. Right

12:49

you know, there's this idea that there are

12:51

the kind of haves and that have nots when it comes

12:53

to education now, and that

12:55

feels really different. I think there's also

12:57

been changes in terms of who can go to college

13:00

in incredibly positive ways. Right you

13:02

know, any amazing student you know

13:04

can go to Yale right now, you know, YO will provide

13:06

a massive financial aid package. It's just

13:08

fantaststic, But the meritocracy

13:11

means that, like the spoils of the war become

13:13

large. You know, this is where I kind of tie back

13:15

to my roots studying animals. You see

13:17

in animals these impressive games that when

13:20

you know, the spoils go up, the competition rises.

13:22

You see this kind of arms race in terms

13:24

of how they invest in, how much they compete. And

13:27

I think we've kind of stuck our students

13:29

into this arms race of competing

13:31

for these things, and the competition begins really

13:33

early, and what they're sacrificing

13:35

is all the stuff that we know matters

13:38

for happiness again, sleep, social

13:40

connection, being present, you

13:42

know, being mindful, taking breaks,

13:45

what social scientists call time affluence,

13:47

just the sense that you have some free time. You

13:49

think of our poor, overscheduled kids and just

13:51

all the stuff we pack in for them. And

13:53

I think, you know, again, I think parents did this.

13:55

Parents kind of focused on these things out

13:58

of love for their children, right, they want their children

14:00

to succeed, They want their children ultimately to be happy.

14:03

But we have these misconceptions about the kinds

14:05

of things that really matter for happiness, and we set

14:07

up our structures using those misconceptions.

14:10

And I think now that we understand the signs

14:12

of this stuff better, I think we can start questioning some

14:14

of those structures and trying to think about whether

14:16

there are some changes we need to make. It's

14:19

time to take a short break, but there'll be more of

14:21

my conversation with doctor V. Big Marty in

14:23

a moment. Hey,

14:29

Happiness Lab listeners, welcome back to

14:31

my chat with the US Surgeon General, doctor

14:33

V. Big Marty.

14:35

You know, in your course on happiness, I

14:37

feel like you're it seems like there are two

14:40

elements of the course, right. You're teaching people about the

14:42

science of happiness, what leads to and influences

14:44

our happiness. But you're also teaching

14:46

them about the science and art of behavior change.

14:48

Right, Like, once we understand that, how would we actually

14:50

change our behaviors? Just gosh, one of the toughest

14:52

things to do, right, but so important.

14:55

And I'm curious, Like for folks out there who are

14:57

listening who recognize that there may be

14:59

a happiness gap in their life, a gap

15:01

that they want to close, how should

15:03

they think about what kind

15:05

of activities may in fact help

15:08

them increase happiness, and then how can

15:10

they change your lives to actually make those

15:12

activities part of their life. Because from

15:15

one thing is everything you've written before and spoken

15:17

before that I've listened to. You're

15:19

very realistic about telling people that

15:21

this isn't a simple, you know, flip

15:24

of the switch. This isn't just an app

15:26

that you sign up for, It's not a one

15:28

time activity. But this is it's

15:30

hard work, you know, to build a life that truly

15:32

contributes to and supports happiness.

15:35

Yeah, I mean, I think I think the first important

15:37

insight is to recognize that it's possible.

15:39

I mean, there's there's just tons of data that if

15:41

you can change your behaviors, if

15:44

you can change your mindsets, you will see

15:46

significant increases in happiness. Right,

15:48

And again, I think it's worth kind of qualifying

15:51

that that doesn't mean you go from like zero on

15:53

a happiness scale to ten. But if

15:55

you really take seriously these kinds

15:57

of strategies and you engage with it, you

15:59

know you can go from a six to a seven. You

16:01

know, on average, students who take my course,

16:03

for example, go up about a point on a standard

16:06

ten point well being scale. And

16:08

that's significant, right, Like that matters a lot.

16:10

That can get you out of a dark place if you're feeling

16:12

in a dark place. So I think that's thing number

16:14

one is to recognize that it works. The

16:16

second is to try to figure out the kinds

16:18

of strategies that really do positively

16:21

affect your happiness. And again, it's not what we think. We

16:23

think we have to change our job or

16:25

you know, make some incredible change in our finances

16:27

or things like that, and for many people it's

16:29

not that. For many people, it's for

16:32

example, getting in more social connection, you know,

16:34

something I know you've talked about a lot.

16:36

You know, I really wish that you know, your office

16:38

in addition to kind of having the you know, recommendations

16:41

for how much exercise people should get in a day, and

16:43

you know, how many whole grains or whatever, like

16:45

how many minutes of meaningful conversation

16:48

we should have you know, every single day, right,

16:50

you know how many people we should reach out to? Right,

16:52

just kind of like standard ways

16:55

that we can in really simple forms just

16:57

get a little bit more connection in our lives. That's

16:59

I think, honestly, if you really want to increase

17:01

your happiness, that's like one of the fastest ways

17:03

to do it is just to reach out to other people and connect.

17:06

Another behavior that we know matters for happiness, you know,

17:09

of tails with our physical health, which is just getting

17:11

a little bit more asleep, right, getting a little

17:13

bit more sleep in a little bit of exercise. I

17:15

mean, one of my favorite studies that I share with

17:17

students shows that you get a half hour of cardio

17:19

exercise a day that's as effective at

17:22

treating depression as

17:23

some antidepression medications.

17:25

You know, just a half hour every day of cardio,

17:27

right, if you're not doing that normally, And

17:30

so I think we need to just kind of remember that these

17:32

behaviors are powerful. And one of the behaviors

17:34

that can be powerful for happiness is also not

17:37

doing anything. You know, this idea of time affluence,

17:39

right, like not scheduling actually getting rest

17:41

in it can be a powerful way

17:43

to kind of free our schedule and give ourselves a little

17:46

bit of a break. So those are behaviors

17:48

we can engage in. What happiness also

17:50

can come from our mindsets, right, like

17:52

literally shifting our mindset. You know, we talked about this

17:54

a little bit about you know, maybe parents

17:56

shifting their forms of anxiety.

17:59

I think you can also shift your mindset in terms

18:01

of paying attention to the positives out

18:03

there lots of evidence that paying

18:05

attention to the things you're thankful for, or getting

18:07

a kind of mindset of gratitude matter

18:09

hard to do in this day and age where we

18:12

have, you know, twenty four seven news cycles

18:14

and algorithms that point us to the most

18:16

outrageous, most negative thing. You

18:18

know, it's harder to train your brain towards things that are

18:20

positive. But the evidence suggests that

18:22

gratitude can make us not just improve

18:25

our overall happiness levels, but it can

18:27

also improve our physical health. You

18:29

know, there's evidence that grateful people sleep better,

18:31

for example, Right, and so a mindset

18:34

of gratitude are powerful, But then also a mindset

18:36

of I think compassion, right. I think we

18:39

believe that the right way to live

18:41

a life is to push ourselves and constantly

18:43

be going for these external rewards and going

18:46

after these kinds of things. But there's lots

18:48

of evidence that giving yourself some grace, giving

18:50

yourself a break not only feels

18:52

better in terms of happiness, but it might be

18:55

the path towards getting you towards those other

18:57

goals that you have otherwise, because

18:59

it means you're not beating yourself up as much. And so

19:01

yeah, I think I think finding ways to get in

19:03

these behaviors and these mindsets are

19:06

important. The evidence suggests it really will improve

19:08

your happiness. But like all behavioral

19:10

changes, it's going to take you know, some work,

19:12

right, and I think recognizing that

19:15

it's work, recognizing that it's the kind of

19:17

thing you need to do every day,

19:19

you know, just like exercise, just like eating healthy.

19:21

I think that's the framing of happiness that we

19:24

need to sort of take on. I think, you know, too

19:26

often we fall for the maybe maybe it's

19:28

Disney messed us up, this notion of like happily

19:30

ever after that well, you know, get this one thing and then

19:33

we'll be happily ever after. But that's

19:35

that's not how it works. My Harvard colleague

19:37

Dan Gilbert is fond of saying happiness happily

19:39

ever after only works if you have three more minutes to

19:42

live. You know, it's just not how happiness

19:44

works.

19:47

Well, it is a a constant effort,

19:49

but as you mentioned, it can be a fruitful effort and

19:51

one that can really return

19:53

dividends. And what struck me about some of the measures

19:56

you were speaking to was the

19:58

relative simplicity of these measures. You

20:00

didn't say go out and buy an expensive service.

20:02

You didn't say go out and buy an expensive

20:05

product. You talked about things

20:07

that are within our grasp, about

20:09

sleep, about the empower of gratitude,

20:11

about even a short amount

20:13

of physical activity on a given day making an

20:16

impact on our mood and how we feel. Talked

20:18

about social connection, about picking up the

20:20

phone to call a friend, or picking up the phone when

20:22

someone calls, even if it's for two minutes, but just

20:24

to hear their voice. These are incredibly

20:27

powerful, and when you mentioned them, it

20:29

strikes me that these are kind

20:31

of the original building blocks of what allowed

20:33

humans to thrive. Right, And

20:35

in some ways, what you're speaking to I

20:37

think so eloquently in what you've

20:39

been modeling, I think in your own life and your coursework,

20:42

is that this is not an effort to somehow

20:45

transform us into something that's just totally

20:47

unfamiliar and foreign

20:49

to us. This is a return to who we've been for

20:52

thousands of years. And we've perhaps

20:54

in recent history forgotten that as we've allowed

20:57

other influences to shift what

20:59

we pursue and how we live. But this

21:01

is our chance, and I think our

21:05

opportunity to really get back to living a

21:07

life that truly nourishes us and how to

21:09

thrive. There's one thing you mentioned also

21:11

that I that struck

21:13

me too, you know, when it made me think about my conversations

21:15

I've had with patients over the years about behavior change,

21:18

often around like diet and physical activity, which

21:21

are you know, challenging you know, I mean, if

21:23

you are like me, you probably started gym

21:25

routines many times in your in your life,

21:27

or diets various times, and they have fallen off the

21:29

wagon somehow. And one thing I always

21:31

found powerful with patients was to recommend

21:34

to them that they have

21:36

somebody else in their life that they can

21:39

either pair up with and make a commitment

21:41

to do something together, whether it's trut a new diet or

21:43

a new exercise pattern, or at least somebody

21:45

who they can can hold them accountable

21:48

in a kind uh you know, but firm

21:50

way. You know, a good friend whom they may check

21:52

in with, you know, every couple of days to say hey, here's

21:54

how I'm doing on my diet, and that external

21:56

partnership accountability. Uh,

21:59

it's felt. I've just noticed with patients with

22:01

myself that it helps, you know, make behavior

22:04

change stick, it increases the longevity. But I'm

22:06

curious what you've seen in your research as well.

22:08

Yeah, I mean definitely. I think one of the reasons

22:10

that students do so well in my class,

22:12

that we do see these actual wellbeing gains when

22:14

we measure before and after, is that

22:16

students are doing it in the context

22:18

of this big group. Right. You know, there's a quarter of the entire

22:21

Yale student body who's you know, engaging

22:23

with these things at the same time. For by online

22:25

class that we put online for free on

22:27

Coursera, you know, there's millions of learners

22:29

who are doing the same thing at the same time that you can

22:31

connect with on message boards and things like

22:33

that. And you know that's you know, a big extreme version.

22:36

But I think you know, just partner up with a friend and and

22:39

try to do these kinds of practices together. I

22:41

think this is a spot where parents can really get

22:43

something out of kids.

22:44

Right.

22:44

You know, all the practices we just talked about are

22:47

ones that you can explain, you know, to your six

22:49

year old, you know, in five minutes and they get it.

22:51

And they'll you know, if you commit to doing this stuff

22:53

together with your kids, they'll hold you accountable.

22:56

You know. If you're supposed to be getting time affluence

22:58

and you're not, your kid would like Dad, like, you know, like

23:00

you said we should get time affluence, you know, like

23:02

you said you should work out the day you didn't work out today,

23:04

Like they love calling you out on that stuff.

23:06

And so I think that that this idea

23:09

of connecting with other people allows you

23:11

to have the social connection, but it also allows you to have

23:13

some social support. Right. You feel worse

23:15

if you're not engaging in these things because you're letting

23:17

somebody else down. So it's

23:19

a powerful way to do these things. But getting

23:22

back to your other point, I mean, I agree it's you know, in some ways,

23:24

when I give the list of all these

23:26

evidence based things that you know, like people are

23:28

getting, know, social scientists are getting money to study, and it's

23:30

like, look, the list is like social connection and

23:32

exercise more and sleep. Your people will

23:34

say, you know, that's that's what my grandmother told

23:37

me. You know, like this is you know, like this is

23:39

common wisdom, and I think ironically

23:41

it's it's long been common wisdom, but

23:43

at least in the modern day, it's not common

23:45

practice. Right. It's the kind of thing we

23:48

need to build into our lives to

23:50

live a healthy life. And so I think coming

23:52

up with structures, whether it's social support or

23:54

you're putting it in your calendar, anything you can do

23:57

to build these things in is important. The

23:59

final caveat I'll say with that, though, is that, you

24:01

know, I think whenever we hear this stuff, you

24:04

know, we as humans, you know, being these like reward

24:06

driven, you know, especially my kind of type a Yale students,

24:08

Like, there can be this move where you're

24:11

like, all right, and now I will begin beating myself

24:13

up for not being this like perfectly happy creature

24:15

or not achieving all these behaviors and mindsets.

24:18

And I think it's important to remember

24:20

the power of baby steps, right. You

24:22

know, if you're feeling really lonely and you're not

24:24

getting in any social connection, you know, just texting

24:27

a friend wants is going to do some work. You

24:29

know, if you're a really kind

24:31

of person, that the type of person that focuses

24:33

on the negative, then you know, thinking of one

24:35

thing that you might be grateful for every night could

24:38

be a powerful shift in your attention. And so I

24:40

think if you're hearing these things, you're feeling like, oh gosh,

24:42

I got to do all of them, you know, that's

24:44

a moment to maybe take a step back, you

24:46

give yourself some grace, pick one thing to focus

24:49

on, and start small. We know behavior

24:51

change works best if people are

24:53

picking small things to start with and giving

24:55

themselves grace when things don't work out perfectly.

24:59

Laurie, that makes great sense. And

25:02

if I think if we could pursue some of these pathways

25:05

for action that you're talking about, especially when we're

25:07

feeling, you know, run down

25:09

or burned out, I think they may help a lot. But

25:12

I want to ask you about two technology

25:14

related pathways that many

25:16

of us, myself included, sometimes

25:18

feel ourselves walking down when we're feeling tired

25:21

or exhausted or burned out. One

25:23

is social media, you know, which you know,

25:25

sometimes we can feel like, gosh, if I

25:28

from lonely, or if I'm just not feeling connected

25:30

to people, let me just you know, log onto my

25:32

social media app and then I'll see what other folks are doing, and I'll

25:35

feel connected to them. But then there's the other

25:37

tech piece I want I talked to you about, which is

25:39

streaming TV shows and movies, right,

25:41

which is you know once

25:44

you know, I remember growing up we had to like wait a

25:46

week, you know for the next you know, show to come on,

25:48

and it was like maddening, Like, oh, I wonder what

25:50

happens in the next episode. Now, of course we can.

25:52

You can binge watch you know, an entire series,

25:54

you know, like in a night or weekend if you want.

25:58

And I've certainly found myself at moments,

26:00

you know, over the years, you know, when I've felt

26:03

you know, just exhausted or burned out. But like, you know, let me

26:05

just sit down and watch a few episodes of my favorite show.

26:07

But tell me, how do you think about these

26:09

types of technology platforms? How

26:11

can they be helpful to us? When are

26:13

they actually not helping us?

26:14

Yeah, I mean I think the problem with some of

26:16

these technology platforms, I mean, there might be lots

26:18

of challenges with them, but I think one particular challenge

26:21

comes from yet another way that

26:23

our mind lies to us, which is that our mind really lies

26:25

to us when it comes to leisure. Right, you know, I

26:27

have a super busy week at work, you know, I

26:30

finally get some downtime. My

26:32

instinct is that the best thing to do will be to PLoP

26:34

down and watch Netflix or scroll through Reddit, or

26:36

do something that feels like vegging out. That's

26:38

my instinct of what I'm motivated to

26:40

do. But in practice, if you look at

26:42

the emotions that happen when I do that, I

26:45

kind of feel apathy. I'm kind of bored,

26:47

Like I'm kind of not challenged, right Whereas

26:50

if I did something that was a little bit more challenging,

26:53

right, like I had a little bit of a startup cost, like

26:55

call a friend or engage with something,

26:57

you know, learn a new hobby or something like that, right,

26:59

like that ultimately would be a

27:01

better boost and happiness. Even something like you know, doing

27:04

like a quick yoga you know, like you know

27:06

class, or like a little pilates or just like a

27:08

couple jumping, I'd feel better. But

27:10

my instinct is that I wouldn't. And and

27:13

this is is something that I think I see with

27:15

leisure a lot, Like, you know, companies aren't

27:17

you know, making things these things to hurt us.

27:19

They're giving us what we want, you know, we want

27:22

these quick dopamine hits that feel

27:24

kind of relaxing, but once we get

27:26

them, it means it becomes easier and easier

27:28

to avoid the thing that has a little bit of startup

27:31

costs, but ultimately for our happiness would

27:33

feel better. And so for me, what

27:35

helps with that is just recognizing that

27:37

that's true, right, like knowing the science of that.

27:39

Because even though I'm like, you know, like

27:42

I teach this class at Yale and I've become, you know,

27:44

an expert on some of these things, I still fall

27:46

prey to all these intuitions, right. You know, tonight

27:48

we'll have this conversation. I'll have a very busy day with

27:50

all these zoom calls, and I will immediately

27:52

be like, whoa, I'm going to pick up my phone and scroll read

27:54

it. I won't be like, oh, let me call a friend who I haven't

27:57

talked to, or let me like pull out my yoga mat

27:59

and do a hard plates Like I know that

28:01

I'm supposed to do that, but my instinct is

28:03

like anything but right. But

28:05

I think sometimes knowing the stuff can can

28:07

allow you to recognize it right. It can help

28:09

you mindfully realize that engaging

28:12

in those activities isn't going to give you the fun that

28:14

you expect.

28:15

We talked a lot, you and I about the culture piece

28:18

here, about how part of what we need to do

28:20

is is shift our culture

28:22

from the kind of hustle culture that's leading

28:24

young people to pursue and chase the

28:27

kind of achievement that doesn't always lead to happiness,

28:29

to refocusing on

28:31

the things that truly do bring us happiness,

28:33

enjoy our relationships, our

28:36

physical health, our sleep, to focusing

28:38

on what we're grateful for. How

28:40

does that culture shift, Like, what do

28:43

you see as necessary to happen

28:45

that's going to ensure that our

28:47

kids in future generations are

28:49

guided by a set of incentives

28:51

that actually truly maximize their happiness.

28:53

Yeah, I mean, I think there are a couple of spots to shift.

28:55

I mean, one is changing the

28:58

kinds of structures that are making that difficult.

29:00

You know. Whether that looks like tech

29:02

companies realizing that you know, they don't want

29:04

to be cigarettes and they should, you know, fix themselves

29:07

before regulators decide to regulate them. One

29:09

possibility. I think universities

29:11

need to do the same thing. I mean, I think, you know,

29:14

in some ways I worry the admissions

29:16

office is that big universities like mine are

29:18

like cigarette pushers that are setting

29:20

up structures that they need to worry that they're,

29:23

you know, dismantling the very generation that

29:25

they want to be educating and want to be bringing

29:27

up. And I think, you know, careful decisions

29:30

and maybe kind of coordinated decisions

29:32

across universities about what counts as admissions

29:35

kind of stuff will matter a lot. I'm

29:38

not sure universities will get there, who knows, but I

29:40

think that that helps a lot. But

29:42

I actually think and one of the reasons I'm so excited

29:44

to teach young people and to try to get

29:46

this content out to even younger learners is

29:49

I actually think a lot of the change is going to come from our

29:51

young people. You know. I look at the kinds of things

29:54

that students and young people are doing well

29:56

with social media, you know, look at the kind of

29:58

outreach that happened after an awful incident

30:00

like Parkland, right, Like look at the kind of social

30:03

justice movements that students are engaging in online.

30:05

Right they are able to use these

30:07

tools for powerful collective action.

30:10

And what we'll need to do to fight this kind

30:12

of arms race of hustle culture that's emerged

30:14

among our young people is to de escalate,

30:17

and that takes a kind of coordinated

30:19

action that these tools might, ironically

30:22

like allow our young people to do. So. I

30:24

think as young people learn more that you

30:26

know, we promised you a bill of goods that's

30:29

just kind of not going to deliver, you know,

30:31

they may take collective action to shift

30:33

these things around. And you know, as I teach more

30:35

and more young people in middle school

30:37

and high school, as they hear some of these results and they're like,

30:39

wait a minute, hang on, that's not what I was promised

30:41

from all this hustle, I kind of watch

30:43

them scaling back, and I'm hopeful

30:45

that they really will use the tools

30:48

that they have that their generation is kind of uniquely

30:50

good at to do that. Well.

30:52

I was going to ask you what makes you hopeful about

30:54

the future, and you just told me

30:56

in your prescient way. But I think

30:58

that in my mind makes courses like

31:01

yours, Lori all the more important,

31:03

because I do agree with you.

31:05

Our greatest chance of shifting culture is going to come

31:07

from the rising generation of

31:10

young people who decide that they want to

31:12

live a different life. But

31:15

we need to encourage them. We need to support them as

31:18

they do it, because it's not always going to be easy to

31:20

do. And I think you're giving people the permission,

31:22

the vocabulary of the structure through which to think

31:24

about that through your course, which I think

31:26

is so valuable. I want to end just with a couple

31:29

of fun questions for you.

31:31

You recently staged a funtervention, which

31:33

I love the term, but an intervention

31:36

to bring fun into your life at a time where you realize

31:38

you needed to be having more fun. But I'm curious,

31:41

what did you do in your funtervention and

31:43

do you recommend that other people stage fundervention.

31:46

Oh? Yeah, ten out of ten recommend the funtervention.

31:48

I mean, so, the fund prevention was just an

31:50

attempt to get a little bit more socially

31:53

connected play into my life, and

31:55

it started. Step one was a kind of attitude

31:58

shift. I went around trying to find delights in

32:00

the world, sort of trained my brain to notice

32:02

things that were delightful and then shared them with friends

32:04

of mine. But then it was trying to do

32:06

something that was social and fun that

32:08

I had no external reward for that

32:10

I knew I'd just be bad at. And so I tried

32:13

surfing, which you've met

32:15

me. I'm like a a forty

32:17

something, very uncordated person with no athletic

32:19

skill, and so surfing was going to be I'm never

32:21

going to be a surfer, and so I had

32:23

to embrace it in a fun way,

32:26

just like as something goofy and kind of stupid,

32:28

and I wasn't really trying to get some external reward

32:30

out of it. And it was fantastic.

32:32

It was as predicted, super fun.

32:35

I love that. Okay, well, I'm taking away

32:37

doctor Santos's prescription for everyone is a

32:39

funtervention at some point in their life. I'm certainly

32:41

going to do that. And then finally,

32:44

you've spent year study monkeys. Is

32:46

there something that you've learned from monkeys

32:49

that we can learn from as human Yeah?

32:51

I think you know. One of the ironies

32:53

is that if you touch to people who

32:55

are really interested in in developing a mindset

32:57

of mindfulness, right, a mindset of presence,

33:00

they often curse what's called the monkey mind,

33:02

this idea that our mind, you know, jumps from things

33:04

to things and so on. But having spent a

33:06

lot of time with monkeys, I think this is an

33:08

unnecessary, an unfair insult to

33:10

monkeys, Like if you look in the monkey mind,

33:12

they're just present all the time. When they're eating

33:14

something, they're just eating something. When they're grooming another

33:17

monkey, they're just grooming. And you know,

33:19

I often, ironically wish I could get back

33:21

to my monkey mind. I think that's a big happiness

33:23

insight that I've gotten from monkeys.

33:25

That presence is so important,

33:27

and I think we easily get robbed

33:30

of that by the distractions in our life, whether it's

33:32

our phone or our email inbox

33:34

or other things that are constantly banging and

33:37

generating alerts in our life.

33:39

You've shared so much wisdom today.

33:41

I was been taking notes as

33:43

we were talking, but just so many

33:45

beautiful things. I think about one

33:48

you've helped. I think me and

33:50

our listeners just understand that happiness

33:52

is in fact within our grasp, but

33:55

it's not something we can tay for granted. We actually

33:57

have to work to build the activities

33:59

that generate happiness into our life, whether that's

34:01

gratitude, social connections, sleep,

34:04

exercise, or time

34:06

affluence. As you said, and that's

34:09

point I want to underscore as well, is that free

34:12

time, unstructured on scheduled time, is

34:14

a very very good thing. It is not a

34:16

bad thing, and it's not evidence that you are lazy

34:18

or unproductive or that you're somehow leaving

34:21

something on the field. That is actually

34:23

what we all need to thrive, and

34:26

we've squeezed ourselves too much in that regard. And

34:29

of the many other lessons you shared, I think

34:31

the importance of being kind

34:33

to ourselves and each other really stands out too,

34:35

you know that, not beating ourselves up, recognizing

34:38

that we're in a challenging time

34:40

right now, not just because of the pandemic, but because of the

34:42

broader culture that we're growing

34:44

up then living in and the demands

34:47

it's placing on us. But that

34:49

is all made a bit better whenever

34:51

we're able to be just a bit more kind to

34:53

one another as well. And in a world where so

34:55

many things seem to be pushing us to be more

34:57

angry at one another or to demonize

34:59

one another, being kind

35:01

can be an active, you

35:03

know, of radical opposition, if

35:05

you will, to those types of

35:08

cultural elements that are and technology

35:10

pieces that are constantly trying to make us

35:12

angry at one another or turn us against one another.

35:15

So thank you just for joining

35:18

LORI, thank you for this wonderful conversation

35:20

for inspiring me as you always do, and teaching

35:22

me, but most importantly, thank you for

35:24

the work you do in the world to help create

35:27

a happier, more fulfilled society.

35:29

That's what we need and we certainly need you

35:32

out there doing the incredible work that you're

35:34

doing, so I really appreciate you.

35:35

Laurie, ditto, and thanks for helping me share the message.

35:38

This concludes our conversation with Lorie Santos.

35:41

Join me for the next episode of House Calls with

35:43

doctor Vivik Morphy, wishing you

35:46

all health and happiness.