5 Ways to Get Happier Starting Today

Do you want to be happier? I assume you

do. That's why you're here. And other

people do as well. The happiest,

healthiest people in their 80s and '9s,

they have some things that you can't

control. Like, you know, pick the right

parents. But there's a bunch of stuff

that you actually can control. Side

note, the self-esteem literature that

everybody thought they knew, which is

that if your self-esteem is higher,

you'll be happier. It doesn't stand up.

But happiness and unhappiness are not

opposites. They're largely mediated by

different parts of the brain. As a

matter of fact, mother nature designed

me to be happy. And when I'm not happy,

it means something's wrong with me.

That's completely wrong.

Hi friends, I'm Arthur Brooks and this

is Office Hours. I'm a behavioral

scientist dedicated to lifting people up

and bringing them together in bonds of

happiness and love using science and

ideas. I'm a university professor. I

teach at the Harvard Kennedy School and

the Harvard Business School, a class

called Leadership and Happiness to bring

along the next generation of leaders who

understand the happiness science so they

can live better lives and bring more

happiness to others. I also write a

column in the Atlantic called How to

Build a Life. That's a a column about

the happiness science based in the

academic literature and how you can use

it. And that's what this show is about

as well. This is an opportunity to talk

about the biggest issues, something you

can watch regularly and and pass on to

your friends. Do you want to be happier?

I assume you do. That's why you're here

and other people do as well. What I want

to do with this show is to inform you so

that you can join me in becoming a

happiness teacher in your ordinary life.

Now, to begin with, because we're just

starting this out right now, I'd like to

know what questions that you have about

happiness. I have a lot of ideas. I've

written hundreds of columns on the

science of happiness and a lot of books,

but I really care about what's on your

mind, and that's what I want to know.

So, so if you've got a question about

happiness, please write to me and I

would love to hear it and I'll probably

take it up in some way, shape, or form.

The the email for that is Okay, ready?

It'll be on the screen right up here or

down here. Office hours.com.

Write to me and I would like to hear

what's on your mind. I'd also like to

hear your feedback on this show. This is

brand new. What do you think about the

format? What do you think about the

pacing? What do you think about the

lighting? What do you think about my

hair? Whatever you want. Office

hours.com.

I'd love to hear whatever you like to

talk to me about. Let's get into today's

topic. I've just finished a new book

that's coming out in early August called

The Happiness Files: Insights on Work

and Life. It's actually a set of essays

from my column in the Atlantic, but it's

the most popular 35 essays that I've

written in the last 5 years about work

and life. Huh. Work is part of life to

be sure. It's kind of work focused

because it's published by the Harvard

Business Review, but it also talks about

how work impacts your life and vice

versa. These are 35 columns that you can

really use. And I want to start off

today by talking about one of my very

favorite of those columns because it's

affected me in my life so very much.

This is an essay called 10 practical

ways to improve your happiness. And it's

just what it sounds like. These are very

practical techniques that you can use

based in the most cutting edge science.

I'm going to tell you a little bit about

where these ideas came from and then I'm

going to get into some of the content,

give you some ideas that you can use. I

don't think I'm going to get through all

10. I think I'm going to get through

about the top five, but these are the

best five and I'm going to tell you why

here in a second. Now, to begin with,

this research is based on a a very

important um research article that's

published in a journal called the

Journal of Happiness Studies. Side note,

in this show, whenever I refer to an

academic article, I'm going to do it a

lot. It's going to be in the show notes.

So, don't worry about it. You don't have

to take notes that quickly or remember

exactly what I say when it gets really

technical. You can look at the show

notes and you can go look up the

abstracts and the articles themselves.

So, uh that's one thing that we'll be

doing in this show and in every episode

going forward. So, this is an article

that came out a few years ago in the

year 2020 in the Journal of Happiness

Studies, which is a very important

academic journal dedicated entirely to

happiness topics from the most

scientific perspective. It's the lead

author. There's three authors on the

study. And the lead author is a a friend

of mine, somebody I really have a lot of

respect for and alike. It's a guy named

Dan Butner. If that name sounds

familiar, it's because he wrote a very

important book called The Blue Zones,

which was then turned into a a

multi-part Netflix special where he

looked at the places around the world

where people lived live to 100. So, it

wasn't just about happiness, it was

about longevity. But what he found was

that people who live to a hundred,

they're happier than people who don't.

Which is kind of I sort of makes sense,

doesn't it? I mean, you're unlikely to

live to be old if you don't want to live

to be old. And and and and so he started

off by talking about health, but he

wound up really talking an awful lot

about happiness. And this is the fruit

of that. What are the things that people

who do really well in life all have in

common? What are the most important

happiness techniques that people talk

about? So, here's how the scholars

actually engaged in this piece of

research, which is a really a really a

good technique. They went out to some of

the most distinguished happiness

researchers in the world. And there's a

lot of people out there that do the work

that I do at universities. They look at

the happiness science. They they measure

well-being. And in future um episodes of

office hours, I'm going to tell you how

you measure well-being. But suffice it

to say that they do that. They do it

really well. So these scholars then they

listed the 68 techniques that show up

most in the literature for becoming a

happier person and together they rank

them for their efficacy for their

effectiveness. So 1 through 68 and what

I want to talk about is the top five. So

these are the really the best techniques

that have the best literature behind

them. Now let's back up a little bit.

You get all kinds of advice day in and

day out how to become a happier person.

But usually it's not very helpful. How

can I become a happier person? Have a

good marriage. Well, thanks, you know,

thanks very much. That's not that's sort

of putting the cart before the horse,

right? I'm just going to snap my fingers

and have a good marriage. I need

something more concrete than that about

how to do that. How to get to the place

where I meet that person. How do I once

I am married, how do I make sure that

it's a good marriage? And so forth and

so on. Another one that I hear a lot is

to be Danish, right? Or Finnish or

something because of those those crazy

happiness comparisons that we have, you

know, the happiest country in the world,

etc., etc. They always are the Nordic

countries. And so people say, you know,

live like a fin. What does that mean?

It's not very helpful either, is it?

Well, this study that I'm talking about

here really is helpful because it looks

at the top of the of the charts and all

these happiness pieces of happiness

advice. And I'm going to give you the

top five that they talk about. And all

of these ideas are incredibly well

validated. Here's what it means. You can

do the things I'm going to talk about

starting today and you will see results.

Okay? Now, these might not be a major

philosophical change in your life, but

these are things that can make it such

that you go to bed happier tonight than

you woke up this morning. And that's a

virtual guarantee because that's what

the science is actually saying. This is

like health advice in that sort of vein.

Um, and really practical kind of news

that you can use. So let me start with

number one. This is the top of the list.

It's the top of the list. This is number

one. People.

You need more contact with an investment

in the people who are close to you.

Maybe it sounds obvious, but it isn't

obvious. I talk to people all day long

who are neglecting their family members,

neglecting their friends because of

things that they care about less. Uh, I

mean, I know you know this, but it's

really important to keep in mind that

the the the research couldn't be clearer

that the more you invest in your

relationships, the better off you're

going to be. And today, if you make a

substantial investment in your

relationships, you're going to see a

payoff from that. There's a lot of

research that goes in behind that. My

favorite of this, by the way, and and

and this is not just the research that

they cite in this article. This is

research that I've been looking at for

years and years. The best piece of

research from this that I've ever seen

that shows this is is a study called the

Harvard Study of Adult Development. I I

wasn't behind this. It was a bunch of my

colleagues over at the Harvard Medical

School and they started to look and

follow the lives of people in the late

30s to see what they did in their 20s

and 30s and 40s and 50s. They

interviewed them every single year until

they died. As a matter of fact, this has

been going on for 90 years. It started

actually with sophomores at Harvard

College. these that's the undergraduate

part of Harvard University which isn't

very representative of the population in

the late 30s. Um but then they branched

out. They actually got another survey of

people who didn't go to college and then

it had spouses and then it had kids and

today it's a very demographically

representative sample across the

population and it looks at how they've

lived from year to year to year and how

those things predict them winding up as

healthy, happy people when they're old.

It's kind of a crystal ball as a matter

of fact. Now, there's a bunch of things

that they did and and and maybe in a

future show, I'll actually dig more into

the big patterns that they find. The

happiest, healthiest people in their 80s

and 90s, they have some things that you

can't control, like, you know, pick the

right parents. You know, make sure that

your parents, you know, don't suffer

from mental illness. Well, you can't do

that. That I mean, the diet is cast by

the time that you come along on that.

But there's a bunch of stuff that you

actually can control. For example,

there's seven things that they always

talk about that you can do in your 20s

and 30s that are really going to predict

a lot whether or not you're a happier

person in your 60s and 70s and 80s. Some

of them are health related. Diet,

exercise, smoking, drinking, and use of

of euphoric substances.

It's pretty obvious. I mean, diet and

exercise, you have to, you know, live

like an adult and take care of yourself

is what it comes down to. And that

means, by the way, not being nutty about

your diet, not having, you know, yo-yo

diets that make you insane or give you

an eating disorder. It means exercise

that doesn't become an addiction, etc.

I'll talk about that stuff in in future

episodes of the show because yeah,

healthy behaviors can be almost as

unhealthy as unhealthy behaviors if you

treat them in the wrong way and lead to

unhappiness. But then smoking, of

course, I mean, who doesn't know this? I

smoked when I was in my 20s. That was a

long time ago. And even then, I knew I

shouldn't be smoking, that it wasn't

going to lead anywhere good. I mean, it

I I had to have an emergency to stop.

specifically. I let lit my bed on fire

and I was engaged at the time and I

thought, well, I guess it's one thing to

have this habit kill me, but it's

something else if I'm going to endanger

somebody else's life and I stopped

because of that. But, you know, I knew

that it wasn't a good thing to do. And

the truth of the matter is that if

you're a lifelong smoker, it's going to

wind up with health problems that are

going to not just hurt your health, but

also your happiness. And then there's

substances. What you find is that

anybody who uses substances

irresponsibly and you know look the if

you're watching any of any podcasts on

this whether it's Peter Aia or Andrew

Huberman or a lot of other real experts

in longevity they're very critical of

anything more than most minimal use of

euphoric substances. You got to be

really careful about these things

because they're fun in the short term

and real bad in the long term. If you

have any questions about your use,

you should stop. Kind of what it comes

down to. Okay, that's four. But then the

last three are are a little bit less

intuitive. Number one is lifelong

learning. Learners are happier when

they're older. Number two is dealing

with your problems. You got to get

really good at a technique for dealing

with your your bad moods and your

problems in life. More on that later.

But last but not least is number seven,

and this is the big one, which is love.

Love in the relationships in your life.

This isn't just randomly loving people.

These are your people. These are your

friends, and these are your family.

Specifically, the happiest people have

one or both of two things. A loving

marriage andor really close friends.

Now, this is not to say that you to be

happy when you're old, you have to have

a great marriage. No, lots of people

don't. Doesn't work out that way for

everybody. But if they don't, they have

really close friendships. Super

important. And ideally, you get both

because it's a bonus. It's

multiplicative. As a matter of fact,

this shows over a long period of time

and it reinforces a big academic

literature that that happiness is love.

Investing in your friends and your

family is the number one thing that you

can do today and an ongoing basis. So

that's number one. Number two, this is

interesting because in the study they

say number two is join a club. Like huh?

I looked at that. I'm like join a club?

I don't belong to any clubs. But then I

thought about it and actually I do. I

mean I'm I'm a traditional religious

believer. I belong to the probably the

biggest club in the history of the

world. I'm a Catholic. It's a club as it

turns out. The point isn't the club. The

point is actually sharing ideas and

loves that we have in common with other

people which is intrinsically a very

satisfying thing to do. And this gets

back to the work um to the great uh

thinking on this subject from you know

the world's greatest philosopher on the

subject of friendship which is Aristotle

2500 years ago. He was writing in a way

that that really I mean it's never been

it's never been it's never been improved

upon over the past three millennia on

how he writes about friendship. He talks

about you know the transactional

friendships that we have with people at

work. I call these deal friends. Um

they're fine but they don't bring you

real happiness. He talks about

friendships of beauty where we admire

somebody else really a lot and that's

the basis of our friendship and that's

better but again if the beauty goes away

then so does the friendship. The

friendships that bring real real

happiness are what he calls virtuous

friendships. And what they have in

common typically is a shared love for a

third thing with somebody that you

really know. And it's a beautiful thing

because you kind of walk toward that

shared love shoulderto-shoulder. That

those by the way can also be very

useful. They're real friendships. They

can also have deal friendship in them.

But fundamentally they're about love for

each other and love for this third

thing. And that's a beautiful thing when

you think about it. That's the reason

that the best marriages are based on

deep friendship. They're not based on

the passion that you had in the first

six months. Thank God you wouldn't get

anything done. But but but deep

friendship, which is called in the

literature companion love. That's the

basis of a really great marriage. A and

what that is in this Aristotilian

framework is this shared love for

something else. Usually the kids,

sometimes a religion, sometimes a set of

values. and you and your spouse, you

walk forward into the future, eyes

firmly fixed on this third love. And

it's one of the most satisfying things

that you can do. Okay, that's kind of

what they mean by a club is finding, you

know, your people who have the shared

interest. And that shared interest is

the basis of a deep friendship that's

not useful to you. It's just beautiful

to you. Now, there's a lot of social

science on this. Um, probably the most

famous of this comes from my Harvard

Kennedy School colleague, Robert

Putnham. If that name sounds familiar,

it's because in the year 2000, uh, he

wrote a very famous book called Bowling

Alone. And, and that was a book not

about bowling. It was a book about how

people used to join bowling leagues and

have a great time with their friends.

And now most people go to the bowling

alley by themselves or just one other

person. And that's a real loss for their

happiness. That was his point. It was

sort of the death of American civic

culture. Um, in the show notes, I'll put

the original article which came out in

the the Journal of Democracy, uh,

America's Declining Social Capital.

Very, very interesting article. It's

sort of a 5,000word treatment of this

argument. And what it shows is that your

life is impoverished when you're not

doing this Aristotilian stuff. That's

what it means to join a club. So,

practically speaking, what does this

mean? This means that, you know, find

something you're really interested in

and do it with other people. That's

really what it comes down to. You'll

forge friendships that have a little bit

of magic in them that you're probably

not going to get with your work friends

because you're I don't know about you. I

mean, the company you work for is

probably not your hobby. Uh actually, in

my case, it kind of is, but but that's

not the case for everybody. And so, you

need something on the outside that

you'll actually do. Maybe you don't like

running, join a running club, whatever

it happens to be, do something like

that. If you practice a religion, get

more involved in your house of worship.

I mean, look, even if your even if your

your beliefs aren't clear, um the fact

that you're going to be practicing them

in whatever way with other people,

that's going to be central to your

happiness. Okay, that's number two. And

they're both based kind of on people in

love, right? Number three is a little

bit different, and that's to become more

active mentally. This sort of relates to

that thing in the Harvard study of adult

development of of continuous lifelong

learning. That's really important

because one of the things that we find

is that the happiest people over the

course of their life, they have one

habit in common and that's that they

read a lot. Now, this isn't necessarily

the way that you learn. What this is

really is about is learning and and

staying mentally active and knowledge

acquisition. And the key thing is

learning about things that you don't

have to learn about. This is really the

sort of the secret to happiness is this

not just the uselessness of real

friends, but the uselessness of real

information that's just simply

interesting to you. Now, the reason that

this is the case is that there's we we

talk an awful lot about positive and

negative basic emotions. There's a lot

of research on this. The negative basic

emotions, there's only four. We all feel

very unique emotionally. We're not. The

basic negative emotions are anger, fear,

disgust, and sadness. The basic positive

emotions are joy, interest, and

surprise. Some people put another couple

on that list. But what's really

fascinating is that interest is a basic

positive emotion. Human beings, homo

sapiens, are are made to learn stuff. We

love learning stuff. And there's a

reason for that. In the ancestral

environment, your your predecessors

would be a lot more successful if they

were learners. If they got better at

stuff. It would give them a fitness

advantage. It would give them a survival

and a mating advantage if they were, you

know, the ones who found the berries on

the bush. They found the watering hole

that had the gazels around it. And so

the result of it is that we get tons of

satisfaction and enjoyment when we're

learning things just naturally. It's a

basic positive emotion is interest. How

do you feed that basic positive emotion

such that you have a more constant flow

of positive emotion which gives you more

enjoyment in your life which is one of

the sources of happiness? The answer is

learning learning learning learning.

Some of the unhappiest people have

stopped learning. They've gotten bad at

learning. They or they never learned how

to learn effectively. There's a lot to

indict about our education system in

America today. But probably the the

biggest area of indictment is that we

don't take seriously the fact that

learning is inherently pleasurable. And

so we need to be really really good at

helping people learn in different ways

that suits their style. You know, some,

for example, they're not necessarily

great readers and so they need to learn

in different ways. They need to be

they're auditory learners, for example.

And there's literature on this that

people learn in different ways. I would

love it if the public education system

took interest as a basic positive

emotion into account because they wanted

a happier population. They wanted a

happier America. They wanted a happier

world. And they could do so much to do

that. As a matter of fact, I have three

kids, adult kids. Two of them huge

readers, one of them not. But he's a

huge learner. He knows kind of

everything.

And it's funny. I mean, I'll say I'll

say, "Um, something's wrong with my

washing machine." And he'll say, "Huh?

Okay. What's what's what's is it making

a sound?" I'm like, "Yeah." He says,

"What does it sound like?" And I'll say,

"Oh no."

Oh, I know what's going wrong. How do

you know that? He says, "I saw a YouTube

video on it." And I say, "Why did you

watch a YouTube video about washing

machines?" And he said, "Because it's

interesting." And so there's new ways to

actually learn and and that's a great

thing if you can avail yourself of it.

Learn, learn, learn. Find more ways to

learn so you can become and remain more

mentally active and you will become a

happier person. That's number three.

Okay, let's go on to number four. And

for number four, we're going to change

directions a little bit. Number four is

for you to get out of your daily psycho

drama by transcending yourself with

faith or philosophy.

Okay? Now, I'm not saying that you need

to practice my religion. As I mentioned

before, I'm a Catholic and I like it.

It's great. But as a scientist, I have

to tell you that for happiness, my way

is not the only way. Here's how it

works. Mother Nature,

she she focuses you on on your

day-to-day life. You, you, you, you. For

me, it's me, me, me, me me. Left to my

devices, I'm going to think all day long

about, you know, my stuff, all the

things that I'm actually doing. And

that's really boring and it's tedious

and it's terrifying and it's terrible.

It's hard to break out of that. As a

matter of fact, it it's one of the

characteristics of clinical depression

is is ruminative thinking about yourself

and it's almost like a prison. It's like

you're locked up with you all the time.

That's one of the characteristics of of

clinical depression. Somebody very very

close to me who had suffered a lifetime

of really debilitating depression. I

said, you know, what does it feel like?

And she said, it's just so boring.

I said, what do you mean it's so boring?

And she said, "Because all I think about

is myself and I don't want to. I don't

want to." Well, none of us do as a

matter of fact. And so the question is,

how do you stop? The answer is by

getting smaller,

making the universe larger. There's a

funny thing at most universities that

that there's a general science

requirement for undergraduates. And one

of the classes that they can take and a

lot of them wind up having to take is is

astronomy. Astronomy 101. And nobody

goes into, you know, freshman or

sophomores at universities. is they

don't go into astronomy going, I always

wanted to take an astronomy class. I

mean, some do, but not everybody does.

But here's the weird thing. They go in

reluctantly and they come out

enthusiastically. And I've asked many

undergraduates, why do you love your

astronomy class so much? You're a

psychology major, a communications

major, a whatever. You're not a

scientist. And they say, because I I

can't quite explain. It's just so weird.

But, you know, I go in on Thursday

morning in my astronomy class and I'm

like bummed out about something. you

know, my girlfriend's not talking to me

or whatever. And I come out 90 minutes

later and I'm like, I'm a speck on a

speck on a speck.

You get peace and perspective from

zooming out into the universe and

finding your smallness. It's

paradoxical, isn't it? It feels like you

should be less happy when you're small

because you your self-esteem would be

lower. Side note, the self-esteem and

literature that everybody thought they

knew where which is that if your

self-esteem is higher, you'll be

happier. It doesn't stand up. And a lot

of really good scientists have

questioned that. Why? Because of this

autofocus. It's maddening to be thinking

about yourself all the time. Me, me, me.

I'm so great. I'm so important. I'm so

interesting. No, you're not. And thank

God that's important for us to remember.

And something that you can do that makes

you zoom out so you're little and the

universe is is is large and you do it

every day. It's great. It's unbelievably

beautiful. As a matter of fact, there

are a number of ways to do that. But

some of the most efficacious and and

techniques that you can get really

really good at involve faith, spiritual

spirituality or or or life philosophy.

Well, you're thinking about the bigger

things. You're thinking about the

structure of the universe. You're

thinking about your small place in it.

but fundamentally about the m the macro

instead of the micro youu. Um now again

lots of ways to do that. Um I' I've um

I've done work I've done the podcast of

Ryan Holidayiday. Many of you know his

work. He's sort of the world's leading

spokesperson on on popularizing stoic

philosophy. His work is great. His books

are phenomenal. I just love his work and

I love doing his podcast. He's a very

interesting guy. And what he figured out

is that when people study philosophy,

that philosophy in particular, which is

don't forget, you're going to die. Don't

forget the universe is is large. So suck

it up, buttercup. It's amazing. It's it

makes you feel better. He's figured that

out. Why? Because of this transcendence.

This is really what we're talking about.

Um other people have other sorts of

techniques that they do for this. They

find that if they walk in in nature,

usually before dawn without devices,

that there's a a funny thing that

happens with the mind where you you put

yourself into perspective. You don't

become so big. Other people will study

great works of art or music. At

different points in my life, I would

really study intensively the works of

Johan Sebastian Bach. I used to be a

classical musician for a living. He was

my favorite composer. And man, I would

listen to that and be like, it's it's

amazing. There's nothing like this. This

is a miracle. A miracle is bigger than

me. Um I've recommended to a lot of

people that they study vaposa

meditation, insight meditation, where

there's a perspective on your thinking

and who you are. Uh a perspective that

is much bigger than you as a matter of

fact, and it's incredibly effective. Um

I've seen it. I practice it myself. And

of course, there's a traditional

religious faith. Maybe if you're a young

adult, you were raised in a religious

faith and you you've left it. And the

reason you left it is because you had

this vision of what it was when you were

a kid. And when you grew up, you're

like, "That's ridiculous." Well, it

turns out there's probably a grown-up

version of that faith that you're pretty

familiar with. And if you went back and

looked again, it might be a different

thing. And so, I recommend that you just

maybe try again um without judgment. And

in so doing, you can transcend yourself.

In transcending yourself, you will get

happier. And that's what it means to

practice your religion or to practice

your philosophy. And that's number four.

Number five. Number five. And and and

you don't want me to live leave this off

the list, but this is going to take uh a

little bit of explanation. Number five

on the list that the experts put

together is get more physical exercise.

And a lot of people say this to me. It's

like one of the things that really makes

me happy is a hard workout. Going for a

good run, getting into the gym, picking

up heavy things. And the truth is that

that's really really important for me

personally in my and my my well-being

protocols. I'm extremely discip

disciplined about my well-being. It's

important for me because I actually know

the science. And one of the things that

I do is I get up at 4:30 in the morning

and at 4:45 to 5:45 every morning I'm in

the gym. I have a gym in my house. It's

a combination of zone 2 cardio and

resistance training. And I've been doing

it for decades. I'm super serious about

that. People say that's that's a great

source of happiness. and say, "Yeah, no,

actually,

but it is important to well-being." And

this is a quibble that I have with this

particular study. They talk about

happiness techniques. Physical exercise

and physical exertion is actually an

unhappiness technique. Now, I'm not

going to go into all the details about

this. I'll do this in a future episode.

But happiness and unhappiness are not

opposites. They're largely mediated by

different parts of the brain. As a

matter of fact, unhappy cognitions and

emotions are are produced in different

parts of the brain than happy cognitions

and emotions because they exist for

different reasons. You have um uh

negative emotions because they indicate

there's a threat to you that you should

avoid. That's why you feel sad or angry,

disgusted or or or or fearful. Um and

the same thing is true with positive

emotions. They indicate there's an

opportunity that you should approach. So

they wouldn't be produced in the same

part of the brain to begin with and

that's why they're not opposites. As a

matter of fact, they're separable. Some

people for their well-being, they need

more happiness. Some people for their

well-being need less unhappiness. You

might be incredibly adroit and

well-developed in the production of

unhappiness, which is good for your

probably is very good for your survival,

but it's not good for your well-being.

And that happens to be my problem is

that I'm plenty healthy in happiness,

but I'm also plenty healthy in

unhappiness, and I need to manage my

unhappiness. So, here's the point. This

is number five. Your well-being will

increase if you take care of your your

your your physical body and if you do a

lot of exercise, your well-being will

rise because your unhappiness will fall

because you'll manage your negative

mood. If you naturally have a very low

negative mood, congratulations. You're a

quarter of the population that has below

average actually a half of the

population has below average negative

mood. We call it negative affect in my

in my profession.

then probably it's hard for you to stay

in the gym as a matter of fact because

you won't have a greater much greater

sense of well-being. And I know a lot of

people like this who are just naturally

not unhappy people and they're like,

"Ah, I don't know why I can't I can't

stay on a fitness protocol." That's why

because you don't come out of the gym

going, "Yeah, I feel alive again." But I

do 5:45 by the time I'm actually going

to take my shower, um I'm like, "Yeah, I

can I can face it. It's going to be I

can Why?" because I've just lowered my

level of negative a effect by getting

more physical exercise. Uh, tons of

research on this. I'll throw a couple of

the articles into the show notes on

which you can actually read about this.

But here's my promise. In a future

episode, I'm going to talk more about my

morning protocols to manage my affect so

that the positive is higher and the

negative is lower. That's one of them.

I'm going to give you a whole bunch of

things that you can actually use that

are based on science so you can set up

your day to have a great day to begin

with. So, those are the big five. Now,

uh, again, I mean, you're going to see

all the stuff in the show notes, but let

me go through it one more time. So,

we've got the list. Number one, family

and friends. Invest in family and

friends. Number two, join a club, which

is to say, share your interests with

people. Number three, stay active

mentally by learning a lot. Number four,

practice your philosophy, spirituality,

or religion so that you can transcend

yourself. And number five, get more

exercise. actually move your body, uh,

pick up heavy things, run around. These

are things that are really going to help

you a lot. These are great pieces of

advice. If we had, you know, 17 and 12

hours for this episode, I would go

through all 68. And I would especially

pay attention to the, you know, the ones

in the bottom because the ones in the

bottom are the things you always hear

about that don't work. Save that for a

future episode. What I want to do now in

our remaining time is I want to go just

a little bit more macro on just

generally how can you craft your own

happiness? How do you put together a

happiness plan? Anybody who's watching

this, you probably watch a lot of

self-improvement content on YouTube and

and and and on Spotify and on the other

platforms. That's great. Good for you.

What that means is that you're a life

entrepreneur and your enterprise is you

incorporated. I admire that about you.

that that's a great that that's the

ultimate enterprise that matters as a

matter of fact. So, you're probably

watching stuff about your health and and

you want to have an overall strategy

that you can fit things like I've talked

about here into. Okay. So, let me talk

to you about a structure about that. Um,

just so that you've got it in your

notes.

I have studied a long time why it is

that so much self-improvement, even that

which is real and not woo woo and

nonsense, even the stuff that's really

science-based,

why it's not usually very sticky. And

the answer is that it's just a bunch of

ideas that give you an epiphany, but

then it kind of it just sort of burns

off. Here's how you can take the ideas

we're talking about here and make them

sticky so they really have an impact on

your life. You got to do three things.

any great ideas that you get, physical

health, financial health, and and the

happiness stuff that we talk about on

this show and in all my content, you got

to do three things so that it will stick

around and you can count on it. You can

use it. Number one, understand. You got

to understand. You got to understand the

science. You got to know what's actually

going on. Don't just do, you know, kind

of plugandplay. Don't just look for some

sort of dumb formula. That's ridiculous.

You got to understand the mechanism of

action of what's actually going on,

which is why I actually talk about the

science as opposed to just telling you

what I think you ought to do. You need

to understand that's actually the

beginning of learning that sticks. Okay?

That's the reason that in a math class

in in college, they talk about how the

math actually is working as opposed to

just giving you formulas for working out

problems. But then doing the problems is

part two. For happiness and anything

else, you need to actually practice. You

need to practice the techniques that

you're talking about. You need to change

your habits. You need to have a plan of

life on the things that you can actually

do. This is, by the way, like you would

learn golf. You need to learn about

golf. And then you need to go golf. You

need to do those two particular things.

But then there's one more thing you need

to do. When you're learning about

happiness or you're getting your health

together or you're learning anything

that you want to learn about and you

want to keep that knowledge, you got to

teach it. This is the thing that people

often forget.

My dad was a math professor. I mean,

we're all just old college professors in

my family, but and my dad was an

incredibly brilliant guy. And and by the

time I was old enough to appreciate what

a wonderful teacher and what a wonderful

person he was, I was in my 20s. I'd had

gotten through my bad years and I I got

finished being a jerk to my dad and and

I thought, you know, I want to go watch

him lecture. I want to go watch him

teach math. And so I went to a math

class, this advanced calculus class that

he was teaching, and he taught the whole

class for 90 minutes without a note in

his hands. It was like, it was like

watching a virtuoso violinist. It was

the most amazing thing I'd ever seen.

And it was my dad. I was just blown

away. And afterward like, "Dad, how did

you do that? How did you how is it

possible that you could explain so

clearly

by memory something that's so complex?"

And he thought about it and he said,

"Because I've taught it a hundred

times." He said, 'I own it. I know it.

It's mine. And boy, that had a big

impact on me because that's the same

thing for me and for you. If you want to

become a happier person and use your

happiness knowledge, you got to have the

knowledge. You got to change your life

and you got to become a happiness

teacher. My appeal to you so that you

can become a happier teach happier

person is that you take the material

that you've learned in the show and that

you share it with somebody else. Print

off the show notes if you need to watch

this one or two times, maybe watch it

again with somebody that you love and

discuss it. But when you do that, you'll

become the teacher and that will make

you the person who benefits the most

from this particular material. And I

want you to become happier. Okay. Now,

before I close, I want to take a couple

of questions because we're already

getting questions from our social media

audience and and the way for you to

contact me by that um by the way is is

usually on Instagram where I have a uh

you know, sort of the happiness audience

that follows my work most closely. I'm

Arthur C. Brooks. That's my handle on

Instagram. And and I want to take a

couple of questions from Instagram, as a

matter of fact, that have just come in

in the past 24 hours. A bunch of

questions came in, but here are two that

I hear an awful lot. This one is from

Devin Sloan um on Instagram. It's a

classic. How do I get over a breakup?

How do I get over a breakup? Yeah, I

know. I know. I mean, it's I haven't

broken up in a long time. I've been very

married for 34 years. Thank God I

haven't gone through a breakup. But

yeah, I mean my students, my friends,

and I remember decades ago. It's lousy.

It's a lousy business. Well, to begin

with, it's normal even though it feels

unique and extraordinary and terrible.

Um, the average person has her or his

heart broken five times. Five times.

Five. Five

bad breakups where your heart is broken.

And in 50% of the cases of the breakups,

people say it was messy. So, it happens

again and again and again. And most of

the time, in six out of 10, about six

out of 10 cases, it's a mess. So,

there's nothing abnormal about this.

Devon um or anybody else who's going

through this, which is I don't know,

quarter you.

Um, here are two ways that science says

that you can get over a breakup faster.

Now, to begin with, time heals all

wounds. Your emotional system, the lyic

system of your brain, fools you into

thinking that you're never going to feel

better because that's how it gets your

attention. Anything negative gets your

attention to say, "This is horrible.

It's going to be horrible forever." And

there's a part of your literally

physical parts of your brain that are

dedicated to to making you feel awful.

Okay? And and I can explain in future

episodes why you would have this part of

your brain. You need it, but you don't

like it. It's not permanent. Your brain

is lying. It's going to get better. It's

going to get better faster than you

think. But there are a couple of ways to

urge that along a little bit more.

There's one very interesting and funny

study that talks about how if you

actually think about what a jerk your ex

is, you feel a lot better about the

breakup. Think, in other words, go don't

just go over the things that you miss.

Go over the things that you don't miss.

And there are things that you don't

miss. Absolutely. When you think about

that, you you get over the breakup much

faster. And the neuroscience is very

clear on this, but it sort of makes

sense probably intuitively as well.

Second is a really kind of even more

counterintuitive notion, which is that

when you listen to sad music, you get

over a breakup faster. You'd be like,

why why wouldn't I feel sadder when I

when I listen to sad music? And the

answer is no. Music actually activates

um structures in the right hemisphere of

the brain that give you a sense of

meaning. The meaning of your life is

mediated in the in the right hemisphere

of your brain, which is not where you

process language, not where you process

sort of rational task based based

thoughts. It's where you understand

what's going on in your life at an

intuitive level. Sad music puts into

perspective your feelings. It helps you

understand what your feelings actually

are. And when you understand you, you

can move on. That's the reason that you

listen to a sad song over and over and

over and drive all your roommates crazy

because you're actually trying to put

your your your feelings into context. So

sad music is actually really good for

you. Hope that helps, Devin. Um and it's

going to be okay. Um here's another

question. I'll just take this one more.

Um this is from Papa John G. Okay. Papa

John G. Pizza fan perhaps. Um

what's the biggest most mind-blowing

surprise you've learned in studying

happiness? Man, there's a lot. There's a

lot. I mean, every day, this is why I do

this. This stuff just is so crazy all

the time, and I'm learning new things

and and uh it's just opening my brain

constantly. But I think that probably

the the one that that changed my

thinking the most early on when I was

studying happiness is that I was of the

view that I'm supposed to be happy, that

mother nature designed me to be happy.

And when I'm not happy, it means

something's wrong with me. That's

completely wrong. Mother nature doesn't

care if I'm happy. Mother nature, in

other words, the way I'm genetically

designed,

according to evolution, is for two

things. to survive and pass on my genes.

And so all of my base urges in life are

about survival and gene propagation.

Sometimes that's a really good thing.

Sometimes that's a really bad thing

because a lot of the times when I'm

doing things that are sort of gene

propagation or survival oriented, it

might have to do with, I don't know,

eating 5,000 calories more than I'm

supposed to of a bunch of sugar that's

not good for me. Because in the

ancestral environment that meant, wow,

you get all those calories. Who knows if

you don't eat for 3 weeks, you're going

to be okay because of this. Well, that's

totally inappropriate in the modern

environment. And and we do lots and lots

and lots of things because mother nature

gives us an urge to do that and it

doesn't make us happy. People often ask,

you know, why are people unfaithful to

their spouses? That's a complicated

question. Boy oh boy, do I talk about

that a lot in my classes about why

people are unfaithful to each other? But

but marital infidelity has everything to

do with the impulses that people have

from mother nature that go completely

contrary to their own happiness. Nobody

ever says, you know, sure I'm glad I got

caught having that affair. Well, it's

mostly the caught part, I guess, but you

get my point that nobody says, you know,

sure is great that I did something that

actually doesn't even live up to my own

values. Why did I do that? People

question, why did I do that? Because

mother nature doesn't care if you're

happy is the bottom line. Mind-blowing

stuff. As a matter of fact, you know,

most religions say that we're that human

beings, homo sapiens, are are both

animal and divine. The animal part is

mother nature's impulses. The divine

parts are our own moral aspirations to

which we actually try to live up over

the course of our lives. Want to be

happier? Think of the person you want to

be and then work to become that person

not withstanding your feelings. Boy,

then will you be free. That's just

completely molded the way that I see the

science of happiness and how we can use

it in our everyday lives. Well, that's

um what we got for today. I hope you've

enjoyed it. I hope you'll come back.

Bring a friend. No, no, no, no. Bring a

million friends. Uh, in the meantime,

uh, leave a review if you wouldn't mind

on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're

listening to us or or watching us for

that matter. And hit like and subscribe

because, you know, then the bots

actually are kinder to us and that makes

us happy when bots like us a lot more.

In the meantime, um, any questions or

thoughts that you've got, office

hours.com, that's the email box that

we'll be looking at. Can't wait to see

what you're thinking about. And if you

want more like this and you want to read

it real quick, go get the book The

Happiness Files, um, by me, Arthur C.

Brooks, and that's out from the Harvard

Business Review Press, any place where

you get your fine books or online, which

is probably where you get your books.

So, I'm looking forward to talking to

you the next time. I hope this has

lifted you up a little bit. Don't

forget, I need happiness teachers in the

movement with me. So, come back next

time and together, let's become a school

of happiness that lifts up the world.

Thanks very much.