Dhru Purohit Show - The Surprising Benefits of Joy for Mood, Immunity, and Heart Health with Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

This episode is brought to you by Joovv and Rupa Health.  With rates of depression and mental illness at an all-time high, it’s crucial to take stock of and consciously make time for the things that bring us joy. Joy is an embodied feeling we get when we feel connected to our inner selves, relationships, and the world around us. The question is, how do we create more of it? Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with Kelly McGonigal to discuss how to cultivate more joy in our lives using the power of movement, nature, community, and so much more. Kelly shares how movement can help familiarize our bodies with the physical sensations of joy so that it is more easily recognizable. She also discusses how a sedentary lifestyle can rob us of joy and how leading a healthy lifestyle can help us better connect to ourselves to find deeper meaning and purpose that leads us to live a joy-filled life.  Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University specializing in understanding the mind-body connection. Her mission is to translate insights from psychology and neuroscience into practical strategies that support personal well-being and strengthen communities. She is the best-selling author of The Willpower Instinct and The Upside of Stress. Kelly’s last book, The Joy of Moment, explores why physical exercise is a powerful antidote to the modern epidemics of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.  In this episode, Dhru and Kelly dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): -How to create more joy in our lives as we age (2:40 / 2:40) -Why joy is so underrated in people’s lives (5:28 / 5:28) -Increasing our sensitivity to joy (11:00 / 8:27) -What we get from having more joy in our lives (20:22 / 17:50) -How being sedentary suppresses our capacity for joy (33:33 / 30:38) -Kelly’s background story and how she handles chronic pain (42:35 / 40:02) -The Joy Workout (53:10 / 50:37) -Kelly’s Joy prescription (59:00 / 56:30) -The relationship between friendship and joy (1:03:59 / 1:00:57) -Tips for making friends and meeting new people (1:07:24 / 1:04:51) -The power of integrating movements with relationships (1:11:24 / 1:08:57) -Top motivators for increasing movement in our lives (1:17:48 / 1:15:15) -Tips for cultivating love and compassion (1:19:16 / 1:16:45) -End of the day replay exercise (1:29:42 / 1:27:08) Also mentioned in this episode: -The Joy Workout featured in The New York Times -The Joy of Movement For more on Dr. Kelly McGonigal, follow her on Instagram @kellymariemcgonigal and on Facebook @kellymcgonigalauthor, or her website kellymcgonigal.com.  Enhance your health with red and infrared LED light therapy with Joovv. Right now, Joovv is offering an exclusive offer on your first order. Head over to Joovv.com/dhru and apply my code DHRU. Rupa Health is a place where Functional Medicine practitioners can access more than 3,000 specialty lab tests from over 35+ labs like DUTCH, Vibrant America, Genova, and Great Plains. You can check out a free, live demo with a Q&A or create an account at RupaHealth.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joy creates a biology that helps you engage with life. So it's really great for your heart health and your immune system. You release brain chemicals like endorphins and endocannabinoids, depending on the type of joy, maybe oxytocin, maybe adrenaline. But a lot of chemicals that boost your mood, that increase your sense of confidence as well as your willingness to trust others. If you're curious about the top things in life that rob us, of joy, strip our joy away from us and create more on happiness, today's episode is absolutely

for you. Welcome to the Drew Prod podcast. Each week, we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest is Kelly McGonical, and we're talking with Kelly about all things joy and how to create more of it in our lives. Now, a little bit more about Kelly. Kelly McGonical is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University, who specializes in the understanding of the mind-body connection. As a pioneer in the field of science help, her mission is to translate insights from psychology and neuroscience into practical strategies that support personal well-being and strengthen communities. She is the best-selling author of The Willpower Instinct and the Upside of Stress.

You might also know her from her TED Talk, How to Make Stress Your Friend, which is one of the most viewed TED Talks of all time with over 20 million views. Might I add that Oprah Magazine honored Kelly in her work by noting her ability to, quote, transform scientific data into wisdom. They even named her an OVisionary, a leader whose groundbreaking way of seeing the world meant a better future for us all. Kelly was on the podcast previously. To talk about her last book called The Joy of Movement, we'll be mentioning some of the key themes

in there, especially in the context of our summer series on Healthy BodyCat. composition, but primarily today we're focusing on optimizing our life for joy, which we all could be better off. You know, we search for happiness and we end up coming up short often. But something magical happens when we optimize our life for joy, and that's what today's interview is all about. Stay tuned for a fantastic podcast with Kelly McGonical. Kelly McGonical, welcome back to the podcast. A pleasure to have you here. I want to jump right in, and here's the question that I know, my audience will love. So you share it as we were chit-chatting. A big part about aging is our

self-perception. And a big part of our self-perception is the joy that we have access to in our life. So the question that I have for you is, how do we create more joy in our life as we age and maintain access to our fullest potential as human beings? Oh, love it. Yeah. You know, joy is an emotion we experience when we feel connected to something that makes life worth living. And it's that simple. Joy is basically a signal that says you matter, good things can happen, life is worth living. It's like a signal of stay engaged with life. So if you want to feel more joy, you basically need to choose the activities and the relationships and the roles and the goals that remind you that you matter, that life matters, that give you a sense of connection,

or that, like, connect you to something that you would consider essentially good. And this can be really idiosyncratic. Like you might love something beyond reason the way that I love dance fitness and teaching dance classes. I love it beyond a reason. If that's in my life, life is worth living. And to really appreciate that signal, to have access to joy means both allowing yourself to do the things that bring you joy and also allowing yourself to receive the signal and allow joy to be something that is almost like a GPS that you can, that you can use and follow in order to continue to create a life worth living. And what's something that brings you joy?

What do you love beyond reason? I love actually asking people questions and just listening intentfully and just stepping into pattern recognition to connect the dots for people who are listening, including myself. That's one thing that I really love to do. I mean, sometimes I ask people questions that can seem a little bit morbid. But, you know, for example, what if you were hospitalized and could do almost nothing? You'd lost almost all of your capacities. If something were still available to you, what would make you say, no, I'm, I'm going. I want to keep going. I want to keep living. You know, I might imagine something like if people brought in foster cats that had special needs. And somehow I was able to make those cats have. even if I could no longer like speak or write or move my body, that would make my life worth living. And I feel like, you know, if you can imagine a scenario like that, asking yourself questions like that and also how much time are you spending every day doing those things versus scrolling or

like the things that, you know, can seem urgent at the time but don't necessarily fill you up in that way. Talk to us a little bit more about joy. It seems that many of us, and I've had moments like that too, We're chasing so many different aspects. It could be chasing finances. It could be chasing attention. It could be chasing notoriety.

Why is joy so underrated as a pursuit in most people's lives? I think one reason might be because joy is fleeting. So when you ask people, are you happy? They tend to make a global assessment. Like, are things in my life going well? Am I successful? Do I have good relationships? am I struggling? Am I healthy or ill? And when people say, I'm happy, they're usually talking

like life is good. And I think people think that that's really the ideal to be striving for. Whereas joy is ephemeral, it rises and then it's gone. It is literally just in this moment. I feel like life makes sense or life is worth living. In this moment, I feel connected. I feel like I matter. I feel like I belong. And joy, you know, this sort of, it's this light thing is a little harder to control. It's definitely not something you can strive for. And I think it's undervalued because it almost requires, it requires a mindset that allows you to appreciate moments.

And it requires a real like vulnerability to allow yourself to be moved and touched by experiences in life, like to be inspired by seeing somebody else demonstrate a personal strength or seeing a reunion to people embrace with love and happiness, to allow yourself to be moved by that, to allow yourself to show other people who and what you care about and not feel like you're going to be judged. There's so much about joy that requires this kind of vulnerability and also a moment-to-moment attention to what is okay or good in this moment. And joy is also something that is available even when life is hard. In some ways, when life is hardest, we sometimes actually have a stronger ability to notice the small moments of joy and appreciate

them. And I also think that sometimes joy is undervalued because until you're actually struggling or suffering, you may not even understand, you know, how much you would fall to your knees and beg for the opportunity to have some of these joys again. and to be so grateful for when you have them. Today's episode is brought to you by Juve. One of the easiest ways to boost cellular health naturally is red light therapy. Jove has been my go-to device for harnessing the power of red light therapy for years. Let me tell you why I love it.

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and come in a variety of options to fit your needs. The best part is you can complete a session in as little as 10 minutes. Just sit back, relax, and let your body soak in the rejuvenating red light. Right now, Juve is offering my podcast community an exclusive discount on your first order. Head over to juve.com slash Drew and use my code D-H-R-U during checkout. That's juve, J-O-O-V-V dot com slash D-H-R-U to get your exclusive discount today. This episode is brought to you by Rupa Health. Let me tell you why I'm such a huge proponent of functional medicine.

Number one, it gets to the root cause of a patient's symptoms. Number two, it looks at the body as a network of connected systems. And number three, it utilizes specialized laboratory testing to identify and address functional imbalances at their source. But from what my practitioner and doctor friends tell me, getting the lab tests they need for their patients can be time-consuming and a painful task, which is very unfortunate. To all the functional-minded docs out there and practitioners,

You've got to try out Rupa Health. Rupa Health is an absolute game changer for functional lab testing. With just a few clicks, you can order from specialty lab companies like Dutch, Great Plains, Genova, Access Medical Laboratories, and so much more, all in one spot. Plus, patients get practitioner pricing and receive patient support through personalized instructions, automated follow-ups, super bills, and so much more. All you have to do is go to Rupa Health. that's r upa health.com to sign up for your free account today. How do we take an inventory of how much joy is in our life? I think for a lot of folks, they have maybe not had somebody ask them.

How much joy do you have in your life? As you mentioned earlier, a lot of people get asked, hey, are you happy? And often there can be this sort of response that I've perceived. I'm sure I've given it myself too. it's kind of like when you go to the grocery store and you're checking out and you're buying your groceries and somebody says, how's your day? Most people just say, good, because you don't want to get into all the other details, even if it wasn't. So how do people accurately take assessment of how much of joy is in their life so that that way they could become present to whatever truth is there?

I mean, part of my mission right now is actually to increase people's sensitivity to detecting joy. I think a lot of people have a very high threshold, what they define as joy, like peak experience. in life, or they may be disconnected from what joy feels like in the body. So when people describe joy, they often talk about a kind of like a warmth or a lightness around the chest. You breathe a little bit more fully and deeply. There is sometimes a sense of quickness or lightness around your hands in your face. It's a wonderful emotion.

It's very embodied. Sometimes people feel it, though, more as like a mental state where you really just like you could hear yourself saying something like, this is so good, this is amazing. I love this. You almost have a sense of wanting to take a mental photograph, like to make a memory or thinking, I want to remember this. You know, those are two of like the main signals of joy or the desire to actually share something with someone else. That's another really clear signal of joy. When you find yourself wishing that someone you love was with you so that you could share it with them or you think I'm going to tell them about it later, or you're taking a photo and you're going to text it to

someone, that can be a signal of joy. And it's funny when I started exploring this topic, you know, I was asking my family members how they experience joy. And it's so funny because my father said he's experienced it a couple of times in his life. Wow. My mother is more like me. She's like, oh, all the time. I was like like, like many times a day. She's like, yeah. many like we have a very low threshold for joy we you know we learn something interesting joy uh we share laughter laughter with someone joy i hear a song i love joy it's not because i'm a happy person either right i think we talked about this last time i'm not by my nature by default is not happy um but i can be very responsive to things that are beautiful or funny or heartwarming or exciting um so i think when i

is it true that these people are having completely different experiences of life, joy only a couple of times in almost 80 years of life, or joy 80 times a day? And I think that it's because a lot of people either have this definition of joy where it has to be a peak experience of euphoria that is life-defining, or a lot of times people, when they start to feel the initial wave of joy, they actually try to dampen it because Again, as I said, joy is, it is by nature, it makes you vulnerable because it makes you more open. You know, in the same way that stress makes you really sensitive to experience to learning, joy makes you really open to connection.

And that can feel frightening to people, especially people who aren't used to trusting others or maybe don't want to be known by others. There's so many reasons we can feel a little bit uncomfortable with how joy opens us. So you were asking, how do you take a joy inventory? I think, you know, one thing would be to start to look for moments in the day where you feel something like what I've described. There's a, like a thought in your head, this is worth living for, this is good, I love this. I'm so grateful to have this experience. Or you notice that you wish you were sharing something or you feel an urge to tell someone about something in a positive way. Because we do also have that urge for negative things too. That's a different kind of emotional drive. Or you feel it in your body,

a kind of lightness, a kind of energized optimism, because joy is not calm. Like joy very specifically encourages us to engage more with life. It gives us energy. It increases our motivation towards our goals. It makes us want to connect with others. Joy has this kind of like, it's like, hey, on your back being like, yes, go forward into life. So those are some ways you could become more open or receptive to joy. You know, I'm part of this men's group that meets every Thursday morning. We go for a walk. We call it man morning. And it's been something that we've been doing for about seven years, a local group here in Los Angeles. And one of my favorite questions to ask that group, and I definitely think that it's probably not very common that like men ask

each other, you know, what made you joyful? But one of the, my favorite questions is, what's something simple? Because we have a question of the day, and we all walk and we talk about something different. And every month, we have a different captain so they can choose different questions. So sometimes when I'm the captain, I just want to genuinely know what's something simple this week that happened that brought you a lot of joy. And for a lot of the guys that share that, you know, they're thinking for a second. and they realized that something as simple as walking to work that day in a town where people don't typically walk to work, you know, or you might have to take a little bit of a different route, or maybe they parked a little further away and they had a little bit of time to walk over to work

to their office when they go in. That brought them joy. Another thing that might bring somebody joy is they don't regularly keep in touch with maybe their nephew and niece, and that week they made a habit of FaceTiming with them every morning. It's these, simple things that we forget sometimes that add a significant amount of pep in our step in the day. And they don't have to be these big, big experiences, although they can be. They're often these small things that stack up. I know in my own life, when I've chased happiness, I've actually often felt maybe sadder because of the thing that I associated with, hey, this is going to make me happy.

This relationship being this type of relationship will make me happy. Making X amount of money as an entrepreneur will make me happy. And I've often felt lost in that. But when I've pursued just what are little checkboxes that I could add to things that genuinely add joy to my day to day, I've often, without even looking for happiness, I've stepped more into a happiness that's associated with being more complete and joyful. I know that's more of a monologue than really a question, but any thoughts on that? No, I love it. One of the things that's interesting when you start tracking joy versus thinking, how do I make

myself happy, is the timescale shrinks. You know, it is like the moment on the walk. It's not even necessarily the whole walk. Maybe there was like you were tired and maybe the weather wasn't always great and then you were worried for part of it. And then you talk to a stranger and have an unexpected moment of connection or that you you know, you see a bird and you hear a bird song and suddenly you feel connected to nature. Like joy is interesting. It shrinks the time scale in ways that make it's so immediate.

It's a it's a kind of mindfulness that is like a reward for just continuing to be alive. And I think that it's what's great about it is it gives you the opportunity to continue to choose joy even when you can't control the circumstances that would lead you to say, oh, I'm really happy with my life right now, you know, when you can't control big things like relationships or health or work or the things that are going, things that are happening in the world. The other thing I'll say is that sometimes we really notice what brings us joy when we lose it. I'm sure that many people had the experience like I did right after we last connected when the world shut down for the pandemic. and it was very clear to me, very fast, what actually brought me joy. And it was kind of surprising. It didn't surprise me that teaching my group movement classes, when that was gone, it was devastating. I knew that that was the most important thing I did every day to feel connected to my community and feel like I was doing something of value. But I didn't realize how much having big events to look forward to brought me joy.

Not even the events themselves, but just thinking, I've got a concert to go to. I've got a conference to go to. I've got these celebrations to go to. So much of my joy was like this thread I was pulling of things to look forward to where I knew that I would get to experience collective joy, which is one of my favorite forms of joy. A concert is really the best way to think about it when people who love a certain type of music are loving it together and so excited to be there. to not even to not have that, but to not have it to look forward to, was very clarifying. And that's another way to think about what brings you joy is to notice what you've missed when it wasn't available.

And to be so grateful, can I tell you how many concerts I've been going to now way more than before we had that period of not being able to? Well, I got some more questions on the concerts, but we'll come back to that. You know, you're known for breaking down the science of so many aspects that we all may think of as underrated areas of our life. And when it comes to joy, what have you found from the research that's available there besides the fact that joy feels good? Do we get anything from having more of it in our lives? Yeah, joy is. So sometimes I like to contrast it to other things that I've talked about.

So a lot of people know my work around stress. And I've talked about how stress is this biological capacity we have to deal with challenges. And joy is an interesting biological capacity to capitalize on positive experiences and events in a way that furthers our ability to engage with life. So, for example, in the way that like stress gives you energy, to handle crises and it makes you, it changes your biology in ways that make you sometimes more willing to ask for help or more able to learn from experience. There's all that like biology to help you deal with challenges. Joy creates a biology that helps you engage with life. So it's really

great for your heart health and your immune system. It puts your nervous system into a state that is, you know, sometimes referred to as like the ideal state of your nervous system. It's like a readiness to engage. Often it looks like a readiness to engage socially. You release brain chemicals like endorphins and endocannabinoids. And depending on the type of joy, maybe oxytocin, maybe adrenaline. But a lot of chemicals that boost your mood, that increase your sense of confidence, as well as your willingness to trust others, it really, it's very similar to a runner's high,

which is, of course, why a lot of people love running, like the neurochemistry of joy, if I had to pick something that you could compare it to and say, oh, those look really similar, a runner's high or an exercise high is very similar to the physiology of joy. So that's, you know, that's a benefit you can think of because who doesn't want to live in a body that is energized, that is ready to thrive and ready to connect? But I also mentioned that joy as an emotional experience, like you have a moment of joy. It can be one of those fleeting moments of joy, or you can even like hack your way into it. Listening to music that you love is one of the simplest ways to do it.

It actually, when scientists want to produce joy, there are two things that they have people do that are really effective. One is for them to select their own favorite song to listen to. That is the number one way to induce joy if you want to study the unfolding of joy like in the brain or the body or how affects things. The other is to think of a joyful memory and like really go in there and revisit it. So I don't know about you. I like the music version. It's a little like, you know, it's a little bit easier to just on the fly do. But so it also affects things like your motivation. So when people have a fleeting moment of joy, they feel like they want to take on the challenges in their lives. They want to pursue their personal goals. They're more willing to take action.

and exert themselves. They're also more likely to be pro-social. So after a moment of joy, people are more interested in being good and doing good and making a difference. They're more likely to help people. I think that joy basically makes you the best version of yourself in the way that, like, stress helps you meet moments that are difficult. Joy helps you be the best version of yourself to invest in the things that matter.

That's what it's there for. So that sounds good, right? Those are some benefits. Those are great benefits. Those are great benefits. So to piggyback off of that, joy feels so good and we get so much from it and our body gets so much from it. What are some of the top things that strip joy out of people's lives or create so much noise that it's hard for people to pay attention to the pursuit of joy? What's robbing our joy?

There are a lot, but let's go to one that's actually quite painful, which is a lot of people think they don't deserve joy. And a lot of people, when they start to feel joy, it brings up shame or self-criticism. And that's especially true for people who've experienced trauma or like really difficult life experiences that taught them either not to trust other people. or to not expect good things to happen, and joy can feel really unsafe because it makes you vulnerable, because it creates this chemistry of connection that can then be frightening, or because it can trigger thoughts and beliefs like, I don't deserve this, survivor's guilt. There's a lot of stuff that can get in the way where the experience of joy, rather than being welcomed,

it's a threat that then triggers a shutdown. And this is, I mean, we could have a very long conversation about this. It's common. It's painful. And it's also, it is something that you can work with. But it's a kind of thing where it often involves really reflecting on why joy is not a reward for being perfect, right? That joy almost is, even if it were true, like even if you, you were someone who experienced a lot of moral injury or guilt because of things you've done,

you think you don't deserve joy, joy is a path for redemption. Joy is that signal that you matter and that life can be good. And so people most often experience joy when they're doing things that are inherently good, that are constructive, that are about progress and growth and helping other. And so in many ways, the pursuit of joy and that getting that signal of joy is actually a sign of redemption and a path to redemption. But it doesn't always feel that way in that moment. There's also, you know, people have a lot of beliefs about showing joy. And one of the things, okay, so you talk science.

Can I tell you something about the, about, I'm going to be an emotion researcher now. So my initial scientific training was in the science of emotions. I can get very geeky about emotions. I think they are like the coolest thing. ever. And emotions have all of these different channels through which they work. They change your body, your brain chemistry, your thinking. And some emotions have really clear outward signals and others don't. So if I were to ask you, like, what does anger look like? What does anger sound like? You could probably show me, right? You could recognize anger, right? But if I ask you, what does jealousy look like?

Like, can you show me a jealous face or an envious face? It's a little harder because some emotions are really about your inner signal. Like, you're the only one who needs to know you're jealous or envious for you to make use of that emotion. In fact, if you show it, this is not an emotion that pays off when you actually express it out loud, right? Usually that's an internal signal. Think about who and what you care about. Think about, you know. But so joy of all the emotions, I think it has the most expressive sense.

signals. So joy has facial expressions that are recognizable. Joy has sounds that are recognizable. There's a joyful laughter that is recognizable universally. There are joyful outbursts that are recognizable. It changes the sound of your voice. Joy can be felt through touch. Joy can be recognized through body language. Joy is even one of the only emotions that has a distinct smell. When you are feeling joy, your sweat releases chemicals that are like contagious joy molecules that float around. Other people breathe them in. It makes other people feel more joyful too.

Fear is the other emotion that has a really strong chemo signal in that way. People can really smell fear and catch fear. Like, why would an emotion have so many expressive signals unless there's a benefit to joy being shown and shared? So this is a long way of saying one of the reasons people don't fully capitalize on joy is they think of joy as something that's internal like I want to feel good. But joy, like really to get the most out of it, you have to show it, you have to express it and you have to share it with other people. That is actually how joy functions. And if you feel awkward, if you feel uncomfortable, saying to someone thank you or I love you, if you feel self-complorable, if you feel self-complicated,

conscious headbanging at a concert and like, you know, jamming out with strangers. If you feel embarrassed to tell people that you're a fan of something and how much you love it, all of these things like ways that we signal joy, if that's not freely available to you, there's actually really hard to even receive the benefit of joy in a moment. So one of the things I'm really excited about doing is teaching people how to express joy. It's one of the reasons I love teaching dance. It's basically joy choreography. I love that.

Singing is a good way to do it too. If anyone doesn't like to dance, I highly encourage karaoke. I'm not the most facially expressive. My natural state is I'm actually quite a generally very happy person, but I don't express a lot of things on my face. I feel like my eyes, though, do a lot of talking, right? I'm always like listening with my eyes and people can tell, even if I'm not. I'm not like making faces. But I feel like for me, the primary way of me expressing joy is through my acknowledgement

and gratitude of other people. Yeah. And there's something about gratitude that when people also hear it and you're witnessing them hearing the gratitude that they're giving to you, there's a sense where you're filled with just as much joy as them receiving it, even as the person who does it. So gratitude for me is actually one way that I've always stepped into joy is taking a moment to acknowledge somebody else for something real, right? Something true, something that I genuinely feel that I'm paying attention to in that moment.

And I notice that not only do they get lit up, but in the process of me expressing, I'm also filled with joy as well. Yeah. I mean, that's a really clear demonstration of how joy is supposed to work, right? joy it works best when it is expressed, that you had, you had a feeling of, oh, somebody did something for me or I'm experiencing something in this moment that is wonderful. And I want to give thanks to that. You let yourself express it.

And that produced in another human being a sense of being appreciated, of mattering, of getting to share a moment of joy with you. And it's like this reverberation. We know that joy synchronizes people's physiology. It's a real connection. So if you express gratitude to me and I'm open enough to receive it and not feel like super embarrassed or try to shut it down or dismiss it, if I allow myself to receive it, you'll see it in my body language or in my face.

You'll hear it in my words. And we start to synchronize in a way that creates a true moment of connection that people can feel. It strengthens trust. It deepens relationships. and it produces a second moment of joy. Like the joy that you expressed that was about the gratitude becomes a moment of connection

that is also a moment of joy that gets shared. And this is one of the reasons why I said it's so important to express joy or share joy because you get this like the second wave of joy which is rooted in connection. And when researchers look at the most common sources or contexts of spontaneous, authentic joy, something like 70 or 80% are moments of connection with another human being or connection with something that you find deeply meaningful.

So for some people, it'll be animals or it could be a physical place like a garden or nature or relationship with God. But there's that moment of connection. I feel really deeply connected to something in a meaningful way. You know, you wrote a whole book that we talked about last time, the joy of movement. And when I look at the trend of how active people have been through the modernization of different cultures, United States for sure, but this is now being spread throughout the world. We see that increasingly, as the world has been progressing, on a whole, people are more sedentary. They're not moving as much.

Movement has been removed from our daily life. Community has been moved from our daily life. We no longer have to walk to get water, the grocery store. And not that I'm completely romanticizing the past. It's now that we have to actually go out of our way if we want to exercise where that was sort of baked in. Do you feel like there is any relationship to the fact that it does seem on some studies that I've seen out there when it comes to, not that I've seen a study measuring or tracking joy over a time, but measures of purpose, happiness, my guess is that those things are connected to joy, that the world is becoming

a more sort of, unfortunately, you know, in some instances, more fearful, more anxiety-filled, maybe a little bit less filled with joy. And that that trajectory is also following this idea of a more sedentary lifestyle. And yeah, do you want to talk about that? Yeah. I mean, So two things you said. One thing actually, I could have mentioned one of the barriers to joy is mistrust and a sense that you, in general, you cannot trust other people or in general, the world is a dangerous place. Now, these can be rooted in reality, but to have that perception can be a real barrier to joy. So sort of independent of whether that's related to being more sedentary, that in and of itself and how we get fed, that, that message through a lot of media and social media. I mean, you should know when you're being fed a message that says you can't trust other people that is suppressing your capacity for joy in the same way that being sedentary can suppress your capacity for joy. I mean, there's a lot to being physically active that essentially supports your capacity for joy. So even, like, I would argue,

you can find activities that actually give you joy, whether it's sports or being in nature, for me it's often dancing. For a lot of people, there's going to be an activity that is in and of itself joy creating. But like let's say different conversation. Let's talk about the biological effect of being more active versus being sedentary. There's so many ways that it changes your what I call biological readiness for joy. So people who are more physiologically active, physically active, their brains find it easier to respond to positive experiences with the chemicals that we know are released during physical activities. Like you teach your brain to produce rewarding chemicals like endorphins and dopamine and endocannabinoids and oxytocin.

You produce them when you exercise, when you're active, and your brain learns how to do it so that when you hear something fun, it's easier to laugh. When you experience a moment of love, you feel it more deeply. Like life, you're more sensitive to the joys in life. Similarly, we know that when the body is in a state, sort of your nervous system is relatively balanced, lower inflammation. It creates a biological readiness to experience the emotion of joy, including social connection. And so if you're doing behaviors that increase systemic inflammation, like being sedentary, But there are other things, too, like not sleeping enough or eating a diet of highly processed foods that aren't ideal for you. There are a lot of things you can do that create that physical, you know, that create inflammation.

That would also kind of suppress your biological readiness for joy. And so you can think about a lot of different health behaviors as things that don't just make you physically healthy, but that create an entire, like, different physiology that primes you to be able to accept. experience connection and joy and meaning. And there are other ways, too, like the molecules that your muscles release. And did you see the new research that your bones are also producing chemicals when you exercise that make you happier and more resilient to stress? No, I didn't see that. I think the last time we talked, I was talking about this new research on how your muscles do this during exercise. Right. Yeah. He talked about that. And, you know, I'm out there preaching this message that your muscles are like a

pharmacy and they produce these molecules during movement that travel to your brain where they increase your sensitivity to joy and make you more resilient to stress and they act like antidepressants, they act like anti-anxiety molecules. It's amazing. Well, there's new research showing that your bones do that too. So if you do movement that puts any kind of stress on your bones, either because your muscles are pulling on them or impact that puts force on your bones, your bones will respond by releasing their own chemicals into your bloodstream that act like basically antidepressants and happy, happy molecules. So that's pretty cool.

It's just this reminder that, you know, you really cover two big areas that when we're devoid of them or that we have, let's say, a negative association with them that could have come from our life circumstances, habits that weren't in place, you know, critical authority figures in our life. But one of them you mentioned was this feeling of like what I would call something mental or belief based, this idea that you don't believe that you deserve joy, right? A lot of people feel that that's out there. And the secondary one that was prompted by my question, obviously, which is related to your book that you wrote about, the joy of movement, is this idea is that if you are more sedentary, it's harder to actually create joy. It's harder to create a factory of joy. So now we have these two categories. We have the mental and the physical. And it's this reminder that the last time you're on this podcast, I think the title of this podcast was called The Broken Brain Podcast. And the whole idea was that your brain isn't broken. And you should also know that what you do to your body, you do to your brain. And what you do to your brain, you do to your body. So there is

this symbiotic relationship between them. They're not separate things. So if you feel like you are devoid of joy in your life, sure, maybe it's the belief systems and the mentality. That's one aspect. But there's also this body component and both are super. important to pay attention to. And like sleep is such an interesting example. There's research showing that when you get insufficient sleep, it is harder for you to recognize positive emotions in other people. It doesn't just suppress your own capacity for joy. But part of the ways that joy works is we see other people's positive emotions. We catch them. We mirror them. It's a moment of connection. And sleep deprivation seems to like selectively, you're still really good at recognizing negative.

emotions. I'm sure some sleep deprived, like parents know what this is like. It's kind of selectively undermined your ability to recognize and connect through positive emotions. So one thing I always want to say is this is not, you got to work with what you can. There are a lot of people can't move their whole body. Are living with illness, pain disabilities. You know, you move what you can in ways that you can. There are people dealing with real mental health challenges. You can't just like spontaneously think differently about whether or not you deserve joy. I understand that these are complex issues where people are really struggling. It's not because people are lazy or because people just, it had never occurred to them that they probably shouldn't have thoughts of self-hate.

But what I want to say is what I think is interesting about the way you framed it is. So there's always a way in. You could start with your body. You could find the thing related to caring for your body that is accessible to you, whether it's movement or nutrition or sleep. If you're finding it very hard to control or take care of your physical experience, maybe you start with a mental practice, like a gratitude practice or listening to music, that because this mind-body relationship goes both ways, there's always a starting point. And I hope that people feel encouraged rather than thinking like, oh, my gosh, if I don't get perfect sleep and exercise every day and, you know, do all these things. I'm somehow, I'm,

I'm inhibiting my joy. Also, we can, we can increase our capacity for joy through some very simple approaches. And as you've talked about before in your book, the upside of stress and, you know, other, other content that also was in the joy of movement is that joy and the creation of it internally gives you more access to that resilience that's there. I want to talk about that for a moment, you know, for those that are not familiar with your story, or it's been a little while since you've been on my podcast and some other podcasts where they might have heard you, from a young age, you had health issues. I believe you started off with these migraines that you were having. Not migraines. Or headaches. Mygreens, at least people can explain and treat.

They were like some type of headache? The way that I talk about it is, so my understanding is that most people, they wake up in the morning, if they don't eat, they get hungry. And if they stay up, you know, all night, they get tired, right? You get these, your body just gives you clear physical signals. So what my nervous system and body likes to do is just turn everything into pain. So I could stay up all night, no problem. I don't get clear signals that say go to sleep.

I get pain. And it's, it's taken me a long time to figure this out that somehow my nervous system, it produces pain as a signal that I'm tired, I'm hungry, like, I need something. Whatever it is, it translates into pain, which has really helped me also reduce the experience of pain to understand that this is what's happening. This is not, it's not related to anything that's wrong in my body. But so that, so I had that experience very early on as a kid when nobody understood it. it. First of all, nobody believed it. And then when people believed it, by the time I started

going to people and, you know, getting MRIs and like, nobody can explain it in terms of there's a reason you have this pain. So I've kind of been, and by the way, if anyone is listening, do not send me miracle cures. This is the one problem with talking openly about pain is you get 100 emails later about obviously you just haven't read this book yet or obviously you just haven't tried this thing yet. Hat tip to everyone out there. People with chronic pain have already, they've heard it and they tried it. Anyways, end of my public service announcement. One of the things you've talked about is that actually drains you a lot is talking for a long time.

I know. Talking is the number one trigger for pain. And yet you're a lecturer, you're a speaker, you go on a podcast, and here you are. So like in this moment here, you know, you're sharing such valuable content information and, you know, you even talked about this a little bit last time. But in this moment, you know, do you feel pain right now? And are there things that you try to simultaneously hold on to to sort of be with that? And also step into what seems to be this thing that you are also passionate about,

which is helping people learn about these things that could help them with their lives. Yeah, yeah. There's always room for pain. That's the thing that I've trained. There's always room for it to be present. there's just other stuff present too. So over the course of this conversation, there has been an increase in pain and it's okay. It is a lot of people who deal with chronic illness of any type will tell you that they have a sense that they have a certain amount of energy or activity that they get to spend.

And then there also is a cost to that. and people with chronic illness or pain are just more aware of that. They are aware that they're spending energy and a reserve that they have. And one of the most important things when you are dealing, it's true also for some mental health challenges, that when you feel like you're making a choice that's consistent with your values, even if it also ends up being accompanied by something like fatigue or pain or an emotional hangover,

which sometimes comes when you step outside your emotional comforts, zone. Or if you're, you know, someone who deals with anxiety and you choose to do something that makes you anxious or fearful, when it's consistent with your values, you can tolerate those difficult experiences and sensations. Even if you might wish they weren't there, there's room for them and then there's less regret and resistance about it. And so I just think about making value-based choices. And that creates a lot of space and acceptance. You know, we were chit-chatting a little bit before, you know, I hit record. And one of the things I was saying is that, you know, you have this unique perspective that I see sometimes

in folks, which is when you have lived a life where you are under a lot of contrast of some sort. And somebody who's been through and is still dealing with chronic pain is constantly living in contrast. They have these moments where their pain is much higher, and they have these moments where it's much less, and maybe even a glimpse of it kind of disappears for a little bit, and it's like heaven opens up and the sun is coming through and birds are, they constantly know the value of things that other people might take for granted. Like there's people that are listening today who are not in any pain right now. And it's just they think that that's normal. I know. I think it's so fascinating. Sometimes I say that to my husband. I'm like, tell me about that. What is that like?

Because it's so funny, you know, people, right, people who don't have chronic pain, like, they'll get sick and they're like, wait, is this what life is like for you all the time? I'm like, yeah. Yeah, kind of. Well, why I brought it up is that in a way, I feel that one of the vehicles to creating more joy in my own life and knock on wood, I don't deal with chronic pain and my heart goes out to everybody who's listening who does. We do have a lot of listeners who do is that. is that creating more joy is a constant stepping into contrast. And what I mean by that is in my own life has been, what is really gratitude? Gratitude is meditating on contrast. So even today, you know, I had like two days of flight delays. My flight was canceled on Sunday. Then again on Monday.

And we were stuck at the airport. Then we had to drive really far. And then I was on the plane sitting next to my wife and my mother. And I was like, you know what? As tired as I am, I just want to say, like, I'm so thankful that I can travel. I'm so thankful that I can lift the luggage up and put it in, you know, the compartment above my head. I'm so grateful that all of us are here. None of us are in pain. None of us are unhealthy. Things are going well. You know, I saw this, I saw this meme on Twitter a few months ago. And it said, you know, if you're lucky enough to live to, let's say, 80s, 90s, 100, and you think about your life then, you would, for your average day today, right, as a 30-year-old, 40-year-old, whatever, if you're looking back on that, you would give up almost anything to be doing some of the most basic things that you're doing today.

This is a meditation that I do at the end of a day, particularly a day when I've struggled in some way. I imagine it's the end of my life and sort of like, this is what happens at the end of your life. This is not true, but just imagine. They're going to spin some kind of roulette wheel that's every day of your life. And whatever day it lands on, you're asked, would you like to relive that day? Do you want to go back? That's the day you get. That's it.

Would you say yes? And how would you feel to be able to do that? And I think like, what if it was today? Would I say yes to today? And it's almost always, yes, it's very rarely no. Almost always I think, I would give anything to be able to have a moment of connection like that, to get to do that thing I love again, to, I would just want it back. And that's been a really helpful meditation for me in terms of cultivating the attitude

that you're talking about because sometimes I can remember it in moments that are mixed. You know, because a lot of moments, there are frustrations and stress. And also there are these, you know, moments of something good that's in that. And as a practice, that's helped me lean more into appreciation for everyday life. Yeah, it's so powerful because when I think about your books, they really, to me, are a highlight of some things that are many lived experiences that people have had. Right. They know they experience joy when they're moving, when they're being playful, when they're hanging out. They know that there is, you know, that joy has added a lot of sense of purpose

and completeness to their life. But often we can get caught up with so much of the day to day and we forget to bring in the contrast that puts us in a place to think like, I'm quite lucky to be doing what I'm doing right now. Or, you know, that doesn't mean everything is, you know, rosy all the time, as you mentioned. But in this moment here, what can I be grateful for even in the midst of this stress, this difficult project, this unfortunate news, so that I can make myself more resilient. So I think of you as highlighting a lot of the things that are the most fundamental practices that are there for people that we kind of overlook because we got caught up in the sort of day to day, which is a natural part of the human experience.

And I think like for part of part of it is for me, I have always been in awe of human nature. I know there's a lot of ugly aspects of human nature. Like for every good instinct humans have, we have a competing destructive instinct. That is sometimes necessary or useful. But I've always felt this kind of awe at people's capacity for things like courage or kindness or resilience, making meaning out of things you would never choose to experience. It's a real genuine appreciation. And so a lot of what I do is trying to help people feel that that is possible for them, too. That you can have a kind of an appreciation or all of your own capacity for all of these things.

Because I really sincerely believe that it's at the heart of our human nature. and we can embrace our conflicting natures and feel like it's a it's a worthwhile aspiration to move in the direction of the better parts of human nature. You know, the New York Times hit you up a while ago and they asked you to put together the joy workout, right? Yes, that was so much fun. I also want to talk about what was supposed to happen with that, that got, we didn't have the budget for it.

Well, I would love to hear about that. Feel free to give us the behind the scenes too. And then I want to kind of go from there, once you describe what the joy workout was because I think it's worth talking about. And yes, we would love the behind the scenes, I'd love to go into what would a prescription, almost the way that you came up with this workout will link to the feature there. It was really cool. What would a prescription for creating more overall joy in our lives look like, right? What would a prescription for that look like?

If you could give that or give that template or that protocol to, you know, doctors, teachers, caretakers, around the world, what would that look like? So, yes, talk about the joy workout. What did it look like? I think it was six movements. There's more. Okay. So the premise, here's the premise.

They call me and they were like, is it possible to design a workout that would make people happy? And that was the way they framed it. And I was like, you bet. I do it every day. So there's lots of ways. that you could design a workout to make you feel better. Like some of the other things you could do is go out in nature or, you know, get better at something

hard and meaningful to you. There's lots of ways to do it. But I said, here's my premise for this, what we could do in a video because they wanted to do a short video. We know that there are certain ways that people move their body when they feel joy, when they feel triumph. I mean, you could like do it right now. Triumph, you throw your fists in the air.

You like pump your shoulders. when people are feeling awe, they lift their palms, they lift their chest, they look up, they breathe deeply. When people get good news, they bounce up and down. You know, they're like, yes. So there are these ways that people move when they're happy and when they want to connect to others through joy. So I said, let's turn them into the way that I usually teach it is I call them joy moves. And either you can create choreography out of them, the way I do in dance classes, or you can just do them like exercises, the way you would do like a push-up, jumping jacks squats you can do joy move one joy move two joy move three um they're they're great physical

movements we designed it so that you know i want you to move your spine in every direction and it's modifiable based on whether you can move your legs or not all of that um but it's it's basically you can induce joy by moving your body in joyful ways and that's what the research shows that even if you're not thinking about it if you put your body through those movements it makes you feel more joyful. And if you do it to music or you do it while looking at somebody else who's doing it, it amplifies the effects. So we put together a little joyful soundtrack. And we have this wonderful mover model who moves in really authentically joyful ways. So it's easy to catch her joy. And that's the workout. But it's based on this idea that you can, we talk, you can go from the mind to the body or

the body to the mind. And the thing that we didn't get to do, we were originally, I was like, It's so important, you got to have people in chairs, you know, bring in someone in a wheelchair. You have to show people that this is not about being in a physical body that can move in like every possible way or in extreme ways. So that we have just one model in the video. That's what they had the budget for. But if you read the article, I have like, you know, notes in the comments about like really, you can do this.

I do this all the time with people in chairs. people who can't jump, you know, it's accessible. Yeah, that's beautiful. And I want to add in that if I remember correctly when I read the article originally when it came out, it was like less than 10 minutes, the whole work out. Oh, yeah. I think the whole thing is maybe seven minutes. Yeah.

Yeah. So that was also great, too. We do some free dance at the end. Like, at the very end, you can just move your body in any way that you want. And then people cheer for you. I was like, you got to get in the cheering soundtrack. Like, there are all these little levers you can pull. And I wanted people to feel like they were being celebrated at the end.

So if you listen, you'll hear the cheers in that last bit. It's for you. Anybody who's around like young kids, toddlers, other stuff or, you know, like really, really young kids who are like, they're starting to walk, they can dance a little bit. We do all these things inherently with them, right? We might put on music. They dance a little bit and we're like, yay. And, you know, like we clap.

We encourage them. We know how important that is for young kids and their development and their development and their joy, and they have so much joy rating out of them naturally, as all human beings do when they're so young, we just kind of forget to practice some of those same things as we get older. So we're sort of bringing back a little bit of a childlike sensibility to really create that joy that children naturally have. I often will tell people, pretend that you are accompanied by a four-year-old who thinks you are the coolest person on the planet.

And then whatever you're doing, like if you don't have one, I mean, invite one if you've got one. But just that idea, like because the way that kids, especially kids who think you're really cool, it's just not like consistent, you know, if they're your kids, they won't always. But like there's a certain energy that like it unleashes something in you where you're willing to be a bigger version of yourself or a louder version of yourself or a more playful or competitive version of yourself, whatever it is, a more open version of yourself, expressive. So you can you can just imagine that. And then like, how would I be enjoying this concert if I were with a four-year-old and they,

who was extremely excited to be here? You know, how would I enjoy this meal if I were with a four-year-old who was so excited to be enjoying this with me? Yeah, there's something really beautiful about that. Okay, so there's the seven-minute, eight-minute workout. And then-you-wanted a prescription for life. Well, just if you would add to that, if you would add a stack, if you'd add a protocol, you know, Kelly's protocol that's there, people always interested in.

Yeah, I don't have systems. I'm like the least, like I don't track anything. I have like no metrics for anything. I'm a very like listen to your direct experience and your intuition kind of person. So I know like for people who are really analytical or who really like to measure things, I don't always have the best approach. But so I'll tell you if I were going to give you a prescription for more joy. The first one is you have to know what you care about.

what you love and what is meaningful to you. Because joy is meant to be a signal that you're on track. So if you don't know, your body and brain don't really, they don't know what to pay attention to. It's harder for like your joy system to figure out get their attention. This is a moment that says you are connected to a source of meaning. This is a moment that says you belong. So, you know, They're different things. So one is to trust what you love and to really like be open and curious about it. What do you actually love in a like non-cynical, enthusiastic way? What is something that that just in the moment you are convinced this makes life worth living?

And that can be, you know, almost anything. Another thing is your values that like when you think about the choices that you make, what you want to prioritize, who you want to be. what you want to be known for, right? Those are your values. Anytime you have an opportunity to affirm your value, it can open you to joy. It could be a moment of joy. Another is so people are going to think this is so obvious or cliche, but helping other people.

It is the easiest way to access joy when people talk about moments of joy in their life that were under their control, right? Not like something amazing happened. If it's something that you chose to do and it brought you joy, helping someone else or doing something to support someone else or doing something to create joy for someone else, that's the thing that's most under our ability to choose it. And so if you're not already oriented to that,

it's worth doing. It's the easiest joy lever to pull, maybe other than listening to your favorite music. Oh, and adopt a pet. Wait, can we add that to the prescription? I mean, unless you really don't like animals. But if you have any inclination in that direction, that surely is going to increase your daily experience of joy. One of my favorite authors is Eckhart Tolley, and he wrote this book called, I think it's called Milton. It was basically it's a book about pets and how pets help remind us as human beings about the

present moment. And I don't have a pet now, but I love being around dogs, cats, probably dogs a little bit more so than cats, not that I don't have a problem with cats. And there's just a reminder of just the immediate joy that's available to us in each and every moment, you know, it's just I can understand why people feel so good around pets. Yeah. And pets allow you to experience interdependence in a way that people don't always get to choose in their lives or maybe didn't receive early in their lives, that you can be loved unconditionally. That's more the dog thing. Or that you could, that you could really choose to pay attention

and give to someone in a way that creates a deep and special trust. That's a cat relationship. Right. I mean, but you could choose a kind of bond that maybe you weren't given when you deserved it earlier in life. And animals often open us up to that. And that can also, it is a source of joy, but can also increase our readiness to experience joy with human beings. I saw a really great graphic that we'll link to in the show notes about the sort of decline of friendship for the average person. actually both men and women in the average, even though women in general are better at sort of having a larger sort of friend group and maintaining. And especially at the bottom end of the spectrum, people who are at the bottom end of the spectrum of only having, you know,

maybe one or two close friends as an average of part of society in the past, now having maybe, especially for a lot of men, having no close friends, especially as they get older and older. What's the relationship between our friendship decline and, joy. Yeah. Can I tell you, can I give you my best piece of advice for friendship, by the way? Please. Gosh, I'm trying to think what book this came from. I was reading a book that was, it was basically about how to create more social connection. I'm interested in this because this is

what I try to do in the group classes that I teach to build community. And there was a whole chapter about how people do not invite people into their homes anymore as often. There's a a lot of like meeting people at other places. And I thought for myself that that actually was true. It started during the pandemic. And then it just, I kind of got out of the habit of just having people in my home. And they made the argument that until you're comfortable being in your home with someone, not entertaining them, but just living in your home with other people as your home actually is, including being messy or whatever, that like real intimacy is very difficult. And when I read that, it was maybe like a year ago or so, I was like, I got to start bringing

more people into my house. And it actually does make a difference. People I thought I was friends with to have them in my house in very casual, non-like super entertainment ways really does make a difference. So I'm going to put that out there as advice I want to pass on that was that made a difference for me. So just to clarify there, so having people over and it doesn't have to be a game night or dinner or a podlock or whatever. It's just, hey, you'd come over and it might even be that you're doing your thing and they're doing theirs and you're just within each other's company. Is that kind of what you're talking about? Yeah. You could do, you could fold laundry together, I think was the example in the book. And I was like, yeah, you really couldn't. I thought about sometimes you just,

it's just nice to be in somebody else's home and to feel at home in another person's home. Yeah, so, you know, watch a movie, eat something. But in the way that I think a lot of us growing up did a lot of that. Definitely. And I don't know if it was only me. I don't know if other people also experienced this. This author was suggesting there is a trend to not do as much low-key life sharing in your homes as maybe people did previously. Well, 80s babies for sure, right?

Yeah. Are you an 80s baby? I am an 80s baby. What does that mean? Does I mean you were living your best life in the 80s or born in the 80s? Born in the 80s. I was, see, I was born in the 70s. So I was even a little bit more in the wild generation.

We were free Roman. You just got to live life. And when it was time for dinner, your mom yelled and you came home. Yeah, something like that. Yeah. Is there, you know, you mentioned, You're really passionate about community. You talked about your dance classes last time.

I'm very passionate about this topic. I shared about my men's group, Man Morning. Obviously, people can create their own version of it. We've kind of like open sourced our model of how we do it. It's like manmourning.com and people can create their goddess morning or this or that, whatever you want to do. But we talk about how we structure it and sort of the rotating sort of leadership to make sure it's not a burden on any one person. And any other tips that you have for people who genuinely, I'm seeing this more and more,

you know, people that actually are quite smart and are pretty driven in life and think of themselves as outgoing. But maybe they move to a new city for the second time as an adult. They don't know somebody there. Or they're older and they just got divorced. Or, you know what? They're friends. They actually just don't feel in alignment with them anymore, right?

They're maybe more focused on joy, which is why they're listening to this podcast. and they feel like their friends might want to traditionally connect over complaining or alcohol. No judgment on it, but it may not be what they're looking for right now. For people who are looking for places to meet people, if they don't have access to a dance class like yours, do you have any suggestions for them? Yeah, I mean, activity, shared purpose. Because when you're looking to build a sense of belonging and community, if you're starting with strangers, having shared goals and shared physical activity or that you're doing something together,

it's such a catalyst for true connection. I think in the Joy of Movement, I wrote about green gym, which sounds like a gym, but it's not. It's people who get together to conserve land or tend to community gardens or just like make natural public spaces more accessible and greener and more wonderful. And that it provides a kind of belonging because people are in this shoulder to shoulder effort and that the conversations you have with people when you're shoulder to shoulder and you're doing something are different. It takes away, it just, it leads to different conversations, a greater sense of bonding and belonging. And I really think that that's the, if you're not somebody who naturally can strike up

a conversation with someone at a bar, you find the activity that you want to do and go do it in like the most public, social, shared way possible because the activity itself is like a bonding agent. And then, you know, take what we know about conversations and bring them to a shared activity. So a lot of people, you know, it's great that you said you go for a walk when you do it. Yeah, we go for a walk. Yeah. So that makes a lot of sense. There's a sense of... Which is easier for men to open up to each other and talk about real stuff that's going on in life versus like sitting down in front of each other and looking at each other in the eye and opening up about what's working or what's not working. Yeah. And you're moving in the same direction together. You've got that synchrony of

physically of doing something together. And then when it comes to... conversations, you know, there are things that you can talk about that deepen the quality of new relationships. Talking about what you love is one of them, talking about what you care about, being sincerely curious about other people's lives, asking people to tell stories, asking people to share memories. These are the things that create a lot of trust and closeness, as opposed to you. to talking about things that people know about, but aren't deeply connected to your own life.

So like politics or entertainment, like that kind of, you know, things that are some really easy to talk about because we have a shared superficial knowledge base about, or maybe a deep knowledge base about it. But you know what I mean? So just, you know, keep those conversations personal. When we were chatting a little bit, one of the reasons I was excited to talk to you now, in addition to just all the great work and content you put out there is that we've been doing this summer series on body composition, building strength, how that's tied into longevity.

And one of the things that every single expert that's come on this podcast has talked about is the power of incorporating some sort of healthy relationship with movement, which made me naturally, obviously, rethink about your work and just how your book is dedicated to that, the joy of movement. And that similarly to the idea and the research that's out there when it comes to just the general term of diets, right, just paying attention to what you're eating. I don't mean that in a negative way, but the general term of whatever sort of dietary structure somebody might adopt is that the diet that people stick to the longest

based on literature is the one that works for them. the one that they can actually commit to. So just because somebody else's way of eating might work for them, keto or vegan or this or whatever it might be, it's what you're going to stick to that actually is going to lead to the results. And I think about that in the same context when it comes to movement. That if, sure, there may be this ideal version of like, I want to be here with my movement that you might have

because you're romanticizing what somebody else is doing. Or you're excited about the literature that they're putting out on string trainer or this. And while you're working yourself in that right direction, if that's your goal, having something that you genuinely look forward to that leaves you happy, I feel is actually one of the ways that is going to end up getting you to your results in a more direct way. That's the way that I look at it when I take your work stacked on top of everything that people have been sharing. Any thoughts about that? Yeah. Well, one thing I always try to emphasize is there are a lot of ways that movement can bring you joy, and it doesn't have to be limited to,

I enjoy every moment of this while I'm doing it. It's fun or it's comfortable. I often say find the form of activity that either, it can be like any of these, makes you feel good while you're doing it. That's great. Or makes you feel really good about yourself after you've done it. or makes you feel better about other people and life in general. Sometimes an activity can be really challenging or uncomfortable. And in the moment you're going through it, there is some part of you that always wants to not be doing it. That is a really common experience with physical activity that I would still consider joyful.

If while you're doing it, you also feel like there's a purpose to this, I'm kind of impressed with myself that I'm doing this. Afterwards, there's a story you can tell that when it was hard, you stuck with it in a way that was safe for your body but pushed you beyond your comfort zone and then releases all these chemicals that make you feel emboldened and encouraged to take on life. There's a lot of ways to find an activity that is joyful. And I really, I think it's so important because a lot of people may never find an activity where every second of it is full of bliss.

Some people do. I do lots of activities, and some of them are, you know, the activity that I look forward to the most now is the most uncomfortable because it's surprised me that I could do it. It's a form of high-intensity training where it's really all I can do to just keep going. And in my head, I have this mantra, don't have an opinion about it, which is a really nice thing to actually train for life. Like, I could choose not to have an opinion about this. We're doing mountain climbers.

We're doing mountain climbers. It's 30 seconds. It's 30 seconds. You don't have to spend 30 seconds deciding whether or not you're going to keep going. You don't have to have for 30 seconds think you should be doing something else. You could just give into reality and do it. Anyways, so that's joy for me, even though it's really hard. So I encourage people to look for actually.

activities that you will commit to the activity that you either enjoy or makes you feel good about yourself or makes you feel better about life. And maybe there's one for each of those that you could look for that fulfills a different need. It reminds me of this great quote that you have. You say movement teaches us how to survive hard things. That is true. It can. And some people don't need to learn that, by the way, I should say. Like when I talk to ultra runners and like adventure athletes, I thought, you know, I don't need to practice suffering that much. Right. But for some people, it's a lesson that is really well learned through incredibly difficult movement experiences and the confidence it gives you and the strength, the faith, the self-trust, the learning to open to help

from others. There's so many lessons you can learn from doing hard physical things. And that is absolutely included in my definition of joy. And only if you choose to do it, that's the other thing is this has to come with autonomy. That sense of saying yes to it. I chose to do this not because I'm trying to fix my body or because I'm trying to impress other people or because there's a voice in my head that says if I don't do it like full out as hard as I can, it doesn't count. There's a lot of like things that could drive you to do hard things that maybe aren't the healthiest way to approach it. But if you're choosing to do it, it can be joyful. And the same is true for any other aspect of movement, whether it's choosing to spend time in nature, choosing to do movement with other people or on your own.

Choosing to express your competitive nature or your cooperative nature. There's so many things we can choose through movement. Just to add that a little bit is that there's been definitely times of my life where I've pursued things out of vanity or because, you know, I wanted external attention. you know, I'm a human being. We've all gone through different versions of that. And what I know is that even if that thing got me started, which many times it did get me started, right? It's not the thing that kept me going.

And ultimately I had to find that real reason, which just came back to the feeling of like I actually feel good in my body, especially when it came to the consistent aspect of finding movement that worked for me. And find this is, please jump in. This is one of the reasons why I don't talk about appearance and weight when I talk about movement because there's all this research that shows it's a very common reason to get started, but if it's your only motivation, you're more likely to quit, even if you're achieving your goals.

So I figure everyone's already got that motivation going. It's out there. Let me just give people something else to pay attention to and care about because for whatever reason you get started and whether or not it's changing your body in those ways, if you are, if you are also or instead paying attention to things like, does it make me feel better, does it make me a better version of myself, does it help me deal with the challenges in my life, does it give me a way to connect with community? When you're paying attention to those things, you are so much more likely to find an activity and stick with it and get all of the benefits that might be

available to you from being physically active. You know, for people who feel that, okay, you know what, I have the movement side of it, I feel like I'm making progress. I got friends. But I still feel like I got the voice of a parent, authority figure, a teacher, somebody that is putting this shadow over my sense of deserving joy in my life. what directions of possibility? You know, there's many roadmaps to addressing that.

What would have been some things that you've seen that help people with that belief side of things? Programs, books, ideas, etc. So I don't think we talked about my work with the Stanford Center for Compassion. Is that right? We didn't. I'm a little bit familiar with it, but we didn't talk about it on the podcast. So this is something that my advice for this is rooted in my work developing program. to help people deepen their empathy, compassion, and self-compassion.

So I think whether or not you believe you're deserving of joy is part of what we mean by self-compassion. And so I spent a number of years really pilot testing this stuff in groups. And what I found is that the willingness to believe that you are deserving of joy and of compassion, it's there's this link between believing that other people are deserving of joy and compassion and it's this having to you can toggle back and forth but we have this exercise um of seeing other people as doing their best wanting to suffer less and to be happy and that that we have that in common it's a kind of a common humanity practice and the practice of looking at

another human being and finding a way to feel authentically, may you know joy? May you be free from suffering? For anyone you come into contact with and not to have a story in your head, well, okay, but first you should suffer a little bit because of who you are and what you've done and then maybe you can suffer less or, well, you're already, you know, you already have so many great things in your life. I don't need to wish you joy. Like, you have it all.

You couldn't possibly be suffering anyway. There are all these stories we have. when you can just connect to anyone and say, may you know joy, may you be free from suffering, it can unlock self-compassion and an acknowledgement that you yourself are deserving of joy. And then we also have this practice where we say that for ourselves, may I know joy. And the phrase may I is interesting because it is both an aspiration. Like I'm saying, yeah, this is something that I choose. May I know joy.

I'm going to put it out there as something that that I've, value that I want. May I is also about permission. It's a way of saying it's okay to want this. You do deserve it. And may I is also, it's like a hope. It's a belief that it's possible. So it's a very traditional like meditation phrase, may I know joy, may you know joy. But we worked with it a lot in the program. And it's there's something it kind of cuts through a lot of stuff if you were able to think it in your own mind, take a breath for other people for yourself as a way of cutting through some of those stories and beliefs about who is deserving of compassion or joy, including yourself. Is there a guided practice that we can link to?

Or is there like a, I mean, you described it, but for people who are kind of doing it for the first time, is there anything that we can link to out there for them? This is a good question. I don't know. where things are publicly available these days. If you look up at a loving kindness meditation, you'll get it. It'll be, may you know joy, may you be healthy, may you be happy, may you be safe. There are many guided practices for that. Any meditation app you download is going to have one. Beautiful. So it's really just this idea that like if we are regularly not thinking that we deserve it, it's also this indication of how do we give ourselves compassion even in the midst of us feeling that way.

Yeah. So this is my biggest mindset reset for finding compassion for yourself is the, sometimes described as the, we're all in the same boat meditation. So if you're thinking, I don't deserve joy and you're feeling shame and you're feeling guilt or you're feeling self-critical or you're feeling sad and lonely. To bring to mind, I am not the only person who knows what this feels like. First of all, it's true. It doesn't matter what you're feeling.

It's true because suffering is human. And there are, unfortunately, many, many other people who know what you're feeling and are feeling it right now as well. And you can actually bring to mind, just like me, there are countless people who know what this feels like. I am not alone in this feeling right now. And if you are not suffering, this can sound like a depressing reflection. But if you actually are in that moment suffering, it unlocks that feeling of common humanity that is the foundation for self-compassion.

And then the great final part of it is, may we all be free of this? Or may we all know that we're not alone? or may my ability to take a breath and be with this pain made in some way ease the pain of others who are dealing with this right now. This practice works for everything. It works for anxiety. It works for anger. It works for grief.

It works for physical pain and illness. It is my favorite go-to practice when I'm suffering. Kelly, this has been fantastic. And I want to say thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. And talking about really at the end of the day, awareness and attention, the more aware we are about our relationship with joy or our lack of joy in our lives, the more that we can actually set an intention to change it. You know, I was writing feverishly a bunch of notes down as I was had a bunch of time in the airport the other day and as well as listening to all your old interviews in preparation in this podcast. You shared a quote from someone that I didn't mark down the name inside of my notes, but maybe it'll ring back to something.

You shared another interview and you said, the focus of your attention sets the quality of your life. I think it was an author or speaker that you really look up to. So tell us. Who's that from? It's so funny. As soon as you said the word attention, that I was like, oh, should I share that quote? Yeah.

It's Sherry, H-E-R-I-H-E-R-E-R-H-B-E-R. She was one of my meditation teachers for a long time. Yeah, and one of her core teachings was the focus of your attention determines the quality of your life. And it's not what I've learned to appreciate is it's not only the focus of your attention, like what you pay attention to. What I've really come to discover is that attention has an emotional quality to it, that you can have attention that is curious.

and appreciative, or you can have attention that is critical and, you know, fault finding. You can have a quality of attention that is loving. And I think that that is also, so it's what you choose to focus on. And also to view attention, it's not just binary. Am I paying attention or not? It's like you tune your system to receive the world through a particular filter. But it's not just a one-way filter. the world receives the quality of your attention.

You know, other people can tell when you're actually curious. Other people can tell when you're truly open or when you are, when you have a quality of loving attention versus critical attention. And so I'll add that to the whatever it was I said last time. Yeah, well, I think it's perfect because, you know, that what I'm what I'm really hearing you talk about is us being aware of our own awareness and how that sets our entire being and how contagious that being is when you're around somebody who's a genuinely joyful person it's so contagious and and if you are pissed or

upset in that moment it will also make you a little bit more pissed in a good way of like why can't I also be like that too? Which is okay. Maybe that's the thing to break you do. Well, I mean, it's true that like, like, likes, like attracts like. We have emotional preferences. So I will actually say sometimes there are people who really don't want to be around joy. So if you're somebody who finds joy contagious, it's actually worth recognizing.

That's amazing. Like if you are not somebody who's around joyful people and you're just like deeply irritated or angry, like sometimes, you know, joy can provoke some other stuff. And I think that's actually a good thing. I think that's a good thing because I think that if joy was the thing that's going to set somebody off and make them more upset because they're, they were so want to hold on to this identity. You were going to end up there anyway. I'm just pushing you along a little further by being, you know, mashfully joyful. Is that what we call fierce joy? You're going to be so committed to joy. You don't, you don't mind what your, what other people's reactions to that joy is. You're going to be a force of joy in the world. You're going to react one way or

Hey, if you're going to take it out on me, let it be me instead of somebody else. That's how I think of fierce joy. But all joking aside, I feel like you do a really good job of helping us remember why our awareness is so key if we're looking for joy in our life. And you use the word filter. We don't often have a filter for this is word is going to sound out of context, but optimizing for joy. I genuinely think if we think more about joy, the small things, what am I genuinely looking

forward to that's a small thing in my schedule tomorrow. And if I can add more of those up, some of them could take 30 seconds, a minute, five minutes, the world would genuinely be a better place. So I feel like when I think about your work, that's what I think of. And I want to thank you and acknowledge you for that. Thank you. And let me give one final practice since you mentioned that. One of my favorite exercises for learning to detect joy and what brings you joy is at the end of the day to do a replay. You know, I said that like if you could go back and live your life over again, exercise. So just imagine you get to relive three moments from today. What are they going to be? And people learn a lot about themselves. Sometimes it's really surprising the moments they actually

want to relive. And then you can just be strategic about it. Some of them you can control. Some of them you can't. But you certainly can make choices that allow you to experience and savor what those sources of joy are for you. Well, if you did that exercise, post it on Instagram and tag us. We'd love to see it or share it on Twitter or email us as well. But no tips on chronic pain. Those are going to be deleted. I'm going to go to the trash folder.

Kelly, thank you so much for being here again. And I just so appreciate you and your work. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Drew here. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast.

If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe. on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share it with a friend, share with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter.

And it's called Try This. Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy-to-digest protocol of simple steps that you or any way. one you love can follow to optimize your own health. We cover everything from nutrition to mindset to metabolic health, sleep, community, longevity, and so much more. If you want to get on this email list, which is, by the way, free and get my weekly step-by-step protocols for whole body health and optimization, click the link in the show notes that's called Try This or just go to Drew Perot.com. That's D-H-R-U-P-U-R-H-I-T-com and click on the tab that says, try try.

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