Office Hours with Arthur Brooks - Exercise Your Way to Greater Well-Being

Starting point is 00:00:00 Now, a lot of people say to me, I am a lot happier because of exercise, because of fitness. And that's not strictly true. Your well-being is much higher because of fitness, but most of the research suggests that it doesn't work on the happiness side. Your negative emotion is very effectively managed through exercise. So when people say, I'm happier, I say, well, actually, you're less unhappy. And everybody can use some of that. People have often asserted that Serious exercise is as effective or even more so than many antidepressant drugs for certain people. And the research supports that, especially if you're sedentary and go to exercise for the first time. People see, they tend to see a one-third decrease in depressive symptoms just from starting a minor protocol of erotic activity.

Starting point is 00:00:55 Hi, friends. Welcome to office hours. I'm Arthur Brooks. I'm a professor at Harvard University. and a columnist for the Atlantic where I write how to build a life, a column about living a better, happier life, and how you can become a happiness teacher. That's the point of office hours is giving you the information that you need to become a happier person and to bring happiness to others. That's my mission in life. I'm a behavioral scientist dedicated to lifting people up

Starting point is 00:01:21 and bringing them together in bonds of happiness and love, using science and ideas. I want to equip you with that science as well. Today, I want to talk to you about the science of improving your well-being through exercise. Now, a lot of people say to me, I am a lot happier because of exercise, because of fitness. And that's not strictly true. Your well-being is much higher because of fitness, but most of the research suggests that it doesn't work on the happiness side.

Starting point is 00:01:51 It works on the unhappiness side. Happiness and unhappiness are hard to really net out from one another in your well-being. equation? The truth of the matter is that you're working on both and both exist for all kinds of good reasons. I'm not against unhappiness. On contrary, you need some amount of unhappiness to attain true happiness. If you've been watching this show for a while, you know that the definition of happiness is a combination of enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. And to get those things, you need unhappiness, even suffering some of the time. But you also need strategies to manage that suffering, to manage that unhappiness and exercise is probably the best way to do it.

Starting point is 00:02:31 Maybe another that's a contender is spiritual activity. There's so many bad ways to manage your unhappy experiences and your negative emotions. Drugs and alcohol, a terrible way to manage your negative emotions. Gambling, negative behaviors, addictive things, workaholism. These are all unproductive ways to manage your negative emotion. but your negative emotion is very effectively managed through exercise. So when people say, I'm happier, I say, well, actually, you're less unhappy. And everybody can use some of that.

Starting point is 00:03:02 So today's episode is on how you can manage your well-being by managing your unhappiness to lower levels using exercise. Now, this is related to a past episode that I did on my morning protocols. And if you saw that, and we'll make sure that we link it below, so you can go watch that if you want. Step two in my morning protocol, step one being I get up before dawn, my step two protocol is from 445 to 545 in the morning. I work out. I work out seven days a week for 60 minutes. I am an inveterate gym rat. I'm going to talk about different kinds of exercise, some that I do and some that other people do, and the benefits that actually come from that, the benefits being different ways and they can lower different kinds of negative affect. If you know the science behind this,

Starting point is 00:03:49 you won't just get healthier, you'll get happier, and you can tailor different exercise protocols into your life depending on the challenges that you're facing. Now, I hope this is interesting to you because this is how you tailor the happiness science to your challenges. Everyone has got different challenges, different people, but at different times of life, different times of the day. And the more that you know, the more that you can prescribe yourself the specific routines in all different parts of life that I cover in the show to deal with the particular issues that are present in your life at any time, thus making your well-being as high as it can be, and helping other people to learn these ideas as well. Okay, so where do we start? We start off by talking about the fact that

Starting point is 00:04:34 when it comes to unhappiness, this is the lowest hanging fruit in our society. I mean, it's just, I know you've been troubled by so many different news reports about how little Americans exercise, the sedentary nature of modern life and especially modern American life, I suppose, unless you live in a walkable city. But for those of you who don't, and, you know, I live in places where, for frequently, it's, you know, walking isn't convenient. Or at least I'm on the road a lot. And, you know, if you're at that courtyard Marriott in a suburb of Dallas, you're unlikely to be, you know, walking to work or anything like that. And so the result of it is that a lot of people don't get enough exercises. As a matter of fact, only 24% of adults meet federal guidelines for exercise.

Starting point is 00:05:18 You might be asking, okay, what are the federal guidelines? You've got to be two hours a day in the gym? No. The federal guidelines a day are 21 minutes a day of aerobic activity, of moderate aerobic activity. That's like brisk walking, no joke. Plus, doing light body weight exercises for just a few minutes, 10 minutes a day or so, twice a week. That's it. and only 24% of the population is getting that.

Starting point is 00:05:44 I know. I know if that's you, don't turn off the podcast. This is what I'm telling you is this really good news because you have a huge opportunity. You have probably the best opportunity you had in a long time to increase that. And I'm going to give you the data. I'm going to show you the evidence that when you do increase that, you're going to love what happens to your well-being. Okay. Now, let's start off with the different categories of exercise that you can undertake.

Starting point is 00:06:09 And the bottom line is everybody can exercise. Everybody can do it because there's so many different kinds. I mean, the four that people talk about in the research are aerobic strength training flexibility in sports. So aerobic exercise is obviously running, cycling, swimming. That's what you do for endurance, endurance type of exercise. Strength training is largely weightlifting is what we're talking about or body weight exercises. Flexibility exercises, yoga and stretching. and then sports, in the kinds of sports that you'll play,

Starting point is 00:06:42 ordinarily sports that you'll play with other people, and that uses a lot of different techniques for sure, but they all have different benefits to them. They're all great. And then there are new kinds of exercises that cross. I mean, I did solid core recently. Fantastic. I loved it. And it crosses all kinds of boundaries between these different kinds of categories,

Starting point is 00:07:02 mostly between strength, training, and flexibility. So lots of ways to get the stuff done. And the nice thing is that in the era of, you know, gyms on every corner, you can find what you're looking for depending on what your needs are. So let's talk about what your needs are here in a second. The idea that exercise is not just good for your body. It's also good for your brain. It's good for your mind. It's good for your mood. This is as old as the hills. I found this really interesting quote from Thomas Jefferson the other day. He was writing a letter to his nephew, Peter Carr, was his nephew's name. He was a pretty prominent guy at the time. And he recommended the gun. He said, as to the species of exercise, he recommended, I advise the gun. Like, what's that? Well, obviously, he's talking about hunting. I mean, I hope he's talking about hunting. And he went on to explain why the gun was good.

Starting point is 00:07:51 Quote, while this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. So what he's basically saying here is that there's a bunch of things that are going on when you exercise, which is manifestly true. In the case of the gun, or hunting, I suppose, there's walking, there's fresh air, there's something that's interesting and fun that's exercising your mind, and ordinarily is social, although if you actually want to get something, you probably shouldn't talk too much. It's pretty interesting. You know, one of my sons is an absolute hunting enthusiast. He loves this. I mean, he goes out with his friends, any opportunity they get. He also was a professional sniper in the Marine Corps cell.

Starting point is 00:08:34 He never misses. will be unto the critter that he's looking for. And he swears by this. He's also a lifter and tries a lot of other things as well. Bottom line, find your thing and you'll like it. Now, what are the effects of exercise on mood? Most notably, lowering negative affect. The neurochemical effects of exercise are pretty well documented,

Starting point is 00:08:56 pretty well studied. Once again, this stuff goes into the show notes, as it always does. Most of the research has been on aerobic exercise, on endurance exercise, because that's the easiest thing to study. You get people into the lab. Typically, you'd be doing treatment and control experiments using undergraduates

Starting point is 00:09:10 because everybody knows that undergraduate students will do anything for 20 bucks and you strap them into, you know, on different exercise timing over different periods of, you know, days and weeks onto treadmills, for example, and you start to see what actually happens to their brains. And what do they find? That aerobic exercise, it has an increases well- being through three neurochemicals, brain-derived neurotropic factor, BDNF, if you're keeping track, if you watch the literature on this, serotonin and beta endorphins. So brain-derived

Starting point is 00:09:46 neurotropic factor is a pretty interesting thing. I mean, it lowers, it tends to be, the problem is it tends to be lower in people who are suffering from clinical depression, from mood disorders. So it's not as if that you increase this and you feel a bullion and you, you know, bliss, some sort of high on this. What you find is that you feel just less of that, which is exactly what we're talking about here. You're not trying to raise positive effects. You're trying to lower negative effects. So that's the one thing. You have more of what you need as something that's clearly protective against melancholy, against depression. The second is serotonin, which is calmness, modulates anxiety. It leads to greater calm. And aerobic activity increases serotonin. And, and aerobic activity increases

Starting point is 00:10:32 serotonin and keep serotonin longer in the synapse in the brain. And last but not least is beta endorphin. Beta endorphin is a natural pain managing peptide and it's higher. And people actually feel less pain. They feel less and not just physical pain, mental pain. For those of you who've been watching this for a while, you'll remember that mental pain, social pain from rejection, for example, it's largely mediated through part of the limbic system called the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. You have an onboard hardware to make you feel bummed when somebody rejects you. This is true. And what you find is that beta endorphin is protective against a lot of discomfort in that.

Starting point is 00:11:13 Again, you don't want to get rid of that. You wouldn't want to get rid of your dorsal anterior cingulate cortex because you'd be friendless and alone. You wouldn't care about social rejection. You'd do all kinds of stupid things that would ruin your life. You need that pain. What you need is to manage the pain. And beta endorphin is this neuropeptide that helps you to manage that. that pain, all different kinds of pain. Okay, so you go running, you cycle, you swim, you get serious

Starting point is 00:11:38 about your zone two cardio, or for that matter, your high intensity cardio training, you're going to get more of these three neurochemicals. You get these from other sorts of exercise as well, as far as we know, but once again, the research has been mostly on this. And what the research suggests is that aerobic activity is best for managing mood. So if mood, you're feeling depressed, you're feeling anxious, cardio is especially good for you. And doing it in a systematic way in a regular way is really good for you. Okay, now, if a problem that you're feeling is a lot of stress, it turns out that yoga, stretching is especially good for that.

Starting point is 00:12:14 There's a lot of interesting studies on this. One in the Indian Journal of Applied Research, I love a lot of the Indian scientific journals because some of them are extremely high quality, but they tend to look at stuff that I'm really interested in. So they'll look at the crossover between spiritual techniques and physiology. and this is a perfect example of that. This study from 2024 is called effective yoga practice on stress, cognitive failure

Starting point is 00:12:39 and subjective happiness. And by subjective happiness, that what they mean is probably subjective lower unhappiness, no doubt, because it's talking about the stress response that people have when they're practicing yoga. So stress is the issue when you're especially anxious, worried, stretching exercises and especially yoga are good for you on that. If the problem is just winning the day, confidence, for example, then weightlifting has been shown in research to be really, really good. Weightlifting, well, here's an article.

Starting point is 00:13:12 Show notes. Weightlifting leads to increased confidence regardless of gender and age, no doubt because it enhances a person's physical appearance. This article is pretty interesting because this article that talks about increased confidence, it's experiments on both men and women. You might think that guys who are gym rats, they just feel more confidence because they, you know, they build up all this muscle and, you know, the testosterone benefits you actually get from high resistance training. Same with women. There's no gender difference on this. You feel better when you win the day. You feel better. You literally feel stronger when you're picking up heavy things is what it comes down to.

Starting point is 00:13:47 And that's important. That's really important. I love lifting. I got to say. And obviously, I'm not a lifter. I'm a skinny guy. but it's it's been a game changer for me over the past 30 years it's been something that I've been doing consistently since I've been in my 30s and all I can say is I wish I'd done it in my 20s

Starting point is 00:14:03 I was specializing more and sleeping in smoking cigarettes and drinking in those days um these days are better okay um sports the last category this is really good for social bonds and fun and it it combats loneliness so if loneliness is the issue sports are really really good because when you're actually socializing with other people while doing a thing. It has this catalytic impact, and it relieves a lot of the both physiological and emotional issues that are going on with loneliness that people have. And even stupid stuff. I mean, I was watching a video. I don't know why I couldn't stop watching the video the other day of people playing something called slip and slide kickball. We got to the point where we were out of things to do, apparently. So slip and slide kickball,

Starting point is 00:14:47 friends. It was mesmerizing to watch people play this thing where they have to slide into first base, which is on a slip and side, they're falling down and whatever. The bottom light is they were having a great time. And if somebody went to that feeling lonely, they were going to leave feeling good. These are the four things you need to be able to deal with here. Is if you're worried about, you know, mood, depression, sadness, aerobic activity, stress, yoga, confidence, getting a good start of the day, self-esteem, that's what weightlifting and loneliness of sports. Now, all of it, feel it all of it? Do it all. That's the

Starting point is 00:15:29 bottom line. Really interesting research I want to talk to you about how this compares to other protocols for lowering negative affect. And people have often asserted that serious exercise is as effective or even more so than many antidepressant drugs for certain people. And the research supports that. Some of the things I'll put in the show notes show that, for example, especially if you're sedentary and go to exercise for the first time, people see, they tend to see a one-third decrease in depressive symptoms just from starting a minor protocol of aerobic activity. And by minor protocol of aerobic activity, we're talking about three times a week, maybe 20 to 30 minutes at a time, and they're getting a one-third decrease in depression.

Starting point is 00:16:17 that's a lot, man. I mean, that's, and, you know, it's free. It doesn't require a prescription. All it requires is a little bit of a commitment. And once again, if you're suffering from this and you start to feel this, you're going to want to do this. The bottom line is you're going to want to do this. Now, that's it, the effect, the neurocognitive effect is especially acute in introducing exercise to non-exercisers. And that makes perfect sense.

Starting point is 00:16:42 This is newbie games. Everybody knows that when you go to the gym, you haven't lifted. and like within three weeks, your triceps are all pumped up. And you're going, this is awesome. I'm going to look like Schwarzenegger by the end of the year. And then it slows down, right? That makes sense. But it's the same thing when it comes to well-being,

Starting point is 00:16:58 that you get your best well-being effects by lowering depressive symptoms the most when you've gone from nothing to something, when you go from zero to one. But even if you're already trained and you add more exercise, the effects are really good too. As a matter of fact, there's one paper

Starting point is 00:17:13 that shows that trained exercisers when they add, I've written about this in the past, I'll look again, but it's, I think it's two extra workouts per week. That lowers depressive symptoms in trained exercises by 19%. 19%, man, that's a lot. That's great. If you have mood disorders of any kind, this is not a substitute for your clinical protocol. This is not a substitute for what your doctor's doing with you. It's a compliment. Do both. There's no reason you can't do both unless you're physically limited from doing so. There's no reason not to do this if you're suffering. When people ask me about happiness, I usually outline four areas of life, faith, family,

Starting point is 00:17:53 friendship, and meaningful work. But there's a fifth element that's also really important for well-being, something that I pay a lot of attention to myself, and that's your health and fitness. Every morning, my happiness routine starts with a workout, and it's not just because I'm obsessed with bigger biceps and abs, that chip is sailed. Well, unhappiness and getting a better quality of life. Exercise and nutrition actually will do more for your well-being than most people imagine. That's why I love the Pump Club app. It's actually not about hacks and trends that promise a lot, but don't deliver very much, as we all know. The app, which was built by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is called the Positive Corner of the Internet, because it brings people together to become

Starting point is 00:18:35 healthier, fitter, and create better habits in a more joyful life. As a listener of office hours, you can get 50% off the monthly price and get an annual membership for just, $79. That's just a little more than $6 per month for your health. Visit the pumpclub.com and use the code office hours at checkout. That's the type of investment that you want to make in your future. Now, that said, it'd be easy to say, okay, so no matter who you are and how much you're doing, add more and you'll feel better. That's not right.

Starting point is 00:19:07 There are some downsides when you can exercise too much and it becomes detrimental. And the first thing I want to talk about is an actually. actual phenomenon that we've seen in literature, and I've seen in real life with friends and family and other people, which is the behavioral addiction to exercise. And this is especially acute for people who tend have been addicted to other things. There's a comorbidity between all different addictions because you know, you already know that addictions, they almost all, they all involve dopamine. And anything that you're doing this, spiking your dopamine is going to, But if you're addicted to one thing, it's very easy because you're using the same neuromodulator

Starting point is 00:19:47 to get addicted to something else. I mean, it's not exactly the same pathways. But the bottom line is that addiction is addiction to a very large extent. And so one of the things that you find is that when some people are really trying to turn their life around after a bad addiction and they get into exercise, they get so into addiction to exercise that they become dependent on it. And again, is it better to be addicted to the weight room than to, cocaine? Well, yeah, duh, obviously, you know, but the truth of the matter is that addiction is not

Starting point is 00:20:17 good for you because it tends to crowd out relationships and, and expose you to all sorts of problems in your life. Namely, here are the diagnostic patterns of the behavioral addiction to exercise. Okay, ready? It's going to sound pretty familiar. Injury, in other words, you get hurt and you keep exercising, even though you get hurt. Inconvenience, it's not convenient, but you do it anyway. In other words, you never miss a day. And I know you're thinking, Brooks, you just told me you don't miss a day. Look, if I have to miss a day, I'll miss a day.

Starting point is 00:20:49 I miss about one day and a month. Strain on relationships. In other words, you're crowding out actual love relationships because of your love of the gym. The gym is not a person. And mental distress when you're not able to get to the gym, you're not able to do your exercise. That sounds an awful lot like an alcohol addiction to me, right?

Starting point is 00:21:08 In other words, you've got a horrible hangover. you drink anyway. You know, you fall down and hurt yourself or get into a car accident. You drink anyway. It's inconvenient. You go out of your way to do it. You know, leave your apartment at 2 o'clock in the morning and go get booze. Your love relationships are fraying around you. Your spouse leaves you or your friends say we're done because of your bad behavior. And last but not least is you're freaked out when you can't have it. Addiction is addiction because it's using the same neuromodulator that we're talking about here. So think about this yourself. Are these things present for me in my workouts?

Starting point is 00:21:44 Probably not. But I certainly have met people who do this. And at this point, it actually becomes unhealthy because exercise addiction is actually correlated with and maybe even causal to a whole bunch of pathologies. Number one, perfectionism. Probably perfectionists tend to be exercise addicts. But I'm sure it exists in a self-reinforcing cycle, where if you're a professional, you're a perfectionist. you became addicted to exercise, got to go every day, an hour, longer, then probably then that addiction to exercise will also be feeding into the cycle of perfectionism in your life, which is

Starting point is 00:22:20 really debilitating to people, especially with respect to their well-being. Body dissatisfaction, the more that you exercise, the more addicted you get to exercise, guaranteed. You're looking at Instagram and influencers and on YouTube, you know, influencers and influencers, I mean, I've known influencers. I've worked with influencers. Exercise, influence. And I haven't worked on their influencing. I've worked on their happiness. I should say I've worked on their misery. I've never met an exercise influencer who's super happy.

Starting point is 00:22:49 On the contrary, can you imagine you got to take your shirt off for the camera? This is if you're man. And it's like my abs are not popping. So therefore I'm not happy today. It's misery. It's misery for most people. You have to be an incredibly well-cooled right of person. No doubt there are.

Starting point is 00:23:06 But I've met many who are just a complete mess. As a matter of fact, I have a matter of fact, I knew one who, you know, he's an exercise addict. He was a, he was, he had all kinds of bodiedus morphia. He never thought he looked good enough. And finally, the way he got out of it, I kid you not, this guy's good. He, he went back to school to study physical therapy to do something that really helped other people. He got rid of every mirror in his apartment, all of them. And then he showered in the dark for a year so he couldn't see his abs. And only then could feel healed from this. This stuff's no joke. Body dissatisfaction from people who have extraordinarily

Starting point is 00:23:44 well-developed and healthy bodies, and yet they're not lean enough. They're not ripped enough, whatever happens to be. That's not healthy. People who are addicted exercise, they tend to, they're no longer beating their depression back. What they're getting is more depression. So there's kind of a curve in depression where you get exhausted, where you get lower symptoms and you get higher symptoms after that because addiction. Eating disorders for sure. If you're actually trying to accompany your heavy workout routine with proper nutrition, that it's going to become improper nutrition. And that's going to become an accompanying disorder that we often see.

Starting point is 00:24:19 And this goes quickly into obsessive-cumulsive disorders. You don't want these things. You obviously don't want these things. And so you need to watch this. If you're the kind of person like me who's super disciplined and you get a lot of benefit from it, remember, you can go too far on this. And you have to take care of yourself. What I recommend is if you're wondering about it, talk to people who love.

Starting point is 00:24:38 love you and who will actually tell you the truth about whether or not you have turned something really wonderful and is something really, really not wonderful. Okay, so what to do if you're not in the situation of exercising a lot and you want to start getting the benefits, the mood benefits from it? Number one is you need to make it a habit. Now again, if making it a habit is super brutal for you, it's probably because you don't have high negative effect. People who have high negative affect are the ones who make it a habit as a general as a general principle. But even if you do have high negative effect and you're used to sitting on the couch as opposed to exercising a lot, you need to establish this. And there's a whole literature on habit formation, exercise habit formation in particular.

Starting point is 00:25:25 There's one paper, really nice paper in the journal of behavioral medicine called exercise habit formation in new gym members, a longitudinal study. How long does it take? And it turns out here's really how to do it, six weeks with four very simple, consistent workouts. In other words, don't get fancy. Don't do some weird thing where you hire a trainer and the trainer's like, you got to mix it up, man, muscle confusion and some weird exotic thing. No, super easy, 20 to 30 minutes, four times a week. Same thing over and over and over again for six weeks. Why?

Starting point is 00:25:55 Because 42 days on average is how long it takes to create a workout habit. And then, only then, start getting exhaust. if you want. Start going into more esoteric types of things. I said 20 to 30 minutes. Actually, this paper says 30 to 45 minutes. So let's round it off to half an hour. So half an hour, four times a week, same thing. Maybe you're running on the treadmill or using the elliptical machine. Starting with cardio is a good way to do it. And then after six weeks, you can start putting in weightlifting and all kinds of the cool stuff. You're going to like how that works. Second thing to do is to define your emotional objective for your exercise. By the time you've got your habit form,

Starting point is 00:26:33 then start thinking, what am I trying to do? And that's going to change. There are different things, different routines that I do. I do all of the different things that we've talked about, everything from cycling with others to yoga and stretching, which I like, I lift, and of course I do aerobic exercises. And I do more or less of those things, depending on the challenge I'm working on.

Starting point is 00:26:52 I feel a certain thing. I'm really stressed out and kind of worried that I'm going to do more stretching in yoga. If I'm actually feeling sad about something or I'm just out of sorts, maybe a little bit of depression, subclinical, I'm going to do more cardio. And if what I want is I just, man, I just need to win the day, man.

Starting point is 00:27:10 I need to win the day. I'm going to lift heavy. Now, I do all the things all the time for my health, but I scale them up or down depending on my, on my well-being priorities, on my well-being needs. And you can do that too in the same way that you would eat a different thing, depending on what you actually needed for to make your macros, protein, carbohydrates, rates in fat, you alter your diet to meet any deficiencies that you might have. And number three, the thing to do is to make sure that you're doing everything in, you know, high moderation is what I

Starting point is 00:27:41 like to say. You know, medium high is what I like to put the exercise. I start medium low and then scale it up without getting to the point where you're trading one addiction for another, because that won't make you happy. Okay, now last thought before we go to questions. If you don't know what to do, you just don't know what to do, here's here's what. Here's what. do. Go for a walk. I talked in a prior episode about my morning routine morning protocol and I talked about the Brahma Mahorta, which in Sanskrit means the creator's time where you get up before dawn. And typically when you get up before dawn, you move your body. For me, it's going down into the gym. But something that's really great. When you don't know what to do and you're really quite out of sorts.

Starting point is 00:28:25 Get up and make sure, get up at least half an hour. I like more than that before dawn. and be walking when the sun comes up. Walking is ambulation is the most ergonomically sound exercise. Human beings, holosapians, were made to walk. This is one of the interesting things that anthropologists have found that we're so successful in hunting, not because we're fast, not because we can climb, but because we can just kind of trot or walk and walk and walk and walk all day long. You can basically, if you have long enough time, you can outrun any animal just by, you

Starting point is 00:28:57 know, walking. And they get tired, they stop, and pretty soon they're exhausted. If you're persistent enough, you've got the walking capacity to get that done. You're made to walk. That's one of the reasons that all major religions have pilgrimages, walking pilgrimages. There's thought that walking per se is a form of prayer. I've walked the commino to Santiago, which is hundreds of miles across northern Spain. I've done it twice.

Starting point is 00:29:19 And it's the most profound spiritual experience I've ever had, as a matter of fact. It's so wonderful. You want to do that and put that in the comments and we'll get back to you about how to get that done. But the bottom line is do a little pilgrimage. You know, some people write to me, it's been pretty frequent, actually, over the past couple of years. Young men and women who are struggling after graduating from college and they don't know what to do and they feel really, really aimless.

Starting point is 00:29:46 They don't know how to get started, just how to get started on life. And I was given the same recommendation. Over the next 30 days, get up before dawn, walk for an hour, watch the sun come up before you've ingested any calories at all. That's all you do and then get on with your day and then write me again in 30 days. Inevitably, things have changed in their lives. This is the single best intervention, at least to begin with, to lower your negative affect, is to walk and walk all the time. Interesting paper.

Starting point is 00:30:18 The effect of walking on depressive and anxiety symptoms, systematic review and meta-analysis. I'll put that in the show notes. You don't want to read that. The bottom line is you can do that. You can do that starting today. Make your life a pilgrimage. before dawn. Okay, some questions.

Starting point is 00:30:34 Love the questions. Terry Sullivan. Thank you, Terry, wrote in on email. How do rituals or daily behaviors play in to improved happiness? Do you have any rituals? Like, you know, Christmas morning or, you know, Thanksgiving. We always do the same thing. And mom makes the turkey and we bring the stuffing.

Starting point is 00:30:52 And then Uncle Walt gets so drunk and beats up the neighbor. I hope not. Rituals actually do play a big role in improved happiness for a lot of people. And I have a colleague at HBS at the Harvard Business School, Mike Norton, fantastic psychologist who teaches at HBS. And he's written a book on rituals. So I'll put that in the show notes. You want to go read that. And he talks about how rituals, they recreate positive associations.

Starting point is 00:31:18 What they do is they stimulate episodic memory in the hippocampus of the brain. And in so doing, they bring back a memory automatically. And so the ritual per se is bringing back, you know, on a regular basis. something that we really love, something that we really value. And that's one of the reasons for it is the positive associations. There's some other benefits that come as well. So read Mike Norton's book. Really worth reading. I read it and I bribed it. I recommended it and I love it. Dan E. Also on email wrote in, I understand the point that religious belief and transcending improves happiness. But I imagine it only works if you actually believe the belief. Good point, Dan.

Starting point is 00:31:57 As a skeptical person, okay, how can I make myself? believe something simply because it will make me happier to believe it. Yeah, I'm skeptical too. And, you know, getting beyond skepticism is maybe, maybe that's a, with religious belief or philosophy or something is something that I'll talk about in a future episode because skepticism is great. Cynicism, not so much when it comes to happiness. Leave that for another day. The bottom line is that you can transcend. Transcendence doesn't have to take a religious form. Transcendence is about transcending yourself, getting small and making the universe large. One of the the best ways to do that is sincere religious belief, but there are other ways to do it as well.

Starting point is 00:32:34 You can study the Stoic philosophers. My friend Ryan Holiday has been an authoritative voice on how studying the Stoics is a transcendent experience can make you much happier. The Brahma Mahorta walking before dawn without devices. I just talked about that, another great way. Studying the greatest music ever written. I listen to the fugues of Yohan Sebastian Bach, my favorite composer every day. I'll do an episode in the future on music and happiness. It's mind-blowing. or, you know, starting of a pasta and a meditation practice or the faith of your youth. But transcendence can come from a lot of different ways. The whole point is stand in awe, stand in awe, stand in awe of something greater than you.

Starting point is 00:33:11 You'll get small, and that smallness per se will bring you, bring you higher well-being. Number three, one more, one more. This comes from NLLLin 315. This is off YouTube. Can you elaborate more on how I can find the reasons that I'm alive? Oh, wow. So in an earlier episode, I talked about, there's this. meaning, I have a test for meaning that I give people to see whether meaning is a crisis in your life.

Starting point is 00:33:35 And it's a two question exam. And a way that you pass is by having answers. And the way, is by not having answers, which, by the way, is also good news if you fail, because then you know what to go looking for, which is not the meaning of life, but the answers to these two questions. Here they are. Question number one. Why am I alive? You need to have an answer.

Starting point is 00:33:53 It's not my answer. It's your answer. And number two, for what would I give my life? For what would I die happily right now? And the first one can be really tricky for people. And that's actually, and Lillan 315's question. How do I find the reasons that I'm alive? Well, that's actually two ways to answer the why am I alive question.

Starting point is 00:34:12 Number one, who created me or how was I created? And the second is, what am I here to do? And look for the answers to those two questions. You know, it might be, you know, random occurrences in the universe is how I was created. It might be God created me in his infinite. at wisdom and judgment and compassion or something. But whatever your belief is, that will help. And then the second part is, what am I, what am I here to do? What am I here to do? That's super heavy, you know, because you can actually come up. That's how you write your mission statement

Starting point is 00:34:43 in life. And once you head down that road, that why am I alive is going to start to come alive in your life. Hope that helps. That's it for today. I hope this is useful. And I hope that you're going to the gym tomorrow because I want you to have higher well-being. I want you. I want you to manage your negative affect. And I want other people to see you doing it to mimic you and for them to have a better life as well. Let me know your thoughts at the email printed right below me right now. Office hours at Arthur Brooks.com. Like and subscribe. Hit the subscribe button please. Then the bots and algorithms will just love us more. The secret of happiness, right? No, not so much, but it helps because we want to get to as many people as possible. Do this on Spotify, YouTube, Apple,

Starting point is 00:35:27 wherever you're listening or watching us right now. So please recommend this to two or three million of your closest friends so that we can start a happiness movement. And I want you to be a happiness teacher in recommending this is a good way to do it. Leave a comment. I promise I'll read it. And if it's negative, I won't complain. Or maybe I will.

Starting point is 00:35:47 But bottom line is I'm going to read it and take it seriously. Follow me on Instagram, LinkedIn, all the other platforms. And don't forget to order the happiness files, my latest book, insights on life and work where you get fine volumes. Until next week, I hope that you're using all this material, lifting people up and bringing them together

Starting point is 00:36:06 in bonds of happiness and love, using science and your ideas. See you soon.

Office Hours with Arthur Brooks - Exercise Your Way to Greater Well-Being

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.