Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 379: How to Get the Wisdom of Old Age Now | Dilip Jeste

Episode Date: September 15, 2021

Happiness levels are really high when we’re young. They then steadily dip through our 20s, 30s, and 40s, and bottom out in our early 50s–at which point, they make a sharp and sudden rise. Then, through our 60s, 70s, and 80s, they are way above where we were in our youth.  Why is this? Why do we get happier even as our bodies are falling apart? Here’s another question: Why, from the standpoint of evolution, do humans stick around way past the point of reproductive age? The answer to all of these questions, per our guest today, is: wisdom.  Dr. Dilip Jeste is a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of Wiser: The Scientific Roots of Wisdom, Compassion, and What Makes Us Good. In this conversation, we talk about how exactly he defines wisdom, what people of all ages can do to become wiser now, and the relationship between wisdom and loneliness. A quick content warning: this conversation includes references to sensitive topics, including suicide, substance abuse, and depression. Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/dilip-jeste-379 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Before we jump into today's show, many of us want to live healthier lives, but keep bumping our heads up against the same obstacles over and over again. But what if there was a different way to relate to this gap between what you want to do and what you actually do? What if you could find intrinsic motivation for habit change that will make you happier instead of sending you into a shame spiral? Learn how to form healthy habits without kicking your own ass unnecessarily by taking our healthy habits course over on the 10% happier app. It's taught by the Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonical and the Great Meditation Teacher Alexis

Santos to access the course. Just download the 10% happier app wherever you get your apps or by visiting 10% calm. All one word spelled out. Okay on with the show. Hey y'all is your's your girl, Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, singer, and entrepreneur. I'm a new podcast, Baby This is Kiki Palmer. I'm asking friends, family, and experts, the questions that are in my head. Like, it's only fans only bad.

Where did memes come from? And where's Tom from, MySpace? Listen to Baby, This is Kiki Palmer, on Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcast. From ABC, this is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. I once saw this fascinating graph that I've never gotten out of my head. It showed that happiness levels are really high when you're young and then steadily dip

through your 20s, 30s and 40s and bottom out in the early 50s. At which point they do a sudden and sharp rise there is 60, 70s and 80s way above where you were in your youth. Obviously this is an aggregate, but it's fascinating nonetheless. And my question is, why is this? Why do we get happier even as our bodies are falling apart? And here's another question. Why, from the standpoint of evolution, do humans stick around way past the point of reproductive age? The answer to both of these questions, per my guest today, is wisdom. Dr. Deliebgesteste is a distinguished professor of psychology at UCSD and the author of Wiser, the scientific roots of wisdom, compassion,

and what makes us good. Dr. Geste believes that wisdom can actually be measured and studied, and on an even more radical and profoundly hopeful note, he believes it can be practiced and developed as a skill, which has regular listeners will know as the core notion of this show. In this conversation, we talk about how exactly Dr. Jesse defines wisdom, what people of all ages can do to become wiser now instead of waiting to grow old to reap the rewards, and the relationship between wisdom and loneliness, which is particularly

relevant, of course, during a pandemic. Just a few content warnings. The conversation does include a few references to sensitive topics, including suicide, substance abuse, and depression. Also a technical note. You may hear some shifting and rustling at certain points in the recording. That's just the nature of remote recording in a pandemic. Before we dive in with Dr. Jeste, one quick item of business.

Some exciting news. Earlier this year, we ran a survey of our listeners, thousands of you answered a whole series of questions about your experiences with this show, and we in turn listen to you. It turns out one of the things you really don't like is the ads on this show. We'll be right in the middle of talking about the pernicious impacts of mass media or the importance of self-compassion, or how to achieve a blissful state of attention and focus, and then jarring voice elbows its way in and tries to convince you to watch a boxing match

or try a new diet or buy a car. So we've heard you on this, and we're going to try something new. This show, the 10% happier podcast, is now available, Add Free Inside our Companion Meditation App, which is also, as you probably know, called 10% happier. So, you can listen to all of our episodes without ads inside the app when you subscribe.

Relatable wisdom, sands, distractions. So to get started, download the 10% happier app in the Apple App Store, open the app, then tap on the podcast tab at the bottom of the screen, and good news as promised, this is now available on both iOS and Android. Okay, that said, let's dive into my conversation now with Dr. Delieb Jeste. Delieb Jeste, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you.

It's a pleasure to be on your show, Dan. I've been looking forward to this, because there's such an interesting subject to me. I want to get, I want to sort of I think started What I believe is the beginning which is how you started to muse On this subject of aging in the beginning. I understand that one of your early questions was Why why do humans, you know live so far past our physical prime? I was born and raised in India.

And like most Eastern cultures, people in India believe that older people are wiser. There is also a scripture in Hindu religion called the Gita. It's like the Indian Bible, if you will. And that's really a compendium on practical wisdom. What people should do in their everyday life to be wise. So those two things I grew up with, I didn't think much about them until decars later, but they affected my thinking for a very long time. I was very interested in brain and mind.

So I decided to go into psychiatry, which was a weird choice for many people, question my sanity, why I'm doing psychiatry. But I thought that was fascinating. And because I was interested in research, I decided to move to the States, because the makeup research is NIH. And there, I became a geriatric psychiatrist. I moved to San Diego from there. So some of my friends said, why are you doing geriatric psychiatry? It must be so depressing

because most mental illnesses are incurable and aging is all gloom and doom. And yet what I found was that as people got older without mental illnesses, they seem to get happier, 10% happier, 20% happier, also their emotional regulation improved, compassion improved, and then it suddenly struck me that what I grew up with in India was that older people are wiser. So is that really a scientific fact? So that's what I decided to study. And how does that relate, I mean, this is a great story, a great trajectory in your sort of intellectual,

but in professional development. But let me just loop back to this question because I've heard you pose it before, which is from an evolutionary standpoint, why do we humans live past the point where we can hunt and carry things and build things? Why did natural selection decide to keep us around well past our physical prime?

That was exactly the question actually I had for several decades, that human longevity does not make sense from the Darwinian perspective of survival of the fittest. Because that means hypothesis is that animals vertebrates out in the jungle, they die soon after they lose their fertility. Because for a species to survive, we must replace the dead ones with the babies. So we are useful to the species only so long as we can produce babies. And you once we have age of menopause in women around 45-50, similar age for endropause in men around 45-50. That age has not changed over centuries. The age of menopause and endropause has been around 45-50

since times immemorial. So that has not changed and yet the average lifespan keeps on increasing. So that has not changed and yet the average lifespan keeps on increasing. It was 45 in the US in 1900 to 80s, 81 in a few decades will be 90. That means if somebody lives to age 90, they would have spent half of their lifespan without producing babies. In other words, not being useful to the species survival. And so that was my question, how does a nature allow that? And you've even facilitated that.

Did you arrive at an answer? Yes. So there are actually several answers to that. The most important answer, which came as a total shock to me, was something called grandmother hypothesis of wisdom. The grandmother hypothesis states that when grandmother helps her adult daughter, children, this adult daughter, who is longer, is happier and is more fertile than her mom was. She produces more children than the mom did. So although the grandma cannot produce children anymore, she helps the next generation, Lue

longer and be more fertile. So the grandma is contributing to the species survival by helping the younger generations, not only really longer, but be more fertile. And this has been shown in dolphins, wells, some species of birth and in humans. And these are papers published in the top journals, such as Science and Nature. So this is not some field good TV science, it is real science that shows that the nature is helping older people to help the younger generation survive longer.

So it is compensating for the loss of fertility by allowing them to help younger generations live longer and be more fertile. There's one explanation, there's also other things. Well, I was just gonna, you kind of read my mind, that's one explanation, and it's incredibly interesting. But, and I may be missing something here, it doesn't necessarily touch on wisdom, which

is where you began in this conversation. And so I'm wondering, is there an evolutionary need for wisdom in our species? I'm really glad you're asking that question. Studies have shown that when older people are involved in raising younger generations, those generations actually learn a lot from their grandparents or grandparents' substitutes. And what the older people are doing is transmission of cultural wisdom to the younger generation. And there's not often included in the typical evolutionary theories, because typical evolutionary theories, again, I'm not an evolutionary biologist, but from what I know,

it typically involves mainly things related to survival and genetic contributions. But I do think that this cultural contribution are as important as those contributions for species survival. It's also worth noting that we humans may not only have a very long lifespan after we lose fertility, but we start having the ability to produce babies before our brains are fully developed.

A human can have a baby as soon as he or she reaches puberty. So age 12, 13, 14, we can produce babies. The brain is continuing to develop through adolescence and early 20s. There is something called synaptic pruning that occurs during adolescence. So it is really weird that we can produce babies and have them for almost a decade before our brain is fully developed. That makes no sense at all. That's where, again, the grandparents have absolutely critical. And so, this grandmother hypothesis of wisdom, I think, goes beyond just talking about this increase in fertility, but also talking about transmission

of cultural value, which is really the cultural wisdom that is important to transmit. And how are you defining wisdom? We define wisdom as a personality trait, personality trait like resilience, optimism, neuroticism, extroversion, introversion. So it refers to a specific set of behaviors that we all have. But wisdom is different from others in that it is a complex trade. It has several different components. And what are those components? The most important is pro-social behaviors. Things that we do for other people, rather than selfishly for ourself.

And this includes empathy, compassion, altruism. Empathy means understanding and sharing somebody's emotions or thought. Compassion goes beyond that. It involves helping another person. And altruism means helping others without expecting anything in return. So for example, if I donate to a charity and ask for tax break, that's not exactly altruism. But there's nothing wrong with that too. But altruism is ultimate compassion where you do it without expecting anything in return. So this empathy, compassion, altruism from the pro-social

behavior, which has a single most important component of wisdom, then comes emotional regulation, control over emotion. So think about a teenager, he's emotions fluctuate from minute to minute, right? And then think about wiser older person, it's pretty calm control, can take things and try it, move on. So, there is emotional regulation. The third is self-reflection. There's ability to look in words, try to understand our own behavior. Typically, even something goes wrong, my tendency would be to blame somebody else or the environment. But self-reflection means I asked myself, did I do something wrong? How can I do something better next time? So that is self-reflection. Then comes something which is sadly lacking

in today's world, which is accepting diversity of perspectives. So I may have strong values about something and I believe in those, but I can understand by somebody else we have different set of values. I don't have to agree with that person, but I can respect another person having different set of values.

The next one though is kind of balancing that is decisiveness because I can't be sitting on the fence all the time and saying this may be right that may be right I have to be decisive when needed and finally the last for component is spirituality. Spirituality is different from religiosity as you know Dan very. It really not organized religion and atheists can be spiritual. Spirituality to us means constant connectedness with something or someone that we don't see or hear or perceive. Whatever you call that entity, whether you call that soul, consciousness, spirit or God, it doesn't matter. But that constant connectedness will prevent you from feeling lonely because you're always

with something or someone. So these are the six main components of wisdom. So just a question about spirituality as you're defining it as a constant connection to, I believe you said something like you, something you can't see. I'm just wondering, you know, I wouldn't, personally, I don't believe in anything I can't prove, but I do endeavor to engender in myself a connection to the well-being of all beings,

right? That sounds a little grandiose, but it's a venerable Buddhist notion. With that counter-spirituality, because I mean, I can see that there are other beings around me, so it's not spiritual and traditional sense of sort of believing in something extra supernatural. That's a great point. I think that does counter spirituality. I get the definitions of spirituality vary. There are different ways of looking at it. But I think the basic concept is being connected with something larger than our souls. I think and whether that means well-being of the community as a whole, that's great too. So I don't see any problem in thinking about that

as also example of spirituality. I appreciate the clarification. I also really, it's fascinating to hear about these six components of wisdom as you and your colleagues understand it. How do we humans naturally develop wisdom as we age? Do you have a sense of why this process kicks in? So, as I said, wisdom is a personality trait.

And most personality traits are about 50% inherited. That means about 50% genetically determined. It also means that 50% of a trade is determined by environment and behavior. Again, when I said 50%, it is roughly, maybe anywhere from 33% to 60% whatever it is. But there's no question that part of that is genetically determined. You see families in which most people tend to be more controlled, more optimistic, resilient, helpful, and so on and other families in which most people tend to be more controlled, more optimistic, resilient, helpful, and so on, and other families in which there is not the case.

Also, you see differences within a family. You see some people who tend to be more self-reflective, more compassionate than others. So, you can see both environment and genes. So, it is both nature and nurture that are affected. And also wisdom increases with aging. It is not one-to-one relationship. There are some older people who are very unwise, and there are some younger people who are very wise. So it is not a given that wisdom will increase with aging. Experience definitely comes with aging. But the question is what do we do with the experience, right? The same

experience can affect different people differently. For example, we know PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, which occurs after some trauma, individual trauma or some disaster like tsunami, but there are people who instead of PTSD they have post-traumatic growth that actually get better, they learn something and instead of avoiding that they actually try to help others and try to prevent those kinds of trauma. So experience is important, but again, what you do with experience, and that's where wisdom comes into play. Weiser people will use experience to further enhance their wisdom, whereas other people won't. So you said earlier that the, I believe there's data to suggest that generally speaking on

average, we get happier as we age, but that may not necessarily mean that we're getting wiser. We might get happier for a bunch of reasons. Maybe it's because we're getting wiser or maybe it's something else. That's a very good point, but a number of cross-sectional studies have shown, and these are studies across the culture that older people studies have shown, and these are studies across the culture that older people do better in certain ability areas. Again, many studies have shown that older people have created emotional regulation. They are more self-reflection. They are more empathic and compassionate. They are more self-reflective. And we are just completing a longitudinal study of wisdom. And we see evidence that some ability areas do improve with aging.

Again, we are talking as a group, not necessarily an individual, but by and large, these things seem to get better. And one of the characteristics of wisdom is actually it is associated with greater well-being, greater happiness and greater contribution to others' well-being. And that's what makes wisdom really a unique trait. Because this doesn't apply to almost any other trait. I mean, even if you look at things like resilience and optimism,

they don't necessarily make you happy, let alone necessarily helping other people. look at things like resilience and optimism, they don't necessarily make you happy, let along necessarily helping other people. But wisdom, but definition is associated with well-being, happiness and greater contribution to others will be. So it seems like one of your primary thesis statements would be that wisdom is not just religious or spiritual, it is actually biological. That is exactly right. So when I started studying wisdom, how do you start studying wisdom? The first thing you have to do is define it. How do you define it? So you start with the literature review as a researcher that the first thing I do when I start research on UNTT I do literature review. When did the literature

on wisdom start? Actually it started in antiquities, religions. So our very first paper on wisdom was actually a study of wisdom in the Gita. It was a qualitative quantitative mix method study with the medical and thropologies as a consultant. So we went through the Gita, a English translation, and tried to find out in what context the word with wisdom used. And we came up with several components. Right? So we said, okay, so that's the definition of wisdom according to Geeta, which was written thousands of years ago in an entirely different part of the world. For what about the modern Western definition?

So we looked at the modern literature. The modern literature, by the way, started in the 1970s. That's where empirical research on wisdom started. And it has been growing since then. So we looked at the modern Western definitions and the common elements and I can tell you I was amazed that the definition in the scripture and the modern Western definition were nearly identical. This component that I describe empathy, compassion, altruism, self reflection, emotional regulation,

empathy, compassion, altruism, self reflection, emotional regulation, decisiveness, spirituality, exactly same components in both. There were some differences. For example, in the Geeta, it argues against materialism, whereas modern Western definitions don't necessarily divorce from materialism. But those are minor differences compared to the major difference. And that was really a surprise but also fascinating thought that the concept of wisdom has not changed from times immemorial to the present. What does it mean? To me, it meant that it must be biologically based. Because it is biologically based, it won't change with time or with culture. Again, obviously, there are differences with culture and time, but basic construct has not changed.

So, it is based in the brain, obviously, right? Where in the brain. Our second paper on wisdom was actually titled neurobiology of wisdom because we wanted to find out where in the brain the wisdom was located. So I did a Google search wisdom and neurobiology. How many articles did I find? Zero. Because most of the neurobiologists don't use the word wisdom. And I find zero because most of the neurobiologists don't use the word wisdom. So I had to look at the components of wisdom and their neurobiology, for example, neurobiology of empathy, compassion, emotional regulation, or their opposite, like neurobiology of anti-social personality. So we looked at these different components and their neurobiology and only two areas of

the brain showed in all of them. One is prefrontal cortex, which is the newest part of the brain in evolution. And second is tri-tomb, which is the oldest part of the brain in evolution. So, that was fascinating, that the oldest and the newest parts of the brain are involved in wisdom. And remember, when a brain is, it has so many different areas, there's so many different functions. Why did these two regions only show up in all of these components? Right? So, that was a very interesting finding.

Again, I said, we wrote in that paper on your biology of wisdom that this is just the beginning of our research, right? I mean, it will be unwise of us to say that this is the neurobiology of wisdom. We don't know that. I mean, this is science that developing and 20 years from now, our theory would be different. But still, the basic concept stress same, that wisdom is largely a biologically-based construct, although it could be affected by environment and behavior. Can you say more about these two areas of the brain? What's your thesis about why wisdom seems to be, seems to implicate these two areas?

So, the prefrontal cortex, as I said, is the newest part of the brain. That is what mixes human compared to other primates. And so what is that mixes human? It is what is called executive functioning. We can control our emotions. And that's what, you know, if you think about how we raise our kids, that's what happened. The cares, anytime the kid doesn't get something, he throws the temper tantrum and we teach him not to do that, don't throw temper tantrum, you don't get anything that's alright, just be calm, it's alright, you'll get it later off. So we are teaching the care to inhibit the emotions, right? Similarly, the care is as high as and doesn't want to share them with anybody else. And he said, that's not good. I mean, you have to share with your sibling, with your neighbors, with the other care in the class. So we are teaching empathy and compassion. So we are teaching something that goes against his self-interest. Right? I mean, my goal would be to keep everything for myself,

because that's a way, it will survive. But I need to share it with others because human species requires that. These are the functions of the prefrontal cortex. So the prefrontal cortex teaches us to control our emotions, to not be too selfish, to share them with others, to be self reflective, to accept diversity of perspectives. Again, we all like to be with people who are like us, people who are different as a child that grows up. The first time he or she sees somebody who

is very different, child gets upset and doesn't know what to do. And so, in a way, the biases that we carry, some of us carry later on live are because of that. But Wisdom comes with teaching to overcome those biases. Right? So, accepting uncertainty, accepting diversity of perspectives is a function of prefrontal cortex. And this is not what you see in other end, most lower animals, right? Emotional regulation, empathy, compassion, you do see to some extent, but not really to the extent that humans have. So those are the functions of the prefrontal cortex. Okay, that's the newest part of the brain. The other part I mentioned is the oldest part of the brain,

striatum, especially amic teller, and that's the center of emotions. All animals have emotions, so it's not surprising it is there. And we have emotions, but prefrontal cortex helps us control them. But that doesn't mean we should not have emotions. A wise person does have emotions, does exhibit emotions, but in a controlled fashion.

So it's really balanced between the US and the oldest part, prefrontal cortex and amictella, that leads to these various traits. That makes a lot of sense. And we see this too. And the, as I understand it, we see this too in the research around the impact of meditation on the brain that it can cause saliitary beneficial changes in the stress zone, the amygdala, and also in the emotional regulation zone and the attention regulation zone, the prefrontal

cortex. So that's pretty interesting. You know, just thinking about the list of the six traits that you lump under the, under the, uh, eges of wisdom, it's interesting to me that you have both the ability to incorporate other points of view and decisiveness. You could see easily how having a postmodern view where you're taking other people's positions would lead to paralysis. But in fact, a wise person is not paralyzed by this diversity of opinion. That's exactly right. I think it's really the balance that matters. And in a way, the whole

wisdom is best done balance for everything. I mean, for example, decision is an accepting uncertainty and diversity of perspective is actually one of the best examples of their balance. And especially in a leader, our leader doesn't necessarily mean the political leader, but even a leader of a family leader of business. One has to look up to others' interest. And so where you have to accept the diversity of perspectives, but you have to be decisive. If you are again sitting on the fence all the time, you are a very ineffective, inefficient leader. But balance actually applies to other things. Also, for example, when I talk about compassion

and empathy, it is not just compassion to what other people, you also have to be compassionate to what you yourself. Right? And they have to be balanced. If I am extremely compassionate to what other people, I keep everything away, I do not survive. I have to have some selfishness. So it's really the balance between the two. And that applies to almost every single component of wisdom that

we can think about. For example, say self reflection. It is important to think about why I'm doing what I'm doing. But if I'm constantly preoccupied with my own thoughts, that's not helpful. That's something what happens in obsessive-compulsive disorder OCD, that you're constantly preoccupied. So that doesn't help. Emotional regulation. Clearly, we need to control our emotion. But that doesn't mean we should be emotionless. Of course not. When something could happen, we should

be happy. Something sad happens, we should be sad. There only we can empathize with others, right? But we don't want to go to such an extreme that it affects our functioning as well as other functioning. So the point here is that again, that these need to be balanced and that's what Mr. Mies. It's so interesting that you identify balance as a key part of what that again, that these need to be balanced, and that's what wisdom is. It's so interesting that you identify balance as a key part of wisdom. It's interesting to me because I tend to look at the world increasingly through the lens of Buddhism, a tradition that was developed in your homeland.

And one of the principal pronouncements of the Buddha was that we need to find the middle way and It's all about balance and in the and the development of wisdom But that's exactly right many of these concepts and in a way They are so related to Buddhism that it is not surprising coming from India because I think it is the philosophies of Hinduism, Buddhism are very similar and I really find it inspiring actually which is of the meditation you mentioned about that. Number of studies have shown that meditation improves not just function but the structure

of the brain. Studies have shown that people opt up meditation for a number of times, the white matter integrity in the brain improves. Sometimes the volume of certain parts of the brain increases, even some biomarkers of inflammation, immune function, cell life increase. So it is not just, again, as I said, it is not just a field good science,

it's a real science, hardcore science, and things like meditation have impact on our brain and body, not just in functioning but in structure. That's really amazing to think about that. It is. It is. It's part of what allowed me to get over my prejudices against meditation and to finally to adopt it as a practice. But you've, you see, you've kind of brought us nicely to what can we do, especially those of us who are not yet in old age, to develop the wisdom of old age when we're not in old age. I would imagine meditation would make it on your list,

but what else makes it on your list? The first thing to do though, in terms of, if I want to increase my wisdom, otherwise the first thing I want to say is that wisdom can be increased in anybody and everybody. All that we need is motivation to do that and discipline to do that. If we did that, all of us can be wiser,

but we have to do that. There's scientific literature on randomized controlled trials to improve empathy, compassion, emotional regulation and spirituality. So this is again, pretty hardcore science, world-owned randomized controlled trials. And by the way, some of the meditation trials that you describe, they come under the province of spirituality. And this studies clearly show that yes, these things can be improved. We can improve emotional regulation, empathy, compassion, and spirituality in some people, not in a

very very. One thing we have done is actually we developed a scale for majoring wisdom and it made us all the six components, the San Diego wisdom scale, and one thing I suggest to people is the first thing is take that test, not because it is perfect or anything like that, but it will help you understand what are your strengths and what are your limitations, I will say none of us is perfect. So we may have total similar score on the wisdom scale, but we may differ in the components. For example, my wife is much more compassionate than I am, and that's usually true for women,

but I tend to be a bit more decisive than she is. So although our scores may be similar, total scores, we have difference in that. And so that helps me and us decide where we want to focus on. What am I lacking in? And so in our book, we talk about set of the strategies for each component of wisdom.

So the first part is actually self reflection, which is understanding our strengths and limitations. So let's say self reflection is something in which I need help. How do I do that? How do I increase my self reflection? I have to set aside some time several times a week, say I may say that Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, I'm going to think about what I did for half an hour. But during that half hour, I don't do anything else except just sit by myself,

think about what happened in the last two, three days that either upset me or made me happy. that upset me or made me happy. If you do that regularly, we'll find a pattern of things that either stresses out or that make us happy. So, there should be self-discipline to have the self-reflection regularly. Whatever time, three times a week for next several months. Okay, then comes empathy and compassion. So what do we do for empathy, compassion, everyday life if you want to increase it? So there are two components, self-compassion and compassion towards others. Right? It's compassion towards others.

How do we increase it? One is gratitude diary or gratitude journal. Before going to bed, write a couple of things that make you feel grateful. And eventually you can write a couple of things that may be happy because you did something for somebody else. And why do you do it every day? Because then it becomes your second nature. When you start getting up in the morning, say, oh, what am I going to write tonight? So let me do something along that line. So that's one. Gratitude diary or gratitude journal. Self compassion. Self compassion is also important. So think about the time you got stressed out

and you realize that you had made a mistake. What do you do? made a mistake. What do you do? One thing is think about what would you do if your friend came to you and told you the same thing. The friend came to you and said that I had gone to the party. I think I did horribly bent and I'm pulling so stressed out and regretful. You tell the friend that it's okay. You know, this happens. You are not the only one. Probably it's happened to a number of other people or went to the party and just think about, you know, what you could do better next time. So you convince your friend that he should not feel too bad, just move on. So same thing you should do to yourself. That's a point. Do that to yourself. So you can get over it. There's something about sense of common humanity. Everybody makes mistakes. So it isn't, you don't have to feel guilty

the rest of your life because you did something wrong. That's okay. And that mindfulness again becomes very important. You accept the fact that you've distressed and that's normal. But then how do you move on? Because you have moved on in the path, you'll move on again. So there's that example of sort of improving self-reflection in particular compassion and self-compassion. Much more of my conversation with Deliep Jeste right after this. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellissi And I'm Sydney Battle and we're the host of Wonder E's new podcast Disantel where each episode we unpack a different

iconic celebrity feud from the buildup why it happened and the repercussions what does our obsession with these Fudes say about us the first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama But none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans formed the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar,

which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or The Wondering App. I have a million questions. I want to go back to self-reflection, which I'm a million questions. I want to go back to self-reflection, which I'm really intrigued by. You talked about taking a half hour, three times a week to sit by yourself and to think about what's happened in your life recently and how did you respond to it.

And I wonder, can in your view, can this be done effectively with somebody else? In other words, I find that some of my most, for me, some of the most satisfying self-reflection I do is talking to my wife, talking to a shrink, talking a close friend. Does that count in your view? Absolutely it does. Now thank you for mentioning that. That's actually an important point that comes not only with self-reflection, but also with gratitude, diary.

Same thing, some people find it hard to write something, and it is easier for them to share their thoughts with somebody. So, absolutely. I mean, that's as good as doing it with yourself. So, definitely. I mean, of course, you need to choose a person, you home your trust and respect and with whom you feel very comfortable in sharing your thoughts. So this is a person, like you said, with your wife, which is great, where it is almost like talking to yourself in the sense, you're not trying to make something up. You're not worried about your image, what other person would think about that. And so when you are that comfortable, somebody absolutely, it's fine to do that. You don't have

to do it to yourself. What do you recommend in terms of developing emotional regulation? Because I know that's another of the six components of wisdom. So emotional regulation, one example I commonly gave because it is common in California is road rage Right, I'm going to work. I'm a little late. I'm rushing and Somebody cuts in front of me. I'm so mad that I start honking cursing etc. And That doesn't help me. I feel the risk is that I may hit the car and then there'll be investigation and all of those things. Why do I?

So how do I control my rage at that time? There are different ways of doing that. One way is rationalization. Think about why that person cut in front of me. Not because he was a jerk, but because maybe there was a child in the back seat of that car and suddenly the child had a seizure. What would I have done if I were in that situation? I would have cut in front of others because my job was to take the child to the emergency room as soon as possible. Whether that is true or not doesn't matter,

but you sort of re-imagine the motivation for that person. So that is true or not doesn't matter, but you sort of re-imagine the motivation for that person. So that is one way. Second is distraction. Increase the volume of music on your radio, so you don't think about that. And third is think about the past times this happened that the late, and actually I reached there and my boss was late, truth is really didn't affect me. So what does it matter? So these are the ways for the road ridge. And for other things again, we can do similarly that if we can reimagine other people's motivation

because often the emotions get out of hand because of our thinking that somebody else actually had some bad motivation. That's what makes us angry often. And so if we can control that by thinking that actually know, the person may be actually meaning to do well, but he or she did it for different reason, the concept is down considerably. So these would be the ways of controlling emotions. that comes as down considerably. So these would be the ways of controlling emotions. What you're talking about gets me thinking about what I've, what I believe is called the fundamental attribution error or just attribution error, which is a bias wired into humans, which is, I'll try to state this accurately and please correct me where I run afoul of the truth.

But this bias that we have, which is that if we like somebody, if they're in our tribe, we attribute their motives. Like if they do something horrible, we're more likely to say, well, they must be extenuating circumstances. And if somebody we don't like who's not in our tribe does something good, we're more likely to say, well, they must be trying to virtue signal or they must have an agenda. This seems like a bias that if we could work on would help us with emotional regulation. That that's exactly right. I think that that's something because if you think of also the division on a certain polarization that

upon comes with a tribution of motifs the other side, that we think that they are doing it intentionally to hurt us or our perspective or our friends, et cetera. If we change that, and said that, no, that may not be the case. We don't have to agree with their rationale, but there may be some other rationale that they think is right, but the goal is not to hurt us. I think that itself will bring down the emotional extremes considerably. Another skill that you recommend we develop on root to wisdom is openness to new experiences. Can you say a few words about how we can become more open to new experiences?

I mean, in a way, openness to new experiences is also related to working or interacting with people who are different from us, because that's a new experience. It goes to a different place. We are never being, we meet with people and we never met, do something that is different, because that way we are challenging ourselves. And by challenging ourselves we are learning something new. And challenging oneself and learning something new is an integral part for what is called neuroplasticity of the brain.

That brain can continue to develop in a later life, if, and that's very important, if, if we are active, physically, cognitively, and socially, and the way to stay active is not just by doing some chores, but learning something new, trying, venturing out into something. Again, we have to do that carefully. For example, I have no musical skill. So if I started learning some music, it will be utter failure, but that won't work.

But I'm good at research, so I can actually switch my area of research from one to another. So that's why, that is how I am opening myself to new experiences, where I have the right balance again that where I know that something will go wrong will not work, something will work and then over or though I will benefit from that experience. Do you feel yourself getting wiser? Do you follow your own advice? You know, actually, I must say yes partly because I have become conscious of those things which I was not and interestingly so our book this book, this wiser, came out,

actually it came out on the election day, November 3, last year. But since then, so I've been talking about this, podcast and other things, I find that I am becoming more self-conscious. And it's also feeling more guilty that if I'm preaching something, I need to practice it myself. Right. So if I'm not practicing, that's not very helpful. So I do think that it has had impact on me and I have become less unwise.

Less unwise. I have a feeling you're not giving yourself enough credit. Let me phrase it another way that won't force you to brag. Do you find yourself getting happier with age? Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I think there is no question about that. And actually, we have, we published a study of some 1500 people in the community from age 21 to 100.

And we found that as expected, the physical health declines with age. The mental health and happiness go exactly in the opposite direction. So, you know, the 20s and 30s are the function of youth that the fountain of depression, anxiety and stress. The good news is that as we get older, things start getting better. And the stress doesn't go down, actually stress if anything increases in older age, right? But we know how to handle stress better and we become happier. So there is no question about that. That's why I allowed the title of your forecast 10% happier. That's what we should be aiming for, not 100% happier. That's not possible.

But 10% happier at a time will be great. And, and this is also about, there's a biological basis why we would become happier in older age. You know, what is that? Amic della, as I said, is a center of emotion, right? Brain-imaging studies show that amygdala in an older person becomes less responsive to stressful or negative stimuli compared to young person. So, in a young person, both positive and negative stimuli, they will stimulate thamidala,

activate thamdala. In older person, the positive you stimulate your activity, but not the negative ones. And it is almost like young minds are like velcro to negative emotions. Over minds are like Teflon that we all have negative experiences. But as you get older, we say, okay, you know, that happened, but it happened in the past and I got over it and I won't even remember it month from now. You get over it. Whereas for a young person, it becomes so stressful that they can never forgive them and they can never forgive others for what it will happen. I'm exaggerating a bit in this generalization, so it doesn't apply to every single person, but by and large, I do think this is true. It reminds me of that great quote from

I think it's Mark Twain who said youth is wasted on the young. Yes, that is so true. You tease West-Tershah on the young. They can't do so much more. And you know, it is like that book we said that that was a means how smart my how smarter my parents became from when I was 18 to when I was 22. Another Mark Twain chestnut. I know in the book, and I'd love to learn more about this or get you to say more about this. One of the ideas you're trying to nudge us toward is scaling up from individual wisdom to societal wisdom. How do you reckon that will happen? Do you reckon it will happen at all? I do think that there is such a thing as societal wisdom and it depends on what we prioritize. In the very old days, what was prioritized was military might. Alexander the Great was great because he controlled large sweats of the globe.

You know, the sun never set on British Empire, so that became important. Then the society started saying that that's not true, actually, in the sense military might, you know, because that is bad. Why do you invade another country? Economics became important. So then gross national product, gross domestic product, they became the signs of strong society.

In recent decade, that is shifting. Now people are talking about happiness index for the society. Right? I mean, there are happiness scales that you use people use for the defining society. And US for somewhere in the middle, we are the most affluent society, but we are only the middle of the happiness index. I think the future should be wisdom index, but we are only in the middle of the happiness index. I think the future should be wisdom index, where we apply similar principles, self-reflection, empathy, compassion, emotional regulation, accepting diversity of perspectives, but we apply them not to individuals, but to society. How do we behave with other parts of the globe? Do we help them?

Because if we help them, they will help us. So I do think there is such a thing as societal wisdom. And what worries me is in the last 20 years, I think the societal wisdom has gone down. Almost everywhere I would say. And there are actually statistics showing that loneliness has doubled in prevalence. Suicides, the number of Suicides in the US, have increased 33% from 1999 through 2017, 18, 19, whatever the last year was. These are CDC data, okay. Desperate opioid use have increased six falls. There were something like 8,000 deaths in 1999,

20,000 or 50,000. So before COVID came in, our society actually has been going through a very rare of period and this gallup survey that are done every year, they show increased level of stress, anxiety, depression. So I really don't think we are living in a good climate today from behavioral perspective. We need to change that. And so I said that in some ways we have this loneliness, social isolation pandemic that

has been going on for two decades. And probably the vaccine for that is wisdom. Where if we all become more empathic, compassionate, caring about each other, more self-reflective, more emotionally regulated, we will be happier. So, it's not just a question of longevity, it's really a question of happiness. more self-reflective, more emotionally regulated, we will be happier. So, to start just a question of longevity, it's really a question of happiness. Happiness is ultimately what matters most. It's not how long we live. It doesn't even matter how many illnesses we have. I mean, our studies both in general population, as well as in people with schizophrenia, cancer, AIDS, show that happiness does not correlate with your physical health or disability.

It correlates with your mental well-being. And so mental well-being can happiness are really, they should be the goal of everything we do. How much optimism do you have that we can prompt some sort of serious society level move toward the inoculation of wisdom? I think that I like to be optimistic and right now it looks pretty pessimistic but at the same time I do think that societies

can change. I mean, we have changed things like smoking, for example, I mean, 3, 4 decades ago it looked impossible that smoking would go down and yet it has gone down considerably. Right? Similar attitudes towards women, attitude towards racialistic minority, they're beginning to change. We are not there, but at least we are thinking about them. Likewise, I think the things need to start at kindergarten level in our education system.

Actually, I blame our education system. At all levels, starting from kindergarten to graduate schools, to medical school, engineering school, the only thing we teach and we reward are the hard skills. The position, the surgeon has to be the best surgeon in the technique. We don't value things like empathy and compassion, self-reflection, emotional regulation.

We don't teach them, let alone reward them. And we have to do that because younger people, especially are suffering, as I said, the rates of suicide have gone up especially in teenagers and people in the 20s in the last couple of decades. Older people actually are doing better psychosocially. Younger people are the ones who are suffering most. And I think we should take the society needs to take responsibility for that, that we need to teach them how to be happy, and they can be happy if we teach them the different components of wisdom. Hey, Mentor, all of that.

This has been a delight to talk to you. Is there a question that I should have asked that I didn't ask, because there's something you wanted to talk about that I didn't give you an opportunity to talk about? One of the most interesting and important findings in our research actually in the last few years has been that loneliness and wisdom go in opposite directions. But there's really very interesting finding, opioid use, depression, stress, and loneliness has increased. And partly the society actually, because we constantly are in the mood, families are

becoming smaller. There is no social connectedness left anymore, because everything changes. Whereas in the old days, we live in the same village, we are bond and there. And so we had a really very good, not just family, but the larger community. There's no longer the case now with globalization and rapid rising technology. We are lost to social morals. So there is nothing actually no social support to rely on. So loneliness has become so common and so pervasive and it is loneliness that leads to all of these other

side effects. We found in several eight different studies, including thousands of people from US as well as other countries across a lifespan that people who score high on wisdom score low on loneliness and vice versa. And we found there were biological differences using EEG and microbiome. So I do believe that there is some connection and numerous studies have shown that loneliness is associated with bad health, bad physical health, mental health, greater mortality, but wisdom is associated with greater happiness, better mental health, physical health and so on. But if this is true, I really think it is true because I never had a finding like that,

so consistent, including biology. We may actually have a solution. I never had a finding like that, so consistent, including biology. We may actually have a solution. Yeah, I mean, one of the, I mean, I really like the idea of baking this into the educational system, but I also think that, and again, I'm going to steal from the Buddha. You know, the solution that you're suggesting that I am also suggesting to people Co-ops the pleasure centers of their brains in other words what we're doing all of these things will make you happier We all want to be happier and and I'm not just talking about humans now every sentience being wants to be happier so

It is a primordial desire. And so it's not like, it's not quite like a shot in the arm of a kind of a serum you may or may not trust. It's really a bunch of common sense sort of advanced common sense steps we can take to be happier in our own lives. Well, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. That's why I really admire your work because that's really what is needed for people to understand these concepts of meditation, mindfulness, and practicing those things regularly to make us 10% happier. That's how we begin. Because if I'm happy, actually my emotional improve and then I'm more likely to be helpful to others. And then I get more help from others.

So the social support increases. And again, modern research, actually, in the last 20 years, actually, even less than that. Social determinants of health are very important for health and longevity. And social determinants include things like loneliness, are very important for health and longevity. And social determinants include things like loneliness, social isolation, one hand,

social engagement and social support on the other. These have even greater impact on health and longevity than smoking, physical activity and nutrition. Amazing, amazing. And these thing don't cost anything. And just one quick practical point I want to make, because there may be people listening to this saying, well, okay, I get it, I should have more social support, but I don't know that many people,

and I'm isolated in where I live, et cetera, et cetera. And there's a pretty good answer, pretty good retort to this that I first heard from our now surgeon general, but I interviewed him back before he was surgeon general. I guess actually he was surgeon general, and then he wasn't for a while, and now he is again. But you can go back and listen to this interview,

and it was on the subject of loneliness. His name is Vivek Murti and his response is go volunteer because volunteering, and I believe this, believe I believe this is on your list of things to do that we can all do to develop our own wisdom, volunteering puts you in touch with other people and it puts you in touch with the most noble aspects of yourself That is so true absolutely. I think and there is a scientific basis to prove that there have been literally randomized control trials that have shown that volunteering especially intergenerational activities where older people go and how cares in public elementary schools.

Studies show that not only the mental and physical health improves, but the biology improves. The biomarker subsets go down. So exactly right. So this is volunteering and again, especially in general activities in the sense helping people who are different from you in age sex, race, ethnicity, education, whatever is just a win-win situation for everybody Delete just a it's been a pleasure to talk to you. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on Thank you. It was a pleasure to talk to you Thanks again to Dr. Jeste.

The show is made by Samuel Johns, Gabrielle Zuckerman, DJ Cashmere, Justin Davie, Maria Wartell, and Jen Poehont with audio engineering by Ultraviolet Audio. As always, a hardy salute to my ABC News comrades, Ryan Kester and Josh Cohen. We'll see you all on Friday for a bonus. Friday for a bonus. Hey, hey, prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with 1-3-plus in Apple Podcasts.

Before you go, do us a solid and tell us all about yourself by completing a short survey at Wondery.com slash Survey.