Ten Percent Happier with Dan Harris - 397: How to Benefit From Religion, Even as a Nonbeliever | David DeSteno

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Dr. David DeSteno has embarked on a project he calls “religio-prospecting.” In other words, he has been looking at the scientific evidence that many ancient religious traditions can confer all sorts of benefits, whether you’re a believer or not. He points out that many secular people practice mindfulness, even if they’re not Buddhists. His question is - what’s the next mindfulness?David DeSteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, where he directs the Social Emotions Group, and the author of a new book called How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion, and is the host of a new podcast on PRX, also called “How God Works.” This episode explores David’s desire to study the benefits of religious practice in a scientific way and the evidence behind such practices as: sitting shiva, gratitude, the Apache sunrise ceremony, and Japanese Shinto rituals around childbirth. Subscribe by December 1 to get 40% off a Ten Percent Happier subscription! Click here for your discount.Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/david-desteno-397See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, my fellow suffering beings. Welcome to the show. A lot of people think it's a very good thing that the Western world is becoming increasingly secular. No matter where you happen to stand on this, sometimes controversial question, and no matter whether you're a believer or a non-believer, it isn't intriguing to consider that there may

be some key benefits that many of us are missing out on as organized religion fades in many parts of the world. My guest today is a scientist who has embarked upon a project that he calls Religio Prospecting. In other words, he's been looking at the scientific evidence that many ancient religious practices can confer all sorts of benefits, whether you're a believer or not. He points out correctly that many secular people

practice mindfulness, even if they're not Buddhists. And his question is, what is the next mindfulness? David Dasteno is a professor of psychology at Northeastern University, where he directs the social emotions group. I was reading his official bio the other day, and I liked these sentences, provides some nice color on what he studies.

His work examines the mechanisms of the mind that shape vice and virtue, studying hypocrisy and compassion, pride and punishment, cheating and trust, his work continually reveals that human moral behavior is much more variable than most would predict. David is the author of a new book called How God Works, and he's also the host of a new podcast on PRX, also called How God Works. In this conversation, we cover his desire to study the benefits of

religious practice in a scientific way to neither treat religion like a superstition or to defend it as an institution, but instead to learn what practices work and why. We talk about the evidence behind such practices as setting Shiva, gratitude, the Apache sun sunrise ceremony, and Japanese shinto rituals around childbirth. That's coming up first, one quick item of business. If you are a regular listener to the show, you may have noticed that we've had a lot going on inside the 10% happier app this fall from meditation challenges to the brand new 20% happier podcast. There has never been, I might argue, a better time to join our

Mary Little Band, our community of meditators in the app, to make sure you have a chance to try it out for yourself. We're offering 10% happier subscriptions at a 40% discount from now until December 1st. We don't do discounts of this size all the time, and of course, nothing is permanent. So get this deal before it ends by going to 10% dot com slash 40. That's 10% one word all spelled out dot com slash 40 for 40% off your subscription. We will get to David Dostino right after this. 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. Listen to Baby, this is Kiki Palmer on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcast.

Professor Dave Dostino, thanks for coming on the show. Hi, Dan, thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure we've been trying to do this for a while. Your new book, The Subject, is fascinating. I'd be interested to start with how you got to this, as I understand it, and not a particularly religious person. Yeah, that's true, although in some ways it's kind of full circle for me. So when I was an undergraduate in college, I was trying to decide between being a religious studies major, kind of not to be a theological person for kind of the history of

religions or psychologists. And what finally tipped me toward being a psychologist was that I could run experiments and I could get answers to things rather than sitting around and debating. I mean, there are problems with that too. But as I've spent time running a lab for the past 30 years, a lot of the things we focus on are how people find connection, what makes people virtuous, what leads them to be resilient and happy. I had this nagging sense of maybe what we're finding isn't so new because when we studied things like meditation and saw that

it made people kinder when we studied things like gratitude and saw how it made people more patient, more honest, more generous. When we found people just kind of moving in time with each other with their bodies made them feel more connected, we thought that was great, but just kind of moving in time with each other with their bodies, made them feel more connected. We thought that was great, but every kind of ritual or spiritual practice you look to, they've been doing this for thousands of years. And so I say humbled because it's one thing if somebody gets your idea first when you're a scientist. It's another if they've been doing it for thousands of years.

And sure, they couldn't scan brains or they can't run randomized control trials. But in the messy thick of life, they've realized ways to put packaged elements together, to help people deal with grief, to help people deal with stress, to help people find meaning. And so my argument really is, let's not treat religion like it's superstition. My goal is not to defend religion as an institution, but to look at what they have discovered that can make life better for people and to study it scientifically and see how we can use that. You know we've been doing this with meditation for a while, but my question really is, okay, we know meditation helps.

What's the next mindfulness? It's got to be out there for willing to look. And I don't want to argue about whether or not God exists because there is no scientific test for the fingerprint of God, even Richard Dawkins, who is one of the best known kind of atheists in the world, will say he can't prove for certain whether or not God exists. But if you look at the data, people who regularly engage with spiritual practices and faith services live longer, they're healthier, they're happier. And so to me, it's very rational to say, let's put theology to side,

but let's look at these practices and see what they do. Your intuition or maybe there's evidence here is that faith itself, belief in the dogma is not required to extract those benefits. Some benefits it's required for, but I think many it's not. And I think that's the question that we as scientists have to look at. I mean, having belief can calm anxiety

and do lots of things, but there are lots of ways that these practices kind of leverage mechanisms of a mind and body to help us in ways that can be separated from theological belief. And I think it's there that we have to look. And I think people realize that because you know, people are leaving traditional religions at a good clip these days. And there's lots of good reasons for that institutional failures, coverups of abuse and financial scandal, gender discrimination, you still even agree with the beliefs. But all those people who are leaving are becoming nuns. And by nuns, I don't mean women who wear habits. I mean, N-O-N-E-S, people who do not affiliate with any one type of religion.

Many of them aren't becoming atheists. They are looking for other types of spirituality. You know, 20% who people who say they're nothing in particular still pray every day and two-thirds still believe in some type of higher power. And I think what they're looking for are these tools that help them deal with the challenges of life once they leave the institutionalized face that are causing them other problems. Are there folks in the atheist community,

the non-believing community, even maybe the humanist community that don't like what you're up to? We'll find out. I read about this in the New York Times a while ago. I think once they get the sense that I'm not here to argue that religion is all good, which I'm not.

I think of it as these tools, these spiritual practice as kind of a technology of sorts. It can be used for good or for ill. I mean, it can motivate people to go to war. We've seen that. I think once they think about it that way, then they're fully on board. I'm sure there will be some people who are very intensely religious, who will object to kind of my taking a scientific lens to some of their practices. But there are also, I have a friend who's a rabbi who tells me, you know, I want to know what science says about how some of these practices work because it helps me lead my flock.

It helps me give better recommendations to people for what to do and how to adapt. It's interesting to hear because I've heard many different arguments coming from the religious side of the spectrum. Some people will hear you saying, I believe you use the term, religio-prospecting, to go into religions and prospect, find the nuggets that are scientifically verifiable and extract them from their context. Some people really don't like that. They feel like it's cultural appropriation or it's somehow perverting the thing by taking

it outside of its ethical context. I believe, I hope I'm not getting this wrong. The Dalai Lama is pretty explicit about not wanting people to become a Buddhist per se, but they should be training in what he calls secular ethics and doing embracing technologies like meditation, et cetera, et cetera. That's right. As you know, he actually funds a lot of that research. My favorite saying of his is, I heard him once say, science ever proves that reincarnation

doesn't exist, then we'll have to give it up, but I'm not holding my breath. But your point is correct, and it's not holding my breath. And so, but I, you know, your point is correct. And it's not to engage in cultural appropriation. And I'm very sensitive to that. And my argument is, since I don't know, and I'm fully happy to say, I have no idea if God exists, you can see these practices as divinely inspired, or you can see them as practices that people have designed

and created through an experimentation of sorts in the pain and joys of life. And to me, it doesn't matter. Let's just look at them and see how they work. But your other point about appropriation is a trickier one. That is, if we're taking a practice that, you know, maybe is a Jewish or a Catholic practice. And from that, we are trying to take secular elements. What does that mean? And I think that's a trickier question. My goal is to always give reverence and respect to the origins of these traditions, but then to study how they work scientifically. And if we know how they work

scientifically, it doesn't mean that we can't adapt them. So if we know how they work scientifically, it doesn't mean that we can't adapt them. So if we take elements of the way you breathe or chant, or if we take elements of the way Ash Wednesday or Yom Kippur reminds people that life's length is a gift, it's not a guarantee. And we use that in other ways, I don't think that's kind of disrespecting the religion. If we take their ritual exactly as it is and then try and change the word and stuff or adopt it in a way that doesn't respect the faith, then yeah, I can see cultural appropriation there. But if we can see some wisdom in the strategies and tactics they use and we can prove they work scientifically, I don't see why we can't use them in the strategies and tactics they use, and we can prove they work scientifically.

I don't see why we can't use them in a different context. What about the arguments sometimes here from people who are critics of what they call mick-mindfulness? One of their arguments, and I don't want to pretend to know it chapter and verse, but one of the complaints used sometimes here is if you take something like mindfulness, which is one very important concept within a vast treasurery of insights into the human condition. If you take that out of its, in particular, out of its ethical context and place it in the mind of a C-suite executive that a company was business practices or harmful, etc., etc., all you're doing is making better, more focused, bad actors as opposed to helping the world.

No, I think that's exactly right. And when I refer to these as technologies or tools, that's exactly what I mean because the reason they work is because you are using aspects of training the mind and leveraging the physiology of the body to accomplish a goal. If we're sitting in the Sangha and we're meditating together and we're getting all the other elements and instruction, then that openness and greater attention, refueling, is going to focus us in the right way. We can certainly take that tool and use it in another way. And so that's the

thing to remember, and that's why I say, yeah, religion can be used for good and bad. We've seen that throughout history. But there are also kind of elements to these rituals and practices that I think are robust. Let's talk about mindfulness. It's a good one. The purpose of meditation, right, wasn't so that you could perform better at work or have a better memory. It was to reduce or is to reduce suffering in the world, both yours and other peoples. And what we find when we study meditation is it makes people more compassionate. It makes people kinder.

So there are a lot of labs that look at, you know, what does it do to your grave versus white matter, what does it do for your memory? But that wasn't his purpose. And so in experiments that we did, we actually showed not only that it makes people more compassionate to come to the aid of individuals who are in pain, but it even helps you stop lashing out individuals who would normally provoke you. And we did that in a completely secular way too. I think there are certain elements of these practices that push us toward the goals that religions have designed. Let's go through some of the practices that you've looked at and written about as part

of your religio prospecting. I assume a neologism that I can give credit to you for. Yeah, you can. And just so people know where this comes from, because it is a mouthful, there's this term bioprospecting that pharmaceutical companies use when they go and look for cures many of which were traditional. And you know, many traditional cures turned out not to do anything, but some did. We've developed many cancer drugs from traditional cures and recommendations from indigenous cultures,

for medicinal plants. And so my argument in religio-prospecting is, well, why not look to, you know, traditional spiritual practice is not just to biological substances. So that's where that term comes from. But, sure, we can go through some of them. Let's start with the Jewish practice of sitting Shiva. Yeah. So, one of the biggest challenges we face, everybody,

at some point in life, is losing someone we love. No matter who you are, you can't escape grief. And the question is, how do different rituals help us deal with mourning? One thing that they all do, including shift, and then I'll get to shift in particular and why I think it's so beneficial, is there's always a eulogizing element.

And if you think about it, I mean, we all feel like that's normal, but it's kind of strange actually. If I lost a job or lost an award award or my significant other broke up with me, I wouldn't want to spend a lot of time thinking about why they were so great. We always do this when somebody passes. And there's wonderful work by psychologist named George Benano, who shows that if we can consolidate positive memories of deceased person. That's one major predictor of being resilient in the face of grief. In fact, people who tend to have more anxiety and more depression are less able to do that.

They're less able to suggest and talk about positive memories of the person who's gone. But the real trick with grief is not to deny it, but to move through it in a timely fashion. That's not too long and in not letting it get so intense that it is paralyzing. And if you look at Shiva, it packages together. Everything that science has kind of figured out in the past 20 years that helps. One big predictor of resilience in the face of mourning is One big predictor of resilience in the face of mourning is Instrumental support now. What do I mean by that? It's not social support It's not like how many friends you have on Twitter. It's who shows up When you need them to be there in person to support you and

Shilla there's this idea of visiting the mourners and it's it a mitzvot, which means it is a sacred obligation. It's not something nice to do. You have to do it. You have to go there. You have to bring food. You have to support in any way you can. When you are there for the seven day period, there are what are called minion prayers, where at least 10 people have to be together to say prayers.

And so the mourners are never alone. But when they say prayers, people are saying them in unison, in synchrony, often swaying with a little bit with each other. One thing that synchronous movement does, that is kind of moving and swaying in time with each other, and we've experimental data to show this, is it not only makes people feel closer to one another,

it makes them have more compassion for one another, and be more willing to help each other out. People cover mirrors. Why do you cover mirrors? It seems kind of a strange custom. Well, we know from experimental research that if you look into a mirror, whatever emotion you are feeling becomes intensified. If you're happy, you feel happier. If you're sad, what you would be during a time of mourning, you become sadder and more depressed. So by covering

mirrors, it's a way to reduce that. People sit on low stools. Why do you sit on these really low uncomfortable stools around the floor? There's really interesting work now showing that mild on sets and offsets of pain or discomfort as you would get from sitting kind of in a low crunched ergonomic position and then getting up, reduces remination and reduces depression. And so there are all these elements that are built in that I'm sure no one understood the neuroscience behind them. But together create a package that is designed to relieve grief and help people move through

morning. It's kind of brilliant package. I mean, I'm half Jewish. I don't even know if I've, I think I've probably sat shivvo before. It's been a while though. So I've heard the expression a million times, but I had no idea that it had all of these components that were knit together and that each of these components were so ingenious in their own right.

I wanna pick up on one element that you said a few words about, but I think it might be nice to get you to expand on. There's a term you use, I believe, motor synchrony. And this shows up in a lot of rituals that you write about and have looked at. Can you say more about motor synchrony? Sure, the way I describe it is objects moving together in time.

You can think of flocks of birds or schools of fish. You know, when you see all of them moving in a coordinated manner, it looks like what our individual animals somehow becomes a larger entity. And it's kind of an ancient language that our brain uses to interpret things. And so we thought when we were running a study on this, trying to look at a way to help people find connection, in humans, it might help people feel connected. And so to make a long story short, we brought a bunch of people into our lab and we sat them across the table from each other, two pairs, a pair of people at a time. They couldn't talk to one

another. They put on talk to one another. They put on earphones, and we played tones in those earphones, and their only job was to tap the sensor in front of them as they heard those tones. Now, we rigged it, right, so that for some pairs, the tones were synchronized, where they were hearing them in unison, so their hands were moving in unison in their field of vision.

Others, they were random, and so they were completely out of sync. After that, we asked people, how close, or how similar did you feel to that other person? And if they had tapped in time, they reported feeling more similar. And it was weird because they couldn't explain it. They had the sense that I was more similar. And so they were trying to explain it.

And they'd say things like, I think he was in my class last year, or I saw him at a party last week, or you have this feeling like, you know what, you feel something that you can't explain it. But then we kind of rigged a situation where one of the pair got unfairly stuck

doing this really long and boring and difficult task. And what we found is that the people who, if they had tapped in time, the partner was much more willing to come to that person's aid. I mean, I think the rate of saying, can I help them out with that? We basically tripled the percentage of people who willing to do that.

They said, I feel badly firm. I want to go help them out. They didn't know this person from Adam. But what it was, that simple act of moving in time was enough to make them feel connected in a way that they had compassion for each other and wanted to help one another. And then I thought, well, this is great.

Let's go right up a paper about this, which we did because we've discovered a new way to help people feel connected. And then everywhere I look, every religion uses it. Again, it was one of these humbling moments. I never realized that the reason they were doing it is to make people feel closer together. And there is lots of data that suggests people who attend service and worship together, feel closer together.

But again, it's one of these things that was just running under the radar. And had we understood and looked to religion and rituals, we probably would have come up with this idea a lot sooner. How can we operationalize this insight in our daily life? Should we start meetings with some sort of synchronized movement? Or what can we do this? Yeah, it's funny. You'll see this in some places. Sports teams will do it before they go out. Or if you have ever seen the Maori from New Zealand that have this hockey database, that they do.

Yeah, we were starting to think about a project that we never quite got off the ground. How could people use this in anxiety, provoking situations where you want to feel some comfort with somebody new and some trust and some sense of compassion with them. And so we were potentially going to do an experiment where we did this in doctors offices where people were going in for a biopsy and meeting the radiologist who you have no history with and you know you're oftentimes worried if you're going to get very negative news.

So you know, even there can be the type of thing where a physician and patient takes two minutes together and just takes deep breaths together or kind of raise their hands up and down as they do this. And again, it sounds a little strange because we don't have the ritual for it, a context for it, but there's a lot of synchrony work out there, not just the one experiment that I'm suggesting that shows that it makes people cooperate more, feel more comfortable, trust each other more. Let me just stay on Shiva for a second, or let me go back to Shiva, because there's, I believe another element of Shiva that may not have come up yet, which is wearing torn garments.

Yeah, so it's often called the Kriya. So traditionally, people would tear a garment when somebody passed. Now oftentimes what they'll do is, and forgive me my friends who are who I'm not Jewish. So this is kind of what I've learned. They will put a black ribbon with a pin on their, you know, shirt or blouse or jacket and tear that. And the beauty of that is it is a sign that you are mourning. One of the most difficult things is to kind of know where somebody is in their emotional state. And so in the Victorian period,

they had this wonderful custom where when someone died, the mourners would wear black. And then as time went on, they would wear gray. And then they in half morning, which was several months later, they would wear kind of a violet. And then they would wear white. And it was a way to know for people who were just coming to meet them, might have not seen them in a wall, where they were in the morning process. And so, you know, the Korea in some ways is a nice way to see that. But it also serves another purpose, which is a reminder, people are also supposed to not wear your best clothes. More traditional observers will not wear their best shoes or their best dresses and not worry about bathing or shaving and crimping. The idea there is to lessen self-focus, to not be focused on you yourself and worrying

about how you're going to look or what you're going to do. And again, this goes back to the work I mentioned before on mirrors. To the extent that people are self-focused with or without mirrors, it tends to intensify the emotion they're feeling. And at a time of mourning, that's usually kind of grief and anxiety. And you know, the rule in Shiva is when you come in, you wait for the mourner to speak to you and you let them set the tone.

If they want to talk about the person who's passed, that's wonderful. If they are not ready to do that, that's okay. You take your lead from them. And again, it kind of, because that's the custom built into the ritual, it helps people deal with that thing of, oh my gosh, what do I say? Should I try and lighten the mood? Should I not try and lighten the mood? It's just a way of easing the whole process.

Much more of my conversation with David Dostino after this. Life is short, and it's full of a lot of interesting questions. What does happiness really mean? How do I get the most out of my time here on Earth? And what really is the best cereal? These are the questions I seek to resolve on my weekly podcast, Life is Short with Justin Long. If you're looking for the answer to deep philosophical questions, like, what is the meaning of life?

I can't really help you. But I do believe that we really enrich our experience here by learning from others. And that's why in each episode, I like to talk with actors, musicians, artists, scientists, and many more types of people about how they get the most out of life. We explore how they felt during the highs, and sometimes more importantly, the lows of their careers. We discuss how they've been able to stay happy during some of the harder times. But if I'm being honest, it's mostly just fun chats between friends about the important stuff.

Like if you had a sandwich named after you, what would be on it? Follow Life is short wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen to Add Free on the Amazon Music or Wondering App. What's up? Move on to another aspect of your religio prospecting. The practice of saying grace before meals, which I think is a Christian practice.

I know it to be a Christian practice. I'm sure there are other religions that give thanks. In Judaism, the prayer said every morning is the first thing that you say is you thank God for letting you have a breath that morning and for having another day. But the idea behind these are their prayers of gratitude and grace is just one example of a prayer of gratitude. There are many different types of prayers of gratitude. What do they do for you?

So the reason we have emotions is to influence what we're going to do. It wouldn't make sense for the mind to have an emotion if it didn't serve a purpose. And so, you know, there's lots of evidence that when we feel frightened, it makes us more vigilant for threats and makes us more careful. But there are these kind of morally toned emotions, things like gratitude. And what we found in our lab is if we make people feel gratitude, they become more honest. So to make an example, we'll have people count their blessings. And for some people,

that's a completely secular thing that they do. Just talk about what they're grateful for in their life at this point. For some people, they write about religious things. You know, I'm thanking God for my health, my family, whatever it might be. And then one thing we do is we give them the opportunity to cheat on something.

We give them the opportunity to flip a coin and tell us if it came up heads or tails, and if it came up heads, you get a lot more money than if it came up tails. But of course, we can tell what they do with the coin come up because it's a computer coin that we rig. So we know how it comes up. And what you find is people who are feeling grateful become much more honest. In one study, we had about 25% of people who weren't feeling grateful lie to us. And so we gave them more money. In the gratitude condition, we had about two or three percent of people do that.

So it's a dramatic reduction. In other studies, we give them money and they can choose to split it fairly with other people or to keep more for themselves. People who just count their blessings and are feeling gratitude are more equitable. They're more likely to go out of their way to help someone, even a stranger who they've never met. So we'll make them feel gratitude in the lab. We'll send them down the hall on their way out of the building. They think the experiment is over and then we'll have someone who they never met come up to them and actor and ask them for help.

And we'll see whether they're willing to help this person. And again, it's the more gratitude they feel. It's really like a dose response thing. The more you feel it, the more effort you look at to help somebody, the more money you'll give to help somebody, the more ethical you'll be on your own. And so again, all religions want people to be ethical and all kind of give you commandments to be ethical.

But we all know we don't always live up to whether it's a religious ideal or even our own ideal that we set for ourselves. I'm sure if we all look back at our lives, there are things we did that we're not proud of ethically. But the fact of cultivating gratitude every day, whether it's the Jewish prayer upon awakening graceening grace before meals or Thanksgiving or gratitude prayer should another religions. Every day, that's a boost to make you more ethical, more generous, more kind. And without you having to think about God even, really. I mean, yes, you're saying the prayer, but we can show in our experiments.

It's that feeling, whether you're thinking about God or not, that changes your behavior. And so what does that mean if someone who's not religious? It means take a time, instead of thanking God for a prayer of thanksgiving before a meal or when you wake up in the morning. Be thankful for something that you have in your life, whether it be your parents, a friend, someone who did something for you the day before,

and you'll get those same benefits. What about gratitude journals? Yeah, gratitude journals are a wonderful way of doing it, instead of saying prayers for every day of Thanksgiving to induce gratitude. You know, gratitude journal is its own ritual, right? It's a time that you set aside to repeat every day or every couple of days on your own schedule to reflect and call that emotion to mind. And simply calling that emotion to mind is a nudge to make you more ethical and more generous and more helpful to people around you. So move on to another religious ceremony.

This one is the Apache Sunrise ceremony. What did you learn about this? Yeah. So that falls into one of the categories of what we call rights of passage. It's when adolescents are trying to become adults. And you know, that's always a really tricky time because not only do you kind of have to convince yourself that you are now in adults and able to handle those responsibilities. But you have to convince the community that you're worthy of that too.

And so there are kind of two ways that these ceremonies often work. And I kind of like to say by pain or by brain. And what I mean by pain is in a lot of cultures, people have to endure grueling ceremonies. And the Apache Sunrise ceremony is one of those, it's for young women who are on their way to adulthood. And it's a ceremony where they have to dance in front of people usually in an open field, for hours on end without breaks

in ways that are incredibly grueling. There are similar things in Central America for boys, there's something called the bullet ant ceremony and they're called bullet ants because their sting feels like you got shot by a bullet. The pain's been tested in this kind of equivalent. And they have to put on these gloves that are made out of plant fronds and leaves, but they have the ants weaved into them, stingers inside. And so you have to wear these and not only does it hurt like heck, but the venom of the ants weaved into them, stingers inside. And so you have to wear these. And not only does it hurt like heck, but the venom of the ants makes you feel kind of nauseous and like you're going to faint and they have to endure these silently. And all of these are experiences where you have to show

some degree of self-control. The idea is not to cry out in the Apache sunrise ceremony. It's to keep going and to not give up. And it's a way to prove to yourself and to other people that you have the self-control to be an adult. But the important part about that is what comes next. The community has to kind of embrace you and buy into it. So, you know, I'll talk in a minute about kind of the more Western versions of this with things like confirmation or bar mitzvahs and bot mitzvahs. So, you know, when I was confirmed as a Catholic, nothing much changed for me the day after. It wasn't like, you know, suddenly everybody's saying, oh, Dave, you're an adult now, you can do whatever. And I think the same thing happens for bar mitzvahs. Yes, you can now take part in certain ritual aspects of Judaism as an adult, but it's not like

you're paying your own bills, you're out on your own, you're doing things. So in these more traditional cultures, as you do these things, you are given more and more responsibility, so the community suddenly has to see you in this role. And there's a wonderful work by an anthropologist named Demetrius Zagolatus, who shows that these ceremonies that induce a lot of kind of pain, they are also very, as you can imagine, arousing for the audience to watch. If you're watching a young woman dancing upon hours and wondering if she's going to keep making it, you can see the sweat on her brow. If she's continuing to do it or you're watching, these boys being stung by ants that you

know extremely hurt really well or fire walking. He's like a lot of the study, fire walking. What you see is it's really interesting. He put sensors on people who were fire walking and people who were watching. And what you find is that their heart rates synchronize, right? Because they're kind of almost in this together. And that's an act not of synchrony of movement, but a physiological synchrony. And it binds them together. After these ceremonies, a lot of people will say,

now we feel like we feel like brothers or we feel like the community. Now, if you look at bar mitzvahs and and bar mitzvahs and confirmations, the problem is those weren't really designed as coming of age ceremonies. Traditionally, a bar mitzvah on a boy's 13th birthday, his father simply said, you know, blessed be he who has released me from being libel for this boy. And that was it. It was basically a father's way of washing his hands for responsibility for his son. In Catholicism, confirmation initially was given at the same time as baptism when people were converting when they were all adults.

It wasn't really something that had to do with coming of age. Now both of these, you know these happen around the age of 13. And so it's kind of at the time where we are starting to kind of become an adult, but they don't work that way because the day after, nothing is really different. And so what I talk about in the book is, in complex societies like ours,

there's probably not one age that makes the most sense for people to Adult to use that word, you know, because at one age you can drink at one age you can vote at another age You know, you can do something else or open a bank account or use a credit card There is no one age that seems perfectly magical to kind of be now you are an adult and so What might make more sense is to do a number of kind of iterative ceremonies, one for each accomplishment. And in fact, some of these traditional cultures do that. Like that aunt ceremony I told you about, they do that multiple times. It's not one and done. And so for us, it might be worthwhile to have a ceremony when somebody reaches the age at which they can go off to college,

another at which they can vote, another at which they're getting their first job, after which people can really begin to treat them differently. Because when you're 13, yes, you can be confirmed, yes, you can have a bot mitzvah or bar mitzvah, but nothing much changes in your life right after. And so if we're looking for ways to encourage teens to take on more adult responsibilities, the question of when's the right time for each responsibility?

And what's the best way to market? And the best way to market is to have them show some self-control, some ability of demonstration of competence. You know, a great way of thinking about this is the route to becoming an eagle scout. You you pass lots of different trials and at the end, you are recognized as someone who can be a valued leader, responsible person, a member of the community. And so I don't have the answer to the magic age at which people should become adults, but I think we should find rituals for that in our Western society a bit more than we have. And it might help this problem of kind of helicopter parenting

and when the kids get the right age to be on their own. That's utterly fascinating, especially as I consider the life of my six-year-old. I could talk about my son all day and I don't want to inflict that upon you. But let's just keep going with these ceremonies because there's also some Japanese shinto rituals that you've looked at. Yeah. So these I talk about around childbirth. And if you look at the ethnographical literature,

what you'll see is that on average, the closeness of Japanese mothers to their child tends to be more than many other cultures in terms of time they actually spend together in terms of skin-to-skin contact and lots of other ways. It's so much so that they actually have this kind of unique emotion, which is called a my. And a my is kind of an emotion where you cherish someone. We have the idea in Western culture, we don't have the word, so imagine your toddler coming

over to you while you're working and kind of tugging on your pants, looking up to you and saying, you know, would you read me this story? And it's that feeling of, of course, and you put down your work and you put them in your lap and it's that kind of cherishing feeling. The reason we don't have a word for it is because it's not as frequent here.

And so there's wonderful work by Lisa Feldman-Barrard, who I know you've had on your podcast. And she argues that the emotion terms that different cultures have are the ones that are most useful and happen most in those cultures. So the question is, why might it be that the Japanese have, which seems almost an increased reverence for their children, not that other people don't. I'm not saying that at all, but just if you look at it, they have this unique emotion. Shinto, which is a traditional religion of Japan, in the first year has a ton of ceremonies that focus on caretaking. It begins when the mother is pregnant where I won't try and pronounce the

the rituals because I'm sure I won't do them justice, but family will come and they will tie a sash around her pregnant belly, which is a sign of their care for her, but also a sign of protection and support for that child. When the child is born, there's a ceremony. When they announce the name, there is a ceremony. There's a blessing that then happens a couple months later where they go to the Shinto temples. On the first birthday, there's a ceremony. On the earlier years of life, there are multiple ceremonies. And each of these ceremonies requires the parents to usually spend a lot of money to get new clothes or special items to put on special meals for family and friends. And what it does is it reinforces this idea that this child is valuable.

So Alison Gopniku's psychologist step at University of California Berkeley has this quote that I love from one of her books, where she says, sometimes we care for people because we love them, but sometimes we love them because we care for them. And what she means by that is the act of caring. And by simply having multiple times where you are publicly vetting this child, where you are putting them before everyone as the apple of your eye, where you are spending time, money, and resources to do this. It's a reminder to you and to your brain that this is something that you value.

What we know everything from, I hate to say it in terms of economics, but what we know from economics research is the more we spend on something, the more attention we give to something, the more we value it. Even if it's irrational, with children, it's certainly not irrational, but you know, just if you have people and you put them in experiments where they're talking about a wonderful something is and saying, this is great, they start to increase the value they attach to it. And what these rituals do is they are reminders. And because they're ritualized, they're embedded in your memory more of how much we care and value our children.

And in those moments, and we've all had them as parents, when you're feeling overwhelmed, and you're just ready to pull your hair out and not knowing what's going on, those reminders, that kind of non-conscious tie the valuation that it gives to your child is a way to strengthen those relationships. And so, what do you do if you're not shinto? Well, it's funny. What you do are exactly the things that pediatricians are now encouraging parents to do with their children because, you know, unfortunately, there are certain percentages of new parents

who have trouble bonding with their children as much as they want. Sometimes it's due to anxiety, sometimes it's due to postpartum depression or other things. And so if you're having a problem feeling like you're bonding to your child, they'll say, well, set a time every day to give the baby a massage or set a time every day to sit down and read to your child or snuggle together. And the important thing is that you do it. What you're really doing there is creating a ritual, right? It's a completely secular ritual, but it's a time where you show time and effort to value this lovely little being

who can be kind of demanding. I mean, if you think about it, it's hard. And kids are little. It's really kind of a one-way relationship. Yes, we have hormonal responses that make us love them, but we are giving them everything that they need. And so by having these rituals, it's just a way to kind of reinforce to our minds how important they are and how much we love them. And the rituals that pediatricians

are giving kind of mirror what Shinto's been doing for thousands of years. There's so much here where to start. I love this Allison Gopnik quote, and this is an overused phrase I'm about to use. I've never met her. I would love to have her on the show of Allison if you're listening. You're invited. This is an overused phrase, but that notion,

which I've heard her articulate before, changed my life. The idea that putting in the work creates the affection, not the other way around. In my experience, this is scalable, well beyond your child. I've found that being more systematic about mentoring relationships has created a difference in my relationship with my colleagues, with my aging parents, the being thrust into more of a caretaker role has opened up a whole new realm of affection that I already had for them.

I wonder if you have any thoughts about that, whether you agree with what I'm saying, and if so, whether there's a way to systematize that for regular people. I think it's absolutely right. And this is why often I talk about why we can take elements of rituals, we see how they work and apply them in different ways. And I don't think as long as we're not using the same, the same prayers or traditional elements, it's

not showing a disrespect, it's kind of honoring that wisdom and applying it differently. But you're absolutely right. I have the same thing with my mom who's just turning 100 and she is saying, I hope I have your genes, mom. I mean, I have some of them, but I hope I have the super aging ones. It's absolutely, it's absolutely right. And you know, the economists will talk about it and this term sounds cold, but I'll use it. It's called the sunk cost fallacy, right? Which is if you've put time and energy into something, we're like, oh, I've already put

three weeks into this course. I don't really like it, but I, you know, I guess I have to keep going. And rationally, that makes no sense. Cut your losses and go. Children or people we care about are not some costs in that sense. But they're kind of similar because with a child, you are putting in tons of effort now.

And you're gonna enjoy that relationship as that child grows. And I mean, you enjoy them when they're babies too, but I mean, in terms of more give and take. And so reminding yourself, engaging in the care and what the ritual does is it makes it so that you can't forget it, because it's this big event that happens every couple months, right? But to your point, in any type of relationship, it will create that affection. Much more of my conversation with David Distanneau after this.

of my conversation with David Dostino after this. I'm just going back to this concept, I believe you use the term, a my, the Japanese word for the cherishing of a child. That's great that they came up with a word. I don't know if this is useful to anybody, but I'll just share it in case it is. When I do meta, METTA or loving kindness practice, and you're repeating these phrases into yourself

like if you're sending meta to other people, it's may you be happy, may you be safe, et cetera, et cetera. And then in the practice, you also turn it on yourself. When I send may I be happy, the image or the felt sense that I generate is when I am hugging my son. So that is kind of like tripling down on how my... I generate is when I am hugging my son. Oh. So that is kind of like tripling down on my, because that is when I am most happy. That's beautiful. So if that's useful to anybody, I share it.

Yeah, no, thank you. You know, I was talking recently with Sharon Salzburg, I'm sure you know, and we were talking about our work on meditation and compassion, and it's funny, you know. And we were talking about our work on meditation and compassion, and it's funny, you know, the one thing she told me is, oftentimes when a lot of people start meditating, it's so they can feel better themselves.

They have some stress, some pain, some difficulty, some anxiety that they're trying to work through, which Sam was true for her. But as you learn to make space for that, to sit with it, to have that equanimity, that space that you open up can't help but then make you feel room and desire to want to extend that that meta and that care for others. if you're studying with a Buddhist teacher, you'll get a lot of the other theology and other parts of it that talk about the importance of kines and compassion, I think they call it Karuna, for others. But the idea is the meditation is one tool to help prepare your mind to be more tuned and ready for that. And again, that's where I think the magic is in a lot of these

practices. Is there more to say about what you've observed as the benefits of Michael Listened meditation? So the one other thing I'll say, and this takes longer, of course, to get to, then some of the initial anxiety benefits and compassion benefits that come. And I certainly have not experienced this myself, but I know for many people, it can bring you to a transcendental state of sorts, that state where you feel a deep connection to kind of everything.

This won this with universe. And a lot of people are kind of seeking transcendent experiences, and you know, one thing I talk about in the book are there are different ways to get there. Roughly speaking people break them down into what are called the right-handed and the left-handed techniques, right? Right-handed techniques or techniques like meditation that fit within traditional religions

or practices. And I never understood this. So Dan, you said you were half Jewish. What's the other half? Uh, brittle wasp. All right, so wasp. All right, so okay. So, so for me, because I was raised Catholic, I had no idea that there's a whole slew of Catholic meditation practices.

But if you look at these practices, and what you'll see is over time, as you become more proficient in meditation, when you'd start getting to those transcendental experiences, those states of one that often sense of your own identity melting away. The areas of the brain that that affects are the exact same areas that things like psilocybin and ayahuasca affect. Now those are kind of what people call the left-handed techniques, not in disparaging way, but in a sense that they're fast, they are rapid. You can get those without spending the years of practice that you would need with meditation. But because they're fast, they can also be kind of dangerous or risky, right? That is, you know, about 20% of people who have some of these trips, it's not pleasant.

Eight percent, I've seen Michael Pollan say, seek psychiatric help after, because that experience of your ego melting away, shattering, something psychologist call ego death, can be blissful or it can be terrifying. And what's important when we think about the rituals is they provide the scaffolding to help ensure that it's the blissful one and not the terrifying one. So if you're eating magic mushrooms or drinking ayahuasca with your local Brooklyn hipster

place, they're probably not having all the rituals, the chanting. And what we know about those is when you hear chanting, when you engage in chanting yourself, it slows your breathing. What does that slowed breathing do? It slows your heart rate. What does that do? It puts your brain in a state of calmness where it doesn't expect danger around the corner.

And so when you enter these transcendental states, it's again nudging you toward a blissful safe one as opposed to a bad trip. So I guess what I say about meditation is it's a route toward these transcendental experiences that psychedelics can give you to. It's just a longer route, but on the psychedelic side, the thing to think about is make sure you are doing it with someone who has some training, whether they're a shaman or not, they have the kind of ancient accrued wisdom of,

what are the ritual elements that go around it? The chance not just window dressing, right? The chanting and the prayers are there to kind of scaffold your experience so that it is an enjoyable one and not a frightening one. Before I let you go, I want to loop back to something you brought up very early on in the conversation and mentioned that you probably wanted to come back to,

which is the benefits of belief. It just reminds everybody you've been talking all along about how we can employ these practices, sans belief, we can get the benefits of religion without being religious, but there are benefits to straight up belief, and I'd love to hear about that. Yeah, there's lots of work suggesting that one thing it does is reduce decision fatigue. So we all think that isn't life better than more choices we have because we can optimize

things perfectly. But there's a wonderful term called the tyranny of choice. Sometimes when you have too many choices to make, it can be anxiety-provoking because you're like, oh my gosh, what do we know? We have to do this, we have to do that. And, you know, that's bad enough if we're trying to figure out what the best tie is. It can become paralyzing. If you're trying to figure out, oh my gosh, what's the best preschool for my child to go to? Or I have 16 different therapies I can pick for this melody I'm facing. What's the right one? What happens if I pick something wrong?

And so there's evidence that people who have a belief in a higher power have less anxiety in the face of those choices. Now, I don't mean to say that that means they're just going to say, I'm just going to give it up to God and not worry and not to be intelligent about the decisions you're making. You still want to make smart and intelligent decisions, but there's evidence to suggest that people who have a greater belief in a higher power doesn't matter exactly how you conceptualize that power,

but a higher power tend to have less anxiety around decisions related to health, career, lots of other areas in life. And overall that adds up to a good deal of reduced anxiety in your daily life. Now, do you have to be religious? Maybe not. I mean, in some sense, right? And Dan, you probably know this better than I do.

A lot of the Buddhists will say, why worry about something that you have no idea if it's going to ever happen? You know, if there's a way to fix something, fix it. If there's not, well, then don't spend your time obsessing about it. And so even a belief that things will just work out or even a belief that I shouldn't worry and I have to accept what comes, in some ways, functions much as a belief in a higher power would. It kind of takes the onus off of ourselves that we put on us, that we ourselves have to optimize

every decision. Otherwise, we're going to regret it or make a terrible, a terrible decision. I would imagine one of the benefits of belief is that you might feel like you're in a benevolent universe and you don't have to worry about what's going to happen when you die. Yeah, well, that's another issue, right? If we're talking about belief in the afterlife, individuals who have belief in life after death, especially as they kind of get older and approach death, have much less anxiety. But it's funny. Hardcore atheists have more anxiety than the people who are hardcore believers, but they have less anxiety than people who don't know what they believe. And so my sense is, you know, we don't know. No one knows what happens after we're gone.

Given that there is no proof that a belief in the afterlife causes anyone any harm, why the admin meant against it, we don't know. And so yes, it can reduce your anxiety, which would only be a problem to me if there was some other downside of believing in an afterlife, but as far as I can tell, there's not. And just to make the point though, as far as I can tell, there's not. And just to make the point though, as far as I can tell, the real point of your book isn't

really to debate the pluses and the minuses of religion, it's to say that you can extract the benefits, extract not in the majority of, enjoy the benefits of religious practices whether you are a believer or not. That is right. It's in one sense, a pushback against kind of the new atheist movement, which says a lot of religion is kind of folly or superstition. And you know, I love the scientific method. I am a scientist.

I believe it's the best tool we have to study how the world works. But what I'm saying is we should be humble enough to realize that when it comes to helping people Thousands of years of thought might have some good ideas there. We're actually slowing scientific progress if we're not willing To look at it doesn't mean you have to buy the theology But let's look at the practices in a respectful way and let's work together Let's talk across the lines that normally divide us. Science versus religion, one faith versus another. If we all care about making life better for people, let's study these practices. Again, we've done it with meditation. There has to be more out there.

Probably a great place to leave it. Dave, before we go, can you plug your new book, any other books that you want us to know about any other resources you might have out there. Can you just plug away, please? Yeah, sure. My book is called How God Works, the Science Behind the Benefits of Religion, out from Simon and Schuster. And I'm also happy to say that Dan even spired me. I'm working on a podcast of the same name. We're going to explore these issues and bring some scientists and religious thinkers together. Awesome. Congratulations on the book and the podcast and thank you for coming on this show. You did a great job. Thank you for the invitation. Thanks again to David. Love talking to him.

And don't forget David's got a new podcast. It's now out in the world. Go check it out. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts. It's called How God Works and we'll put a link in the show notes. The show is made by Samuel Johns, Gabrielle Zuckerman, DJ Cashmere, Justin and Davy Kim Baikama, Maria Wartelle, and Jen Poehant with audio engineering from Ultraviolet audio. We'll see you all on Wednesday for a conversation with Lisa Feldman Barrett. Hey, hey prime members. You can listen to 10% happier early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and add free with 1-3-plus in Apple podcasts. Before you go, do us a

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