The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos - Happiness Lessons of The Ancients: Yoga of the Mind

Episode Date: March 20, 2023

We often think of yoga as a physical exercise - but a centuries-old Sanskrit text, The Yoga Sutras, share teachings intended to improve both the body and mind. The author, Patanjali, makes clear that the poses and stretches are only part of picture - we also need to be kind, contemplative and grounded.   Jessamyn Stanley (yoga teacher and author of Yoke: My Yoga of Self-Acceptance) takes Dr Laurie Santos through Patanjali's text - saying its lessons "can be applied in every circumstance, no matter who you are or where you are".See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ugh, we're so done with New Year, New You. This year, it's more you on Bumble. More of you shamelessly sending playlists, especially that one filled with show tunes. More of you finding Gemini's because you know you always like them. More of you dating with intention because you know what you want. And you know what? We love that for you. Someone else will too. Be more you this year and find them on Bumble.

Pushkin. I was in graduate school and a friend of mine was like, oh, my God, you should come to yoga because I was really depressed. This is one of my wellness idols, Jessamyn Stanley. She had drunk the yoga Kool-Aid. She was like, oh, my God, it's going to change your whole life. The idea of that sort of big change did appeal to Jessamyn, who at the time was feeling a bit lost. I was like, I don't know who I am. What is the purpose of my life? What is going on?

And she was like, oh my God, you should come to yoga. You're going to love it. And I was like, I am not doing that. Jessamyn had tried yoga once before in high school and she absolutely hated it. But her friend wasn't going to take no for an answer and knew just how to make the case. She appealed to Jessamyn's appetite for a bargain. And she got me caught up on a Groupon, though.

She was like, what's the worst that can happen? You go one time, you pay $30 for this pass. Like, what's the worst that can happen? Jessamyn reluctantly agreed. At first, that yoga class wasn't the amazing, life-changing experience Jessamyn was hoping for. So it's really hot in here. It smells. It kind of sucks, actually. Like, everything about this is really hard. Jessamyn couldn't do the poses as well as the other students around her.

As a queer, plus-sized Black woman in a mostly skinny white lady yoga class, she felt uncomfortable in her body and painfully self-conscious. I remember we were practicing a posture called awkward pose. That is literally, it's so aptly named because it is extremely awkward. So I'm looking at myself in this mirror and which is traumatizing on its own because I literally would go out of my way at that stage of my life to avoid mirrors. I'm looking at myself and I'm just thinking like, why did you even think you could come to this class? Like you obviously don't know what you're doing and everybody here

knows it. And you can't even do this basic thing. This is like maybe the third or fourth posture in the class. I'm like, there's no, like, if you can't do this, then why even show up? And I was just talking cash shit to myself. And I had this moment where I was like, you know, you could just try. Maybe you just try. Like, yes, maybe you're going to fall down. Maybe everyone in the room is going to know that you don't know what you're doing. Maybe the teacher is going to know that you don't know what you're doing. And maybe that's just got to be OK, because did you spend this money to come to this class to just stand here and talk shit about yourself? Because you could have done that at home.

Jessamyn decided to make good on her $30 investment. She committed to halting her usual self-criticism, if only for the length of that one class. She started leaning into all the new postures and movements. And then something incredible happened. She actually started to enjoy yoga. It was the first time Jessamyn was able to get out of her head in as long as she could remember. So it was this insane moment of like actually having to reckon with something that I had just decided about myself. And that moment, that breaking point, to this day, ultimately,

that is why I continue to practice yoga. Because it really is, it's a cracking open of the spirit. It's like you're looking in a foggy bathroom mirror, a mirror that you fogged up, and like just swiping across it and seeing your actual reflection back at you. And it was so profound for me in a way that I certainly didn't walk into class thinking I was going to experience. Decades later, Jessamyn has gone from an awkward novice to becoming a famous yoga professional. She's now one of the most sought-after yoga and wellness instructors in the world. Jessamyn's done ad campaigns for places like Gatorade, Adidas, and Amazon. She's the co-founder

of The Underbelly, an international yoga community that celebrates bringing yoga and movement to people of all body types and identities. But initially that experience, I really only understood it on a physical level. An example being like, I'm just going to work on this pose. Like I'm going to work on camel pose or downward facing dog. I got really into head standing and understanding the mechanics of that. And through that practice of focusing on different postures, I did start to understand that there are a lot of themes that come up when you are practicing yoga. So like grounding, stability, strength, flexibility, and understanding those concepts beyond what they were offering me physically. So like if I am in a posture that is offering flexibility in my physical body, what other parts of my life can I be more flexible in?

Jessamyn was training extensively in the physical side of her practice, but she hadn't yet looked at the historic or spiritual roots of yoga. Was her practice really supposed to be just about the poses, she wondered? Or did the founders of yoga intend for it to be deeper? Jessamyn was fascinated by all these questions, but she also worried that the answers might not be for people like her. I am Black. I am American. I am not South Asian. I do not have a cultural relationship with yoga. And I was like, I'm pretty sure this is all appropriation.

And it's probably not cool for me to be doing this at all. But at a minimum, I'm just going to stick with the physical stuff. And then I won't, I'm not even going to dig into anything else. But as Jessamyn thought more about the varied benefits that she and her students got from yoga, she began to realize that the physical side of this ancient tradition was just the tip of the iceberg. As she explains in her most recent book, Yoke, My Yoga of Self-Acceptance, she came to learn that it's less about fitness and more about dealing with your mental and emotional baggage. So much of what was making me unhappy and unsatisfied in my life was that I'd created all of these boundaries for myself. And I'd made all these decisions about the type of person that I am and about what I'm capable of handling. And I never

allowed myself to step outside of those boundaries. Yoga requires that you step outside of your boundaries. And it's put me in these situations where I actually had to look at the way that I talk to myself and look at the way that I process information and be like, you know what? I know I decided that I'm not going to be able to do this, but maybe I'm just going to try. And part of that commitment to moving past her boundaries involves taking a careful look at the cultural origins of yoga. Jessamyn began reading about the history of her practice and and in doing so, returned to an important spiritual work that she'd first heard about in her yoga teacher training, a book that's often thought of as the earliest textbook of yoga. It's called the Yoga Sutras. Sutra means thread, so it's literally

like threads that tie us together. These sutras have been passed down for thousands of years, and they've been translated an untold number of times. And they really are just words that were captured by the students of a teacher, Patanjali. And these words were just guiding thoughts for life. Patanjali was the wise Sanskrit sage who first outlined what's known as the eight-limbed path. The eight-limbed path was a way for students not just to achieve a fitter body, as we often think of yoga today, but to gain a fitter mind and spirit. Patanjali argued that when followed correctly, the eight-limbed path is a way for us all to become free of mental suffering. It's really just like so many other ancient texts. And it's been passed down because the universality of the aphorisms, they can be applied in every circumstance, no matter who you are or where you are.

And that's one of the reasons we'll be turning to the yoga sutras in this episode today. We'll explore what the eight-limbed path says about how to live a happier, healthier life. Welcome back to Happiness Lessons of the Ancients on the Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos. Certainly yoga has become in the mainstream, almost entirely associated with exercise. What poses are you doing? The difficulty of the practice is gauged by the difficulty of the postures, like how acrobatic is your practice becomes the metric. So that when people go to a yoga class, it's always about like, what are the physical benefits going to be? And even when you talk about like meditation or breath work, it's not necessarily seen as a necessary component of a yoga practice. And ultimately, though, the physical experience of yoga is really a very minor part of the experience. As Jessamyn learned more about the history of yoga and the yoga sutras specifically,

she quickly realized that yoga poses, or asanas as they're called in Sanskrit, are just a tiny part, only one branch, of the eight-limb path that Patanjali originally outlined. In fact, asanas didn't even make it into the first limb that Patanjali preached about. His classic texts started not with asanas, but with what are known as the yamas, or restraints. Yamas especially, I think because they go first. It's the sutra that I think people are most familiar with and the ones that have the most intense translations in our society. The yamas remind us about the responsibility we have to other people. In doing so, the yamas fit well with one of the most well-documented effects in the entire field of happiness science, that becoming more other-oriented is a quick way

to improve our well-being. Study after study shows that focusing on other people, either through volunteering or donating money, can make us feel happier. And acting intentionally towards others is what the first limb of the eight-limb path is all about. In fact, Patanjali thought our responsibilities to others were so important that he divided the yamas into five tinier principles, as he called them. And the first and most famous of these principles is what's known as ahimsa. Which is this idea of nonviolence. And often ahimsa is translated as a call to action for vegetarianism or veganism, because the best way to be nonviolent in terms of not harming other creatures is to literally not consume other creatures. But that's just one translation of ahimsa.

And that's just one translation for some people. Nonviolence to me has always come up more in the language that we use to talk, not just about other people, but about ourselves. Because if you are using violent language to talk about yourself, that is coming into the way that you communicate about other people as well. Which is kind of ironic, because I think the whole idea of ahimsa is not to engage in violence and in some ways critiquing people, especially critiquing people's bodies, you know, might be really a violation of the very principle. Exactly. And

another one that jumps up for me is brahmacharya, which is this idea of chastity. And like, I remember in my own teacher training, it being said like, oh, well, we don't really think about brahmacharya that much. Like, it's not that big of a deal. You don't need to worry about it. Because brahmacharya being translated as chastity and therefore meaning celibacy. No sex, no sex. People are like, I'm not not going to have sex, what are you saying? And in my own understanding of brahmacharya,

I think that it's more about owning your own spirit so that when you are engaged in acts that are literally sharing your spirit with other human beings, that you can, at a minimum, know what you're getting into. And that's what sex is. It's offering yourself to another human being. And sex,

it can get you twisted in the game. It will get you confused. And that is really all that brahmacharya is. It's really just asking a question. It's like, you know, what does it mean to hold on to your essence, to preserve your spirit? Jessamyn has a similar interpretation of the other three Yamas principles. They're there so our minds don't get twisted up and so that we can preserve our spirit. These final three principles include satya, or truthfulness. Basically, don't lie to people and commit to living in truth, even when doing so is painful. Then there's asteya, which tells us not to be covetous. Asteya is all about nipping that green-eyed monster of jealousy in the bud, and to try to avoid social comparison generally. And finally, there's aparagraha, which is freedom from desire.

Aparagraha fits nicely with the happiness strategy we talk about a lot on this podcast. Remembering that more stuff and more accolades are not going to make us happy. Aparagraha is all about trying to notice times when we're feeling a little greedy. It's really not like hard rules. It's opportunities to engage with yourself on a more visceral level. The next limb of the eight limb

path, the niyamas, is even more focused on engaging internally. And that's because the five principles of the niyamas are focused on the responsibilities we have not towards other people, but towards ourselves. Those principles include saucha, keeping your body clean physically, mentally, and emotionally. tapas, a sense of austerity and self-discipline, svadhyaya, a commitment to studying yourself and looking within yourself for answers, isvara, pranidhana, committing to finding a spiritual path, and my favorite of the niyamas, santosa. Santosa is my favorite not because the word kind of sounds like it should be the name of some cousin of mine, but because it's the principle that's focused on finding contentment in the present moment,

and doing so without ruminating about the past or the future. You could spend your whole life just focusing on the yamas and the niyamas, honestly, because they show up in everything and they can be interpreted so many different ways, whether that's through the language that you use, through your personal definition of chastity, through the things that you consume, how you cleanse your body. not coveting what other people have, not speaking ill of other people and really like having attention to your words and the language that you use. But the eight limb path doesn't just stop with the yamas and the niyamas.

When we get back from the break, we'll continue our discussion of Patanjali's other six limbs. We'll see where all those tough yoga poses we use in the modern day fit into the ancient sage's vision of the good life. And we'll learn how a true eight-limbed path towards flourishing requires regulating not just the body, but also the mind. The Happiness Lab will be right

back. Ugh, we're so done with New Year, New You. This year, it's more you on Bumble. More of you shamelessly sending playlists, especially that one filled with show tunes. More of you finding Gemini's because you know you always like them. More of you dating with intention because you know what you want. And you know what? We love that for you. Someone else will too.

Be more you this year and find them on Bumble. When you look at people who are extreme athletes, like I think a lot about ultra marathoners and people who run ultra marathons, they're not doing that for their health. Like they're not obsessed with that experience because it's like, oh my God, my body not doing that for their health. Like they're not, they're not obsessed with that experience because it's like, oh my God, my body is going to look this way. No, they're working out deep psychological truth. So they are, look, they are having a spiritual

experience. The ancient sage Patanjali lived way before modern fitness practices like CrossFit and Tough Mudders were a thing. But he still recognized that moving our bodies could be an important step towards spiritual enlightenment. And that's the logic behind the third and most famous limb of Patanjali's eight-limbed path, the asanas. The asanas are what most Westerners typically think of when they think of yoga, the poses. Things like downward-facing dog, chaturanga, gomukhasana, and chair pose. But the key to getting the most out of all these asanas isn't what most modern practitioners think. From Patanjali's perspective, the goal wasn't to twist your body into an uncomfortable pretzel. Author and yoga instructor Jessamyn Stanley says that the original idea behind the asanas was much simpler.

Asana really means to sit. So it's not even as complicated as assume this specific posture. It's literally like to be, just to exist. Patanjali is really saying that any form that your body takes is assuming a shape that then is a part of this world. And it's something that evolves for every person throughout their life, depending on what's going on in their life. But the reality is that you really only need to practice one posture. And it can be any posture.

The posture can be sitting down. It can be lying on your back. It can be standing up. That's sufficient posture. Because ultimately, they're very complex postures. And in truth, being able to just be in stillness is the hardest posture. Jessamyn tells her students that this is the point of performing all the yoga poses they practice. The asanas are there to help us accept the hard challenges that come not on our yoga mats, but in life. Let's take a posture-like pose, for example. You look at a posture-like chair pose and it's like, what do I need to do?

I need to turn my thighs toward one another. I need to engage my core. I need to fall down backwards while also sitting upright. I need to lengthen out of the crown of my head. All of these things are things that I need to do when I'm challenged. I feel like someone is being mean to me. When I'm feeling challenged, those are the same things that I need to do. I need to pull into my core. I need to try to fall down backwards, but also stay upright. I need to lengthen up to the sky.

I need to pull. It's all of these ideas that seem theoretical and that seem like philosophical, but that are really actually very practical. And I think it makes it easier to deal with the parts of life that are really hard, really, really hard and complicated, and that are not meant to be anything other than that. Like, I think sometimes in life, really hard shit, bad shit happens. And you think, this isn't how things are supposed to be.

Things are supposed to be good. I'm supposed to be happy. This is wrong. And what yoga reminds is that everything in life is not good. Everything in life is not happy. You need for things to be hard so that you can actually strengthen from the inside. So practice the things that you do when things get hard, pull into your core, become flexible in your hamstrings, draw your butt cheeks together, whatever the things are. Practice that in the moments that feel emotionally hard, and you will be strengthened as a result. The fourth limb of the Eightfold Path is also about harnessing something that can help us get through tough times. Not mindful movements, as in the asanas, but mindful breath.

It's called prana. The full word is pranayama. Prana being this energy that we most consciously understand as breath. And so breath work becomes the focus of pranayama. Scientists have long recognized that our breath can have a huge impact on our well-being. Take, for example, one of the easiest ways to shut off activation in our fight-or-flight system, or what neuroscientists refer to as our sympathetic nervous system. You're probably familiar with the activation of this system if you've ever felt overwhelmed by too many demands at work,

or anxious after reading some scary news article, or pissed off by an annoying email. Our sympathetic nervous system kicks in whenever we feel under threat. It's a system that's only supposed to turn on once in a while, in moments of urgent threat or danger. But many of us keep this system running chronically, which leads to a whole host of stress-related illnesses and bad feelings. But there's a fast and easy way to get our fight-or-flight systems to chill out for a while. And we can do that through our breath. There's evidence that we can switch off sympathetic nervous system activity simply by taking a slow, deep belly breath. Especially one with a long exhale.

Patanjali wasn't a neuroscientist, but he realized that we can use the breath to change the way we feel in our bodies and our minds. But Jessamyn says that pranayama isn't just about taking a few deep breaths when we're feeling stressed. Prana is really like everything. Once you focus on your breath and once you assume a posture,

whatever that posture is, then your body starts to go into a state of actually engaging with what is underneath your skin and what is happening beyond your mind. It's starting to unite the way that your body moves and the way that your mind works and the way that you feel so that you're able to understand yourself as a full spiritual being. But if you really want to understand yourself as a full spiritual being,

you can't stop at pranayama. You also need to commit to practicing what's discussed in the rest of the limbs of the Eightfold Path, the ones that we haven't talked about yet. We'll hear more from Jessamyn about what these final spiritual practices are and how we can harness them to live and feel better when the Happiness Lab gets back from this short break. Ugh, we're so done with New Year, New You.

This year, it's more you on Bumble. More of you shamelessly sending playlists, especially that one filled with show tunes. More of you finding Gemini's because you know you always like them. More of you dating with intention because you know what you want. And you know what? We love that for you. Someone else will too. Be more you this year and find them on Bumble. So that the last limbs of the eight limb path, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi,

are all the stages that happen once you have united your breath with whatever form your body is taking. So far in our progress through Patanjali's path, we've talked about the importance of the yamas, our responsibilities to other people, the niyamas, our responsibilities to ourselves, the asanas, physical postures we can relax into to stay grounded, and pranayama, the importance of controlling our breath. And if you're counting and keeping track of where we are in the eight limbs, you might be tempted to think that we've basically hit the halfway point

towards spiritual enlightenment. But author and yoga instructor Jessamyn Stanley is quick to point out that Patanjali didn't intend for the limbs he described to be boxes that we check off on some spiritual to-do list. the limbs he described, to be boxes that we check off on some spiritual to-do list. So the idea behind the eight-limb path is that it provides structure for your life and it provides a way to go about taking care of yourself and then the way that you show up in the world and then the way that you are engaging with the energy of the world. And then ultimately, the way that you process that energy and bring it forth into back into the world. And I think that when you say eight limb path,

it's always like, okay, cool. So I've done the first three, once I get to level eight, I will have figured out how to be a perfect human. And it's like, I will have figured out how to be a perfect human. And it's like, no, all of the limbs are happening at once. And there's no ending point. Ultimately, you're just moving through and around them at all times. The sutras are just the truth. They're the truth of the human experience. And they can be applied in different ways, depending on what's going on in your life.

Patanjali's eight-limbed path was also not meant to be a quick journey. His tips can't be mastered in a 45-minute yoga class. His spiritual path was meant to be a lifelong practice, which is kind of a relief, especially since the last four limbs described in the eight-limbed path may require even more time and care than the earlier ones. limbs described in the eight-limbed path may require even more time and care than the earlier ones. Take, for example, Patanjali's fifth limb, which Jessamine thinks is probably the hardest for modern Western practitioners to work through. It's called prathayahara, the commitment to detaching from things external. What does Patanjali mean here by external things? Think what we look like, how much money we have, the stuff we own, how successful we are at

work, and all the identities we share online on social media. It's so hard because we live in a world where we are constantly tapped into everything. And I think that that idea of withdrawal and what it means to withdraw and how you withdraw. Is it all your senses? Is it only in certain circumstances? Is it for an hour in the morning and then you're good for the rest of the day? Like, what does that mean? And the reality is that there are no hard and fast lines or limits.

It's really just about understanding it for yourself on a personal level. For me, withdrawal of senses only happens when I accept the fact that my senses are alive and are awake. And that doesn't mean trying to shut them down or pretend that certain things aren't happening or trying to avoid things. It's just let it all be there. Let every sound be there. Let every connection be there. I'm just going to let it all be there. Let every sound be there. Let every connection be there. I'm just going to let it all hang out. That's when you can pull into yourself.

That's when you can withdraw. And the importance of pulling into yourself leads us to both the sixth and seventh limbs of the Eightfold Path, which are known as Dharana, concentration, and the practice that leads to Dharana, which is Dayana, or meditation. If you've listened to other episodes of the Happiness Lab, you've probably heard about the many physical and psychological benefits of meditation and concentrating on your internal experience of the present moment. There's evidence that practicing meditation regularly can lead to reduced anxiety, less stress, better sleep, and fewer negative emotions.

But Jessamyn worries that the hype about meditation may sometimes cause modern practitioners to miss out on the way the practice was intended back in Patanjali's day. Meditation has become so trendy. I think that it makes it seem more complicated than it actually is. But when you assume a posture, let's say that the posture is sitting cross-legged and you are working on your breath work and it doesn't need to be any kind of complicated breath work. It doesn't need to be alternate nostril or lion's roar or anything. It can literally just be breathing through your nose, out through your mouth. You can close your eyes. You can not close your eyes. It's not that big of a deal. But you find the posture that works for you. When you tune in, that's when the concentration starts. That's when that one-pointedness, the concentration, dharana, that's when that begins. I think sometimes when you sit for meditation and you're withdrawing your senses, that you think, oh, there's supposed to be this magic moment where my mind is clear,

and I'm totally calm. But what actually happens is that all your thoughts collide, and it just becomes complete chaos inside your mind. And that contemplation, you find that as the focus. And you just sit in a space of contemplation. So that I always think that meditation is like the best time to obsess over something. Like as a Virgo rising, I'm here, I'm anxious and think too much just like anybody else. And meditation is my time to like, okay, now I can make all those lists that I was thinking about. Now I can obsess over everything because the reality is that if you apply focus and if you stay in a space of concentration, you can't obsess over anything forever. And the more that you just let your mind not be clear, the clearer it will become. When you are in that state of concentration

and when you are really present and are withdrawing your senses, and this is Patiahara, are really present and are withdrawing your senses. And this is Patihara, this is Dharana, this is Dhyana, all in action. And that gets us to the final limb of the eight-limbed path, samadhi, or total absorption. I think that samadhi, it's seen as like, final level of yoga, look at what a good yogi I am. And it's like, if you know that you're experiencing samadhi, you're not experiencing samadhi, first of all. Patanjali thought that samadhi was the

ultimate goal, not just of the eight-limbed path, but of a well-lived life. It's the point at which we finally achieve balance across our mind, body, and soul. He envisioned it as a sense of union between ourselves and all the other beings in the universe. So yeah, samadhi is pretty intense. Not for the beginner. The deepest form of samadhi ultimately is death. It is to move beyond this world. Thinking of the eight-limb path, it's not the same as like eight steps to a great life. This is just what it means to be alive, ultimately. It's not really more complicated than that. As long as you practice the first few limbs, the others will come naturally.

You've been thinking about the sutras for a long time. You know, what have you learned from following the eight-limbed path? Any big insights that have come along the way? Too many to summarize. But my biggest takeaway is that everything is okay. Everything is exactly where it needs to be. The bumps in the road are supposed to happen. The darkness has to be there. If you don't experience the darkness, you cannot understand the light. You cannot appreciate it. There is no love without the opposite side. There is no love without fear and hate. And when you can just accept it all, there's so much beauty in this world. There's the beauty becomes easier to see because you're not trying to pretend you're not obscuring it with nonsense. And also a part of that is that the practice is going to ebb and

flow with time and that it's just going to change. It's always changing. Your needs and understandings are always evolving. And if you can say like, the difficulty is why I'm here. I was built to withstand it. And actually, it's not even being built to withstand it because some things you're not built to withstand. Some things you are meant to fall to the floor and to melt into the pavement. It's supposed to be hard. That was the point. And it's about awareness and losing the need to perform any aspect of yourself. And ultimately, as long as you're in a state of acceptance of all that is, no matter how you are, you're really living the eight-line path.

Jessamyn admits that committing to Patanjali's eight-fold path isn't easy. She's quick to remind us that it's called a practice for a reason. I think that I am on a journey for the rest of my life to accept what the universe has brought me. And I think that the more that I can just accept that it is an ongoing journey and that there will always be new ways that that journey looks, that the more that I can accept that, the better, because it's never going to end. Patanjali knew that following the path would take a lot of work, and that you probably wouldn't fully reach Samadhi.

But Jessamyn will attest that sticking with this lifelong ancient journey, both on and off the yoga mat, is worth it. It's like these truths are being revealed to me in different ways in every moment of every day. And it's beautiful, and I'm grateful grateful because to live is such a privilege. There's so much dope shit that happens every day. And if it means hitting the pavement every day, it's worth it. Talking with Jessamyn has reminded me that there's so much more to yoga than a bunch of twisted poses on some colorful mat, and that committing to a broader version of the yoga path can pay real dividends. So why not take a few steps down Patanjali's ancient path?

You can start by thinking more intentionally about the responsibilities you have towards other people, and to your own body and spirit. You can try to find a space to meditate and breathe, either in a tough yoga posture or just lying down. You can think more critically about your relationship with all things external and commit to getting back to that meditation practice you know is pretty good for you. And remember, it's not about striving for the next level like in most modern practices. It's more about accepting that the path is there to guide you on a journey towards better health and happiness that will last a lifetime. Next week, the Happiness Lab will continue its investigation of spiritual traditions from South Asia.

We'll meet a scholar who'll help us explore the tenets of Sikhism, and we'll see that committing to the full humanity of all people may be a quicker path to well-being than we expect. So I hope you'll join me back here next week for the next episode of Happiness Lessons of the Ancients with me, Dr. Laurie Santos. The Happiness Lab is co-written by Ryan Dilley and is produced by Ryan Dilley, Courtney Guarano, and Brittany Brown.

The show was mastered by Evan Viola and our original music was composed by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to Greta Cohn, Eric Sandler, Carly Migliori, Nicole Morano, Morgan Ratner, Jacob Weisberg, my agent Ben Davis, and the rest of the Pushkin team. The Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and by me, Dr. Laurie Santos.