The Liz Moody Podcast - Ask the Doctors: Happiness Edition—The 9 Best Tips From The World’s Leading Experts

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

I’m so excited to share today’s episode with you because it’s packed with so many actionable tips to help you cultivate more happiness in your everyday life—and understand what might be getting in the way of it. I’m joined by nine incredible leading happiness experts. We’re diving deep into the truth about dopamine and serotonin—what they really are, and why dopamine might actually not want you to be happy. We explore why we often feel less satisfied even after getting exactly what we thought we wanted, and how the “when I get this, I’ll be happy” mindset is secretly keeping us stuck.  In this episode, we get into: Dopamine & serotonin on happiness How our society prevents happiness Having purpose in life Happiness within our career Happiness with social media & news consumption Perfectionism on happiness & so much more! Check out the full episodes of The Liz Moody Podcast discussed today: Neuroscience Hacks For Optimizing Dopamine, Serotonin, Oxytocin, BDNF, And More with Nicole Vignola The REAL Reason You’re Burnt Out (And Exactly How To Fix It) with Israa Nasir My Top Micro Habits: Proven Ways To Get Happier & Healthier In 5 Minutes Or Less with Liz Moody Anyone Can Become More Optimistic—Here’s How with Dr. Sue Varma Why We Have No Work/Life Balance + How To Fix It with Simone Stolzoff The Hidden Elements of Happiness That No One Is Talking About with Gretchen Rubin 3 Things To STOP Doing In Your 20s & 30s To Be Happier, Healthier & Wealthier with Liz Moody The Seven-Minute Secret To Happiness That No One Is Talking About with Dr. Dacher Keltner Science-Backed Hacks to MAJORLY Reduce Stress When The World Gets Overwhelming with Dr. Jenny Taitz Ready to uplevel every part of your life? Order Liz’s book 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success now!  Connect with Liz on Instagram @lizmoody or online at www.lizmoody.com. Subscribe to the substack by visiting https://lizmoody.substack.com/welcome. To join The Liz Moody Podcast Club Facebook group, go to www.facebook.com/groups/thelizmoodypodcast. This episode is brought to you completely free thanks to the following podcast sponsors: AG1: visit DrinkAG1.com/LizMoody and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today. LMNT: go to DrinkLMNT.com/LizMoody to get a free LMNT sample pack with any order. IQ Bar: Text LIZ to 64000 for 20% off all IQBAR products plus FREE shipping. OSEA: get 10% off your first order at oseamalibu.com with code LIZMOODY or LIZMOODY10. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. Formerly the Healthier Together Podcast.  This podcast and website represents the opinions of Liz Moody and her guests to the show. The content here should not be taken as medical advice. The content here is for information purposes only, and because each person is so unique, please consult your healthcare professional for any medical questions. The Liz Moody Podcast Episode 345. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Would you say it's the primary neurochemical that we should be thinking about when we think about happiness? Serotonin is also responsible for peristalysis in your gut. Saying that serotonin is only responsible for happiness, etc., is definitely an oversimplification. When you hear what people regret at the end of their lives, it's always, I wasn't my whole self. I didn't have connection with community. I work too much, et cetera. Why are we working against the things that would actually make us feel good? A lot of times people feel like my life feels like it doesn't have purpose.

In this one study, they show that people who volunteer 100 hours a year live longer. When you're in places and your body is telling you like, wow, this is good. Pause and say like, we are expected to do too much. We don't have great solutions for child care. A lot of jobs demand that we be constantly on and responsive at all times. I think one thing that we could do is a really quick, easy path to feeling happier and feeling healthier. You can make a real true difference in your health in just minutes. And I feel like it is a crime that more people aren't sharing that information.

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Liz Smoothie podcast. Today's episode is a little bit different and I am very excited about it. Over the years, we have had some of the world's leading happiness experts join us on the podcast to share their best tips, hacks, and lessons for living a happier life. And today, we have pulled together the most powerful, the most actionable, and the most inspiring moments from past episodes to create the ultimate happiness episode. You're going to hear from people like Dr. Docker Keltner, who shares a seven-minute daily exercise that will literally rewire your brain to find more happiness.

You're going to hear from Gretchen Rubin, who shares how we can all be happier in our careers, as well as many of our other favorite doctors and experts. Plus, we're going to revisit some of my favorite personal happiness hacks, things that are free, that are quick and that work immediately. If you want to hear the full episode that any of these clips are from, I will be linking all of them in the show notes. Okay, let's dive right in with Nicole Vignola. Nicole is a neuroscientist in the author of the book, Rewire, Break the Cycle, Alter your

Thoughts and Create Lasting Change. Her entire episode is incredible and truly mind-blowing, and we're going to hear some of my favorite tips from it for boosting your dopamine and your serotonin. You also say while we're talking about neurochemicals and how that's all working on our brain is that dopamine doesn't want you to be happy. Can you explain that? There are two different ways that dopamine is released. We call it reward prediction error. So in one way, it's when there's a goal.

So it's a goal directed outcome. So you know that there's going to be a goal at the end. So when you're working on a promotion or you're working to get a nicer car or buy the house, when you receive the reward, dopamine actually drops. because dopamine is responsible for putting you in pursuit of the reward. It's responsible for motivation drive. And that is why sometimes when you get what you want, when that drop comes, you don't feel as satisfied or you think, okay, what's the next thing? But the important part is that when that drop happens, we get a surge of serotonin and other

neurochemicals. It's a cocktail. But what that means is that we need to really be grateful for that time and enjoy it and hone in on that present moment. Because if we don't, we could easily just be like, oh, well, that was underwhelming. What's the next thing? And just keep on the cycle of the arrival fallacy.

So when I get there, I'll be happy. When I get there, I'll be happy. But then when you get there to that finish line, you realize that there's another finish line, another finish line. So if you're always waiting for the finish line to be happy, you'll be chasing happiness without ever really feeling it. So what is the way to combat that other than is it enjoy the journey? And then you said to be grateful in the moment that we get there.

Yeah. What specifically in the most pragmatic way possible are we doing to combat that? Yeah. The enjoyment comes from the journey. So really, again, just being present every day doing this gratitude practice where I do with my clients, the small wins and a big wins. What is your small win other week? What is your big win other week? And when we start out, they always say, oh, well, not that much this week. And then they start talking. And I'm like, that's a win. And they're like, oh, yeah. And then they'll keep talking. I'm like, that's another win. And they're like, oh yeah. And then by the end of the session, they're like, I've had a fantastic week.

Because we can easily overlook the wonderful things that are going on in our daily lives. Just want to backtrack real quick and just go to the second way that dopamine is released. This is really important for phone addictions. Dopamine is also released when it's unpredictable. So that is why checking your phone can be highly addictive because you don't know if you're going to have a notification. You don't know if there's going to be a comment there that's a bit cheeky or reply from someone you've messaged. And that is why it can be really addictive because it reinforces that that made you feel good and you need to do that again. So two different ways. When there's an expected outcome, dopamine drops when you get the reward. When there's an unexpected outcome, dopamine is released at the reward. So do you view dopamine management as mitigating those highs and lows? Do you view it as an awareness practice, a gratitude practice, which you've talked about? Are we trying to reduce the amount of unexpected outcomes in our lives? So with phone use, for example, anything like drinking, gambling, any sort of quick fix to dopamine,

the underlying rule for dopamine is that there needs to be effort in the reward. So that is why using your phone can actually increase your dopamine really high, but then it drops very quickly because there's not a sustained level of dopamine that's being released. If you decide to go for a run or a workout or you do an ice bath instead, dopamine rises much slower in pursuits of the reward. and then it actually remains there for a longer period of time, so it doesn't have this volatile drop that's something like phone use has. And so whilst phone use is fine acutely for its intended purpose, when we go into this reward-seeking type behavior, you'll find yourself sort of doom-scrolling.

And you know that feeling when you check your phone and you don't really know why you've just done it, you just kind of grabbed it for no particular reason. That's your brain trying to attain a reward and it knows that it can get it from the phone. When we release dopamine like that, it's a very quick high, a really quick low. There's a refractory period where it goes below baseline, which means you need more to feel just as good. And that's why by the end of the day,

it loses its impact, and you feel like you're on this hamster wheel of it. I'm just desperate for something, but I don't know what. And you know that feeling. I know that feeling. I think we all know that feeling. Choosing the long-term reward is a much better way to go about it versus the immediate reward. So I always say like if you want to use your phone, that's fine.

Just be mindful about it. Be conscious. Like I'm happy to go into a little real hole and I have the best time. I'm like, this is hilarious. The internet is so great sometimes. But I don't let it impact my ability to exercise, for example. So anyone that's using their phone first thing in the morning, for example, and then they say, oh, well, I don't have the motivation to work out, but you've just depleted all your dopamine for social media use. Of course you're not going to be motivated to do a work out. And choosing that long-term reward is much harder than if you just had the reward right there, which the brain then starts to favor. It would say something like, if I was to personify the brain, why would I work out if I can get to feel just as good by scrolling on my phone? And the reward is

right there. I don't have to put any effort into it. Oh, that's so interesting. Okay. And then the other one that I want to briefly touch on is serotonin. Serotonin really has a reputation for being the thing that is associated with happiness in our brain, I think largely because of SSRIs and those being the primary form of antidepressants on the market. Is that an oversimplification or is that how you've used serotonin as well? It's an oversimplification. I mean, serotonin is also responsible for peristelis in your gut. That is contracting the muscles and pushing the food you've just digested through the tract. So saying that serotonin is only responsible for happiness, etc., is definitely an oversimplification. Would you say it's the primary neurochemical that we should be thinking about when we think about happiness?

It's responsible for regulating emotion. So when we see a drop in serotonin, we see obsessive thoughts come through, we see irritability, and we see those kind of cyclical thought patterns. predominantly, like I've spoken about in the context of breakups. So even though I have oversimplified these neurochemicals in the book so that people can really get an understanding, serotonin is responsible for a variety of things. But what we see is that it's an amalgamation of neurochemicals to make us feel a particular way. We can hack dopamine by engaging in exercise. We can hack serotonin by engaging in meaningful conversations and laughing, et cetera. And we can hack oxytocin by staring into each other's eyes and maybe even holding hands. We'll have to do that at the end of the line. And those can all help us to improve our lives, I suppose.

Are there other hacks for serotonin? because I'm somebody who sometimes struggles with depressive tendencies, and for a number of reasons I don't take antidepressants. Are there ways I can get some of those effects? Yeah. Laughter is probably one of the best ways to do that, and then sunlight. So viewing sunlight helps to create serotonin in the body. At any time of day, or is that the morning viewing?

Well, morning viewing, evening viewing, but any time of the day as well. Of course, caveat you don't want to be sitting in the sun all day and get bones, etc. I love that, though. I feel fueled by the sun. I have a standing desk that I bring outside and I'll just work outside all day. Yeah, perfect. I wear a hat. But I feel better when you do.

I feel so much better. And my husband sometimes says, like, it's just weather. Like, why does it impact your mood so much? I'm like, I don't know. It really, really makes a difference, though. Because it's helping create vitamin D. Vitamin D also helps to create serotonin. Serotonin, yes, you can hack it like that and laughter.

So maybe a comedy show or if you have girlfriends that make you laugh, like my best friends, highly hilarious. Would an easy hack then be to move the easier rewards to as late in the day as possible? Yes. Okay. So I always say for the first hour of your morning, I appreciate that it might be difficult. Start with 10 minutes, start with 20, delay phone use as long as possible. When you jack up your dopamine so early on in the day, you're essentially putting yourself in a state of motivation drive where your reward seeking for the rest of the day. So that will impact not only your phone usage, but probably reaching for sweet treats and your motivation to do

harder, deep work at your job. Exactly. Next up, we're going to hear from Isranasar, a therapist and the author of Toxic Positivity. This episode dives deep into so many topics like burnout and people pleasing and perfectionism. But today, we are going to focus on how community building will bring deeper satisfaction into your life. Yeah, it's so interesting when you hear what people regret at the end. end of their lives. It's always I wasn't my whole self. I didn't have connection with community. I work too much, et cetera. And we hear these things, but then we just do the opposite.

Why are we working against our own best interests? Why are we working against the things? So this is like a broader, like existential question, right? The reason we do that is because of the way our social structures are set up. So right from childhood, especially like right now, children are told right away that you have to be a part of like four different things to excel and you have to be really busy. You see your parents. They're like super busy all the time. And no one is really talking about balance or alignment. And then you enter the school system. And it's this false meritocracy. You're told that if you work hard, you'll get the thing. then you hit like your undergrad like 20s and you realize people getting the thing are the people

who have network and social capital and connection yet you're like no no but if I work hard I'm going to get it and so you get on this like treadmill forever right and the second thing is we are unacquainted with the joys of having the alternate path we don't remember how good it feels to be playful we don't remember how good it feels to be present and then we've got this like social media landscape that is driving the attention economy. Well, and it makes you want to perform even things that didn't used to be a perform. Like your skincare routine might have used to be for you, but now you're comparing it to all these people with their 10 steps. Skincare routines online. Maybe you're even filming yours or share with your friends. It makes your vacation performative in a way

that it was and it makes your vacation comparative in a way that it didn't used to be. Yeah. The vacation thing is a real sticking point for me because I've been to places that, you know, the person, I was traveling with has found on Instagram. And then like, we do this hike to get there. And there's like 7,500 people there waiting in line for that one shot. And nobody is in the shot. So it looks like it's just you, right? And so I very actively try to just never look up the place I'm going to on Instagram. Like, I just won't do it. When I get there, I look for restaurants or like bookshops. And that's it. So I think that's how we can bring a sense of agency back. We have to make these choices that feel really difficult,

that feel like, okay, I want to film this like beach that I'm on and I want to post it. The moment you feel that, do the opposite. So it's called opposite action and it's from DBT therapy and it's used for like emotional regulation. But I think it can be a very powerful tool when our instinct to kind of share comes up. asking yourself, why am I sharing this? Or doing a photo dump after your vacation so that you're present in the moment and you're not sharing stories because the moment you share something, you're going to go to look at who's watched it, how many people, all that jazz, right?

So I think like it's these little ways where we can kind of take back some of this control. But the reason is like we are in a culture that is really pushing us for that. And it's hard to kind of answer this question without bringing up the very capitalist nature of the world we're in. And I'm not an anti-capitalist either. I think it's really important. But again, it's like we have to balance. Yeah. Yeah.

Now you're going to hear straight from me all about one of my absolute favorite micro habits for happiness. We love micro habits over here on the Liz Moody podcast. And this one will truly change your life. The other thing I love about micro habits is you've heard us say this on the pod. and it's actually in my book too, but neurons that fire together, wire together. So basically at any moment, we are creating and cementing in these neural pathways. And the more we've cemented in a neural pathway, the more likely our brain is to take that neural pathway in the future. So the thoughts that we think the most often shape the paths that our brain literally takes. So if you're

meditating for 10 minutes a day, but you spend the rest of your waking hours being stressed, being angry, saying mean things to yourself, that 10 minutes a day isn't enough to counteract the neurons that are firing together all day long, which means the path that your brain is going to be likely to take in the future will be filled with stress and anger and saying mean things to yourself. But, but there is good news. If we pepper in microhabits all day, we are firing those neural pathways that we want together all day long, which means we are wiring the neural pathways that we want together all day long, and our thoughts will gravitate towards healthier, happier places in the future. So there is an argument to be made that micro habits make an even bigger

difference in our brains and our bodies than the larger habits that we talk about all of the time. And again, these just really work. A really quick, easy path to feeling happier and feeling healthier. You can make a real true difference in your health in just minutes. And I feel like it is a crime that more people aren't sharing that information. Microconnections are these little moments of connection to others that are a secret to happiness that nobody talks about. Chatting with the person behind the counter at the grocery store, smiling and making eye contact with people in the street. This morning, Zach and I met a new neighbor on our surfwalk. And we talked for 20 minutes about Buddhism and kittens.

and nomad life, and it drastically improved my mood for the rest of the day. I first learned about microconnections when I had Dr. Sue Varma on the podcast. She's a psychiatrist who specializes in the science of optimism. So we were talking about all of the ways that we can train our brains to become more optimistic. And one of the ways that she shared was to take advantage of microconnections, which are these little moments that we connect with people in our lives, whether they're the people that are close to us or strangers. And there is a ton of research to back this up.

Making eye contact releases oxytocin. So you get a rush of good feelings when you look someone in the eye and have a real conversation. Oxytocin helps reduce stress. It can increase pain tolerance. It can even support our immune systems. It also increases your sense of feeling socially connected, which is hugely important. A very famous study found that lack of social connection, was a greater risk to our overall health than obesity, smoking, and high blood pressure.

In fact, it increases our odds of death by 50%. And here's the interesting thing. You don't necessarily need a whole group of amazing friends to get the benefits of social connections, although, of course, that's awesome, and we all want that too. But for these benefits, you need to feel connected to others. And having these micro moments within your community is a really real. really powerful way to build that feeling of connection. But it's so important to note that that feeling of connection, it's not only going to improve your mood, your psychology, but your physical health,

your lifespan on this very real tangible level. I aim for at least one of these a day, if not more, but the ideal dose is dependent on you. So play around with it and see what makes you feel socially connected. And yes, sending a text or having a phone call is better to be. Better than nothing, but this is one where you really want to do it in person if possible because you want those eye contact benefits, you want those local benefits of feeling part of your community. If nothing else, I use the research around micro connections to remind me to keep my phone in my pocket when I'm in line at the grocery store or on my cirquarks to look up, to look around to smile at people. It's made my days and my entire life really feel so much.

much brighter. If you have headaches, allergies, brain fog, skin irritation, or you've been dealing with hormone issues, you are especially going to want to listen to this ad. Every single thing that I just listed has been linked to chemicals and household cleaners. One study found that regular use of cleaning sprays was associated with a lung function decline comparable to smoking 10 to 20 cigarettes per day. Synthetic fragrances are a well-documented migraine trigger and a number of studies have linked ingredients in common household cleaners to fertility issues, thyroid dysfunction, mood changes, and more because of their impact on our endocrine systems. Luckily, you can just make one simple swap and you can eliminate all of those risk factors that you get from common

household cleaners. Branch basics makes cleaning products that are plant and mineral based, completely fragrance-free, and made safe certified, meaning they are screened against thousands of known and suspected harmful chemicals. And best of all, you literally use, one product, but you mix it with different amounts of water to make your kitchen spray, your bathroom cleaner, your laundry detergent, your produce wash, your glass cleaner, literally everything. It does not smell. It does not give me headaches. It does not give me rashes or itchiness from clothes because you are. Remember, we're using this for laundry. We're using this for literally everything. And it works so well. Everything gets so clean. And I know that I'm protecting myself from

all of those long-term issues too. And I'm protecting my kittens who are much tinier than me. So anything they're exposed to has a much greater impact on their little tiny systems. And they're running around on their little paws and then they're licking them. So I'm protecting them too. Branch Basics is now available at Target.com, Amazon and branchbasics.com. So it's easier than ever to make the switch. And if you want to grab their premium starter kit, you can use code Liz Moody for 15% off at

branchbasics.com. That's code Liz Moody for. for 15% off the premium starter kit at branchbasics.com. And when they ask you where you heard about us, please make sure to mention the show. That is branch basics.com and use code Liz Moody. I'm genuinely confused how masterclass gets literally the absolute top people in every single field to teach every single one of their classes. I use it when I want to learn things directly, like the cooking class from Thomas Keller has all of the wisdom that you would normally have to go to culinary school for. But also, I'm being honest, this is like a use case. I don't hear a lot of people

talking about. I'll just watch it for entertainment when I want to do something that's far more interesting than scrolling. Christina Aguilera taught me to sing. Shan Boudrum's Art of Mastering Confidence and Sex Appeal class is 10 out of 10. There's menopause classes with leading doctors. There's script writing with Mindy Kaly. Literally, you name it, they're on masterclass and it is such a good way to get off your phone, but have something that's like not quite as long or hard to get into as a TV show or a movie and that it just keeps you entertained and interested. And you, you are learning. There are over 200 classes from the world's best, all for just $10 a month when billed annually, and you get unlimited access to every class on the platform so you can

learn at your own pace whenever you want on your phone, your computer, or even in audio mode, like a podcast. If you're looking to stop scrolling and start consuming entertaining content that makes you feel excited and helps you learn, masterclass is it. And the best part, every membership comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee so you can start learning risk. free. Right now our listeners get an additional 15% off any annual membership at masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. That's 15% off at masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. Masterclass.com slash Liz Moody. The number one rule of habits is to make the things that you want easier and the things that you don't want harder. Yet so many of us want to eat healthier, but so few of us actually take the

steps to make eating healthier easier. That's where Marley Spoon comes in. What I love about this company and what's different than all of the other companies out there that are doing like stuff in the same arena is that you can customize your choices based on the effort that you want to put in. So if you want them to send you ingredients, so you can make your own 20 minute meal and like get into your chef energy, they'll send it to you to all be in perfect portions so you'll eliminate waste. Great, that's sorted. But they also have meals that you can just heat up. They have ready made breakfast, which is always such a tough time of day to get a healthy meal in. They have grab and go snacks. Everything is made from farm fresh produce with high quality proteins and you can select by dietary preferences, including Mediterranean diet, which is the top diet that doctors on this podcast recommend.

Also things like gluten-free, dairy-free, low sodium, anything that you need. The food is so good and it's so gourmet feeling like you feel like you're at a nice restaurant. We're talking like chicken Milanese with a crunchy cucumber arugula salad or everything bagel salmon with truffle chive potatoes. My favorite recent meal was the creamy lemon chicken tray bake. I had one of those moments where I looked at my plate and I was like, wait, I made this. And so quickly, like so easily, it's just so little effort for so much reward. Marley Spoon just makes eating well feel easy instead of stressful. And honestly, that is everything.

This new year, fast track your way to eating well with Marley Spoon. Head to marlyspoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals. That is right. up to 25 free meals with Marley Spoon. That is Marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody. So remember to get the offer in there. Marley Spoon.com slash offer slash Liz Moody for up to 25 free meals. Next up is Dr. Sue Varma, an incredible psychiatrist and the author of Practical Optimism. This episode contains so many actionable steps and practices to become happier and more optimistic. but what you're about to hear is a major one that you can begin implementing immediately.

Let's start with purpose. Can you explain to us why that's important for optimism? Yes. Purpose is about being intentional and being deliberate. And I talk about this with aim. It's about acknowledging what it is that you want and how you got here. A lot of times people are like, purpose is scary. It's like such a big question. And I'm like, it could be purpose in life, but it could be purpose in this particular activity that you're doing, this particular friendship, this particular relationship. It could be anything. So just get granular about what purpose means to you. One of the biggest things that's important for purpose is giving back because a lot of times people feel like my life feels like it doesn't have purpose. The quickest way, the easiest way, is do an act of kindness for

somebody else. And if you can do that on repeat on a regular basis to be like, did I do my act of kindness this week? A weekly thing, it could be a daily thing. I realize that that's a big ask and people may not have the time for that. But volunteering can be four times a year. It can be five times a year. In this one study, they show that people who volunteer 100 hours a year live longer. Adolescents that volunteer by helping little kids out, like younger than them with their homework, with artwork, they have less inflammation in their body. They're less likely to get heart disease when they grow up. So get your kids into it.

That's so cool. That's such a cool fact. And you say that our job doesn't need to be our purpose in life. What happens if our job isn't our purpose? We're just like we're clocking in to make money, but then it leaves us too tired to find purpose and passion in the rest of our lives. Everyone we know it right now is busy. But I would say it's your job.

If you can't find your purpose, it's your job to create it. And it doesn't have to be something that you do every day, though, if you do find meaning, you can find at the end of the day, another piece of purpose is about cultivating joy. And cultivating is an active. actionable verb, where you say, if you get meaning and joy from painting, from ceramics, from pressing leaves into a document in something pretty, or making cards, if you have any artistic bend, if you like to cook, anything that allows you to experience your creative expression and

mastery, but then in service of someone else. So I have a patient who has a full-time job, she's in media, she enjoys it, but at the end of the day, she's like, there's something missing for me. What's missing is the creative aspect because a lot of people have maybe corporate jobs or working for someone else. And I say that purpose is a creative expression and it's your soul's way of engaging with the world aligned with your own values, talents, skills, and hobbies. And I think that's key that everyone has an outlet where they have creative expression. So she ended up on her days off or carving out an evening to do artwork and then was giving those to friends for like, presence and they brought her so much joy to go to their houses and to see her artwork on there.

Wait, that's so interesting. So would cooking for yourself be passion but cooking for another person be purpose? Yes, yes. Oh, that's such an interesting framing that I've never heard that before. Like you can turn your passion into purpose when you align it with benefit for somebody else. They see that in a study, healthcare workers are more likely to wash their own hands knowing that they were spreading less infection to other people. So if you want to get someone to do something, you want to get someone to recycle, whatever it is you want to get someone to do, tell them that other people are benefiting as a result of this action. And they're so much happier and so much more willing to comply if they know that their little act of kindness impacted someone else. I think

at the core of it, it doesn't seem like it with all that's happening in the world right now, but at the core of it, people are really good at heart. And they really do want to help other people most of the time. So if you're listening to this and you've been feeling like a little adrift, like you don't really have a sense of purpose, would a good action plan for you to be to take something that you're already doing and do it for somebody else? Yes. And somebody who would appreciate it, right? And that might be the trickier part, but loneliness, same idea. The best way to cure your own loneliness is to reach out to somebody else to ask them how they're doing. And a lot of times when as someone is feeling down or lonely or lost or confused, they're like, I don't have the bandwidth

to help someone else or be like, why? Like, I'm the one who's lonely. No one else is checking. And that's pessimistic thinking. No one else is checking up on me. No one else did this for me. Why should I help someone else? When I was sad, when I was grieving, when I was mourning the loss of a relationship, when I went through a breakup, nobody asked me how I was doing. And you can sit there and you can get fixated. You know, it's like you can be right or you can be happy, right? Which one do you want be. Simone Stolzoff's episode was one of the most popular ones that we have ever recorded and it is no surprise. He is a workplace expert. He's the author of the good enough job, which encourages us to rethink what work-life balance actually looks like in practice. So right now you're going to hear exactly

how work-life balance impacts our happiness and what we can do to be helpful in that realm. Is there anything that we can learn from other countries that would help us in that journey without having to like up our lives and move to southern Italy? As much as I, you know, that sounds great. Yeah. One of the big things that we can learn from some of the countries that have the best happiness indexes is it's directly correlated to having better work life balance. And a lot of that comes from things that you might not think are directly related to work, like having better universal education systems, having better universal healthcare systems. it can allow the pressure on work to be less consequential and therefore allow the whole society

to be able to take some of that pressure off of work. I think one of the tensions that we see in this conversation is that a lot of innovation in the past 30, 40 years has come from the U.S. and how much is that a result of our work-centric society? If there were better worker protections and if there was more done on a societal level to try and protect people's basic human rights. Would Silicon Valley exist in the same way that it does? Would all this entrepreneurship exist? I'd like to think, yes. I like to think that we're seeing more opportunities, more startups, more unicorns come out of places that aren't the U.S. that have better protections, that have better work-life balance.

But it is a tricky tension that I think a lot of people who are trying to think about these sweeping society-wide statements are wrestling with right now. I don't think it's a zero-sum game. I do think that people who are able to live more balanced lives can also produce great work. And especially as we move from an economy that was based on manufacturing and churning out widgets into an economy that is based. on primarily coming up with ideas, that there isn't always a direct relationship between how many hours people work and the quality of work that's produced. If you're deliverable is a headline for a marketing campaign or a strategy for an organization or something like a big idea for a book, your brain needs space in its day in order for ideas to bounce off of each other in order to

process all the information that you're taking in. And a lot of these four-day workweek studies have shown that working less does not necessarily have to come at the expense of productivity. In fact, a lot of these organizations that have experimented with four-day work weeks have found that they've been able to have as much, if not more, output, even though they're working fewer hours. It occurs to me that a lot of this has to do with our obsession with status. Like even the idea of we're the most innovative country. Look at all these great things. And I think, some of those innovations have had really positive effects that you can clearly see. And some of those innovations are just like, so we can say, like, look at this stuff we're doing. We're making more

money, essentially. We're contributing more stuff to the world. And even the thing you talk about in the book about like the people who have the capacity to work less are working more. And I thought that was so fascinating because it means that it has nothing to do with how much the work is being demanded of us, it has to do with us seeking some sort of status or some sort of validation. And I wonder if, one, that rings true to you. And two, if you have any advice for not needing that status, especially in a society where status is such a big thing. Yeah, I brought two things to mind. One was a conversation that I was having with an academic that was talking about why so many of the increases in work time are coming from men in particular.

And one point she was saying was that, you know, some activities like work can have a pretty direct relationship between the effort that you put in and the outcome that you get. So, for example, if you're a writer and you're sitting down at the computer, you can write words on the page and then you can see that progress increase in a linear way. whereas other activities like parenting, for example, don't always have that one-to-one relationship. And she was saying, you know, a lot of working dads who might be trying to invest in their relationship with their kids and not seeing that direct line of progress can put themselves

into their work shoes just to receive that external validation. And I think it also brings up a point around the difference between being extrinsically or intrinsically motivated. The data that you mentioned about the average work time in America in the 1970s used to be the exact same as the average work time in France and the average work time in Germany. And now, a century later, the average work time in the U.S. is 30% more than the average work time in Germany. And the highest earners are responsible for the greatest increases in work time.

And that just blew my mind. Like the highest earners are responsible for the greatest increases in work time means that the people who need to work the least are working the most. Of course. And that points exactly to your point on status. I think people aren't necessarily working out of necessity. They're working out of choice because maybe the amount of money they make is some sort of social status that makes them feel worthy or validated.

But the problem with these external forces of validation, what the journalist David Brooks would call the resume virtues, is that we can spend our entire life chasing carrots without actually feeling full. We'll always have to draw the line a little bit further out, and the goalposts keep moving. There was this one study that has really stuck in my mind, which is of kindergartners. They went into preschool and then into kindergarten rooms and looked at what kids. did during their free time. Then they broke up all the kids that like to draw into three different groups. In one group, they said, okay, in this experiment, if you draw, we'll give you this award that has your name on it and has a little ribbon on it. And if you draw, we'll give this to you at the end. For the second group, they didn't say anything out front, but if they drew during the

experiment, they got the reward. And for the third group, they didn't say anything at all. Do the experiment, come back to the classroom two weeks later. And they found that students in the second and the third groups drew for the exact amount of time that they did before and after the experiment. But students in the first group, those that were shown the award and then attached drawing to the contingent reward they might get at the end drew at a far lower rate. I think this is indicative all of the status chasing, all of the external validation is that if you're only working to be validated in the eyes of others, it'll never feel fully. meaningful or give you that same sense of purpose than you would get if you are working to

intrinsically connect with something that you yourself value. I think that's why venture capitalists become Ironman athletes and try and find another way that can succeed, even if they've succeeded in all the material ways. It's why people chase promotions that don't actually lead to a higher quality of living just to be able to validate their hard work in the form of a time. title. We get caught up in these games and we start playing by the rules of the market as opposed to consulting what we actually value ourselves. Gretchen Rubin in the word happiness might as well be synonymous. Her podcast is quite literally named happier and she's published tons of New York

Times bestselling books exploring how to be our happiest and fullest selves. If anybody has little tips and tricks to make every part of our lives more joyful, it is Gretchen. What is one thing that we could all do to be happier in our careers. One thing that the research shows is that if you ask people, are you happy at work? They say they have a friend at work. And a friend is not just somebody that you talk to about pop culture around the coffee pot. A friend is somebody you can confide in. A friend is somebody who has your back.

And if you have a friend at work, you're much more likely to be happy at work. Also, if you feel like the person you report to cares about you and you, you're, you achieving your aims for yourself. So this is not your charismatic boss who's at the very top giving the big vision. This is the person who's like you know and you work with. If you feel like that person knows you, cares about you and wants to help you succeed in whatever you want for yourself, that's going to make you happier. So those are important. Having a sense of control. I think this is very interesting post-COVID. A sense of control is very important to happiness and control over time and control over how you do your work.

We're all still working through the implications of hybrid work, remote work. But one of the reasons people like it is they feel like they have more control over time. I live in New York City and many, many people have extremely demanding commutes. And if they don't have to do that commute, they just feel like they have so much more control over their time. And that feels very significant. So if you think about making a friend, choose your boss wisely, not always possible, and trying to find ways to have control over your work. These are things that will make you happier at work.

I love that. And then you host a podcast with your sister. Could you share one thing that we could all do to be happier in our familial relationships? This is a great one. So in my family, we use email, but you can use text if you wanted to or people use all kinds of different apps. And every, say, five, eight days, each of us, my mother, my father, my sister and I will send something called update. The title of the email is update. And the motto of update is, it's okay to be boring.

And you write just like the most boring report of what's going on in your house. My father will report on his golf game or my mother will be like, oh, I got my hair colored. Or I will be like, Pornby woke us up in the middle of the night, throwing up and, you know, it was a hole to do. Whatever. It's okay to be boring. And we do this because my mother had observed something that I think everybody's observed that when you see people all the time, you have a ton to tell them. And when you see people very rarely, it's like, how are you? I am fine.

How are you? I am also fine. You have nothing to say. And the more frequent the contact, the more rich and full, your understanding of someone else's life is. So we do this. So then I can say like, oh, how did that go? Oh, I know you guys were going to go to that movie. How was it?

Or you said, this was really fun. Are you going to do it again? It just seems like these little things. It just makes you feel like you're in such closer contact with the people that are important to you. The reason that it's okay to be boring is I think sometimes we feel. like we need to be funny, we need to be complete, we need to be well crafted. And kind of the less often you reach out, the higher the stakes. And the more often you reach out, the lower the stakes.

If you're texting with somebody all day long, you write one word or like an emoji. If you're texting with your college roommate that you haven't talked to in two years, you feel like you have to craft some heartfelt thing. And nobody wants to craft the heartfelt thing, right? It feels like too much work. So by doing something repeatedly, we make it easy and bring down the stakes. and yet it serves very effectively to make us feel closer to other people. And of course, you could do this with a friend group. You could do this with a bunch of old colleagues who we had our first jobs together, but now we're scattered all over the city.

We could just stay in touch this way. I absolutely love that. When you think about strength and resilience, like your ability to feel energized, to recover well, to stay strong as you get older, what do you think that actually comes from? Most people say working out are good nutrition. And yes, of course that matters. but there is a biological foundation underneath all of that that most people are completely

overlooking. I have been diving deep into this lately with the team at timeline and what I've learned has genuinely shifted how I think about my own health. Every single movement that your body makes every step, every workout, every muscle contraction depends on energy produced at the cellular level. And at the center of that is your mitochondria. Here's the thing that nobody tells you, certainly nobody told me, starting around age 30, are mitochondrial. naturally become less efficient. More get damaged, more become sluggish, and over time that impacts your energy, your strength, your recovery, and your resilience. Most of us respond by pushing more. We're like noticing these things and we're adding in more protein. We're trying to fix it with more

supplements. We're trying to do harder workouts. And those things do help. But timelines research suggests that we also need to be supporting the cellular machinery underneath. And that is exactly what their supplement, Mitopure does. It contains urolithin A, which helps your body clear out damage mitochondria and support healthier ones so that your cells can produce energy more efficiently. Because this is happening to your cells, it's going to impact your entire body, your immune system, your muscles. One study found that taking mitopure increased muscle strength by 12% in four months with no change in exercise routine, it's going to impact your energy, your sleep, your skin, Your cell health impacts all of this, and urolithin A keeps your cells healthy.

Timeline has done over 15 years of research and testing on this one product, urolithin A, which, by the way, most of us lack the gut bacteria to synthesize naturally. That's why many of us need to supplement it to get the benefits. This has become a staple supplement for me. It is my top way to support how I want to look and feel as I age. Support your cells and how you age with mitopure gummies from Timeline. Visit Timeline.com slash Liz and save up to 3.3. 39% on your mitochondere gummies. That is timeline.com slash Liz. When it comes to wellness, you're going to get the best results by focusing on the big needle

movers. A lot of us spend a lot of time trying to optimize that last 1%, which creates a ton of stress and it actually doesn't help our help that much. At the top of the needle mover list, sleep. And one of the best ways to optimize your sleep is to optimize your mattress, which is why I love avocado green mattress so much. First of all, this mattresses, is so comfortable. I have the one with the pillow top, which is medium firm, and it's just a dream. I miss it when I travel. It's better than even the fanciest hotel beds. Having a mattress that supports your joints and your body and feels good is going to help you get more sleep and better quality sleep. But then, on top of that, avocado mattresses are made with certified organic

cotton, wool, and latex, and they are made safe and green guard gold certified. They're also Okotech certified, which is the gold standard. I look for it in any mattresses, sheets, or towels that I buy, which means the materials have been rigorously tested for harmful substances. You can actually look for the Okotech standard 100 label right on the product, and I love this part. It includes a traceable certificate number and the name of the testing lab so you know exactly what you're getting. There are no toxic chemicals. There's no harmful off-gassing.

It does not smell like it's going to kill you when you unbox it. This is what I mean. I'm not going to swap out all of my clothing, which is that top 1% of optimization. but by making sure that my mattress and my bedding are as good for me as possible, I literally reduce my exposure during a third of my life, which is a huge needle mover for a one-time swap. I will also note, and this is a me thing, but I sleep super hot and avocado's materials are really breathable and it makes me sweat the least of any mattress that I have slept on.

And avocado is a certified B-Corp and a 1% for the planet member because caring for yourself and caring for the planet do not have to be separate things. You can get up to 20% off organic mattresses and more by shopping Avocados President's Day sale right now at avocadogreenmatress.com. That is avocado green mattress.com. No code needed. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years and I'm so obsessed with it. I've been telling all of my friends to get it, so now I need to tell you guys. Here's some science first. Your skin isn't just getting older. It's being actively broken down by something called senescent cells. These are cells that have stopped functioning but refused to die.

They sit there releasing inflammatory signals, breaking down your collagen, degrading your skin barrier, and accelerating every visible sign of aging. Scientists call them zombie cells and as they accumulate, they are one of the primary drivers of how old your skin looks and feels. The team at one skin, a group of female longevity researchers and PhDs, spent five years testing over 900 peptides to figure out how to help reduce the accumulation of senescent cells. And they finally landed on it. OSO1, the first peptide scientifically studied to reduce skin's biological age at the molecular level. OSO1 goes in and it clears out the senescent cells so it helps skin function like healthier, younger looking skin. It is not masking the signs of aging. It's not targeting one thing. It is actually

rolling the clock back at a cellular level. I've been using the face moisturizer for almost six months now, and I love it so much. It feels amazing. It goes on really smoothly. It's not tacky at all. And I actually see a difference, which I just feel like is never the case with skincare. You want to always like see a real difference. And you're kind of like, do, do I? Do I? And this I genuinely do. Because it's clearing the senescent cells, it doesn't just target one thing. So my skin looks firmer. It looks glowier. The texture feels dramatically smoother.

And I feel like you can see that too. I also love the body moisturizer. It dries down really quickly, which is always a pet peeve of mine with moisturizers. I hate that, like, sticky feeling when you go to put your clothes on. This does not do that. But it does moisturize really, really well. And then again, I'm reducing my skin's biological age. I am not making it just look younger.

I am making it actually younger. OneSkin has four peer-reviewed clinical studies and over 10,000 five-star reviews. The data backs everything up. For a limited time, get 15% off with code Liz at oneskin.c.com slash Liz. Again, that's 15% off at oneskin.com with code Liz. It's me again. You all asked what I wish I knew going into my 20s and 30s and what I wish I could have done to be happier and healthier.

Honestly, I could have recorded a dozen episodes about this alone, but I was able to narrow down my best possible advice for you. I'm just going to be so blunt right out the gate. You need to stop spending so much time on your phone and particularly scrolling on social media. This is the root cause of so many of our life problems. And honestly, it truly sucks that this is a problem previous generations did not have to deal with in the same way.

But scrolling on social media is making us compare our lives to other people. people's, which makes us feel like our lives aren't enough. It's making us buy things that we don't want, which is blowing our budgets. It's making us terrified about the world because instead of choosing when we want to consume fear-filled news, the algorithms are choosing when we consume it. So we can be laying in bed, feeling peaceful, and then bam. Suddenly, there's a news post in our feed and it spikes our adrenaline, and it makes us feel really panicking. This is actually a really important micro tip. If you do nothing else after listening to this episode, do this one thing. Actively seek out your news. Do not let your news seek you out. You can still get all of the

information, whether it's on legacy media or on podcasts or social media accounts. Just make a list of the ones that you want to check in on and then set a time to check in when you are prepared to digest the information and take action steps. Right now, so many of us are bombarded with so much information at such unhelpful times that it is putting us into freeze mode. And we are letting people hijack our attention and hijack our emotions under the guise of being good citizens while, ironically, it's making us far less likely to take action. Choose when you consume your news. Do it on your own terms.

It will drastically change your mental health. And it'll lead to you being far more likely to process and digest the things that are important and take action on the things that matter. Okay, that was a digression, but an important one and one that I feel really, really strongly about. It's actually wild when you think about how we consume news. It's like people come into our house and they shout these really emotionally activating things at us whenever they feel like it throughout the day. Okay, going back, other negative impacts that our phones are having. They are messing with our neural chemistry, making it harder for us to feel pleasure and motivation in our daily lives. They are

messing with our ability to actually enjoy being around people in our lives. I cannot tell you how many times I have seen people out at a restaurant or I have even been out with friends and they are scrolling instead of talking to each other or to me. I have a friend who's a high school teacher and he says in the cafeteria these days, it's just silent because everyone is on their phones watching videos with headphones in and it is just such an eerie thing to picture. And here's the thing that I think a lot of people miss when they say we need to get off our phones. It's hard. One of the huge reasons that we default to being on our phones is because it's way easier to passively consume social media content than to actively make a conversation with someone.

Making conversation comes with pressure. It comes with potential judgment. Your brain has to work so much harder. And guess what? Not despite all of those things, but because of them, it is so, so worth it. We need to acknowledge that doing anything other than social media is going to be harder. Reading a book is going to be harder. Making plans with a friend is going to be harder. Going for a walk is going to be harder. And we need to do it anyway because in the long run, the hard of choosing to scroll is so much worse. It is making us anxious. It is making us depressed. It is making us lonely. And we are going to wake up in our 80s and realize that we have scrolled away literally decades of our lives.

We get to choose our heart. Choose the hard that will make you feel so much better in the long run. I have an entire episode about overcoming phone addiction with lots of science-backed tricks that work really quickly, and I will link that in the show notes. But for now, I just want you to do the real math. What are you gaining from scrolling and what is it costing you? And are you willing to pay that price. Even the smallest steps can make a huge difference, only having your phone in your purse when you're hanging out with friends or creating no scrolling hours for yourself. Just play around, try some stuff that works for you and just make sure that you are doing the math. Dr. Docker Keltner, the author of the incredible book, A, was one of my own professors back at UC Berkeley and his class

absolutely changed my life. I am still reeling, honestly, from the fact that we were able to have him join us on the podcast. I have just loved his work forever. And it was such an honor. It's one of my favorite episodes that I have ever recorded. And I think that his research that we are about to share right now will flip your world upside down in the best possible way. Other than awe, what do you think is the lowest hanging fruit that we're all missing in terms of living happier lives? I mean, I've taught happiness at Berkeley for 20 years. I'm sad you didn't take that class. taught it to a lot of people out in the public. It always comes into focus to me when I'm approached by somebody who's like, they've got a friend who or a child or is just suicidal or really,

really in trouble. And that's where this science is really put to the strongest test. And to me, it's three or four things connect. The world in the United States conspires against connection. We're online. We drive by ourselves. We commute. I live by myself. Even if you're an introvert, you know, find what your social diet is and just do it. And you'll find that adds 10 years of life expectancy. And that's why the surgeon general, Fivake Murthy, he's like, that's the first thing. The second thing for me is service, is compassion or service, like, okay, how am I going to be kind? And make that commitment, you know, and yeah, some people screw you over, but just like make it, and this is Buddhism, certain strains of Western thought and a lot of science, just like, and Jesus, you know, it's like, first thing is kind. Gratitude is a big winner.

It's like, stop for a moment, you know. I remember when my brother was passing away, I was like, God, I teach happiness. And, you know, I am not feeling that right now. And I was like, okay, you know, this is a hard one. Like, what am I grateful for about this? And a lot came forward, you know, like, well, I now realize even though I only had my brother for 50 years, 55 years, they were worth 200 years, right? So gratitude is a good one. And I put awe up there. The thing that's interesting about awe, in the happiness world, we talk about the pleasures, like, oh, I love food and burritos and massages and so forth. We talk about positive states, like gratitude.

We talk about social connections. And Crystal Park has gotten us to start thinking about meaning. What's the point of your work right here, right? And awe gets you there. Aw really is a good meaning compass. It's like, oh, man, I feel awe. You know, for me, it was and is working with prisoners. I don't get publications from it, but it's just like raw.

You know, it's just like, that's what I got to do. And every time I do it, I feel strengthened. So connect, gratitude, service, and then the meaning, like, what's your story of your life? And that's harder. Sometimes it gives you doubts. Sometimes you feel uncertain. And awe helps with that. Okay.

I have so many questions on that. So the last thing that you're saying is that essentially what fills us with awe can point us in the direction of what will fill us with a sense of meaning and purpose? There's a whole tradition with respect to the meaningful life or happiness that says what we have to do, and your questions have really almost invoked this tradition, it's like cultivate experiences that are good for us, right? Which is hard to do. The cell phone doesn't help, right? Drugs sometimes don't help. Money doesn't help. Jobs don't help. Cultivate those experiences. And it's interesting, you find that tradition in Aristotle and David Hume, this great British philosopher, Charles Darwin, Buddhism,

like find your experiences, a lot of the wellness industry. And those experiences get you to different ways of being in the world. So if I cultivate compassion, I'm going to be really good at serving. And that's good news for happiness, right? Like, God, I cultivate a lot of compassion. When I go out in the day, I'm more generous. I help someone. If I cultivate amusement, I take things more lightly. If I watch a bunch of SNL videos, that's a passion, amusement. And then I'm laughing about, you know, the faculty meeting

or work or whatever. Aw gets you to meaning. Aw gets you to like, what's the point of this? You know, why am I feeling awe about this piece of music or this conversation with this person, you know, this idea. Oh, I care about justice. Or I care about sensory beauty or reducing harm in the world. So awe is a meaning emotion. Anger, which is good for social contexts in some ways, is about justice. And there are a lot of data on that.

When I feel angry, I'm going to go make things fair. You know, awe doesn't necessarily do that. But it definitely gets you to like, what's the purpose of what you're doing? And we need that right now. All right. Okay. Then going back to my other questions, gratitude has become such a buzzword. It is. People are confused about how to do it. Do we find our gratitude for the same things every day? Do we find new things every day? Are we writing it down? Are we thinking it? So can you give us your ideal gratitude prescription based on the research that exists? My recollection is that one of the best researchers in this field, Sonia Lubermerski, down at UC Riverside, is doing the careful work. And this is how science progresses. You get these effects.

People freak out. Wow, let's promote gratitude everywhere. And then it backfires. So what's the right dose? And my recollection is Sonia is saying like once a week. Right. That's not that hard. Yeah.

Yeah. Or, you know, if you got a regular practice, fine. minutes a day. The big winners are twofold, which is a way of noting and savoring what's good and everything. Thinking about my brother dying, I was like, wow, this is horrible. Colon cancer is a horror show, you know, and it was horrifying. But what, what here can I appreciate? What in nature, right? So you go out, you have your, and just pause and savor it and name a couple things and form images around it so that it enriches your memory of it. So that's one. And then the second is we did some of the research on this with Amy Gordon now at Michigan is, you know, just express appreciation to people. And you got to do it thoughtfully, carefully, and intentionally. Get into a practice of once a week. This comes in some sense out of the gratitude letter. study, which did really well in the comparisons of gratitude techniques, write a letter to somebody. That's good news. But also, you know, every now and then for the people, when you're really feeling it

and you have good words and it's tailored to the person, say it, right? And, you know, in the right way. And people are wise and they could figure that out. And that's good news. You know, we in our work, you know, romantic couples that were just sort of, hey, man, thanks for doing the dishes. It's powerful. note things and savor them that are worthy of reverence and then express it to people. Okay. I like that because what I find when I try to do this like structured practice is I'll get in bed at the end of the night and I'll be like, okay, I'm grateful for my cat. Okay, I'm grateful for my husband. Okay, I'm grateful for the weather. And they just feel like these, I'm just listing the same things every day and it almost becomes a rote. Yeah, it does. And that's why I said a little bit different. Nose do work. You could probably construct ways in which they would backfire. That's why I like, you know, when you're in places and your body is telling you like, wow, this is good.

Pause and say like, why am I grateful for this, right? And then the good stories will come. Like, I'm grateful for this because I get to do this, you know, this concert experience with this old friend regularly. And it makes me think about the whole history of that. So focus on the experience in the moment and savor it. I love that. I was so excited to have Dr. Jenny Tates, who is a psychologist, a professor, and the author of the book Stress Resets on the podcast because her book is literally packed with small steps and actionable insights to take control over your emotions and learn to live with daily stressors. Stress is one of the number one reasons that we feel less happiness than we would like to, so it is incredibly important to tackle it right at the source.

I was going to ask us later when we get into all of our stress scenarios that I'm going to have you solve for us. But since we're talking about it now, a stress scenario I hear from a lot of people is there are literally too many things to do on any given day to do the things I need to do to keep my household running. If I have children adding that in, adding in making money going to work and then having any sort of self-care, restorative time while connecting with my partner, while connecting with my community, while connecting with any outside family, it just feels like quite literally too much every single day. And that gives people a lot of stress. What can we do about that? I just want to start by normalizing. Like, yes, there are too many things. This is not your fault.

We are expected to do too much. We don't have great solutions for child care. A lot of jobs demand that we be constantly on and responsive at all times. And so it is really, really hard. I think one thing that we could do is really think about what are things that we think that we're doing that are working that might not be working. So, for example, like so many people when they are faced with so much to do multitask. And multitask is actually really ineffective. And so maybe you're like, okay.

I'm working and then I'm also checking my phone to like text messages to my partner about plans for tonight. And then I'm also like ordering groceries online. We're doing too many things and then we're not doing anything well. And so like if I'm dealing with a lot, what are the most essential things that I need to do today? And how can I be most effective in each domain? And I see so many people swing between perfectionism and procrastination. You have a lot to do. Like maybe this isn't the night to like follow some like fancy Instagram chefs. Very complicated recipe. Maybe we're just going to do like a 10 minute crockpot meal. Really be like mindful of like, okay, what are the key things? What is aiming for good enough? And like where can I not hold myself to unrealistic standards of doing 10 things at once?

I totally identify as being perfectionistic, but a huge thing that I'm talking to a lot of clients about us. Maybe at certain times it's okay to be B minus. Like I would say with confidence, I am like, a C minus cook, and that's fine. I would rather be a C minus cook and an A to A plus therapist and an A friend than an A plus cook. That's where my values align. And nowadays, like, everything has become so complicated and focused on how things look rather than how they feel. That is all for today's episode. Make sure that you're following the Liz Moody podcast on Apple podcast on Spotify or on YouTube so you never miss an episode. We have one coming up with a decision-making technique that I have not been able to stop talking about since I recorded the

episode. I've shared it with like five friends. It just keeps coming up in life over and over and over, which is when I'm like, oh, this is going to be really helpful for people. It's already been really helpful for me. So make sure that you're following the podcast. Wherever you listen, you do not want to miss that episode. And if you know somebody who could use a little extra happiness in their life, I feel like that's all of us right now. I want to give so many people just like a virtual hug right now. But hopefully this episode serves as that. Send them a link to it. It might be exactly what they need to hear right now. And sharing your favorite episodes is just so helpful. It's an incredible way to support the podcast. And it is so, so appreciated. We are able to bring you

this show completely for free thanks to the amazing brands that we partner with. If you are looking for science-back products to elevate your life, you can find all of our current discount codes at Liz Moody.com slash codes. And do not forget to send up for our newsletter. It's called The Takeaway. You can find that at Liz Moody.substack.com. This week on Friday, so in two days from now, we are diving into food dyes. Are they actually bad for us?

What does the science show? That is over on Liz Moody.substack.com. We also have deep dives into raw milk into NAD plus. So much interesting content over there. So Liz Moody.substack.com. And lastly, come hang out with me on Instagram. I'm at Liz Moody. I've been going hog wild over there recently, and I would love to know what you think.

And if the content is helpful for you, so please check it out and shoot me a DM and let me know your honest thoughts. Okay, I love you. I really love spending this time together. It's such an honor and enjoy always, and I will see you on the next episode of the Liz Moody podcast. Oh, just one more thing. It's the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional.