The Liz Moody Podcast - Stanford Joy Expert: Why a Raise, Weight Loss & Your Dream City Won't Make You Happy (And What Will)

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Do you ever feel like you're chasing certain things to finally feel joy? Or like your joy needs to be earned? It turns out many of us do, and it is hugely impacting how we feel in our daily lives.  In this episode, you are going to understand exactly how to bring more joy into your life and how to reap the incredible mental and physical health benefits (even if you’re struggling right now). My expert guest is Dr. Kelly McGonigal. She is a renowned health psychologist, a Stanford University lecturer, and one of the world's leading experts on the science of stress and joy.  🎧 What you’ll learn: • The difference between joy and happiness • Why your joy has a literal scent that other people can detect • How a single moment of joy can physically reduce pain in your body • What's overrated and what's wildly underrated when it comes to joy • How to access joy when you don’t have what you want in life • How many extra years of life joy can add • The one thing sociopaths have in common with people who dismiss joy as frivolous • The emotion that's the biggest barrier to your joy Check out the other episode with Dr. Kelly McGonigal: “Stanford Psychologist: Anyone Can Crave Exercise—Here's How” • Listen/Watch on Spotify • Listen on Apple For more from Dr. Kelly McGonigal: • Joy Is A Risk Worth Taking, Book: https://kelly-mcgonigal.kit.com/90bfd08eea  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellymariemcgonigal/ • Website: https://www.kellymcgonigal.com/ 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.Buy our cute sweatshirts, conversation cards, and more at https://shop.lizmoody.com/. Use our discount codes from our  highly vetted and tested brand partners by visiting https://www.lizmoody.com/codes.  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: • Evlo: Go to EvloFitness.com and use code LIZ to get 6 weeks free today. • OneSkin: for a limited time, try the new OS-01 FACE RICH Cream for 15% off using code LIZ at ⁠OneSkin.co/Liz⁠. • Seed: go to Seed.com/LizMoody and use code LIZMOODY to get 25% off your first month. • Masterclass: head to MasterClass.com/LizMoody for an additional 15% off. The Liz Moody Podcast cover art by Zack. The Liz Moody Podcast music by Alex Ruimy. 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 469. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you ever feel like life is just this endless cycle of answering emails, doing laundry, feeding yourself, brushing your teeth, and then collapsing into bed, exhausted, just to wake up and do it all over again the next day? There's this collective feeling that if we just push through someday it'll pay off and we'll finally earn a joyful life. But it's hard to know when someday is, especially when we're constantly dealing with very real existential dread about AI and the economy and the political climate and climate change. Turns out we are getting joy very wrong and it is hugely impacting how we feel day to day in our lives.

And before you panic, no, this is not another chore to add to your overflowing to-do list. Understanding the real science of joy will actually take things off of your plate. And I promise joy is available to you, no matter how busy or tired or anxious or broke you are, no matter how unattainable your dreams feel, no matter if you're dealing with chronic pain or grief. We are going to show you exactly how to bring in the joy and how to reap

the incredible benefits. I am so incredibly excited to welcome Dr. Kelly McGonigal to the podcast. She is a renowned health psychologist, a Stanford University lecture, and truly one of the world's leading experts on the science of stress and joy. Her new book, Joy, is a risk worth taking is absolutely phenomenal. Welcome to the Liz Moody podcast where we believe that there is always something that you can do to create a life that feels amazing. And we help you figure out how to find the lever to pull at any moment to actually do that. Kelly, welcome to the podcast.

I'm so happy to be here again. I'm so excited to have you back. You are proposing a really different take on joy in your new book. So what is the number one thing that you think people get wrong about joy? The number one thing people get wrong about joy is they think it is an emotional reward for having a life where everything is going well. You know, that one moment of peace where you have no problems, no pain, no worries, no conflict, and you can just finally like rest in this grand contentment that life is perfect. And the way I view joy is that actually it is your capacity to be uplifted by anything that makes life worth living. and it is most important to have that capacity when life is hard, when you are in pain, when there is

conflict, when you're worried. Yeah, I love that. And we're going to get into some of the things that listeners wrote in that was getting in the way of their joy. So I think that's going to be very applicable. But I first want to sort of define what joy is. Is there a difference between joy and happiness and contentment and pleasure? Yes, all of that. As a psychologist, if you ask people how happy are you or are you happy, most of the time, they do this kind of assessment of their life globally. And usually people say they're happy when it feels like everything is going well. And it can be hard to say, I'm happy if you're grieving, or if you're sick or someone you love is sick, or if you're overwhelmed by some of the chaos going on

in the world. Whereas joy is an in the moment response, it acts like a signal where your body and brain recognizes something good in the world or something good in you or something good in your life, it's like a signal that says, yes, life is worth living. Yes, you belong. Yes, there's beauty in the world. Yes, there is goodness in human nature. It's like this uplifting signal that basically bolsters your enthusiasm for life, your sense that you matter. I think that makes joy so interesting as an emotional response is it's two things that merge. together. It's a sense of pleasure or relief that is combined with meaning, significance, or value. So if we took an example of like hearing a beautiful bird saying, there's a part of you

who might notice that bird and there's a part of you that appreciates this beautiful creature, that in that moment of listening to it or looking at it, you feel a little bit calmer. Maybe you feel more connected to nature or to life itself. There's some part of you that is able to to sense value or significance, even in small pleasures or delights. And that's what might distinguish joy from something like if you were eating ice cream and it's your 10th spoonful and it's still taste good. But there's no part of you that's thinking, this is what I was born for. Like, this is what makes life worth living. I've done a lot of surveys asking people, tell me about a moment of joy from the last 24 hours and tell me about your most joyful memories. And the most joyful

memories. We get a lot of things like holding my baby for the first time or, you know, when the person I loved said, I love you to me for the first time or one really memorable one, someone had been held hostage and the moment that he was rescued, that was it. We could see, obviously recognizing the significance of those milestone, life-changing moments. But most people also feel it in our bodies as a kind of lightness rather than heaviness or we feel a kind of expansion. What's something that brought you joy in the last 24 hours. So we have these two kittens and we have made the decision to not sleep with them in the bedroom because we did give up like 15 years of sleep with our last cat. And there's only one of her. And there's two. So they cuddle and they're happy all night. But then in the morning,

every single morning, we crack open the door. And when the door cracks open, one of them, Moonbeam, you can hear her like thump down where she's sleeping from. And then she runs down the hallway and she goes the whole way. And then she jumps in bed and like aggressively cuddles. And it is, such a magical way to start the day every single day. I love that. That's just such a great moment of joy. Just looking at you, I can see the joy. We can recognize a moment of joy is there's often like a headline you could put underneath it. That's kind of a general statement of something that human beings need to know to be true. Like you could imagine that cat running to you and like a headline that I could put as a cat rescuer be something like someone needs me. That there is a feeling we get.

it's a very specific moment or interaction, but our bodies and brains know to interpret it in a way that affirms something we need to be true. As human beings, we have these core needs to matter, to belong, to have something to hope for, to not feel like everything in the world is hideous and awful. Moments of joy, I think of them often as moments that are just trying to let you know

whatever your worst fears are about yourself or about life, I want you to remember you are needed. Someone loves you. What you do matters, that people can be kind, whatever it is. There's a reason to laugh. That was a great example of joy too, because it's really the joy that's present in your life because of choices that you've made that are consistent with your values. What was one for you today? I know. We just adopted a cat too. Waking up and seeing the cat was still next to me. I hope people who listen or watch your podcast like cats. They like pets, for sure. And I know that you're a big fan of pets as a vehicle for joy.

Yes. What do pets do specifically? Like, what are the benefits of pets that people aren't talking enough about when it comes to joy? So just to be fair, this is like not a transactional thing. All pet lovers are like, we're actually thinking about the joy of the animal too, of course. People often when they're interacting with animals, they find themselves to be loving or attentive, playful, accepting. a lot of people are craving contexts or relationships

where they can be that version of themselves and it's like really valued and when you are that version of yourself you're so rewarded for it. There's so much cynicism in this world and so many relationships where people feel like they have to be guarded and when people interact with animals

often they're a less guarded version of themselves to be in an interaction with an animal often allows you to get in touch again with the part of you that maybe you do value but haven't found another place to express it. I recently heard from someone who thought she wasn't an affectionate person until she got pets. There's a type of research called ecological momentary analysis where they stalk people. And they're like every five minutes, they're like, ding, what are you doing?

What are you feeling? Can I get a read of something on you? Like, we're going to measure your heart rate or your facial expressions. And it's this constantly trying to figure out over the course of 24 hours, what is your life like? And so when researchers want to know when people are more, most likely to smile, laugh, experience play, or affectionate touch, or caregiving. Interacting with a pet or with an animal is when you're most likely to have that type of experience. We got to go to the high-risk shelter and find a cat who's in urgent need to rescue because

she's sick and has problems and she just had seven babies and she's been in a cage for two months. And one of the greatest joys in life is doing something that's consistent with your values. So when you have this moment of saying, I want you to have a good life, like you are a creature who is struggling or suffering and you deserve a good life. Your core thesis, correct me if I'm wrong, is not just like joy will make you feel happier every day. It's joy will give your life a sense of meaning and purpose and like your life is worth living. Yeah. And I feel like the animal care is almost like a metaphor for that. You're like, oh, I get to like give your life a sense of purpose like every single day.

I'm glad you use that language because I'm not uninterested in people being happy, but it's not my core motivation. Joy is also this capacity that we have to let our values be transparent in a way that lifts other people up. When I think about joy, I want you to be able to use this capacity to feel your life as full of meaning, but also to give that sense to other people. That's part of what we have joy for. is to lift others up.

Okay, Kelly, I believe you're prepared two truths and a lie, and everybody listening at home, play along. Let's see if we can guess which one is the lie. People are more likely to experience joy when they are with other people versus when they are by themselves. Number two, people who experience more joy live longer. So joy makes you live longer, but the effect is stronger if you have less stress. Number three, joy as an emotional state has a signature scent that you release that other people can detect.

Okay. So I think three is true because I read that in your book. I am cheating. Which is really cool. I know. We have to talk about that. We have to talk about that. Because not every emotion has a signature scent. No. Number three is true. Joy does have a scent. Okay. I'm going to say number one is the lie. because you think we are empowered to create joy regardless of whether we have access to other people or not. Okay. And number two is also true. I do think we live longer if we are experiencing more joy.

And it makes sense to me that the effect would be stronger if you have less stress. Although I also know that you've done research about how our relationship with our stress changes, our experience of stress. But I'm going to go with number one as a lie. Do I win anything if I stump you? Yeah, you get $10,000. I'm not. It's a big, I have a huge chat that we're going to bring out.

Wrong. Okay. It actually is the case. Many studies have shown this to be true cross-culturally, that people are more likely to experience joy with other people than when alone. Okay. And some people hate this. When I say this in a class, people are like, I'm an introvert.

Yeah. I don't want to be around other people. It's true even for introverts. But categorically, when you look at the biggest causes of joy, social connection is number one. But also being in nature is number two. And for many people, that's alone. So it's not like you have to, it has to be your biggest source of joy.

But just looking at it statistically across human experience, when you ask people to describe a moment of joy or you look at when people experience what they call joy, people are more likely to experience it with other people. So when my dad says he could just go off in a cabin in the woods and never talk to anybody ever again and be happy. And I'm always like, no, dad, you need people. people. Am I right or is he right? Because he has the nature. Yeah. And he wants to bring his dog. Okay. So we have that. So first of all, we should say for many people, dogs and animals get included

in that social category. Okay. So I should just let him go do that. My dad probably would have said something very similar to. I know people want to argue with this. People can do whatever they want. If you know what brings you joy and you can create a life around joy and meaning, please do it. But it just so happens that one of the reasons joy exists as a capacity is it's a signal for telling you that you're not alone. And humans are social species. Somebody going off into a cab and by themselves for real is going to have a hard time surviving. We are adapted to have interdependent relationships. And it can be hard to trust others.

It can be hard to be not selfish. It can, you know, be hard to be in relationship with people who have differences. and one of the things that keeps us in interdependent relationships is joy. The joy we feel when we make someone happy, the joy we feel when we cooperate, the joy we feel when we have fun together or play together. One of the core functions of joy as an emotion is to make interacting with other people rewarding and satisfying so that we build attachments. You know, the joy you feel when you're caring for your child.

What really stands out to me too when I've asked people from recent moments of joy, one of the most common themes is an unhappy situation. that also included a moment of connection. A woman talked about caring for her husband when he was going through chemotherapy and was very sick. And she described that as a great moment of joy because she felt so much love for him

and felt needed. She said, I could imagine doing this for eternity, like living in this moment. I could do this for the rest of my life because there's real joy in it. Even though she did not want to be in that situation, she didn't want her husband to be going through chemotherapy. Somebody living in Ukraine told me about

huddling in a bomb shelter with his neighbors and the conversations they had and how close he felt to them as a great moment of joy. And that's not a happy or positive situation. Another woman talked about having lost her husband and her neighbor lost her husband and they were standing in the driveway and she was hugging her and trying to give her some support and feeling joy that she was able to offer her neighbor the support. Again, this is not a happy situation. The fact that joy emerges in that way in these situations, again, to me says that one of the functions of joy is to let you know you aren't alone and also to make you feel like that is one of the most important things to life, to either be able to help others or to feel connected or close to

others. By mentioning that statistic, I'm not saying you have to become an extrovert, but I think there's a great deal to be learned from paying attention to the moments that bring life meaning. It doesn't mean you have to spend 24 hours a day with other people, but to consider also that your presence could be a source of joy to others too. Like it goes both ways. It's not like just, I love being around other people. One of the greatest acts of joy you can do is to listen to somebody. There are probably people you encounter all day long who don't have anyone who really listens to their stories or who ignores them. Maybe they feel like not seen as a human being as they go out in the world. Maybe they live alone. To be somebody who just goes out in the world and listens to people

or gives people the benefit of the doubt. One of the things that really surprised me about other people's research is when people are asked to describe really meaningful moments of connection, how often they're small moments, sometimes even with strangers, and how much joy it brings people to feel connected in that way. Which I think is like so important for people to hear

because I think a lot of us sometimes have this sense that like, who cares if I even smile at the person at the store or if I'm even there or not at the social event, like my presence isn't going to impact anything. And I know aging parents often feel like that too. Like, what does it even matter? Like, nobody cares if I'm there. Knowing that you have the power to truly impact somebody else,

even in a teeny tiny moment, is such an important message. Growing up, I had a lot of social anxiety. I also am an introvert. So I understand there's just this desire to kind of cocoon yourself. One of the things that really helped me was when I started teaching in my 20s, I had different types of interactions with people than I was used to. I'd always assume people don't like me, people don't want me here. And when I was teaching, I was teaching fitness.

And suddenly, I felt like people were happy that I was there. And I had something to offer. And I just started smiling at people. And I was like this assumption that me being here is an okay thing and maybe even a good thing. And so I would like say hello to people, which I would not have done before. And you don't have to be teaching for this to be something you could choose to do. And it really changed my life to think that my physical presence in a social environment could be a positive thing rather than, you know, something that nobody wanted. Joy has a smell.

It does. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell us about that. This is so cool. Let me tell you about one study first. There's a type of study where you try to make people feel strong emotions. And for joy, it was comedy. To get people watching comedy laughing a lot because laughter is one of the greatest sounds of joy.

and then collect samples at their sweat, ship them off to people in another country, have them smell the sweat samples. And in this particular study, people smelling the sweat samples of someone who had been laughing really hard, they immediately smiled. They weren't like, I smell happiness.

They just smelt the sweat, and they smile, and they report a boost in mood. So this is cross-cultural. It's like, your joy smell. We could send it to somebody in a different country. It doesn't require cultural understanding. There's a biological scent of joy. It doesn't feel real.

I know. That feels crazy. And there are a few emotions that do this because some emotions change your blood chemistry more than others. It's because of the changes in your blood chemistry that it makes its way close to your skin. And then those molecules waft off your skin from your sweat, like if you were wearing perfume. So that's how you end up having a scent. I know that we're here because you're like, joy makes life worth living even in really difficult moments. But I'm like, if it's also impacting your body chemistry in this way, is it like,

decreasing inflammation? Is it making us think better? Like, what are the other downstream benefits on our bodies? We have one of them and our truth and two truths and a lie. So every moment of joy, I describe it as biologically consequential. Again, like not all emotions are biologically consequential. Stress is one of the most biologically consequential feelings you can have. Most people know about that. But joy is equally biologically consequential. So in a moment of joy, you're going to see changes in your cardiovascular system, changes in your immune system, almost always a reduction in inflammation. You'll see changes in other hormones too, depending on the situation. Pain you talked about in your book, right?

Yeah. Any moment of joy can decrease physical pain in your body and decrease also the distress that you feel about pain. I mean, they're a great experiment where they inflict pain on people or they take people who are already in pain. And then they introduce, I call it like a joy stimulus. Is that usually like a comedy show or something? No, do you know what the most effective? Yeah. It's music.

It's music. It's music. Music is the easiest way to induce joy for most people in a controlled environment. People have such a powerful emotional response to music they love. And that reduces pain. Yeah. Yeah. So you could be going through a painful medical procedure.

You could be somebody who's experiencing. chronic pain when my father was dying of cancer and the pain medication didn't work near the end. It was absolutely inadequate to the pain of that process of dying. Only two things reduced his pain. One was listening to music and the other was my mother touching him while he listened to music. I don't think anyone would look at that and say that's joy. That's not a joyful moment. Someone's an excruciating pain, trying to feel less pain. You know, my mom, like in trying to manage her own feelings about the situation. But it's the same mechanism of joy. It's the same capacity, right? In that moment when you're suffering, something happens that makes you feel cared

about. Something happens that brings up positive memories. Something happens that induces positive emotions. That's, you know, what the music is often doing. You know, touch that makes you feel cared about that says you're not alone going through this. In another context, you would experience that as joy. And it's that capacity to receive that signal that's underneath joy that is providing the relief in those moments. And that's why when I say that joy is not only possible, but necessary when life is hard, I'm talking about that capacity. I'm not talking about a moment where you feel like there's nothing wrong. It's your capacity to be uplifted or to be comforted by these things that make life worth living.

One of the things that I love about EVLO is you all are physical therapist, right? Are you all? Yes. Everyone is. Yes. That's wild. So to me, especially for a home workout, I'm always so worried about hurting myself, doing something a little bit wrong and causing more pain down the road.

Well, I'm trying to do this thing that's good for my body. Yes. It was a very intentional choice when I started EVLO. I wanted all of the trainers to be PTs because we have this underlying education that don't get in fitness certifications. We also really understand as physical therapists how to modify, how to cue, how to help someone feel a muscle more. We understand biomechanics and how to load muscles. Are there injuries that are common when people start strength training for the first time that you guys are able to prevent? Common injuries that we see in strength training are a lot of back

injuries, a lot of shoulder injuries. A lot of people are just doing crappy programming and they're hurting themselves. One of the things that we hear from members all the time is that they switch from another exercise program and they no longer see the back pain or the neck pain or the shoulder pain that they saw with other programming. And that is because the structure of our programming, we aren't overusing muscles. And we're also choosing exercises very intentionally and intentionally leaving others out. I just think that's so cool. Like you guys do make so many little intentional choices. You're able to understand like, okay, this muscle connects to this muscle. And if you do this in the wrong way. This is going to hurt this a little bit. I do have this tendency to overwork my lower back. I think

it's compensating for a lot of different muscles in my body. And so when I do a less intentional routine, often I'll come home with a sore lower back. And I don't have that with EVlo at all. Yes. And we hear that all the time. And that's because of exercise selection. I see so many Instagram posts of like a workout where it's a squat and then it's a bent over row and then it's a deadlift. Well, all of those movements are also loading your low back. So you might find you get a lot of fatigue in the low back, even pain. If you're doing all of those exercises back to back to back, it's just a lot for your low back. And yet you might not feel like you're growing the muscles that you're actually trying to grow and target because you're limited by your low back. There are certain exercises that we have

intentionally left out of EFLO, some really popular ones. Like you might not see a squat. You might not see an overhead press. You wouldn't see a bent over row. It's not that they're bad exercises or that they don't work. It's just that as physical therapists who we train women at home, we just think there are better exercises that are more targeted for muscle growth and are less likely to strain or impact other joints. People end up seeing better results, but they feel less worn down and they reduce their risk of injury when they do EVLO. This was part of our special series where instead of just sharing an ad for EVLO, we're trying to give you guys real value and sharing a peek into Dr. Shannon's amazing knowledge that makes Evlo so truly unique and special.

I have been doing Evlo workouts for over two years now, and I have not only changed my body and gotten so much stronger, I have eliminated the pain that I used to get working out, and I have enjoyed working out and stuck to it for the first time in my entire life. There's truly no reason not to try it because you can use Code Liz to get six weeks for free, including a 14-day free trial and your first month for $0. Just be sure you're redeeming it online, not in the e-es. app, go to evelofitness.com and use code Liz to get six weeks free today. That is evlofitness.com and use code Liz for six weeks for free. You're also one of the world leading experts in

stress. So talk to me about the relationship between stress and joy. Number two. I know. This is hard because I was so excited. I wanted to tell you the truth. First of all, one of the best studies with this is a meta-analysis. I believe it was 93 longitudinal studies. So you know that's good. We're not just going out there and being like, are you feeling joy now? Let me check your heart rate. We're going to study people for years or decades.

And the question is, you know, how much joy do you feel? And are you dead? You know, like 10 years, 20 years later. So we're looking at longevity. And this one study actually looked at 93, longitudinal studies from like every continent on the world, except Antarctica,

over a million participants, you know, tracked for years. And people who experience, more joy, usually not measured as joy. So, because, you know, epidemiologists aren't like, how joyful are you? But they'll say things like, how often do you experience these positive emotions? And it might be like joy, hope, affection. Or they might say something like, how much do you believe that your life is meaning, which actually is, if you were to ask me to measure how much joy someone has, that's actually a pretty good way. Because joy is,

is such a powerful predictor and signal of meaning, how close you feel to others, which again is also very tightly tied to how people talk about joy. Using those metrics combined, people live longer. They're less likely to be dead at the end of the study. It's a reliable effect across cultures, across all sorts of demographics, controlling for other health issues. And when studies have also looked at stress, what you see is that the longevity benefit is the biggest for people have the most stress in their lives.

So let's say you've had a really stressful last few years. Maybe you lost your job, you were taking care of a sick loved one, you're worried about the things going on in the world. What these studies would say is if you also have moments of joy in your life, you are going to benefit even more than other people from that joy. That joy is going to act like an antidote. It's going to act like a resource, a source of resilience. that will protect you from some of the harmful health effects, the harmful psychological effects

of having such a stressful, difficult life. That joy is more important when life is difficult. There's still a benefit. So if you're a joyful person, you feel gratitude all the time, you smile, laugh a lot. I mean, there's so many different ways that sort of this research compresses joy, you're probably going to live longer than people have less joy. But that benefit is going to be bigger and stronger when life is difficult. Does that make sense? Yeah. I think of it as like almost like a dry garden. It like needs more watering. Yeah. The reason I wanted to put that lie in there is because the lie is what a lot of people, their intuition is. It's like, yeah, joy is great. But it's just not accessible when life is hard or it's kind of foolish or naive what I'm

supposed to enjoy a bird. I'm going to laugh with my best friend about something and that's going to matter when I'm also struggling financially. How could that possibly matter? It matters. And so I wanted to make that the lie so that we had a chance to talk about the fact that when people's intuition tells them that whether it's small moments of joy or small moments of meaning, people have a sense that the joy and the suffering have to be equal for the joy to matter or even like the joy has to be more. But that's not how joy works. The whole point of joy is that it's so important for us to want to be alive, that we can be manipulated in a beautiful way by small moments of meaning or pleasure or connection.

Like you need it more. You need it more. At the times where times are hard. And the amount of years it can extend your life, the studies that have tried to analyze it, like five to eight years. That's amazing. What you should aim for is every day look for something to appreciate. And that's a little bit different than gratitude.

Gratitude is great, but appreciation is in the moment, sense the value of something positive. Allow yourself to acknowledge that this is good, that this matters. I like this. What I did had some positive outcome. It's the opposite of dismissing everything. That's good by saying like, oh, they just said that to be nice. Or, oh, like, it doesn't really matter because it didn't fix the problem. Or like immediately jumping in your mind all the things you have to do instead of

this one moment that felt, you know, so peaceful or beautiful. Because that moment matters. It does. It literally has psychological and physiological effects. And actually, even more so, if negative stuff is around it, that moment matters and should not be dismissed. This may sound like a small distinction. But sometimes when we talk about things like joy, there's still a sense that the real

good is something else. Like you said, because it still has physiological effects. So it's like, we need joy so we don't die. It has that effect. But what I'm saying is this moment actually matters. I think everything we're talking about doesn't work if you're trying to feel joy because you're trying to fix your anxiety or depression or you're trying to feel joy because you know life is stressful and you're trying to boost your immune system. I mean, why else are we alive? Like, what are we here for? One of the exercises that I will have people do is to think back over the course of a recent day and ask yourself at the end of your life if you were given the opportunity. to go back and relive it again, would you? Would you want to do any of this again? Would you want to see any of these people again? Would you want another opportunity to engage in any of the activities you did today? And I think sometimes that helps people recognize I would. At the end of my life, if I had the chance

to have one of those moments back, I would. I love this research, but I don't want people to think that joy is just like a strategy to live longer. And I do think sometimes that, that having those proof points, you know, we all have so much going on and we're looking for reasons to prioritize things. So I feel like having those proof points is like, okay, that's the reason I should prioritize it. And then you get the benefits. It's like a sneaky way in. I like to talk about the positive consequences of joy because too often people resist it for a lot of different reasons. The outcomes are important because they're often what people value. Okay, we have a game. Okay. This is underrated versus overrated. So I'm going to share things. And you tell me

me if you think they're underrated or overrated for joy. Getting famous. Overrated. But do you think that like something I think about a lot is like Taylor Swift has access to that collective effervescence. She's smelling the joy at every concert. Let me tell you why. Okay. I think impact would be underrated for joy. There are elements what she's doing. No, I think about all the time she can like go to a children's hospital and just by her being herself, she has made a kid's life, you know. But there are two things that undermine joy. Fame and power status is another one. People treat you differently and you experience fewer genuine interactions with other people. And genuine interactions with other people is such a massive source of joy for people that when you are interacting with people on a daily

basis who are treating you a particular way because they want something from you or they think they know you, but they don't actually know you, or they experience a kind of like, you know, some kind of positive feeling by criticizing you. If I had to make a list of things that make joy harder, that, again, fame would be one of them for sure. It's so interesting because my instinct was to be like, Taylor, I'll have a genuine interaction with you. But like, even the fact that I want to have an interaction with Taylor is like because of who Taylor Swift is. I'm negating it from saying it. Okay. What about buying things that you love? Like saving up and buying your dream purse or your dream car. Overrated in the sense that people spend a lot of time and money doing it. Like if you had to

ask me where to put your money to experience more joy, but I'm a big shopper, so I understand the desire. Look, it's not going to deplete your joy, but make sure that you're also spending money on things that are consistent with your values. There are many ways to spend money that could bring you joy. What's the number one way to spend money that would bring you joy? I would say probably two things. One is planning for and then enjoying an experience with somebody you care about where it's an experience that's meaningful to both of you. It could be like a trip or a concert or something like that. And the other thing I would say is spending money in a way where you see the money you spent

had a positive impact in the world in a way that's like close to your heart. I mean, there are actually experiments. Donating money to a cause that you care about is a very effective way of creating joy. So to give an example, for a plug, one of the organizations I've been involved with is scholar match. You would sponsor a first-generation college student and they would write you letters. Oh, so you can't do that anymore because of like legal reasons. But I remember my mom- I can't sponsor people that way anymore.

My mom adopted a hippo when I was growing up because she loves hippos. Did the hippo write a letter? We would get like updates on the hippos life. It makes sense like you're getting to see the impact of your spent. And it might be closer to home and you may not be donating to an organization. it could be investing in your community or investing in your home, you know, investing in your family. Yeah, 100%. What about retiring or I feel like a lot of us- Overrated. Overrated in the sense that a lot of people experience a big decrease in meaning and social interaction when they retire. So it's not the lack of work stress. There's some benefits, but a lot of people's lives become smaller when they retire. So you have to really work against that. I think it's such an interesting one because so many people dream of not working and if it doesn't actually make us happier. Work can be a huge source of stress. and dehumanization for people. I mean, like, to be fair, there's a, it's not even just people

are looking for, like, luxury. Like, I don't ever want to exert effort ever again. For a lot of people, there's a lot of stuff going on in work that really makes life harder. But retirement in and of itself, a lot of people experience a decrease in purpose and connection. One tip for somebody who is not working, but wants to feel full of joy still. Go out and find an activity that involves either other people or a place that makes you feel really good about yourself. Get out of the house. Leaving the house as a way of experiencing more joy is so common that people share with me that they're surprised by. Yeah, I feel that. You just feel part of a greater world and it's so easy to feel like the world is teeny tiny when you're in your house. And it's also so

easy to believe all those crazy thoughts in your head when you're in your house. And when I leave my house, I'm like, oh, wait, like those, I don't need to believe those. Getting a raise. I have never seen getting a raise show up when I've asked people about something that brought them joy are their most joyful memories. I've never seen getting a raise show up. I have occasionally seen getting a promotion and getting recognition at work. So I'm going to have to say overrated again because these are not the moments that people remember. Getting married. Getting married. Like the wedding day maybe is overrated, but being in a good marriage underrated. That's definitely one of the greatest sources of continuing stability and joy in my life. Losing weight.

For some people, it can improve quality of life in some ways, but it's not a consistent, a predictor of increased happiness or well-being. So I have to say overrated. Exercise. Underrated. So one of my favorite studies, it's actually called the Happy Database. They ask people all over the world, what's something today that made you happy? When I share it, I always share the top six because exercise sneaks in as number six,

and that always shocks people. But when you actually look day to day at when people experience happiness or joy, like in the moment, exercise ranks so much higher than it should. Just for anybody listening, I want to point out that like all of these other things we spend time pursuing while we're talking ourselves out of exercising are all overrated. Go back and listen to that episode. Do you know that book that I wrote about the joy of movement? Actually, what that book was, everyone thinks it was a book trying to convince people to exercise. that book is chapter by chapter an explanation of one of the greatest sources of joy in people's lives. Yeah.

Like social connection, being in nature, music, achievement. And each chapter says, isn't it interesting that one of the ways people experience this is through movement? But you could actually go back at that. And literally every chapter is. Well, it's also, it says in the title. Yeah, no. But it's really, so that's, you know, those are how we experience joy. Having kids.

I don't think it's overrated. Especially now, I think people are more reluctant. to have kids, right? There's a lot more thought and intentionality, I think, going into the decision of whether they're not to have kids. And there's a lot of people who are like, this doesn't seem like it particularly adds to my happiness or joy. And then there's a lot of people who say, this is quite literally the greatest source

of joy in my life. That is absolutely what I've experienced, too, in terms of when people have shared with me, the deepest sources of pain and joy in their lives. Kids come up a lot. For both? For both. Yeah. To do with that way you will.

Which is not necessarily the same thing as regrets. Yeah. I've heard from a lot of parents who are really suffering because their kids aren't happy. There's a lot of pain that can be involved in parenting, but those same parents, to me, are not saying, I made the wrong choice in life. There's still the love. There's still the moments of joy. And I think that with a lot of things in life, things that bring us the most joy often also come with some of the most difficult moments.

What about moving to your dream city? How much does the environment we're in impact our joy? I'm going to say overrated again because there was some analysis. I don't know if this was an essay or a study that people become so disconnected from things that they have roots in that it's actually really hard to make up for the fact that you are no longer near people who know you. You're no longer near places where you have memories. I'm a perfect example of this.

I spent my whole life wanting to live in New York. lived a little bit in New York, moved to California, spent the whole time I was here being like, I hate California, I need to move back to New York. I spent 20 years building roots here, teaching here, making friends here, knowing places here. I moved back to New York and I lasted like two or three years before I was like, darn it, I planted all my roots in California and no amount of how much I love New York can make up for the fact that I have created all of these, you know, relationships of interdependence, not just with people, but with places in California. People underestimate how important that kind of history is to your ultimate happiness.

That's so interesting. What about nostalgia? Does indulging in nostalgia make us... Underrated. Underrated. Okay, tell us. One of my favorite papers described nostalgia as an existential resource, which is a word that I love to to throw around. An existential resource is something that makes it easier to be alive and to be happy to be alive. Nostalgia, when it is experienced as you connecting to something that you love from the past, is almost always positive. Now, there's another form of nostalgia that's really about contrast, where you're like, people were nicer back then. Yeah, like, we all watched the love story, and we were like, oh, in the 90s, life was better. Nobody had cell phones. It was so great. Yeah. So the nostalgia

where you're trying to compare the past to the present in ways that make that romanticized, the past, that's not a source of joy. But to just allow yourself to re-experience or reminiscing with other people is a big source of joy for a lot of people. You're like, remember when we did that thing and then you talk about the memory together, it makes people feel closer. Re-watching a film you love or listening to music you love tends to increase people's hope. Thinking about positive memories from your own life often has the same effect. So you just have to be careful how you do it. Don't get trapped in the sense that the present is so much worse than the past. I always think of it as kind of like time travel, like to go back and watch something from the past.

There's something like really wonderful about that. It brings back so many memories. You're like, oh, all of a sudden I can remember what my house smelled like as a kid and what I was eating. What about in some evangelical circles, there's this idea that non-Christians can never experience true joy because true joy comes from God. Where does religion follow for joy? Religion and faith are big sources of joy for people who have faith and are connected to religious communities and practices. It's a huge source of joy. The way that I think about joy, it's very similar to things like pain, stress, hunger. There is a huge category of human

experiences that our ability to take delight in them is part of how we survive as human beings. So it's not to denigrate faith or religion. But there's a very thing. there just happens to be this whole, it's a category of human experiences. Laughter is a real thing. When people laugh together and they feel less alone and more hopeful, that's a real experience. And when I'm talking about joy, I'm talking about life, like in this plane, because the version of joy that I'm talking about, that's grounded in joy as an emotion and, you know, a physiological response, it's about this life and our ability to engage with other people.

What about catharsis, like putting on a sad movie or a sad song and crying a ton? Is there joy in the release there? I would say if you were to ask me what's something I can do today to bring more joy into my life, I'm not going to put that at the top of the list. But it can be a very pleasant experience. I mean, I also like in this morning in my dance class, I did a song that involved a lot of more time moves, the idea of like, you know, telling someone to back off. And we were, that felt great. That was catharsis. I hope it was a moment of joy for somebody in the room. Okay, let's do two more. Being weirder, I saw one social media post that said the amount of joy you feel is completely dependent on how weird you're willing to be. Okay, I will 100% say underrated for that because being weird is often about expressing something genuine about yourself. So go for it. What about the pursuit of joy or the pursuit of happiness? On net, do you think that's making us happier or less happy? I always tell people there there are certain ways of pursuing joy that really pay off. off. One is if you have a goal to bring other people joy. So that is not, that's different than

pursuit of your own independent happiness. But if like, when you wake up in the morning, part of what gives your life meaning is knowing that you brought joy to someone else. Somebody else feels appreciated. You surprise someone with something they love. You were able to comfort someone who's going through something difficult, which is a form of joy. If that is part of your motivation and you make choices throughout your day to accomplish that, that will one 100% increase your actual joy. That is a pursuit that works for the most part. The version of pursuing your own joy that tends to work that would be underrated is this kind of meaning-centered coping that I talked about, where you're not necessarily like trying to force feelings of joy,

but you get serious about the moments in your life that you value. And so if you're like, I love how I feel when I do this, so I'm going to stop putting it off. Or I feel a scared when I think about expressing my love to someone because we don't say that stuff out loud in my family. But then you like do it anyways because you value closeness. Like there are choices you can make by paying attention in your life to things that actually do give you what you want to experience in life. That kind of pursuing joy works. I asked thousands of listeners, what was getting in the way of their joy? And what do you think are the top barriers that people say to their joy? There are people who feel like they've lost.

their capacity for joy because they're depressed, they're grieving, they have chronic health issues, they feel beaten down by life. There's another barrier of people who feel a kind of pressure in their lives, like there's no time for joy, that joy is somehow frivolous. A lot of people have a voice in their head. It's almost like, actually, it's like a psychological immune response to joy. And so when they feel joy, self-criticism comes up. Like, who are you to want to be happy? maybe feelings of shame, or the immune response could be a sense of vulnerability. Like, you're this happy now. Do you know how much it's going to suck when things change or you lose it? There's another category of things that get in the way. People will talk about the objective realities of their life.

Yeah. That is also true. Life is so stressful. Life is so hard. I could have an intellectual argument about whether that actually is the barrier. But I'd rather have an empathic response to that. It was all of those things. For sure. But I'm really curious whether you got, actually a huge barrier that nobody ever admits themselves, but I'm telling you, is one of the biggest barriers to joy. Okay. Cynicism. A sense that other people are essentially selfish, manipulative, can't be trusted, that wanting to feel things like meaning or elevation or hope is kind of stupid or foolish.

This is actually like looking at research. Cynicism is one of the absolute biggest barriers to joy. But so many people who are living in a cynical environment or have developed cynicism because of past negative experiences, it feels like a realistic way of looking at the world. It doesn't feel like a barrier. When I come in and I'm trying to remove obstacles, I will admit one of my goals is to try to overcome people's cynicism. So how does somebody recognize if cynicism is their barrier to joy and then how do they overcome it if it is? There's a skepticism. Let's say you hear about something good in the world.

Somebody did a really kind act or somebody overcame an obstacle. A cynical person would be like, I wonder who's making money off of my emotions for this. Or a cynical person might reject it because they doubt their own capacity to be that generous or that brave. When people talk about finding things cringy, there's a sense of not wanting to feel the opening of your heart. We were talking about moments of joy at a concert when the confetti drops. It's one of my favorite moments in life. The cynical response when the paper comes down is how many trees had to die for this moment of capitalism. The uncinical version would be to look around at like 40,000 people who have their faces lifted up

and inhale some of their joy chemo signals and, you know, feel moved that you get to share a moment where people are celebrating something good. Wait. That's the unc cynical version. Super fast. I just, so I know about the concept of collective effervescence, which is like the joy we feel when we're in a group together experiencing joy. Is that in part because we're smelling each other's joy? Yes. This is why I think concerts are so phenomenal. We're literally just, exactly. And like there are other events that work too, but sporting events, but sporting events, you've got a lot of people who are also exuding. Oh, angry. So one of the other things that has a very strong chemo signal is hostility. So sporting events, it's kind of a tough one. You're in a chemical. concoction. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And depends how much you, you are able to tolerate. Because some people get, their nervous system gets very overwhelmed when they feel, when they are inhaling the scent of hostility, whereas other people get kind of amped up about it. Yeah. Like, I'd rather, you can leave your hostility. I don't want to smell. I had that experience with the Winter Olympics

recently where I was like caring about this stuff is exhausted. Yeah. But like in a concert, it's all positive. When it's, when it's fans, like I will go to any concert where I know the fan base is extreme. I'm going to see Harry Styles in a couple of weeks. I like his music, fine. But I'm going there. I'm going there to be... You're like a druggie for joy chemicals. I went to Benson Boone.

I was not a fan of his music, but I kept hearing people say that it was parents taking kids to their first concerts, and it was the kids who were the fans. And I thought, to be in a room full of young people experiencing their first concert and like how beautiful it is that their parents are adoring the music.

I love the idea of you being like, oh, the kid Joy Chemicals. I know, there was a kid in front of me who was so excited. excited. Yeah, so that's why I go to concerts. I mean, I also love that. No, I love that. I think that's part of collective joy. Yeah. It's a smell, but it also, it's the expressions. So it's one of the reasons why collective joy is so hard to do virtually at a distance. When you're in close proximity to people, people's smiles are more contagious. Their laughter is more contagious. Their cheering is more

contagious. They're singing and dancing is more contagious. And when you pack people in, all of these signals like ricochet off of you. Now, if you're somebody who feels anxious or unsafe in that situation, or it's a situation that you're not having a positive response to, like, I hate this music. It's not guaranteed to have that effect. Like, certain things need to be in place. But when you're in a situation where you feel generally welcome, safe, and you're having a positive response, get other people's smiles and laughter and embodiment of joy bouncing off of you. All of those emotion expressions are contagious. emotion philosophers describe it as being like a super organism.

One of the things that's so interesting about joy as an emotion is that it seems to create biological systems bigger than one person. So even you and I having this conversation, I'm enjoying this conversation. I don't know if you are. No, I have. When two people have a positive social interaction just a conversation, their bodies and brains start to sync up more. So probably if we were wearing heart rate monitors, our heart rhythms would look like they

were more in sync than before we started this. and if we had skull caps on measuring our brain activity, what scientists would start to see is it looking like, not just our brains are doing similar things, but like my brain is somehow talking to your brain and your brain is talking to my brain. And I included in the book and actually an image of it, like two people's skull caps with all these lines crisscrossing,

all these different channels of brain activity, are affecting the other person's brain. If someone were to observe us, we are now a system that is connected and influencing one another, and we experience that as more trust, as more liking, as more belonging. And joy does that better than other emotions.

Okay, I had a question about the expressions thing. Do you think that the amount of people getting Botox these days is impacting our ability to feel joy because we aren't able to make the same expressions and we're also not receiving the same expressions from other people? I think it's a good hypothesis. The studies that have been done have been looking at empathy for negative emotions, that if my face can't subtly reorganize itself into a mirror of what I see when you're crying

or when you're upset, my inability for my face to do that sort of outside of my conscious awareness, it limits my brain's ability to understand what you're feeling, and it reduces the activation of the systems of your brain that make you want to help or connect or listen. It's dampening the empathy instinct when you don't have access to all of that. So if we are feeling cynical, how do you help you? people get over that so that they can find their joy. My first piece of advice is to trust what you love. Now, I don't know what that is. The part of you who is less cynical is the same part of you who just love something beyond reason and can't explain it. Like, do you have something like that in your

life that you enjoy, you're a fan of? Musicals. Whenever I go to New York, I'm like every single Broadway play I can see. Now, you could imagine someone being very cynical about Broadway musicals. And you've probably been judged for this. I have defended them. like, why do they burst out into something? And I'm like, because sometimes emotion overpowers you so much that the only way to express it is in song, clearly. So the part of you who cannot be shamed out of loving musicals, that's also the part of you who could be inspired by somebody else's act of kindness or when somebody thanks you to not automatically assume that they're manipulating you or just feeling obligated. Like they're just doing a pro forma. So no matter what the thing that you love is,

it's like lean into that as unabashedly as you can. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do it. I mean, we could put things on the table that then I'd have to maybe walk this back from. But when I talk to people about it, it's usually pretty wholesome. Like, it's usually... Not like murder. Right.

Most people don't say what I love. You honestly, it's killing people. It's usually things that are pretty wholesome, pretty interesting. But maybe that they feel a little bit of embarrassment about it. Yeah, because they love them more than other people do. It's somehow it speaks to some part of them. There's this aspect of resonance where you feel like either life is good or who you are is good or who you are is okay, there's a feeling of like right fit.

I was looking at a lot of studies where people describe activities they love. And one thing really stood out to me, someone was talking about board games. And he said that the closest thing, closest word he could use to describe what he felt when he played board games was love. And I thought like people are not going to understand that, but he understands that. And he values board games as something that actually helped him through a very difficult time in his life. that part of you that's capable of resonating with anything that you think is good, because other forms of joy are also forms of resonance, but you have to be less guarded about it.

So, for example, when I say that you could be elevated by seeing someone do something courageous or something generous, if you are elevated by that, the way I would describe it, is the part of you who values generosity or the part of you who is generous, the part of you who has overcome fears, the part of you who is brave, it recognizes itself in the world. And it's allowing itself to be affirmed by something in the world. What cynicism does is it says, I don't trust the good in the world. And as a result of that, I'm not going to give myself the opportunity to really feel and affirm those things in myself.

And that's one of the reasons why it's such a barrier to joy. Because so many moments of joy are these moments of resonance where you just let you, let yourself be uplifted by something that you value, that you enjoy, that is a beautiful part of who you are. I am so excited to share the main reason I think my skin looks better than ever at 40. I have stopped getting Botox. I barely use any products, but this one has changed the game. Here's the deal.

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their joy from their lives. So one of the big ones I heard over and over was I have endless air. and joy feels like a reward for when they're done, but they are never done between work, working out, eating meals and doing chores. I do not feel like I have time for joy. What would you say to that person? I wonder how that type of person is defining joy.

Again, that sounds to me like somebody who is trying to find an assignment of joy outside their lives. I would say, okay, the things in your life that you're busy with, if you have a job, was there any moment in your job or your work today or your work that you were doing at home where you felt like what you did matter. That's joy. Was there a moment today

where you felt close to someone? You could have a day as a parent where so many things are going wrong and then there's just one moment where you feel close to someone or a moment of shared laughter. You smile at somebody at a supermarket. Yeah.

Or you had a fight with your kid today but also there was a moment where you were giggling together. So what I would say is the person who feels like they don't have time for joy. I'm saying, look at your life, joy is a response to certain types of experiences of mattering, of meaning,

of playfulness, of humor, of affection, of pride. Like, did you do anything today that you're proud of? Maybe in that moment you didn't even give yourself a chance to appreciate it, that you did something hard that was important. You can take joy in that now. People are thinking joy is like, I'm going to go do something that is a hundred percent joy. You're looking for the small moments of your life. So you don't have to do anything else.

Spending too much time on my phone decreases my joy, but I'm so burned out that that's usually my go-to, low effort activity. True, true, true. You know, I'm guilty of this, too. This is where I would say you have to start to engage in self-control and self-support. You need to have an implementation intention when you notice you've been scrolling or whatever on Reddit for 25 minutes and now you're starting to think the worst of humanity. you need to recognize it and do something different, have a plan. More importantly, what I would say is it's not just your phone or devices. There are a lot of systems and messages in the world that the reason they're interfering with joy

is because they are trying to pull other emotional levers. Sometimes I get exposed to cultural things that I'm not usually paying attention to. I'll be at someone's house and they'll have some TV channel that I've never heard of before. And I've been seeing what it is. It's like, oh, they're trying to make people feel scared. Yeah. And then I'll hear someone else listening to something else like, oh, they're trying to make people feel outrage. This is trying to make people feel guilty. It's not just media. It's also people in your life.

Like there are certain contexts that are really trying to pull out of you a type of emotional response that can be a barrier to joy because it just makes it more difficult to trust the good. Yeah. So I would say not just your devices, but are you routinely exposing yourself to, or being exposed to things that really they want you to feel guilty, self-critical, angry, afraid. And if you have any control over that to put your attention towards something else. What about like I feel more joy when I go on a walk or when I go out with a girlfriend and we're chatting and having fun than when I'm scrolling on my phone. But it feels so much harder to get over that hump at the beginning.

Do you have any advice for like getting over that initial hurdle? that brings us into the more joyful situation? You make commitments in advance. These are such simple behavioral strategies. You make commitments in advance. If you have noticed you feel better when you go for a walk, you schedule it. If you can't get yourself to do it by yourself, you get a dog. Or you ask somebody to show up at your door.

If you don't have someone you can ask to show up at your door, you ask for online support and, you know, say who's going for a walk with me at 7 a.m. But you make these commitments and you do not wait for the feeling first. The feeling that you're looking for happens after you do it. You can't want to feel like it first. I mean, there's all that great research about that for sex too, right? The arousal first theory for a lot of people they need to be having sex to want to have sex. Same thing is true for a lot of things that bring us joy.

You have to be out on the walk to notice how much more peaceful or hopeful you feel. If you wait to feel peaceful and hopeful, you're not. you're not going to go for the walk. This is one that I heard a lot, which is I don't think I can find the simple joys in life if I don't have a partner. I want romance. I want kids with a partner. This is a key component of what a joyful life looks like to me. And when I don't have it, it scars every little moment throughout my day. This is where existential courage comes in. You have to choose this as a philosophical stance towards life. You have to find a reason that you're being here matters. And that's different from imagining what your ideal life is like. When I'm talking about joy or taking pleasure

in small things, well, that may not be the version of joy that you're looking for. If you have something in your life that you want that you long for so much and it is not here now or maybe it's not even possible, you have to shift gears from thinking what will make me happy to thinking what makes my life matter. I often will call them acts of joy. There are things you can do that make joy possible. Sometimes they're for you, sometimes there for somebody else, like doing something that helps someone else. And people often are not thinking that's joy because what they really want is the happiness we talked about at the beginning of this conversation. They want life to be the way they hoped it would be. Joy is a funny, different thing. It's the thing that's possible in hospice at the

end of life. You know, when researchers look at people in hospice and have asked them what brought you joy today, It is something like I was able to listen to someone and give them advice. Somebody touched me. I looked out the window and I saw something beautiful in nature. I thought about my grandchild and I imagined something happy for them. It's the same thing that people say who have a long life ahead of them, but they're paying attention in moments to things that make them feel like life matters. I'm wondering if you have any specific advice for like, oh, I'm enjoying the sunset,

but I'd enjoy it more with a baby. I'd enjoy it more with a partner. Like when you're in the moment of these joyful moments trying to appreciate them, and there's this little part of your brain that's like, I can't quite get there because I feel like this thing is missing. In that moment, just have some compassion for yourself. There's a complexity that you also can try to cultivate.

Like you can do the both. I'm appreciating the sunset, and I wish I had a partner to share it with. And maybe, you know, in that moment, you think I can take a picture of the sunset and send it to somebody who cares, about me. Just the fact that you don't have a partner doesn't mean that there aren't people who care about you and that sort of you're connected in ways to other people. Those thoughts that come in

that really dampen what's good in the moment because you don't have the ideal life or, you know, you could be thinking, I'm enjoying the sunset now, but the person I'm sharing it with is sick and won't be here. And, you know, this could be our last sunset. There's so many scenarios you could put in it where you're anticipating that you won't have this again either, like the opposite side. And it's a skill to in that moment be like all of this is true and it's a beautiful sunset. It's such terrible advice in the sense that it doesn't fix anything. But I hope that people understand that it's probably still useful and true. What do you think about the phrase comparison as the thief of joy?

So comparison definitely gets in the way of joy. I would shift your attention. I say lower your detection threshold for joy. So I need you to find something every day that you're going to call a moment of joy. Whether or not it matches what your most hope for expectation of joy is, something that lifts you up, something that makes you smile, something that makes you laugh, a moment of closeness, a moment where you feel proud of yourself. Capture it, take a photo of it, tell someone about it, however you want to do your documentation

of that moment of joy. The comparison is a different mental process. You can work on changing that mental process, but it's really important to train the mental processes that make joy possible. So comparison can get in the way, particularly if you're thinking like, wow, I feel really good about this goal that I met and then you see a peer who has some goal that they've achieved that seems much bigger than that. Your attention is then in the wrong place, even though it makes sense why you might then feel envy or let down. You have to keep putting your attention back to the thing that's good. The core mental process of joy is appreciation. You have to

practice it. Okay, I want to do a few more of these. One of the ones that I heard over and over and over was my fear about an uncertain future takes away from my joy. Every time I turn on the news, it's about the AI apocalypse or the oil crisis or some war somewhere. I feel like the good times in this world are over, which paralyzes me in any moment that I try to feel joy. Yeah, this is very real. A lot of this comes down to a philosophical stance you have to take. I think it is very possible, you know, in any moment, this could be the last moment of your life. This could be the best moment. of your life. It could only get worse from here. I'm not, you look at the way you're looking at me. I'm like, well, this is the way my brain works. I'm waiting for the comforting part.

But the thing is that you don't need the comforting part. I just want to express, I also think like this, and my life is full of joy. I don't actually think these scenarios are incompatible. The way that I view it is looking for joy and letting yourself access this capacity you have to laugh or feel connected or to help someone or to enjoy something you love, that it is a way to resist despair about things that may be true or possible. You are choosing to say there is value in life. And it is something that you can believe in like every cell of your being or you can doubt it and decide that you want to act as if you believe it's true, that there's value in life and there's value in this moment. I mean, it is absolutely the case that even in circumstances,

that look like catastrophe or doomsday, people do still experience joy and capacities for joy. The parts of human nature that bring us joy persist until the end in many very difficult situations. The part of your mind that feels like joy isn't possible because of this, you have to look more closely at day-to-day life and allow yourself to be in the present moment a little bit more. you don't have to put this moment into that context.

Yeah. Even though your brain is great at doing that. And that's not the same thing as being in denial either. You could spend half of your life working to try to prevent some crisis in your personal life or in the world. You could be highly motivated to do that. And you could still in some moments of your life be enjoying, laughing with a friend or coworker. and it doesn't require that that problem be solved.

I think one of the key words you said is present. Like right now, there is not an apocalypse. Right now, we are here. We are having this conversation. And I think that can be a tricky thing as like, how do we remove our brain from the future and bring it into the present? It can be a tricky thing,

but the way you do it is by practicing it. You know, you can say, today I'm going to find a moment to savor. And that can sound kind of cheesy, but you're just going to wait for a moment where you're thinking something like, this is good, I enjoy this, or you notice yourself smiling or laughing, and then you just allow yourself to feel whatever the best part of that is. I think it's nice to add in a little bit of cognition, a little bit of thinking.

You can literally say in your head, I'm glad that I'm here. Or if you're with someone, you could even say, I'm so glad that we're here. Like, I'm really enjoying this. You can savor out loud. Appreciation doesn't require a whole, lot of fanfare to have an effect on you. Even just sometimes to allow yourself to do it, like that moment of laughter. The humor could even be about a crisis. But in that moment that you're laughing with someone else, you're experiencing a true biological togetherness and the true fact that

you aren't alone. And that moment has value and that's joy. A huge takeaway that I had from your book was that joy thrives in contrast. And so I'm curious, do you think that the fact that our world is kind of a shit show right now presents more opportunities for joy. What I like about that point of view that you're raising is that it's consistent with the idea that joy is still possible. You know, there's research on this that after difficult life situations, people often develop an increased appreciation for small pleasures and a heightened capacity for joy. But there's also research that when you're in the middle of it, that capacity is not always available. What it brings to mind for me, so I don't know

how much you were paying attention to this in 2020. But at the very beginning of the pandemic, when a few parts of the world started to go into lockdown, one of the things that was emerging in the media were all of these acts of joy where people were like singing to each other out their windows. And one of the things that really struck me about the early response to the pandemic

when there was the most fear and the most isolation, and the most uncertainty, is that there was some instinct in people to do something that, affirmed, you're not alone, I'm not alone, and we can get through this. It was often things that were about feeling joy in a moment. It was things that were trying to make someone smile. And these acts of joy, people were so moved and surprised by them because we think, like, we think we're more cynical than this. But it was like irrepressible in the beginning and that heightened sense of, like, I don't

know what is happening right now. And I feel like that, when you said, is there even more potential for joy. Sometimes when there's the most chaos or uncertain to your fear, there's some part of you that wants to just rise up and say it is possible to laugh, it is possible to smile, it is possible to connect with someone. There is still a reason to get up in the morning. That's an instinct, and that instinct can absolutely be activated by things going on in the world or in your life that are very difficult or hard to control. How important is agency for joy? Because I think One of the reasons the present moment feels scary is because people feel like they have less and less control. Like I can't do anything about climate change. I can't do anything about AI. I can't do

anything about people losing their jobs, et cetera. Like, is agency and believing we have agency important for joy? You probably do have agency in some parts of your life. And those are the parts to put some attention towards. You know, I mentioned studies taking place in hospice. And one of the things that really stood out to me is that people are, even if they're bedridden, and they're facing the end of their life and they're in great pain and they may be isolated from their loved ones. They still find ways to make choices with their actions or with what they choose to put their attention on. Those are all examples of agency. So while it's absolutely true that when you don't have agency over big parts of your life or things that you really care about,

that pulls you into different emotions than joy. But you still have in almost any circumstance some agency, one of my favorite bodies of research to come out of the pandemic actually looked at the most effective coping strategies during the peak pandemic and especially among people who were dealing with the worst part of the crisis. Health problems lost their job, severely isolated, and the type of coping strategy that was most likely to protect people from depression, from loneliness, from feeling that life had no purpose, that kept them connected to joy. It was meaning-centered coping. And it was measured with things like, I still do something productive every day, or I use this as an opportunity to get closer to a loved one. I still do what matters most in life. And, you know, those are

examples of agency in a situation where people actually didn't have a lot of autonomy. I want to do this as the last one. My husband gets in the way of my joy. He's regularly in bad moods and that really rubs off on me. We've talked about how joy is contagious, but if we're constantly surrounding ourselves with people who are sapping our joy, is that contagious too? Yeah, that's a real thing. I try not to think of these as problems that I can solve, but more like, how could one be in this situation if you were choosing to stay in the situation? Because we can make lots of choices in life. But if there's someone you care about and it's a relationship you're committed to and that person struggles a lot with negative emotions, then you start to make choices about

the ways that you relate to that are most meaningful and uplifting for you, which is probably not trying to change them. So taking joy and supporting that person, finding joy in conversations that help you feel close to that person, not giving up on the things that bring you joy, looking for ways to bring joy into your shared life that don't require getting rid of another person's difficult emotions or personality traits. You know, like some people complain about everything. Some people are always afraid, like their anxiety is so high that there's never going to be moment we're there relaxed. But it doesn't mean that there's no joy possible. My father told me that he'd only experienced joy a couple times in his life when he was 80 years old. And I was like,

that sounds horrible. But he had a different way of relating to the world. And thinking about joy or feeling joy was not sort of his core inner experience. But when we talked about it more, he had all these moments where he would think about a memory and smile and laugh, or he'd talk about moments when he was proud or moments where he felt like he'd done something that mattered. And there was joy present when he talked about that. And just talking about it, he came to be like, oh, that, you know, that is joy or I felt joy. And so I would also say not to make assumptions about people's capacity for joy based on how they describe their inner experiences. There's a lot of way that joy manifests itself. And so if you recognize in someone you care about

that they ever feel proud about something they did, you can celebrate that with them. It doesn't have to look happy if somebody ever is clearly enjoying themselves. You can enjoy it with them, and that is joy. I love that as a conversation starter, though, because once you prompted your dad, like, hey, can you tell me about experience of joy you had, he started noticing so many more of them. And I just like, I immediately flag that in my head as like, that's a really fun conversation starter. I know. And it's so funny. Okay. So now people have a reason to do this. Because to be honest, if you just ask a random person, a stranger or someone in your life, what someone? something that brings you joy.

Oh, no. You're telling you like, I heard it on a podcast. Exactly. So now you have the reason to do it. I was listening to a podcast about joy. This woman said I should ask other people. And I will tell you, so I gave my mom the first chapter of the book. She's also like, you know, like my dad, she's not somebody who's out there talking a lot

about emotions or joy. And she got to the end where I suggest as a first experiment, ask someone bring some joy. And she said, there's no way this is going to work. But I'll just do it. And then I start getting these text and these voicemails. Kelly, you won't believe it. I asked the person who was cutting my hair about something that brought her joy. And she tells this whole story, like, you wouldn't believe the joy that she seemed to get from telling me about this thing that brought.

I tried it again with this other person. And she was so shocked that other people want an opportunity to talk about the things that lift them up or that, you know, bring their life meaning. And like, why wouldn't they? I think if we get over this moment of like, that's weird, that's cringe, the cynicism. Like you said, it's like, of course I would love to be prompted to reflect on that myself. I want to judge somebody for asking me that. I'd be like, oh, thank you. I would love to reflect on a moment of joy. I mean, we could have spent these whole three hours with your cats talking about your cats. And that would have been,

we'd just filmed that. We'd be like, like, we're not going to talk about joy. Let's just show you what it looks like to live. Meet joy with joy. Your joy is my joy. I would happily, if anybody wants to watch a podcast of my cats, please let me know. I would love to give that to you. Okay, I have a speed round for you. What's one thing that people commonly do that you would never do having research so much about joy and stress? Mock other people for what brings them joy. People do that a lot. Yeah, especially, do you feel like social media has raised our levels of cynicism as a culture? It's allowing people to get trapped in a system that reinforces it. I feel like there's almost also this like in-group of like, we're all hating this together.

Yeah, isn't that interesting that it does seem to be a new phenomenon, a whole whole culture that builds around hating, hating or snark. People or things. Yeah, I would strongly discourage that also. Yeah. What's the hottest take you have about joy? If you don't value joy, you might be a sociopath. So there was a study that has, well, I mean, okay, there are other reasons why you might

have a hard time. Just picture, like, turning the podcast off and, like, walking away. But you mean really value, not like, I'm too busy right now for it. Joy is a pro-social emotion. When you feel joy, you tend to become a better version of yourself, and you also become less insular and often a better human being with other people. That is one of the core consequences of joy. There was a study that asked adults if they could choose what emotions they feel every day. Which of these emotions would you like to feel every day, and which of these emotions would

you not like to feel every day? Most people pick joy as an emotion they would love to feel every day. They want to feel that more than anger. They want to feel more than sadness, more than fear. But people who score really high in sociopathic traits. So people who score high in meanness, callousness, a willingness to harm and exploit others, lack of empathy, a real ease with breaking laws. Those people value joy significantly less. They say that joy is not useful to them and they don't enjoy it as much.

They tend to value anger more than most people do because anger is really useful to the goals if you want to engage in life without having to worry about other people's feelings or you want to be able to exploit or harm others for your own game. Joy is really dysfunctional if that's the way you want to interact with the world because joy makes you trust people more. Joy brings out other strengths like humor, generosity, kindness, courage, hope. Joy biologically binds us to other people, joy pulls you into empathy. Even if you don't want to, you're around people who are showing you joy, you're in a moment of shared joy. It literally binds you to them. I certainly don't mean if you struggle to feel joy that you're a sociopath. That is not what I mean at all. So many things in life

can make joy feel more difficult. But it's the people who just dismiss it offhand. I'm kind of tired of that because the truth is joy is not selfish. It's not foolish. If you're telling me that joy is a waste of time, it's not valuable to care about it, to talk about it. We shouldn't be talking about joy now. We should only be talking about all the problems in the world. I just like to put that study out there and be like, well, you know who really believes that joy is invaluable? Sociopaths. So what's one piece of research that you've read that really changed your mind about something? There was a paper. One of the lead authors was Roy Bellmeister. And it was a study conducted that asked people about whether or not they agreed that their life was meaningful. And they

asked about all sorts of things that you could ask about personality traits, jobs, do you have kids, or you're religious? And one of the things I asked about was stress. And they asked about it in a lot of different ways, like how many minutes a day do you spend worrying? How many stressful events have you had in your life, like, you know, really difficult life situations? How much day to day do you feel overwhelmed by the stress in your life? Every way they measured stress was positively correlated with your feeling like your life had meaning. And that really surprised me, especially because I came across it at a time

when I was really deep in trying to figure out how to reconcile the fact that we don't want our lives to be stressful. You can't orchestrate a life that's not stressful. Like I was very aware of that conflict and I was trying to figure out as a psychologist, like what is my role here when people so clearly don't want to feel stress and often things that cause stress

are objectively things that you would remove from your life or the world if you could. And so that study, it really helped me come to terms with this philosophical idea that the things in life that make life worth living also often involve a lot of stress. You can't achieve a meaningful life by trying to avoid stress. You have to come to terms of the fact that your biggest goals, your most important relationships, having a body, like all these things that are part of life, are also stressful. That study, to me, kind of shores up this, this, whole idea that it's okay to feel things like stress or anxiety or hopelessness and still create a life that is worth living. As somebody who's been like trying to figure out whether I want

to have kids forever, it's an interesting thing about this paradox that people talk about with having kids. Like it's my greatest source of stress and my greatest source of joy and you're like, that isn't a paradox. Those are inherently connected. Yeah. That's interesting. What is a piece of common happiness advice that you think is actively bad. Treat yourself to a small reward. Like little treat culture? Yeah, little treat. Is that what that's called? Do you think that's bad?

Well, I don't think that it's, I think. Like, is me going out and getting my little macha? Is that giving my life meaning and joy or is that not? I think it's really about how much advice you're letting in. If that is the only advice that you're hearing, it's too small for your life. It's not bad to do that. But when people are asked, you know, how do I increase the happiness? I actually think it's not just like you're setting the bar too low.

It's that you're not looking at your life. It's additive. Your whole thing is like, how can you reframe your relationship to the life that you are living? Yeah. Not add these little cherries on top. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with the matcha. I think it's as happiness advice to say, here's the one thing I'm giving you.

When people ask me, what's the biggest way to increase joy in my life, the easiest thing you can do is look for other people, who are experiencing joy and feel joy with them and for them. So if something good happens to you and you tell me about it, to let myself be happy with you and for you and to show you that, like, I'm excited for you. I want to hear about it. Show me a photo. The interaction that we have is going to be genuine joy. That's the thing I would tell you to do rather than to treat yourself to. Is the biggest blocker to that usually envy? It can be. Another big block to it is that people often won't share their happiness because they're worried about evoking envy or they're worried that other

people will dampen their joy. So should we ask people? Yes. I mean, you should be, I mean, that is to the conversation start a question. You should be the person that other people know they can share good news with or that other people can show what they're enthusiastic about with and that you're going to be the person who joins them in their joy. And if you're somebody who, like, you don't know who that person is, that's a risk worth taking is when something good. happens to you, start testing it out. You think that this person is going to say, well, wait till something goes wrong, okay? You think that person is not going to be able to feel happy for you because they haven't achieved it yet. These are hypotheses to test. I recently heard from someone

who was so hurt that somebody hadn't shared good news because they were struggling with something and that person just assumed they could never be happy for them and they close a door on that relationship. That's hurtful for people too. We can be big and brave about being honest about when we're experiencing joy or pride or have something to celebrate. But when you're actually with someone, their joy can be contagious in a way that you actually feel the closeness and how that and how that strengthens your relationship too. Finish this sentence. People would feel so much more joy if they just stopped. In their own minds, dismissing the significance or value of things that at first brought them some joy. We love to leave everybody with an action step, something they can do

the second they turn off this podcast to begin to feel a little bit more joy in their life. Yeah. What do you got for us? I'm going to give you two. Ask someone what brings them joy. And when people are stuck, I always say bring out your phone and scroll to a photo or video of something that brings you joy or a moment of joy. And most people can do that.

And what's great is you have something to respond to. So it's not abstract. I love that. The second thing, it's the thank someone for helping you. There's all of this research asking people to describe, you know, to describe, a meaningful moment of connection, something that brought you joy, or something that brings you hope. And people say so often, knowing that I helped someone, being thanked by someone I helped, being able to help someone. That is a huge source of meaning, hope, and joy in people's lives.

So if you can thank someone who helped you, that is an act of joy. It is making joy possible. it will probably make you feel better about having to accept help because we can have all of our stories about how it's embarrassing to need help or being a burden. When you make choices that make joy possible for others, it's almost inescapable that you end up feeling the joy too. I love it because you and I have just had this experience of connection and relationship and joy, but then also I'm picturing all of these people listening and we're all kind of simultaneously having this experience together. The ones who like concerts and cats at least. They're like, it's my people.

But yeah, there's something really magical about, like, if you're listening right now and you're walking, like, with your headphones, there's somebody else probably right now who is also walking with our headphones and listening to this exact same podcast at this exact same moment. And I just think that's like such an, we are connected in so many more little ways than we think. And I just think that's really special. Kelly, tell us about your new book. Oh, joy is a risk worth taking. It's based on a class that I teach. It is full of joy experiments, kind of like the ones we just talked about. as ways that make joy possible. It's got like 25 conversation starters too for things.

Let me, we should give someone another conversation starter. Yeah, tell us. Tell us one of your favorite ones. One of my favorites ones is what is the most joyful sound to you? What's the most joyful sound to you? Well, I have a couple, but I would say this is the sound of my cat purring is one. Do we like cats on this podcast? Are we cat ladies? Yes. I probably have three. One is being in a live music venue when, the crowd erupts with joy because they love a song, like all that. And then also, I love the sound of somebody who is just either realized like a lifelong dream or is reunited with a loved one. There's a sound. It's almost like a collapse and they're often crying. It's it, I don't, we have to go

on like YouTube and look for this. But like when there's a type of joy that just looks like profound relief and it often involves crying, but it doesn't sound like sad crying. I love that sound. That's so interesting. I immediately, yeah, I've one that like 100% thought of, which is the sound of water lapping on like a paddleboard, a boat or a dock. It's this like light lapping water sound. I find it, it like makes my chest feel tight. I love it.

It's amazing. Yeah. Okay. So you have these conversations. I have these experiments. And you really go through the process of like why joy is important. What's happening in your brain when you experience joy? I wrote this book for people who maybe they value.

you joy or they value the consequences of joy. Like they want to feel closer to others. They want to have more hope. They want to feel that life has meaning. And they are struggling with that in some way. So this is really a book, not just like, I want to make you 2% happier. You know, it's really about, I want you to want to be alive. I want you to have a life full of connection and meaning and hope and beauty and pleasure and laughter and all of that. Yeah. I feel like I came to your book looking for those little moments of joy and I came away from it having a sense of like what our purpose on this planet is and like what life is about. And I hope people got a little taste of that in this episode and how important this conversation is. You deserve joy. You are capable of joy and your

existence in this world is a source of joy to others. Those would be the three things. I hope people can take away. I love it. Thank you, Kelly. That is all for this episode. Thank you so much for on Apple or watching on Spotify or YouTube, you can subscribe or follow so our next episodes get sent directly to your feed. If you like this episode, leave a comment or better yet, send it to a friend, a coworker, or a parent, or somebody else that you think might love it. All right, I love you. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll 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

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It is a lightweight portable panel. You can use it anywhere that you need it. I love putting it on my head for headaches. And it is a god send for cramps. And of course, I use it every single day on my skin. Each bulb emits both red and near infrared light. Wavelengths and irradiens are third party verified. It's FDA registered, which is so rare.

it's really less of a beauty gadget and more of a medical device that also happens to be great for beauty. So if you have been curious about trying red light therapy, Lumebox is the one that I would recommend. And right now you can get 40% off. 40% off when you go to the loombox.com slash Liz. One more thing. If you have an HSA or FSA, Lombox may qualify as a medical expense through TrueMed. And qualified customers save about 30% on average. You can head to trumed.com slash loombox to check your eligibility before you buy.

Trimet is for qualified customers. HSA, FSA, tax savings, vary. Again, though, go to the loombox.com slash Liz for that 40% off. A lot of you guys know that about four years ago I started being what I call an intentional drinker, meaning that I've stopped drinking just because it's like a Thursday night. Now I drink a few times a month at the most. And the only downside of that is that I have almost zero tolerance for feeling poorly after I drink now because I'm so used to feeling energetic and good every single day, which is why I am so, so excited about Zbiotics pre-alcohol. I tried these for the first time at my friend's birthday party in Vegas and I was a very skeptical. but now they are my absolute go-to.

Zbiotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic invented by Ph.D. microbiologists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. When you drink, alcohol converts into a toxic byproduct in your gut, and it's actually a build-up of that byproduct, not dehydration like we have been told forever, that's to blame for those rough days after drinking. Zibiotics pre-alcohol produces an enzyme that helps break that byproduct down. The science actually makes a ton of sense, and again, I felt, a huge difference. August does not slow down and neither to you. Pre-alcohol keeps it that way.

Go to zbiotics.com slash Liz Moody and use code Liz Moody for 15% off. That is zbiotics.com slash Liz Moody code Liz Moody.