The One You Feed - How to Thrive All Winter: Mindset Shifts for Beating the Cold and Dark

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

In this episode, Kari Leibowitz discusses how to thrive all winter with mindset shifts for beating the cold and dark. She shares her journey from being a winter hater to embracing the beauty of the season while living in Tromsø, Norway, a place known for its extreme winter conditions. Kari delves into the importance of attention and expectation in shaping our experiences, particularly in winter and emphasizes that our mindset can significantly influence how we perceive and interact with the world around us. Discover how we can shift our focus from the challenges of winter to embracing the beauty and unique joys of winter! Are you ready to create lasting change through small, intentional steps? The Wise Habits program combines behavioral science with timeless wisdom to help you build habits that bring clarity, calm, and resilience to your daily life. Over 6 transformative weeks, you’ll learn practical strategies to create a sustainable spiritual practice, better manage your emotions, and live in alignment with your values—all while staying grounded in the chaos of everyday life. Enrollment is open through January 25th, so don’t miss this opportunity to start your journey. Little by little, a little becomes a lot. Learn more and enroll here. Key Takeaways: Embracing winter challenges and mindset Insights from research conducted in Tromsø, Norway, regarding winter depression The role of expectations in shaping experiences of winter The concept of seasonal affective disorder (SAD) and its complexities The importance of adaptation to seasonal changes. The interplay between comfort and challenge during winter The significance of social gatherings and their adaptation in winter The idea of “clearing the way” for beneficial mindsets and supportive conditions The relationship between mindset, reality, and individual perception For full show notes, click here! Connect with the show: Follow us on YouTube: @TheOneYouFeedPod Subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify Follow us on Instagram See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

you can override some of these mental resistances by focusing on how good these things feel, by really noticing at the end of a workout that you feel good, and then really motivating yourself to do the next workout, not by saying, oh, I should exercise now, but by being like, I will feel better in half an hour for having done this. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do.

We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. ["The Daily Show Theme"]

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and Jordan Love. Listen to Athletes First Family Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You are cordially invited to the hottest party in professional sports. I'm Tisha Olin, former golf professional and the host of Welcome to the Party, your newest obsession about the wonderful world that is women's golf. Featuring interviews with top players on tour, tips to help improve your swing, and the craziest stories to come out of your friendly neighborhood country club.

Welcome to the Party with Tisha Allen is an iHeart Women's Sports Production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. Listen to Welcome to the Party. That's P-A-R-T-E-E on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Kari Leibowitz, a health psychologist, speaker, and writer. Kari taught the Mindsets Matter

Stanford Continuing Studies course and combined scholarly expertise with practical strategies to help people understand and harness the power of their mindsets and find joy in winter. Today Eric and Keri discuss her new book, How to Winter, Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days. Hi Keri, welcome to the show. Hi Eric, thanks for having me.

I'm excited to talk with you. Your book is called How to Winter, Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days. And I will tell you this is very timely because it is cold here, it is dark, and the winter weather has caused me a couple of difficult days recently. So this is right on time for me. But before we get into that, we'll start like we always do with the parable. In the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild.

They say, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second, they look up at their grandparent and they say, well which one wins? And the grandparent says the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Yeah, so I mean I'm here as a psychologist and a mindset researcher, which is my profession, but also certainly seeps

into my whole life philosophy and the way that I live. And so to me, when I was thinking about this, I was really thinking about feeding as attention, as the power of our attention and what we are attending to, what thoughts we are giving power to and attending to most, what language and words we're using to reflect the things that we notice in the world, really shapes our reality in profound ways. And I think a lot of us think of attention as being automatic, but it's also of course very trainable and influenced by things like our mindsets. And so to me, it's really about which wolf, which part of you, which mindset are you reinforcing with that attention? And how is that going to become self-fulfilling

and create your reality? Yeah, I love that. I'm at work on a book and I was just yesterday literally writing about attention about this very idea and I was writing about the idea that you just sort of referenced that it's both sort of conscious and unconscious. It's a little bit like our breath, right? Like you can focus on your breath and do this and then you could forget about it and it just kind of does its thing. Attention is the same way. You can consciously choose where to direct your breath and do this and then you could forget about it and it just kind of does its thing. Attention is the same way. You can consciously choose where to direct your attention and it just goes off on its own also. And what it chooses to go off on is very interesting. There's a lot of different factors that control that. But what I've noticed and is and I think

everybody who's paid any attention has probably noticed this that for a lot of us if we're not careful where our attention goes is to what's not right what's wrong it's just a natural place for it to land and on the topic of winter that's really easy to do because you know we're gonna talk about changing this mindset, but initially you're like, it's dark, I don't particularly like that. It's cold, I don't particularly like that. You know, it's easy to find what's wrong with winter. So maybe we could start off by you talking about how you started to learn how to find

what's right with winter. You know, I'm here today as a reformed winter hater so I grew up at the Jersey Shore which is a very summer centric location and you know really lived for those summers and really didn't enjoy the winter but in 2014 I ended up moving to a city in northern Norway called Tromsø and Tromsø is over 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle. And it's so far north that they experienced two months of what's known as the polar night,

which is the time of year from late November to late January, in which the sun never actually rises above the horizon. So you get a little bit of indirect light, but you don't see the sun for two months. And I was there because people in Trump so actually have relatively low rates of winter depression or seasonal affective disorder.

There's not none, but given how far north they are, given how long and dark and cold their winters are, the rates are a lot lower than we would expect. And I was there to research and try to understand why is this and do they have strategies for surviving the winter that maybe we could use elsewhere? Maybe their mental health is so bad you don't even have a scale to measure it.

Maybe that's what it is. Yeah, so I think your response reflects what I thought before I went there and what people said to me. Like, I moved there really afraid of the winter because everyone I told that I was doing this was like, oh my God, I could never do that. I would get so depressed.

People would ask me, are you gonna go there to research why they're not depressed and get depressed yourself? And there's this assumption that winter is really inherently depressing. But in Tromso, I was introduced to a new way of seeing the season, a new way of experiencing winter, and a new mindset for looking at the cold, dark days of winter with a little bit of a different eye. Okay. So I'm going to explore what that different eye is. I do have a couple questions though and you can say, hey we're gonna

get to those in due course if they're out of place, but there's two things I'm thinking of. One is it does appear that seasonal affective disorder seems to be a real thing. I don't know, I'd be curious your thoughts on that. And then secondly, the other thing that I'm thinking about is you can find a lot of studies that show like people who work say second shift really have worse mental health outcomes. And I'm curious how much of either of those things is expectation driven and how much of it is reality. And let me try and say this slightly differently. I do think that life is not what happens to us, nor is it how we respond to it.

It is a co-creation of those two things. And so there's some of each at work here. So tell me how you think about that, having really studied this in more detail. Absolutely. So as mindset researchers, you know, I'm often trying to get people to understand the impact of mindset. But of course, our objective circumstances also matter. And it's always going to be the interplay of our objective circumstances and the power of our mindset, which is something

I really observed in Norway, where my mindset shifted in response to a culture around me, infrastructure around me, things like that, that supported enjoying winter. The thing that I like to focus on in my work is that mindset is often overlooked. We often really know that the objective circumstances matter but underestimate the impact of our mindset. Now, seasonal affective disorder is a little bit complicated and I have a lot to say on it so I'm going to try to keep it succinct and then you can use whatever is the most

interesting. So there is actually a lot of debate amongst psychologists about how quote unquote real seasonal affective disorder is. I don't think that that debate is the most useful thing to get into. I think the most useful thing is to understand a little bit about the history of the disorder and how it's understood today by clinical psychologists versus by the broader population.

So first of all, seasonal affective disorder was discovered in the United States in Maryland, not in the Arctic, not in Iceland, not in the Netherlands, not in places, not in the Netherlands, not in places with longer, darker, colder winters. It was discovered at this sort of middle latitude. And it was originally measured with something called the SPAC, the Seasonal Pattern Assessment Questionnaire. And basically, this questionnaire measures how much people's behavior changes in the seasons. So what times of year do you sleep the most and socialize the most and eat the most and feel the best and feel the worst?

And this scale supposed that if you had a lot of seasonal variation, you would have winter depression. If your behavior is changing too much, if you're having too extreme fluctuations, that's a symptom of winter depression. Now, in a place like Tromso, where I lived, they go from 24 hours of full sunlight in the summer where the sun never sets, to 24 hours where the sun doesn't rise in the winter. And in a place like that, it doesn't really make sense this idea that you wouldn't have a seasonal fluctuation in your energy or your mood or your motivation or what you eat. And so people in these places tend to adapt more to the winter and not see that as problematic, but see that as healthy and normal and living in tune with nature. Now, since the initial development and conception of seasonal affective disorder,

most psychologists now use different criteria. They don't use that seasonal pattern assessment questionnaire anymore. It is now considered a subtype of clinical depression. So that means first you have to meet the criteria for a clinical depressive episode, and then you can be diagnosed with the sort of seasonal pattern that indicates winter depression. And I think this is a really important thing about winter depression that gets misunderstood,

because I think a lot of people feel that it is a lighter, milder form of depression, that it is a less stringent criteria than full-blown clinical depression, when in fact it is not. It is a subset of clinical depression, and so you first need to meet those criteria. What I think a lot of people,

especially in the US experience, is maybe some form of the winter blues that comes from the fact that we are affected by this change in daylight. We are affected by rhythms of light and dark. So I think this gets back to your question about people who work the second shift having worse health outcomes. We know that light and darkness affects our circadian rhythms.

So light in the morning helps us feel awake and alert and improves our concentration and improves our mood and darkness at night makes us sleepy and helps us get ready for bed. And if we're living out of sync with that, we're fighting our natural internal rhythms. And what I think happens a lot for people in winter is they feel more tired in the winter because there's this real change in the environment,

but their lifestyle or their schedule or their personal belief system doesn't make space for fluctuations in energy and mood and behavior. And so when they're fighting the season and they feel down, they automatically go to, oh, I must be depressed. I must have seasonal affective disorder. So some of that is definitely expectation of what you think winter is going to be like. But some of that is also meaning making where, you know, everyone, I think there's a lot of warnings about seasonal affective disorder that come up every single year, more so even than other mental health disorders that are

far more prevalent. And so when somebody feels down in the winter, there's a real top of mind explanation for it, which is, oh, yeah, I must have seasonal affective disorder. Makes sense. It sounds like the first way that it was measured was partially measuring change in behavior and interpreting that as bad, right? If there's a change in behavior, then it shows that the season is affecting you in a bad way. You know, a big theme that's in your book, you said it there when you were talking, like, of course things change, particularly if you're in a place where you have no light. And so what we're talking about is skillful adaptation to the changes that are occurring naturally and allowing our

lives to try and flow with those changes instead of trying to force our existing ways of operating into a different environment that's not conducive to it. Is that about correct? Absolutely. I mean if you look at every other living thing on the planet, plant or animal, they're all changing their behavior in the winter. They're all slowing down. They're all resting more. But I think a lot of us see it as a personal failure of strength or grit or willpower when we can't have the same energy and sleep schedule and productivity year round. So if you live north of Boston, there is more than a six hour difference in daylight between the summer solstice and the winter solstice.

So you're getting more than six hours less daylight in the winter than the summer. Now, if you live at other latitudes, it might be a smaller difference, but there's still a difference in how much daylight you're getting. And we like to pretend we're not animals on a planet, but we are animals on a planet.

And that's gonna affect us. And I think making space for that can actually be a lot healthier and feel a lot better than trying to fight it and sort of tough it out through it by beating ourselves up when we're more tired at this time of year. Yeah it's really interesting I'm reading a book right now it's a fiction novel called Orbital and it won the Booker Prize this year and it's based on a bunch of astronauts who are out on the International Space Station and one of the key ideas in the book is they get I

think it's 16 sunsets and sunrises in their 24-hour day. And they're only going to be out there for a certain amount of time, six months, nine months, right? And it's interesting to see because the training they're given is stay on 24-hour time. Stay on 24-hour time. You have to remain anchored to 24-hour time. But they're seeing sunset and sunrise 16 times a day. So they're trying to sort of adapt to that and live in that world but also stay tethered to a world. And she makes the point in the book too that you just made, which is that as animals, we are synced. We have billions of years of sunrise,

sunset, certain amount of light, certain amount of dark, that adjusting and the animals adjust to that. And it's interesting to see them as humans being told, don't adjust to what you're seeing, adjust to this external idea of what time is. It's just a similar concept to what you're describing. Yeah. And I think, you know, there are benefits to it, right? If you're the kind of person that likes that routine, if you're in space and you're trying to stay tethered

to your life on Earth, right? Maybe it's valuable to try to keep that routine. But I also think that there is something that we've lost when we're fighting this natural rhythm and something to be gained by leaning into that natural rhythm and letting different times of year affect us in different ways.

Yep. So let's move into some of what you learned there. You've got a great quote in the book, and maybe we can just use this as a place to jump off. And you say, people in Tromso don't dread winter. They embrace it as a season of unique beauty and joy. And then you also go on to say, mindset is the difference between suffering through winter and savoring it. So let's talk about some

of what they do there that makes winter more enjoyable for them that we often don't do here. Yeah. So I noticed three things that, you know, three sort of broad strategies and there's lots of little things within them. But I think people in Northern Norway appreciate winter for what it is. So they're not bemoaning that it's not summer. They're letting it be a time for slowing down and sort of embracing it.

They make it special. So if appreciating it is about noticing with your thoughts, making it special is about using your actions to create opportunities in the winter. So doing hobbies that you enjoy in the winter, making it cozy, working with the darkness by lighting candles, all of those things give you something to look forward to in the winter and make the season special. And then finally, they're getting outside at all times of year in all weather.

And they really don't let the darkness, the cold or the wet stop them from going outside, connecting with the outdoors, moving their bodies. And so broadly, those strategies I've found, and I've observed them not just when I was living in Tromso, but since that I've traveled to winter places all over the world researching the book. And those three strategies pop up again and again. And what I like about them is that you can make them your own.

They don't have to look the same for everyone and you can do specific practices within each of them that fit for you and your lifestyle and your climate, but these broad principles of appreciating the season for what it is, trying to make it special, and getting outside, they're all ways of finding the opportunities in the season rather than seeing winter as only limiting.

Okay, so let's start at the prequel to those, which is expectation. Talk to me about the role of expectation in the co-creation of our reality. Yeah. So in my other line of work, which I did as a graduate student at the Stanford Mind and Body Lab, I was a placebo researcher. And I was researching how placebo effects influence our health and well-being. Because there's a whole bunch of evidence that placebos work and placebos can help us heal from all different kinds of conditions and a big factor that is part of that is our expectation of healing is what we believe is going to happen. So if you take a sugar pill and you feel better,

it's not the sugar in the sugar pill that is healing you, it's at least in part your expectation of relief. And what I think expectations do is they prime our attention to notice certain things in our environment that make things more likely. So in the case of winter, if you think of winter and you conjure only the worst parts of winter, right? The miserable cold days, the grayness, the feeling uncomfortable, the feeling tired. Then not only are you setting yourself up to experience that, but that is the psychological pathway that is easiest for your mind to take all season long.

So every time you see something that confirms your expectations or that matches your expectations, that's going to stand out to you even more. And that's going to create your reality. The other thing expectations do, and this is something that humans are actually unique in, is humans are the only animals that can worry about something that has not happened yet or may never happen. Right? And so expectations can also create double suffering where not only are you suffering during the winter, but you're suffering in anticipation of the winter.

And then I think the other thing that expectations do is they also prime our behavior. And so when we are focusing on all the things we don't like about winter, there's a really strong incentive for us to push away from that, to try to deny or ignore or deflect or sort of other, what we might call unhealthy coping mechanisms.

It doesn't really help us to go towards doing the things that can actually make a difference and make the winter more comfortable and more enjoyable. Yeah, you talk about that this winter can be an invitation to shift our perspective. And yeah, so much of our experience and again, we hit on this earlier, right? It's a co-creation between what actually is and what we think about what is. The number of studies on this is amazing and we can just tell it ourselves. There's two examples I can give. One I give often is I have some back pain.

And so when my back hurts a little bit, my default, if I tune in, my brain is saying something on the order of my back is killing me, my back is killing me. And if I stop that train of thought and I actually pay attention to what's actually going on, it's really more like my back is a little bit tight in this very little area down here. And you talk later in the book about the relationship of words, and a previous guest once said extreme words create extreme emotions. And I love that idea, because when I say my back's killing me, I'm creating this certain frame or tone.

It's very different. The other one I play with in the winter and I did it just last night, I had to take the trash out and it was really cold and it was dark and I didn't really feel like getting my coat on. So I just going to hop over there. My first thought was, it's F'ing freezing out here. Right? That's my first thought. And then I just thought, well, what if I just think of this as invigorating? And all of a sudden, it's a different experience. I'm not saying I wasn't cold. Of course I was cold. But how I felt about being cold,

how I related to being cold was different. And this is really what you're driving at here. Yeah, the same sensation interpreted in two different ways feels different, you know, and a lot of things in life and in the winter, they're ambiguous or they're complex, right? The cold can be effing freezing and invigorating. Those things can exist simultaneously, but which thing you're focusing on is going gonna determine your experience. And I really like and appreciate your example about the back pain. This is something that we use in my house a lot.

So my husband has some GI distress issues. And so sometimes they'll flare up and you go into that stress and anxiety mode of like, oh, I'm gonna feel so bad. Oh, I'm gonna be up all night. Oh, I'm whatever. And the thing that I have found that helps him the most is when he's like, oh, I'm gonna feel so bad. Oh, I'm gonna be up all night. Oh, I'm whatever. And the thing that I have found that helps him the most is when he's like, oh, my stomach hurts.

I just ask him, how bad is it? And a lot of the time he stops and he's like, oh, it's not that bad. Like, it's not the actual sensation you're experiencing in the moment that is so unbearable. It's the fear and anxiety and uncertainty that it's going to get worse. But if you can just be in the present moment with it,

not always, but sometimes or even a lot of the time, it's a lot more manageable than your runaway train of a brain is telling you it is. Life can be overwhelming, racing thoughts, endless decisions, and that feeling of being stuck in a loop of fear, anxiety, or indecision. But what if you had some simple, actionable tools to help you find clarity and calm, even in the toughest moments? And that's exactly what Wise Habits is here to offer. It's a six-week program designed to help you navigate life's challenges

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And so you really have to think about what is it I want to display. You don't plant a garden and then just walk away and expect it to thrive. You are in there pulling out the weeds. You're pruning it. You're watering it. It's the same thing with your network. You should always be in there actively managing your network. If you don't feel confident to say a number, even admitting that to a recruiter is going to be far better than saying, well, what is your budget for the role? A lot is in the follow-up, right? Don't wait to follow up. Whether you're a new grad, an established professional, or contemplating a career change, Get Hired is for you. Listen to Get Hired with Andrew Seaman on the iHeart radio app,

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I'm going to hit on placebo for a second. I'm indulging a curiosity here. Placebo works on some people, it doesn't work in other cases. You know, I'm thinking of my mother right now. My mother has a lot of chronic pain and has had it for a long time. I'm not asking you to solve my mother's problem by the way. And she has had a number of procedures done, including back surgery, where our expectation was this is really going to help. And then it doesn't really seem to help.

And I'm curious because I feel like as I think about that I'm like, well, okay, there's the reality of whatever nerves are being affected or not being affected and what the impact is on those. There's the expectation that this should make it better. But there's also probably fear in there that it's not going to do any good because previous things haven't done any good. So do I really, you know, like all of this swirls together. Do we know in what situations and under what circumstances and what type of people placebo tends to work best on?

I mean, this is really the million dollar question and the thing that we're trying to figure out. So we do know that placebos tend to work very well on conditions for which there is a large psychological component, right? So in general things like chronic pain, anxiety, depression, although there are many conditions where objective metrics like Parkinson's tremors or blood pressure or heart palpitations also respond to placebos. I think the thing with expectations and something like surgery,

and I've seen this with family members as well, is it's really complicated because expectations have to be properly calibrated. We keep coming back to this, that it's the combination of objective reality and your mindset. And your mindset can't completely override objective reality. And so I think especially when you have something like a surgery, if your expectation is that it's going to solve all of your problems and that afterwards

you're gonna have no pain and you're not thinking about the recovery you're gonna have to do. And you're not thinking about the physical therapy you're gonna have no pain and you're not thinking about the recovery you're gonna have to do and you're not thinking about the physical therapy you're gonna have to do and you're not thinking about how much pain reduction would actually be considered a success, then expectations might backfire because you thought it was gonna be one way and then it's a different way.

And we know from research, for example, on doctor-patient relationships, that if you set two positive expectations thought it was gonna be one way and then it's a different way. And we know from research, for example, on doctor-patient relationships that if you set two positive expectations that are totally out of line with reality, all that does is sort of undermine trust. Listen up, surgeons. Take any of you listening, manage expectations. I just, I see this again and again, you know,

that people are not adequately prepared. They're given the best case scenario. Right. And I think a lot of it is on meaning making. So we actually have a whole line of work where we tell people that the side effects of treatment in cases where this is true are actually a sign that the treatment is working. And so that helps people integrate unpleasant physical sensations with a positive interpretation, right? And you could imagine something like that, right? That after surgery, you're going to feel sore, but that's a sign that your nerves are recalibrating,

or, you know, I'm not a doctor, but you know, like if you have a wound and your wound is itching and you don't know that wound itching means healing, maybe that itch is unbearable because you're worried it's infected. But if you know that wound itching is a sign that it's healing, maybe it's still uncomfortable, but it's okay. And so a lot of this is about, you know,

it's not just expectations. Are you gonna feel good? Are you gonna have pain? Are you gonna feel bad? It's what is the meaning of the pain that you're feeling, right? Think about a marathon runner. Think about a woman in labor. The meaning of that kind of pain is very different than a chronic pain that you don't know if it's ever going to go away that feels debilitating. So a lot of it is about not just setting positive expectations,

but what are the most adaptive expectations that can help you make sense of the objective reality you're facing in a way that is useful for you. So what are some of the words that the Norwegians use around winter that help them to reframe it. So you might be familiar with a Danish word, huga, the little book of huga, that's the Danish word for coziness that is very popular. The Norwegian counterpart to that word is kusle, so making it cozy, and it turns out that a lot of places with long dark winters have special words that mean cozy, but really take on a heightened meaning, you know, that where it's something to really aspire to, something to

really luxuriate in. And, you know, I think this idea of kushli of chuga is, it's really an inner contentment, you know, it's not, it's not your Scandinavia decor, it's not an aesthetic, although of course, you know, things can facilitate feelings. It's not your Scandinavia decor. It's not an aesthetic, although of course things can facilitate feelings. It's really this feeling of when it's dark and cold and blustery outside and you're inside and you're warm and you're comfortable and you're with your loved ones and you have nowhere to go. And that feeling, it's very prized and it's very sought after in Norway, especially in northern Norway during the Polar Nights. So, Huga is a really good one. Another one that I talk about a lot is

Freelove Sleeve, which translates to open air life. And this is about the Norwegian's connection with nature and the outdoors and having time spent outdoors in nature, usually moving your body, but sometimes even just like drinking a beer or sitting at a cafe, being part of everyday life year round. And it's a really strong cultural value. It's something that's taught in schools from a young age. You can get a master's degree in free love sleeve in Norway, in sort of education of the outdoors. And it's something that I think people there really embrace and embody on a daily basis. Do the Scandinavians know their language sounds like a muppet language? Or did Jim Henson

get draw his language? I'm kidding, because I don't know what our language sounds like to them. I'm sure it sounds in its own way. I do have such a fondness for the Norwegian cadence. I love it too. Yeah, it's just you can tell like I think Jim Henson must have been influenced by them. I love that idea of the outdoors. I was talking with you before the show. I was in Amsterdam recently, right? And in Amsterdam everybody gets everywhere on bike. I guess I shouldn't say everyone a whole lot of people way more than you might even imagine is possible go everywhere on bike and they do it in all weather yes so I live in Amsterdam now and the Dutch have a

saying you're not made of sugar you won't melt in the rain and that is you know when you're biking everywhere come rain or shine that is something that you have to say to yourself sometimes before you're going outside for a rainy bike ride. Well I will say this I noticed about the Dutch in the rain they're a little more intense in their cycling like I was certain I was going to get run over in that city I was just certain I was gonna get hit by a bike because in the US when you cross a street, once you leave the part where the cars are, you're safe. You're just trained. Once I get past the cars, I'm safe. Well, in Amsterdam, once you get past the cars, you have about a foot of

safety before you have the bikes. And I mean, I just felt like for sure I was going to get run over. And I noticed that when it was raining, they were just a little bit more intense in the like, I'm getting where I'm going sort of thing. But they were all still out there. In the Netherlands, the bikes have the right of way. So it goes bikes and then pedestrians and then cars. And you know, frequently, my friends and family in the US will tell us to watch out for the bikes.

And my husband and I like to say, we're the bikes now. We are the bikes now. Watch out for us. But in the rain, there is something about, you're in the elements. And so you're especially motivated to just keep going and get where you're going. But this is another good lesson in expectations

because even as someone who has written this book about winter, who lives in the Netherlands, who bikes in the rain, there are so many times when it's raining and I look outside and I'm like, oh, I really don't want to get on my bike. Like it does not look nice. And then I have to, I have no choice.

It's the only, it's not the only way to get around, but it's usually the fastest and the most convenient. And so I put on my clothes and I bundle up and I go outside and not always, but I would say nine times out of 10, it is so much more pleasant than I thought it was going to be. Nine times out of 10, having learned this lesson a million times, my expectations were wrong and it looks like it's pouring, but actually it's just misting. And once I get moving, I feel so good. And I'm like,

I'm tough. I'm alive. Like the wind, the rain, and there's something about it. Like we're like, it's so hard to internalize this lesson, that it feels better than it looks. Yeah, I'm fascinated to know what you think about that. Because I have a similar listeners, the show have heard me talk about this countless times where every single time in my life, I've exercised and it's probably tens of thousands at this point. I don't know. It's been a lot. Every single time I'm like,

I'm so glad I did that. If you follow basic reward theory, I would run to exercise, but I don't. I have to force myself into it. Force is the wrong word. I have to lead myself to it way more often than I would think. And you know I've asked a bunch of people about this and a lot of people have just said look the basic animal condition is to conserve energy. You're about to put out a whole lot of energy for what's potentially questionable benefit. There's always going to be some degree of resistance. So that's just natural. You know don't make a big deal out of it. And I'm curious whether you think this not wanting to be out in the freezing cold or the rain is a biological sort of wiring because, you know, it's not good to be out in the cold

and the rain if you're a hunter-gatherer, for example. And to what extent that's sort of hardwired and to what extent there's cultural aspects of that. And I guess what I'm saying is it do you think for the average Dutch person it's easier to get out in the rain than it is for you or do you think everybody is facing some degree of what we're talking about here? I do think most people face some degree of this. I think the question is how much are you able to embody this learning, right? So maybe if you are a Dutch person who grew up biking in the rain in all weather, it is more embodied for you that it's going to feel good or not feel bad or not be such a big deal. And then there's very real

biological things that happen when we expose ourselves to the cold over and over again. We get used to the cold. You can think of the first chilly fall day in autumn when you break out your sweater and your coat and you're freezing and a day of that exact same temperature in March, you're wearing a t-shirt, right? And so there is also something that's not just mental about how often you do it, but that's physical, that the more you do it, the easier it gets. I do think that you can override some of these mental resistances by focusing on how good these things feel,

by really noticing at the end of a workout that you feel good and then really motivating yourself to do the next workout not by saying, oh, I should exercise now, but by being like, I will feel better in half an hour for having done this. I do think that there's what we call affective forecasting errors, which is when we are bad at predicting how we're going to feel about things and humans are often bad at predicting how they're going to feel about things. And then there's also loss aversion where anything that is perceived to have a cost to you, that potential cost is going to weigh very heavily, potentially

more heavily than the potential gain. But I do think that with attention and intention, you can at least reduce some of these tendencies to have that resistance by, you know, having a more positively reinforcing pattern. Yep, let's try and put this into practice. So we can use me if you like, because this is happening literally right now. When I was in Europe, one of the amazing things was I walked all the time everywhere, right? It's just a lovely thing. Much harder to do here in the States for a whole bunch of reasons, but I have been committed to like, okay, I'm going to, you know, 10,000 steps is an arbitrary number, but it's a good arbitrary number. So I'm going to try and commit to moving that much every day. It is cold here. And I have been walking on the treadmill in our apartment complex gym. Better than not walking, certainly, right?

Good. I'm giving myself the thumbs up for that. And I also think being outside is lovely. I love to be outside. And yet I'm finding it hard to talk myself into doing it. So coach me through this. What can I say to myself that's going to help me embrace the cold and get outside and take the walk?

Make it nice, make it comfortable. So the first thing is to dress appropriately. So in Norway and throughout Scandinavia, they have this saying, there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. And that was something that I really learned. I grew up in New Jersey, it gets cold in the winter. And I was never dressing appropriately growing up in New Jersey.

I would wear my normal jeans and sneakers and t-shirt and throw on a coat and wonder why I was freezing when I went outside. So in Norway, I really learned to embrace the woolen leggings, the layers, the undergarments to really be comfortable for going out in the cold, which makes such a big difference. So I would say you want to be warm. I would do something else that makes it enjoyable. So you could go to a favorite spot. You could go to a park or walk around by a lake or a river. You could make yourself a thermos of something nice and warm.

You could listen to your favorite podcast. You can listen to the one you feed on your rock. I highly recommend it for winter walking. You could invite a friend to go with you. You could listen to an audio book. But I think we have this general idea of health is supposed to be painful, right? Like it's all about willpower and it's all about, yeah, forcing ourselves

and doing it even if it doesn't feel good. But the truth is you can get the benefits even if you make it feel good. And so what are the things that would make it feel good to you? Maybe you phone a friend, maybe you walk to a special destination, you know, a favorite bakery or a coffee shop or something, if that's accessible or possible for you. You do something that makes it into a pleasurable activity.

And then you do it with an open mind. You say, I'm going to try this and I'm going to see how it feels. And this is something that I assign my students to do. I assign people in workshops to do of go out and take a winter walk. And most of the time when my students write their reflections, they all sound the same. I didn't want to take a walk. It was so cold. I almost turned around.

I almost chickened out. The first five or 10 minutes I was freezing, my nose was running, I was unhappy. And then all of a sudden, the air turned from frigid to crisp, and I noticed there were some birds out and the sun was shining on the leaves or the rain was making a nice sound. And my mood lifted and I came back and I thought, you know what, I'd like to do that again. And so sometimes I think just do it as an experiment with an open mind, see how it feels, and then if it's good, maybe you'll do it again. John Stewart is back in the host chair at The Daily Show, which means he's also back

in our ears on The Daily Show Ears Edition podcast. The Daily Show podcast has everything you need to stay on top of today's news and pop culture. You get hilarious, satirical takes on entertainment, politics, sports, and more from John and the team of correspondents and contributors. The podcast also has content you can't get anywhere else, like extended interviews and a roundup of the weekly headlines. Listen to The Daily Show, Ears Edition on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Tisha Olin, former golf professional and the host of Welcome to the Party, your newest obsession about the wonderful world that is women's golf. Featuring interviews with top players on tour like LPGA superstar Angel Yin. I really just sat myself down at the end of 2022 and I was like look either we make it or we quit.

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Did you know that companies hire the most in the first two months of the year? Or that nearly half of workers are worried about being left behind? I'm Andrew Siemen, LinkedIn's editor-at-large for jobs and career development. And my show Get Hired brings you all the information you need to, well, get hired. People are forming opinions of you even before you log into the Zoom or walk into the room. And so you really have to think about what is it I want to display. You don't plant a garden and then just walk away and expect it to thrive. You are in there pulling out the weeds. You're pruning it. You're watering it.

It's the same thing with your network. You should always be in there actively managing your network. If you don't feel confident to say a number, even admitting that to a recruiter is going to be far better than saying, well, what is your budget for the role? A lot is in the follow up, right? Don't wait to follow up. Whether you're a new grad, an established professional, or contemplating a career change, Get Hired is for you.

Listen to Get Hired with Andrew Seaman on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you like to listen. I'm Dr. Lari Santos, and to welcome the new year, my podcast, The Happiness Lab, is releasing a series of happiness how-to guides to help you in 2025. I'll distill the wisdom of world-class experts into easy-to-digest actionable tips. It's about never feeling good enough. I feel like I'm always failing. You'll learn how to handle relationships, how to be inspiring, and how to find your

purpose. We make it this big pie-in-the-sky thing, and then of course we're all frustrated because no one knows how to get there. Struggling with tough emotions, we have a how-to guide. Worried that you're not enough, we got you. Self-obsessed and want to get over yourself, there's a guide for that too. The ability to approach somebody and make them experience desire for you in minutes or even hours is a rare and rather unnecessary skill, historically speaking.

The Happiest Labs how-to season starts January 1st. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now you need to help reframe me on the fact that there's no leaves on the trees. It's gray and brown. What do you got for me there? Well I would say that this is an opportunity to flex your curiosity and to really notice things as they are right? Like you know bare tree branches against the sky, beautiful. Are there no birds around? Are there no animals or are there things to see? Just unhappy birds. Just unhappy birds. That doesn't sound like

projecting to me at all. Right. And I would say, is there winter weather to look at? Are there clouds in the sky? Does the sun ever come out? This is something I encounter a lot in places, you know, like Ohio, like Amsterdam, like London, that have this reputation for a long gray winter and do have very gray winters, but also where the sun is coming out a lot more often than people actually notice because there's such a bias towards the grayness and a narrative that it's gray all the time.

I was in London on a day that I walked around for an hour in the sunshine, and then in the afternoon it rained and I was in London on a day that I walked around for an hour in the sunshine, and then in the afternoon it rained and I was in a pub and the bartender looked outside and was like, such a rainy day. And if it rains at all, it's a rainy day, but if it's sunny for only a little bit, it's not a sunny day. And so I think you can just go out and be present to what is. Is it really as gray and boring and uninteresting as you think, or are there things that you can find to be fascinated about?

If you do the same walk in the same place every week, is there an evolution in the bear trees? Is there an evolution in the ground and the sky? And I think it's not as easy to do this in the winter. Like, I'm not gonna, like, we shouldn't pretend that it is, you know, in the spring, in the summer, it's easier. But I think that is one of the opportunities here is really to challenge ourself and to flex these muscles

and to say, okay, if I can do this in the winter, then I can really do this at any time. And I think that's the value of a lot of these practices in winter is that it gives us a chance to experiment and try things that are maybe a little bit more challenging and see what's possible. We talked about attention earlier, and I think there are ways that we can challenge ourselves to be more curious. I think there are ways to prime our attention. So things like, well, what's something I've never seen on this walk before? You know, I've started to think about the gray and go, okay, what kind of gray do we

have? What are the variations in the gray? There are days it's just socked in monocolor one gray. But there are lots of other times it's gray, but there's more going on. There are shades of gray. There are sections of gray. There is stuff to look at, right? And this is where I lean on like my Zen training because in Zen training, the whole idea is

if you pay close enough attention to what's ordinary, it can become extraordinary, right? That's how you transform the ordinary day-to-day things into something more special is you give them very close, warm attention. Yeah, and I think that that is such a powerful practice. And so often we have these mindsets about winter. We have these narratives about winter. It is gray, it is dark. It is gloomy. And it prevents us from noticing the shades of gray, or it prevents us from noticing

when the sun actually comes out, or it prevents us from noticing where when oh, it's February, and actually the buds are starting to be on the trees a lot earlier than I ever thought or noticed because I have the narrative that it's winter until April, you know? There are some buds on some trees on my walk. I guess I didn't tell you the whole truth because I have gotten out a few times and walked outdoors and I've seen buds on a couple of trees and I'm like, is that normal? It's early January. Should that be happening? I don't know. I don't know the answer. I don't know what kind of tree it is, but there are some. Yeah, and I don't know what kind of treat it is, but there are some. Yeah, and I don't know either, but I think that that noticing is really powerful and is really a great experiment. I also think, you know, you are allowed to like going out because it makes being in feel really good, right?

There is not really anything like going for a long winter walk and then coming home and it's warm and you make something hot to drink and you eat a little sweet snack and you're on the couch. But you feel good. You don't feel like, oh, I've just been like, I have a TV madness and a headache from like staring at screens the whole day. I was outside, I got some fresh air

and now it feels great to be home. And that is part of the winter experience, you know? Reframing it's so nasty out to it feels so good in here is part of winter. And I think you're allowed to celebrate that as well. You have a line in the book, you're sort of talking about this idea of comfort and then challenging ourselves to become uncomfortable and you say challenge and comfort are two sides of the same coin.

What does that mean? It means that these things really go together and you know I think we think of them as in opposition. You're challenging yourself or you're feeling comfortable. But actually these things facilitate and enable each other that when we do something that is a little bit challenging, then we can really luxuriate in the comfort that comes afterwards. Or if we let ourselves be comfortable and rest when we really need it, then we have the fortitude and the resources to challenge ourselves and push ourselves a little bit. I also think there are two sides of the same coin in that you really need them both. And I think this is sort of the nuance of winter, right? Is that sometimes we want to practice listening to our bodies and embracing rest and letting ourselves slow down. And sometimes we want to say,

okay, I haven't been outside in four days and it's time to bundle up and go on that walk, even if I feel a little bit of mental resistance to that. And I think part of this is really tuning into what do we need? What is going to make us feel good now and in an hour and in a day? And sometimes that requires guilt free, indulgence and rest. And sometimes that requires a little bit of pushing and effort, but those things aren't in opposition. Those things are sort of flowing together and reinforcing each other. Let's change direction a little bit and talk about being together in the winter. It sounds like the Norwegians, this is something they embrace. I feel like outside of like say a Christmas holiday or

New Year's which it's interesting to think about those holidays in the context of being placed there to facilitate the very things we're talking about. It's not an accident that they happen at the time of the year that those sort of things happen at but in the U.S. they were less and less good at gathering in general and I would say we're probably even less good at gathering in general. And I would say we're probably even less good at gathering in winter. People generally want to embrace the, it's yucky out there, I'm not going to go out kind of thing. So how might we think about gathering in winter in a different way? Yeah, I think this is another place where, you know, it seems like things are intention, but actually we can reconcile them, right? That people feel maybe less motivated and less social, but also we know that winter can be a time of loneliness and isolation, and that can be a struggle

for people. So how can you balance those two things? And to me, it's really about adapting the way that we socialize and changing that for the winter. So in the summer, I want to go to the beach with people, I want to go to the park, I want to picnic, I want to go to the brewery, I want to gather in a group and be high energy. But in the winter, I want to be low energy, I want to be in my comfy clothes, I want to be warm. But I know that if I don't socialize, it really for me takes a toll on my mental health. And so I like to do a lot more sort of what we would call low arousal social gatherings, calm, peaceful gatherings. So I'm thinking small groups coming over for dinner or stopping and grabbing some bagels and coming over for

a late breakfast on Sunday. I'm thinking having friends over for a movie night. I'm thinking of even having people and saying, do you want to come over and do a passive hang where we both read our books or even scroll on social media, but we're just near each other. I think that's one of the things that we find comfort in, over the holidays when we gather with family is it's not always this active catch up activity doing something, it's just being in each other's presence. And so for me in the winter,

those are the kinds of socialization that I really crave is something that feels slow, that feels like a low bar and low energy, but that still is allowing me to connect with people. This might look different for different people. You could have people over an order takeout. You could have your reality TV night where once a week people just drop in and watch reality TV in their pajamas. You could have meeting for a cup of coffee. But I think you're allowed to shift the way that you gather and socialize to match your mood

and your energy and what you need. And I think that's really the key insight of what do you need at this time of year and how can you get that in your gatherings and your socializing with other people. So I think we're nearing the end here, but I wanted to talk about the last chapter in the book, which is called Clearing the Way. You say that clearing a path is an act of faith, believing in the journey ahead. Talk to me about clearing the way in winter, what you mean by that, and then talk about the emotional and psychological aspects of what you're talking about. Yeah, so I think this is really about facilitating the right conditions for the most useful mindsets. And, you know, I'm happy that we've already talked a lot about sort of the intersection between objective

reality and mindsets because, you know, I love being a mindset researcher. I think it's really powerful and that we can empower people because you have control over your mindset. It's something that no matter what your circumstances are, it has the potential to influence your wellbeing within those circumstances, and it's something that you can take action on. But that doesn't mean that the objective circumstances don't matter.

And this is something I really observed in Norway, is that A, I was surrounded by a culture of people who were appreciating and celebrating winter, and that really rubbed off on me and made it easier for me to do that. And B, I was in a place that had the infrastructure to make it easier to enjoy winter, where there's good lighting and ski trails and the roads are plowed. So when it snows, you don't have to stay at home. And it's easy to find the right undergarments so you can be properly dressed and all the cafes have the cozy lighting.

All of those things facilitate our mindset. And of course, you can adopt the mindset to embrace winter wherever you live and work with the circumstances that you have. But when the path is cleared for you, it's that much easier to adopt that mindset. And I'm a social psychologist by training, which is really about the psychology of how we respond

to other people and our environments. And so I think it's really important, especially for me to acknowledge that mindset is not a replacement for things like infrastructure or being able to heat your home in the winter or having access to places that you can go outside and take a walk safely and enjoy nature year round. And so ideally, we would have both, right? We would have what psychologists call the seed in the soil. We would have the soil of the context that is fertile for these mindsets to grow in. And so we would help people adopt the most useful mindsets,

but those mindsets would be supported by their communities, their families, their context, the physical reality of where they live. And I think that, you know, that's something that we can't ignore when we talk about, especially like, oh, the Norwegian mindset for loving winter, it's all about, you know, their mindset and you can just extract it. But that's really happening in the context of all of these other things. Yeah. Well, I think that's a wonderful place to wrap up. You and I are going to continue in the post show conversation for a minute because I want to explore this last idea in a

little bit more depth, right? You said that we have control over our mindset. So I'd like to poke around that a little bit. Do we really? And I know if I examine that word, you'd probably add nuance to it, which I'm going to give you the chance to do in the post show conversation. And I know if I examine that word, you'd probably add nuance to it, which I'm going to give you the chance to do in the post-show conversation. And I also, I'm fascinated by this interplay between the circumstances, the social factors, and then the individual factors, and how to work with those as people. Because on one hand, you can acknowledge that the circumstances aren't set up for you to appreciate

winter in the same way that Norwegians do. And thus, you can say, well, I can't really do it because I don't have that. And that's one side of the coin and that's probably not the best mindset. And on the other hand, you could say, ah, none of that stuff matters. I'm a self-made man. I will do my own thing. And we know that environment matters so, so, so much. And so I always like a chance to dive deeper on this with anybody who studies this. So that's what

we're going to do in the post-show conversation. Listeners, if you'd like access to that, as well as an episode I do called Teaching Song and either a poem or a quote, depending on how I feel, and you'd like the joy of supporting a show that really could use your support you can go to when you feed net slash join Carrie thank you so much for this conversation I've really enjoyed it and it's very timely I'm gonna go out and walk tomorrow great thanks so much Eric it was a great chat and I really appreciate your very thoughtful questions. ["The One You Feed"] If what you just heard was helpful to you,

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Now this is a second term we can all get behind. Listen to The Daily Show Ears Edition on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. $1.4 billion in NFL quarterback contracts, the untold stories behind the biggest deals in football history. I'm A.J. Stevens, vice president of client strategy at Athletes First, introducing the Athletes First Family Podcast, the quarterback series. My co-host Brian Murphy, Athletes First CEO, and I are sitting down with the agents who have negotiated contracts with Justin Herbert,

Deshaun Watson, Dak Prescott, Tua Tunga-Vaioloa, and Jordan Love. Listen to Athlete's First Family Podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You are cordially invited to the hottest party in professional sports. I'm Tisha Allen, former golf professional and the host of Welcome to the Party, your newest obsession

about the wonderful world that is women's golf. Featuring interviews with top players on tour, tips to help improve your swing, and the craziest stories to come out of your friendly neighborhood country club. Welcome to the Party with Tisha Olin is an iHeart Woman's Sports Production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. Listen to Welcome to the Party. That's P-A-R-T-E-E on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.