The Psychology of your 20s - 201. 5 scientific ways to ACTUALLY be happier

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

We all want to be happier, but are probably sick of hearing about 'exercising more, eating better, sleeping 8 hours'. In today's episode we break down FIVE evidence based tips that are simple, accessible, actionable and inexpensive for becoming a happier person and the research that proves it:  Focus on platonic love over romantic love Small acts of kindness + how we are spending our money wrong and why its making us less happy  The importance of a project  The healing power of nature + what bacteria and dirt have to do with it  Let yourself wallow  Listen now!  Buy notebooks here: https://the-psychology-of-your-20s.myshopify.com/  Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast Instagram here: @thatpsychologypodcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world.

Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO. percent on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Look Back at it podcast. From 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me.

I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people.

Listen to look back at it on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor. It signals to the world that you not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that doesn't. not mean that you need to.

Listen to learn the hard way on the AHA radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. In 2023, Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd was accused of fathering twins. But the pregnancy appeared to be a hoax. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Owens, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg, a lesbian.

Michael Mancini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trapped. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello everybody and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our 20s and what they mean.

for our psychology. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners. Whatever you are in the world, it is so great to have you here back for another episode of the show as we of course break down the psychology of our 20s. Before we get into it today, I want to let you guys know that my latest line of notebooks in collaboration with the illustrator Rosie Pink have launched and a live.

live now and ready for you guys to get your hands on. A lot of love and care went into designing and producing these beautiful companions to the podcast. If you're somebody who likes journaling, who likes to take notes while listening, who likes, I don't know, just a gratitude journal, who likes to have a little planner, a little to-do list, whatever you need a notebook for, these ones are adorable. and definitely up there as being one of my favorite things I've ever created. It's also an amazing way to support the show and to support me as a creator. So if you are even thinking about it, thank you so much. And if you hit purchase, you are my favorite person in the world. So without further ado, let's get into the show.

Today, we are going to be taking a look at one of our most primary and significant emotions, and that is happiness. This huge concept, if we can even call it that, that sounds so reductive to call it a concept, it plays such an everyday valuable role in our life. And yet I realized that I have never actually sat down and done an episode on happiness. Even in 200 episodes, it might come up,

but it has never had its time in the spotlight, all on its own. And today is that day when we are going to give all of our attention and focus to this primary, deep, important emotion. I think everybody on this planet wants to be happier in some sense. They want more contentment. They're striving for greater satisfaction in some area of their life, more pleasant emotions, or they recognize that they are unhappy.

And they're looking for some way out of their despair or their emotional rut. and yet I don't think many of us really know how to change that. We don't really know what brings us joy or contentment. We kind of spend a lot of our life at this like baseline level, this like 50% mark of not being unhappy, but not really excelling as a happy human. The other alternative is that we spend a lot of time doing things that we think will improve our life satisfaction,

doing things that we think bring temporary pleasure and temporary joy, but which don't actually have that sustainable happiness factor behind them, right? They don't actually improve our emotional state in the long term. I'm thinking about things like retail therapy. That's the first one that always comes to mind. But other concepts or other behaviors like binge drinking, emotional eating, yes, we feel better in the moment. Often we use these things to self-soothe, but I think that if we see happiness as a scale,

a lot of those activities that we pursue to improve happiness really don't have a lasting effect. On top of that, I also think that in our minds, for a lot of us, happiness is like important, absolutely, but it's also seen as rather uncomplicated and very much out of our control. When life is good, we are happy. When bad things happen, we are not. And so we really do tend to project our happiness and see it. as the responsibility of our circumstances, the responsibility of what is happening around us.

That is what has the biggest impact. But actually, that is not necessarily the case. There is this model called the Happiness Pi, which says something completely differently. So behavioral geneticists, psychologists, they actually attribute about 50% of our happiness to genetics. So every single one of us is born with what we call happiness set point, a baseline level of happiness.

This kind of relates to the individual differences between being a pessimist and being an optimist. When we are born, we are just naturally hardwired to see the world as perhaps realistic, but more so either a brighter or darker place than it actually is. So 50% genetics and then 10% of our happiness comes down to our life circumstances, which is shocking because I think so often we blame our context and external events for our emotional state when actually it really can only tip the scale, not throw it off completely. I think of course, during intense moments of loss or grief that 10% is really going to dominate, but on the average day, our happiness really comes down to our mindset and our outlook and our habits. And so we finally arrived,

at that final slice of the pie, the 40% that we can actually attribute to our personal choices. 40% of our happiness is dictated by us. Science would say that it is within our control. And that's what we're going to focus on today, that part of the equation and five ways that we can scientifically improve our level of happiness. and I really wanted to talk about tips that were actionable, accessible, simple, but also inexpensive, right? I'm not going to recommend some like $50 workout class or supplement because it's kind of ridiculous to think that only wealthy people would have access to joy and peace.

But I'm also not going to give you like the basic tips that we all know. You know, I think we all understand that when you exercise and move more, when you get eight hours of sleep, when you eat better, you are going to be happier. That is pretty basic knowledge. But I want to go a little bit deeper today. I want to really look at some of the academia and the research about what can really impact our happiness on an everyday level. What are some of the secret habits of really, really joyful, happy, content people?

One final caveat, I know I've been rambling for a while. These are not tips that are going to, of course, cure you of your mental health concerns. of your mental health symptoms or conditions. They are more so additions to our life. They are techniques that can elevate the work that we're already doing in therapy with the help of medications. I just want to say that loud and clear. This is not a replacement.

These are just bonuses. So without further ado, let's get into our five evidence-based ways to actually, truly be happier. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believed that seed oils were inherently inflammatory.

We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's T-W-O-Persent on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tapped Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking.

What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast. I'm Sam Jek. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we picket here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 was big to me, not just because of course. crack.

I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know. I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really?

Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hardway with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Keer Games. And in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking, Tript Fantine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing.

And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough. Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth? Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely.

And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person. Join me, Kear Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, learn the hard way. Open your free, our heart radio app. Search learn the hard way and listen now.

In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in so-ins, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for.

Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Gregalespian and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police.

As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is. served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Let us jump straight into it with my first tip. Invest as much time in your platonic relationships as your romantic ones, if not more.

I think that it is important that if we are focusing on happiness, we need to firstly focus on our social connections. And that requires us to spend at least, I would say, 30. 30 minutes every day, doing something that meaningfully connects you with another person and that keeps you in touch. Even as life gets busy, even as the older we get, you know, the more focus we become on our partners or our romantic lives or our marriages, keep those platonic connections alive with those people from your past and new friends as well, even when it feels hard, even when it feels tedious and dare I say, even when it does sometimes, let's admit it,

feel like a bit of a chore. I think we all go through these like social ruts where we want to isolate, where we do feel withdrawn or, you know, just simply lonely. And the best thing that you can do for your happiness is to find some way, any way of getting back in touch with others. That is one of the core needs that we have as human. So let's talk about some of the research behind why this is so crucial and why it's often neglected. So possibly one of the most brilliant and significant studies of all time provides so much evidence for why this is such an important step in our happiness.

So back in 1938, that is almost 90 years ago now, this huge team at Harvard University, they decided that they wanted to track 268 current. sophomores at the time. And they didn't just want to track them for the, you know, for the year, for the term. They wanted to track them for the rest of their lives, regularly checking in with them, regularly seeing how they were going, to determine what parts of their lives, what factors were, you know, determining whether one person was healthy and one person wasn't, what events and characteristics meant that these men succeeded or failed, what caused their early deaths or their long lives, what made their marriages flourish versus fail. And also, what it was about these people's lives, tracking them from when they were 19 till 90, and even past that, what made these

people happy versus miserable? So this is now known as the Grant study. It is actually the longest longitudinal study of all time. When I'm recording this right now, 2024, I think only about like 18 of the men are still alive. But the biggest finding across all of those decades of observation and research was that the one thing that determined happiness above all else was positive social relationships, not money, not promotions or careers, not material possessions, but friendship and love, and even deeper than that, just genuine companionship and a warmth from relationships. There is something really valuable in that that I think we often forget.

I think there is often this sense of like friendships and, you know, relationships are just there to feel empty space. They are there to make me feel less lonely. Or we sometimes end up thinking that our careers and material fulfillment is actually what determines our happiness. And this is a bit of a wake-up call that, no, if you are going to invest in anything in your life, anything at all that's going to ensure that not only do you live longer, but you're happier, it is those really meaningful platonic friendships and relationships.

That was like the pioneering study on this. There have, of course, been so many follow-up research projects that are finding the exact same thing. Another example of this is a more recent one, and researchers employed the use of this app, and it was called the mappiness app. And basically what they wanted to determine was when are people happiest? On an 11 point scale from No I'm Not Happy at All to I'm Extremely Happy, this app would send them little alerts to rank how they were at that very point throughout their day.

And they had over 3 million submissions from nearly 50,000 volunteers. And what they found was that the point where people are happiest is when they are with their friends amongst everything else that they were able to track when they were with their partners, when they were with their parents, when they were with their children, when they were at work, when they were exercising, when they were with their friends always came out on top. So applying this tip, here are three things that we can do. Once a day, find 30 minutes minimum to deepen your bond with someone. Literally, it could be as easy as sending them TikToks or texting them.

but if you really want to improve your chances here, giving that long-distance friend a call or grabbing lunch with a friend on your lunch break, going to the gym together afterwards, you know, after work, those small 30-minute, like, kind of points of contact are so valuable in building up that relationship. Once a week, you need to be doing minimum, at least, a one to two hour, even longer, hopefully, in-depth catch-up,

with one of your friends where you actually have a deep, meaningful conversation, you get vulnerable, you disclose, you laugh and more important, you make memories. And then it comes to once a month. Once a month, become the host. Now, if you have listened for a while, if you know me in real life, you will know that one of my secrets to, I would say being an incredibly optimistic happy person and a present person as well is finding ways to build community, not just for myself, but also for the people that I love. And I think hosting events in your house, in your neighbourhood, small things is an expression of that.

When I stopped waiting for other people to do or organise cool things and hopefully invite me and just started being the person who literally just did fun shit, my life got so much better. So once a month, what I really would implore you to do, is to get together a big, random bunch of people for like a friendship group potluck or a movie night at somebody's house. Or, you know, trivia, brunch, a run club, you be the organizer, you be the host, you be the person around which community is built. I think, you know, reflecting on that and why it makes so much sense is that in this day and age, we really lack some of the structures. and activities that used to bring us together. You know, in the past, we used to have so many more places to operate within a community, right?

We had community dances. We had town squares. We had small village-like places and spaces where you were surrounded by people. A lot more people went to church or were involved in religion. There was a bigger focus on community, essentially. And I think as society has progressed and become more globalized, but also a lot more online, for example, we've lost a lot of that. And that disconnection really bleeds into other areas of our lives. So deliberately making our way back to that, making engagement a practice rather than something we passively fall into is so valuable.

My second tip for today, spend your money better. Now, this has nothing to do with budgeting or having long-term financial goals. It is actually about spending money on others and on experiences. And trust me, I know that in this kind of very materialistic society, this may initially make you feel uncomfortable to hear me say that the secret to happiness is to spend on other people and not yourself, but there is a science here. If you're aiming the happiness, if that is your goal, this might just be the path to it. Money does make us happier up to a point, though, only up to a point.

So in a really famous study, I think we probably have all heard of at some point. And they actually revised it last year. Basically, they wanted to measure at what point does an extra dollar really not do much for our happiness? At what point does making more money not really move the needle when it comes to how good we feel? And they recently updated this for inflation. And nowadays, what they say is that once you are making around 100K a year in US dollars, so do the conversion if you live outside of the US, more money doesn't really do much to make you feel better.

And it doesn't do much to eliminate misery or sadness. Yes, you might be able to, you know, buy objects and experiences that you value. You definitely will have more freedom and independence and security. But at that point, there isn't much more that would provide you with already that baseline. So if your happiness hasn't already been influenced by that level of wealth, more money isn't going to help you. But there's something else that will. So a study by Harvard Business School and the University of British Columbia, they found that once you've actually pulled yourself out of poverty,

so once you can actually afford your basics, spending money on other people actually gives us more joy than spending money on ourselves. So they found that even a minimal amount can make a difference. It's really interesting because I think that that power of generosity has been lost, but it is such ancient, ancient knowledge. I think in almost every major religion, every major historical text, you will find evidence that for a long time we've known that doing good by other people makes us feel better.

I think it also has the effect of turning the attention away from you and your problems for a moment and remembering what it is that you have that others might not, that you could assist them by giving to them. So use your money, devote some portion of it to basically engaging in random acts of kindness. Quite literally, I want you to budget it in. One way that I do this is called Good Deed Sunday. Every Sunday you practice essentially being generous. You give back in some way or another.

It actually doesn't even need to be that much. It could be that, you know, when you go and do your weekly shop, you buy some extra items for your local community pantry. Or you ask somebody doing it tough outside if you can buy them something. If you can buy them a couple of items that they really need. You could find a, you know, random go fund me and budget literally $5, $10, $15 each week to go towards this random act of giving back and kindness. I know it feels kind of strange giving to others for your own. happiness rather than just because you feel compelled to do so. But I actually think it's more about adopting an attitude and a genuine lifestyle, adversely gratitude for what you do have and generosity

by realizing that there is so much that you could give to others that you should essentially feel really privileged to already be in possession of. And as I said, the studies repeatedly say you will feel better for it. You will feel so much better. giving that small portion of what you're making to somebody else than using it to buy something that you might not actually need. So a brief second layer to this tip around spending your money better to promote your happiness. If you're not spending that extra coinage on others, if that's not really what you want to do with your time and your money, that is okay.

A study by Cornell University found that you were actually better off purchasing experiences than things. because the joy and the satisfaction that you get from an object is going to wane and decline pretty quickly after purchasing, but the enjoyment of an experience, it's like a nice wine. It gets better over time. As you age, those memories do become more valuable. They become an investment. They become an important asset.

The other thing that the researchers pointed out around this in this study by Cornell was that your experiences are actually just inherently less comparative. It's a lot harder to, you know, compare them to somebody else and feel like you're lacking the same way that we can do with material objects. And we also don't typically have buyers remorse when it comes to memories, when it comes to experiences, because even if they were terrible, they are still a story. So if you want to spend your money better for your happiness, give to others, and give to your memories rather than to your kind of like material rather than to the material side of things.

So let's move on to our third tip. Have one project, one thing that you are actively trying to finish or accomplish or get better at. I say this a lot on the podcast, so I'm very sorry if I sound like a broken record at this point, but I say it because it's important and it's something that. that I believe in very deeply, sometimes the easiest thing to do isn't what's best for us. What's best for us is the thing that requires a bit more effort for a lot more gain. I think the older we get, we do tend to become more passive in our lives, especially during our free time, during our downtime, because hours along, life is exhausting, life is busy,

everything just gets a bit harder. I think we have all had that feeling. some point of just wanting to take the path of least resistance through life, getting home from work and just genuinely wanting to sit on the couch and scroll. But when we were kids, when we were teenagers, we often had the privilege of something to work towards, something that actually gave us a sense of drive and purpose. I think that we have lost that a little bit now. And, you know, everybody tries to blame social media and technology. I'm going to actually quickly jump on that bandwagon for a second.

I think with social media, if we're getting the same amount of dopamine from saying other people do cool and rewarding stuff, why would we need to do it ourselves? And the reason why, the answer to that question is that we need purpose. If we think about happiness as being made up of four components, in my mind they would be joy and pleasure. connection, altruism, and meaning, doing something that actually makes you feel like you are alive and contributing and just having a sense of purpose. So in 2013, this group of researchers at UCLA, they actually identified this through some research they were doing on the two distinct kinds of happiness. We have hedonic happiness and eudamonic happiness. Hopefully I pronounce that right, eudamonic. Yeah, eudamonic happiness. There we go. Correct me if I'm wrong. But hedonic happiness

comes from self-gratification and pleasure seeking. Hedonic is obviously relating to the idea of hedonism, prioritizing pleasure over everything else. But eutemonic happiness comes from having a deep sense of meaning and purpose in life, doing things for others, but more so doing hard things that do take time rather than getting all of your joy and pleasure from instantly gratifying experiences. We tend to spend a lot of time in hedonic happiness. We look to external pleasures to make life enjoyable because eutonic happiness is harder. Simply put, it's just harder to obtain. But there are so many benefits. So simply put, if you are in a bit of an emotional rut right now, I think creating meaning is an essential way to switch from adonic happiness to udonic happiness,

just have a little bit more of that more sustainable form of joy in your life. And we create that meaning by creating goals or things that we can strive towards. because I think it, you know, in that act of striving, we feel engaged and proactive, meaning we realize that we can do things to change our lives and how we feel about it. Now, those goals, this big, very daunting idea of purpose, it doesn't have to be as large or as scary as it sounds, you just need to have something. and I prefer to think about this as a project rather than thinking about this huge mission that we all need to have. You just need to have something.

For some people that is, you know, running a marathon, perfect example and also super timely because I think everybody I know right now seems to be training for a marathon or some running event of some sort. But, you know, that's fabulous because you're working towards something that is harder and bigger than yourself that you actually can't achieve overnight. but I also, you know, have a really good friend whose purposeful thing for the year is hitting her 52 book target on goodreads. My dad, for example, right now is learning Japanese. You know, that is something that you progress towards. And for me, well, it was finishing my book, but that is done. So now it's kind of being consistent at the gym, right? I can't just, like, show up one day and, you know, hit all my PRs and do everything perfectly. It is once again, the active striving that is so, so meaningful in these situations.

So just stop and pause with me right now, and I want you to honestly ask yourself, is there something in my life, anything that is challenging me or that I am working towards? Do I have a project? Or when I finish work, when I finish uni, when I say goodbye to all my friends, is my only function to scroll and consume. And is that really what I was designed to do? Is that really how I want to spend my life? Does it make me feel human?

Does it make you feel meaningful? You can still, of course, unwind in that way, but I just want to encourage you to think about what else you are made for and whether you actually would be happier if you were putting time into something that you really had something to show for it at the end of it all. You really had something that you felt was important and that you felt proud of. All righty, I have two more tips for you, but firstly, we are going to take a small break and then we will be right back. Two percent. That is the number of people who take the stairs

when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter, and on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships.

and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO% on the I-Hart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you remember when Diana Ross double-tap Little Kim's boobs at the VMAs? Or when Kanye said that George Bush didn't like black people. I know what you're thinking. What the hell does George Bush got to do with Little Kim? Well, you can find out on the Look Back at it podcast.

I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick it here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. Including a recent episode with Mark Lamont Hill, waxing all about crack in the 80s. To be clear, 84 is big to me, not just because of crack. I'm down to talk about crack on day, but just so y'all know.

I mean, at this point, Mark, this is the second episode where we've discussed crack. So I'm starting to see that there's a through line. We also have AIDS on the table right now. Thank you for finishing that sentence. Yes. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Really? Yeah. For me, it's one of the most important years for black people in American history.

Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to my new podcast, Learn the Hard Way with me, your host, and your favorite therapist, Kear Games. And in recognition of mental health awareness month, I'm bringing over a decade of my own experience in the mental health field and conversations with so many incredible guests. I'm talking. Trip Fontaine, Ryan Clark. Sometimes when we're in the pursuit of the thing, we get so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize that we are in possession of the thing. And we're still chasing it. And we don't know when we've done enough.

Because people scoreboard watch. Life becomes about wins and losses. Steve Burns, Dustin Ross, because you find it important to be a good person while you hear on earth. Are you a good person because you're afraid? Because that's two different intentions, bro. Absolutely. And that's two different levels of trust. I want you to just really be a good person.

Join me, Keer Gaines, as we have real conversations about healing, growth, fatherhood, pressure, and purpose on my new podcast, Learn the Hardway. Open your free Our Heart Radio app. Search Learn the Hardway and listen now. In 2023, former Bachelor star Clayton Eckerd

found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in so-ins, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for.

Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alesspian, Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police.

As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome back. I have two final tips for you today. And the first one takes place. outdoors. If you want to be happier, if that is what you are striving towards, and I'm assuming that it is, because you are listening to this episode, you need to rewild yourself. You need to

quite literally touch some grass. Get your feet stuck in the dirt. You know, experience awe as you look at the stars. Take a dive in the ocean. Pretty much anything that gets you connected with nature, our literal, you know, natural habitat can boost serotonin. Be on. even some of the strongest antidepressants. Now, again, not a cure for serious mental health concerns. I am never going to sit here and say, go off your medication and, like, get outdoors because I think that is ludicrous, that is ridiculous, that is unethical to even suggest. But it is an important addition.

I think we are so detached from nature in today's world. We are so, like, you know, caught up in concrete and indoor environments. that we have lost touch with what makes us wild and what makes us as a species, what makes us connected to the world around us. And when researchers have deliberately intervened and essentially force people to go outdoors as part of studies, the impact on their overall happiness, on their eudonic happiness, on their joy, on their genuine joy and love for life, the results and the impact of that is just honestly so impressive.

So I have three examples for you to take away with you today, three examples of how we can really activate this part of us that responds so well to nature. So in 2017, there was a study on this, and it was run on a group of 38 Northern Californians. So not a huge sample size, but just hear me out. So these 38 Californians, sorry, northern Californians, maybe there is a distinction, I don't know, They were split up into two groups. One group took a 90-minute walk in nature every day, and the other group did that same walk in the city.

At the end of this study, have a guess who was having fewer negative thoughts, have a guess who had a better self-esteem, have a guess who was reporting greater levels of happiness. It was the people who were walking in the outdoors. The urban walkers who were walking amongst the city did not report the same significant amount of change. When they kind of controlled for the general serotonin and endorphin boost from exercise,

it was those who did it out in nature and who were, you know, actively rewilding themselves who really experienced the most benefit. What's more, fMRI scans revealed less activity in the brain region that plays a role in mood disorders and negative thought patterns. These individuals had genuinely seen their brains almost rewire to be more positive. So the dirt example I gave before, you know, it may have sounded like a joke, me telling you to go out and touch some dirt, you know, touch some dirt and there you go, willy-nilly, you're happier.

But there is actually some evidence that the literal smell of mud, of dirt may lift your spirits. So what it comes down to is actually this harmless bacteria that exists in the soil. It's called myobacterium vacay. So if you want to give that, you know, fancy Latin name a quick Google, what you're going to find is that when you smell dirt, that smell that you can remember right now, really picture it smelling that like that fresh soil. What you're actually spelling and is that specific bacteria. and when it enters your olfactory center in your brain,

it releases a whole wave of euphoria and serotonin, so much so that in human tests, when cancer patients were administered this bacteria, their mood, despite their circumstances, despite this terrible, terrible disease, their outlook greatly improved. It is like nature's antidepressant. this bacteria, it is really, you should Google it. It has this strange impact on our brain and how our

neurons communicate. Even anecdotally, I don't think I've ever met an unhappy person who was gardening. I have never been miserable whilst repotting my plants or hiking or taking my feet off and like squishing them around in the mud. So one final study to convince you of the healing power of the outdoors and why if you are prioritizing happiness, you should be prioritizing quite literally your outdoor time, is this study that was focused on what eating outdoors can do for our well-being. And it turns out that it can do quite a bit. One thing that I hear a lot, and I think it's super understandable, is that, you know, I just don't have time for that.

And that is actually so reasonable. If you are working from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and it's the middle of winter and the sun is you know, not even coming up until you're at work, not even setting until you're home. How are you possibly meant to, you know, go play in the dirt or frolic in the ocean? How are you meant to do that? I understand, you know, it's really difficult for me to sit here and, you know, give you this advice when we are like, there's just practicalities that prevent me from doing this. So the simple solution is spending your lunch break, that 30 minutes or hour lunch break

that we all legally get eating outside or eating somewhere with windows to at least see some kind of nature. Do not sit at your desk and eat. Please and thank you. Do not sit, you know, in the middle of a crowded food hall with no natural light and expect, you know, to see a difference. So in 2013, another study for you guys and full of them today. These scientists from the University of Sussex, they measured the happiness of

this group of employees who ate lunch in different locations. So the results showed that workers, they were actually happiest when they ate their lunch on the beach. Of course you're going to be happy doing that. But it's also not reasonable that you can get from your office to the ocean so quickly. But even just getting outside in the sun was a huge contributor to basically like staving off misery. People who ate in parks, people who ate outdoors, they had a more positive attitude about their jobs, about their lives, about their connections

than those who were eating at a restaurant or sitting on their couch at home. So if you want to be happier, even slightly, if this is something you're consciously trying to do, prioritize your outdoor time, that one change that you can make is literally just sitting outside while you have your lunch. something that you are already, you know, it's already factored in your day that you will have to do this. I am going to finish up with my most counterintuitive tip of this entire episode. One that you will probably be surprised would show up in an episode about happiness. Here it is.

You need to be sadder more often. And let me explain why. We often think of happiness as the absence of sadness. But it's actually a mastery of sadness. It is a recognition that shit happens. Life sometimes hurts a lot. It is boring. It can quite frankly be a little bit bland if we're not searching for hedonistic pleasure at all times.

But that doesn't mean that it's not worthwhile. And it also doesn't mean that we suppress those feelings and adopt the delusion that everything is fine and hope that it will be. We need to give ourselves permission to wallow. We need to be tender. We need to feel. We need to watch that sad movie. We need to let ourselves be open about our emotions.

There is a brilliant Vice article about this back when Vice, you know, was actually good. And it's called You'll Be Happier if you let yourself feel like crap. And I would really, really recommend you go and read it. We have such high standards when it comes. to our emotions like joy, like euphoria, like excitement, like passion, like love. We of course want to feel them all the time. That is so human to want to feel amazing all the time. But it can create a gap between expectation versus reality.

And, you know, that actually results in us sometimes feeling less happy overall because we're disappointed that we can't feel happy all the time. And I think, you know, we live in a time when our culture is very obsessed with this idea of constant happiness. And I know it is so ironic that I am doing a whole episode devoted on this feeling whilst I am saying that. But seriously, I do think that maturing and developing and evolving is knowing that you cannot be happy all the time. And this author, Tabor to Bore, that is their full name. She published a study in 23, talking about how. When we as individuals rebrand sadness as valuable rather than as something that we want to escape from,

this transformation occurs because the very expression of this emotion begins to normalize it as part of our human condition. And instead of only focusing on how it is maladaptive, how it is unpleasant, how we want to avoid it, we think about what it actually can give us. I think that our ability to embrace our negative feelings provide so many benefits. There have been so many papers on this, so much evidence that people, individuals, like you and I, who accept all of our emotions without judgment, we are less likely to ruminate on, you know, those hard times. We are less likely to suppress mental experiences, you know, which typically backfires to

only amplify those experiences in the end. And we are also less likely to experience meta-emotional reactions, which is feeling, you know, upset about being upset, feeling even more unhappy about the fact that we are unhappy. You know, there was this fabulous article, it's in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the authors put it this way, when we accept versus judge our mental experience, we let those experiences, you know, experiences run their natural and also relatively short-lived course rather than focusing on them and exacerbating them. So that's my final tip.

Express your sadness. Find ways to communicate it to your friends. Find a home for it. Find an expression for it. Find a way to sit with it even when it's uncomfortable. And the research tells us that counterintuitively, it actually makes it. us happier in the long term. Here are some quick final notes for me on this. You don't have to do all of these things. You know, that's a lot of work. Just choose one or two of these tips and implement them

slowly. Implement them over time and just notice whether something changes. You know, I'm not going to choose which one you should do first because I think that all five are really important, but whichever one resonates with you most, that is the one that you should choose. And I always, I always, also want to say one more time, don't forget the other core components of your well-being. I know I said I wouldn't talk about exercise or eating well or going to therapy, but, you know, those are our foundations. You can't really accept your sadness or have a project or think that going outdoors is going to do as much as getting those basics down pat will do in the first place. So really, I'm rooting for you. These, you know, with small changes comes big.

big impact and big results. And I just want you to remember the happiness pie. When life feels overwhelming, you get to control 40% of it. That is all up to you and your perception. So I'm sending a lot of love and strength. If you enjoyed this episode, please feel free to share it with somebody else who you think might also benefit from it, who you think might get something from this.

and if you do feel cool to do so, please leave a review five stars. Of course, it would really make my day. It helps the show grow. It helps this information get to more people. And it just makes me really happy. Make sure you're following along as well so you know when new episodes are coming out. If you have feedback, an episode suggestion, something to say, something to contribute, something that you even disagree with, whatever it is.

Please feel free to follow me and DM me at That Psychology. podcast with all your questions, queries, concerns, inquiries, topics, suggestions, whatever it is. I would love to hear from you. And as always, we will be back on Friday with another episode. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. I'm on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier person. Listen to 2%.

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