Amado Esposo

We're bringing you an episode of Immigrantly, where Laurie joined host Saadia Khan to discuss the psychology of happiness education and the expansive realm of happiness. Is happiness a fleeting moment or a sustained state of being? Can it be actively cultivated, or is it an innate aspect of human existence? How do our backgrounds, personalities, and choices influence our perceptions of happiness?...

America's top athletes need coaches. And those coaches themselves need guidance. It's a hard and stressful job - and one where coaches can easily become burned out and unhappy. And stressed coaches can't help their athletes win medals.  Christine Bolger and Emilie Lazenby of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee teach happiness lessons - many they heard on this podcast - to America's elite coach...

Georgia Bell was a great runner as a child - but in college she fell out of love with the sport. She hung up her running shoes - and they gathered dust until Covid hit and she began to run again for fun. Turns out that aged 30, she's one of the fastest women in the world and is now headed to the Olympics! Georgia tells Dr Laurie Santos how she regained her enthusiasm for the 1500m race - and refle...

Making shows about her own happiness challenges was both fun and instructive for Dr Laurie, but it also took guts to be so vulnerable and open. She later spoke to her close friend at Yale Dr Tamar Gendler about the experience. This private chat threw up lots of interesting insights, so when the duo were asked to speak at the 2024 International Festival of Arts and Ideas... they decided to share pa...

Dr Laurie HATES thinking about her own death. It's scary, creepy and morbid, right? Wrong. Thinking about our finite lives can makes us better, happier people.  The shadow of death makes us behave more kindly towards others, and can motivate us both to enjoy the little joys of life and seek out greater fulfilment in our careers and in our relationships.  But you need to look death square in the fa...

By 2030 we'll only work 15 hours a week, predicted the legendary economist John Maynard Keynes back in 1930. He thought advances in technology and wealth would let us earn enough money to live in a day or two - leaving the rest of the week for leisure and community service.  How wrong he was. We seem to be working more than ever - with technology adding extra tasks to our workdays (like answering...

We often do things now that will make our lives more difficult or stressful in the future. We spend money, when we should save. We eat junk food, when we should exercise. We agree to commitments, when we should protect our free time. We act so thoughtlessly that it's almost like we hate our future selves.  Dr Laurie asks UCLA's Hal Hershfield to help her find the happiness balance between listenin...

Awe reduces stress, helps us forget our minor worries and makes us feel more connected to the people around us. We all need more awe in our lives - but surely it's not that easy to find awesome experiences on your average Tuesday? Actor Tony Hale explains how everyday awe helps ease his anxieties, while UC Berkeley's Dacher Keltner shows us how to find awe in music, art, scenery... even in a walk...

Dr Laurie is stressed, and it's harming her health. Constant worry and stress is bad for our bodies and our minds, but how can we break the cycle and relax? It turns out scientists have learned a lot from one of America's most stressed-out communities - caregivers.   Hollywood star Steve Guttenberg talks about the toughest chapter of his life - caring for his dying dad - and Dr Elissa Epel explain...

Dr Laurie HATES boredom! Since childhood she's found it so painful that she'll do anything to avoid being bored. She'll watch crappy TV. She'll find extra work to do. She'll snack. But boredom is actually an incredibly useful tool to boost our happiness and creativity.   With the help of leading boredom experts, Dr Laurie learns how to embrace doing nothing and finds that in the midst of tedium ou...

Holding yourself to impossibly high standards is self-defeating and makes for a miserable life. Can Dr Laurie Santos find ways to tackle her constant perfectionism so she can perform better and have more fun?  She hears from researcher Thomas Curran about a worrying growth in perfectionism in society, and asks "recovering perfectionist" Jordana Confino how to tackle the nagging voice in your head...

Sometimes the happiness teacher flunks her own class. In a deeply personal new season, Dr Laurie Santos opens up about the things she really, really struggles with. Things like crippling perfectionism, chronic stress and a paralyzing fear of death.  With the help of world-class experts, a Hollywood star and a host of normal people who grapple with the same issues, Dr Laurie will face up to her own...

Liz Dunn is a regular guest on The Happiness Lab, but in this extended interview with TED's Chris Anderson she take us on a deep dive into her research. It shows that by increasing our generosity and by giving to others we can significantly boost our own happiness.  Listen to more episodes of The TED Interview wherever you get your podcasts.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A chance to hear a recent episode of A Slight Change of Plans in which Maya Shankar asks psychologist Adam Grant about his new book "Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things". They talk about how to filter out unhelpful feedback, the benefits of imperfectionism, and why we need to give soft skills more respect.  Listen to more episodes of A Slight Change of Plans  wherever you get...

Work is a worry. Are we paid enough? Should we be getting promoted quicker? Is artificial intelligence about to replace us all?  Speaking at SXSW 2024, Dr Laurie Santos argues that because of all our career woes we often neglect our happiness. She walks through her top five tips for improving our workplace wellbeing - which will not only make us feel better, but might even cause our salaries to ri...

Technology is amazing! We can make video calls, find facts in an instant and watch movies on our phones. We take all this for granted, but have we let our screens and devices take over too much of our lives?  To mark Digital Wellness Day on May 3, we hear from Amy Blankson (author and "chief evangelist" at the Digital Wellness Institute ) about her ten tips to tame our devices at home and in the w...

Karen Guggenheim was devastated by the death of her husband, Ricardo. She was alive, but dead to the world around her. Slowly she put her life back together and found growing happiness. To share her insights with others in need, Karen started the World Happiness Summit .  Karen's campaign to spread global happiness is just one example of "post traumatic growth". Clinical psychologist Dr Edith Shir...

Medical doctors are waking up to the importance of happiness, partly prompted by the work of people like Rangan Chatterjee. Dr Chatterjee is Professor of Health Education and Communication, the host of the hit podcast 'Feel Better, Live More' and author of five best-selling books including Happy Mind, Happy Life: 10 Simple Ways to Feel Great Every Day. Rangan sat down with Dr Laurie Santos at the...

The US is sliding down the world happiness rankings - but it's the unhappiness of young people that's really dragging down the average. What has happened to make Gen Z so sad? And what can be done to turn the situation around? Jan-Emmanuel De Neve (director of Oxford University’s Wellbeing Research Centre) has been analyzing the figures for the World Happiness Report. He offers advice to young peo...

Age is the main risk factor for cognitive decline. So with more people around the world living longer, cases of dementia are set to rise. There's currently no cure - but research suggests that happiness can reduce the impact of this awful illness.  Psychologist Emily Willroth helped write a chapter on this topic for the 2024 World Happiness Report - and explains how making friends, helping others...

There are certain nations which always top the rankings in the World Happiness Report. What are they doing right, that other countries are getting wrong? And what can you do to make your home country happier? John Helliwell of the World Happiness Report explains how things like wealth, freedom and friendship combine to make a happy society - and how tiny changes in your home, neighborhood or workp...

The Happiness Lab’s Dr. Laurie Santos brings together other Pushkin hosts to mark the International Day of Happiness. Revisionist History’s Malcolm Gladwell talks about the benefits of the misery of running in a Canadian winter. Dr. Maya Shankar from A Slight Change of Plans talks about quieting her mental chatter. And Cautionary Tales host Tim Harford surprises everyone with the happiness lessons...

We often think adding more things to our lives will make us happier - more trips, more activities, more possessions. Sadly our minds find it hard to comprehend that having less and doing less is usually a better option.  Dr Laurie Santos teams up with economist Tim Harford (host of Cautionary Tales ) to examine why we find subtraction so very hard, and share tips for finding happiness by cutting d...

Fairy tales and Hollywood rom coms have taught us to expect perfection from a soul mate, but sex and relationships therapist Todd Baratz says we need to be more comfortable with the idea that a "good enough" partner will do.  Todd once bought into this perfection myth - wanting a boyfriend to meet all his needs without even being told. These expectations helped end the relationship. Now Todd (auth...

Some people ask searching questions and then really listen to the replies. These so-called supercommunicators make great romantic partners, so can anyone learn to be more like them?   Journalist Charles Duhigg (author of Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection ) was unhappy with how he and his wife were talking, so he studied his mistakes and adopted the habits of super...