Huberman Lab
How to Achieve True Happiness Using Science-Based Protocols | Dr. Laurie Santos
Mon, 23 Dec 2024
In this episode, my guest is Dr. Laurie Santos, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and cognitive science at Yale University and a leading researcher on happiness and fulfillment. We discuss what truly increases happiness, examining factors such as money, social comparison, free time, alone time versus time spent with others, pets, and the surprising positive impact of negative visualizations. We also explore common myths and truths about introverts and extroverts, the science of motivation, and how to adjust your hedonic set point to experience significantly more joy in daily life. Throughout the episode, Dr. Santos shares science-supported strategies for enhancing emotional well-being and cultivating a deeper sense of meaning and happiness. Read the full show notes at hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/huberman Function: https://functionhealth.com/huberman LMNT: https://drinklmnt.com/huberman David: https://davidprotein.com/huberman Timestamps 00:00:00 Dr. Laurie Santos 00:02:52 Sponsors: Eight Sleep & ExpressVPN 00:06:00 Happiness, Emotion & Cognition; Emotional Contagion 00:11:18 Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Rewards 00:14:43 Money, Comparison & Happiness 00:21:39 Tool: Increase Social Connection; Real-Time Communication 00:32:16 Sponsor: AG1 00:33:47 Technology, Information, Social Interaction 00:39:22 Loneliness, Youth, Technology 00:42:16 Cravings, Sustainable Actions, Dopamine 00:47:01 Social Connection & Predictions; Introverts & Extroverts 00:57:22 Sponsors: Function & LMNT 01:00:41 Social Connection & Frequency; Tools: Fun; “Presence” & Technology 01:07:53 Technology & Negative Effects; Tool: Senses & Grounding; Podcasts 01:15:11 Negativity Bias, Gratitude, Tool: “Delight” Practice & Shifting Emotions 01:25:01 Sponsor: David 01:26:17 Importance of Negative Emotions; Judgements about Happiness 01:34:16 Happiness & Cultural Differences, Tool: Focus on Small Pleasures 01:41:00 Dogs, Monkeys & Brain, “Monkey Mind” 01:47:40 Monkeys, Perspective, Planning 01:53:58 Dogs, Cats, Dingos; Pets & Happiness 02:00:49 Time Famish; Tools: Time Affluence Breaks; Time Confetti & Free Time 02:07:46 Hedonic Adaptation; Tool: Spacing Happy Experiences 02:15:27 Contrast, Comparison & Happiness; Tool: Bronze Lining, Negative Visualization 02:24:08 Visualization, Bannister Effect; Tool: Imagine Obstacles 02:29:12 Culture; Arrival Fallacy, Tool: Journey Mindset 02:37:11 Mortality, Memento Mori, Tool: Fleeting Experiences & Contrast 02:44:33 Awe 02:48:15 Timescales; Community Engagement & Signature Strengths; Tool: Job Crafting 02:56:55 Strength Date, Leisure Time; Tool: Doing for Others, Feel Good Do Good 03:01:42 Tool: Asking for Help 03:05:32 Zero-Cost Support, YouTube, Spotify & Apple Follow & Reviews, Sponsors, YouTube Feedback, Social Media, Protocols Book, Neural Network Newsletter Disclaimer & Disclosures Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is true happiness according to Dr. Laurie Santos?
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Lori Santos. Dr. Lori Santos is a professor of cognitive science and psychology at Yale University. She is a world expert in happiness and
in the science of emotions generally. Today we talk about true happiness, not in any kind of loose and aspirational way, but instead what the research really tells us about how to create lasting happiness for ourselves. We talk about relationships and happiness, that is relationships of all kinds, between friends, between romantic partners, between family members, and of course with ourselves.
We talk about all of that in the context of what to do, what not to do, and how to frame your whole notion of what happiness is and how to attain it in the context of daily to-dos. For instance, most all of us by now have heard about the power of gratitude and gratitude practices. In fact, I've done an entire episode about gratitude and the science of gratitude.
But Dr. Laurie Santos today explains that by shifting our orientation toward gratitude, towards something more aligned with what delights us, we are able to better tap into the mechanisms that enable us to feel happier in a more pervasive way.
We also discuss topics such as hedonic adaptation, that is how our pursuit of things and our whole experience of pleasure sets the stage for what's going to feel like a meaningful pursuit and pleasureful in the days and weeks to follow.
This is very important for everyone to hear, especially in this modern age of so-called dopamine hits, easy to achieve dopamine, highly processed foods, and the various things that you can find online. And speaking of online, we also discussed the role that smartphones and social media play, not just in our happiness, but in our cognition.
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Chapter 2: How do relationships influence happiness?
You'll be shocked, indeed, I was shocked to learn that just having your phone in the room where you are trying to learn something significantly diminishes your performance on things like mathematics and the learning of other topics.
We get into all of that today, the interrelated parts, and I promise that it's all made extremely clear and actionable thanks to Dr. Laurie Santos's incredible expertise. And she is an incredible teacher. In fact, the course that she has taught at Yale University entitled Psychology and the Good Life, is the most popular course ever taught at Yale over the course of 300 years.
And that popularity will not come as a surprise as you now get to learn from Dr. Laurie Santos directly. This was a remarkable episode, I must say. I learned so much.
And I'll just highlight one big takeaway that I've implemented in my own life and that you can frame in the back of your mind as you listen to today's episode is the difference between being happy with one's life as opposed to in one's life and indeed how to achieve both. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.
It is, however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science-related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Eight Sleep. Eight Sleep makes smart mattress covers with cooling, heating, and sleep tracking capacity.
Now I've spoken many times before on this podcast about the critical need for us to get adequate amounts of quality sleep each night. That's truly the foundation of all mental health, physical health, and performance. And one of the best ways to ensure that you get a great night's sleep is to control the temperature of your sleeping environment.
in order to fall and stay deeply asleep, your body temperature actually has to drop by about one to three degrees. And in order to wake up feeling refreshed and energized, your body temperature actually has to increase about one to three degrees.
Eight sleep makes it incredibly easy to control the temperature of your sleeping environment by allowing you to control the temperature of your mattress cover at the beginning, middle, and end of the night. I've been sleeping on an Eight Sleep mattress cover for nearly four years now, and it has completely transformed and improved the quality of my sleep.
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Chapter 3: What role does money play in our happiness?
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Go to 8sleep.com slash Huberman to save up to $350 off their Pod 4 Ultra. 8sleep currently ships in the USA, Canada, UK, select countries in the EU, and Australia. Again, that's 8sleep.com slash Huberman. Today's episode is also brought to us by ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN is a virtual private network that keeps your data secure and private.
It does that by routing your internet activity through their servers and encrypting it so that no one can see or sell your data. Now, I'm familiar with the effects of not securing my data well enough. Several years ago, I had one of my bank accounts hacked, and it was a terrible amount of work to have that reversed and for the account to be secured.
When that happened, I talked to my friends in the tech community, and what they told me was that even though you think your internet connection may be secure, oftentimes it's not, especially if you're using Wi-Fi networks such as those on planes, in hotels, at coffee shops, and other public places. Surprisingly, even at home, your data might not be as secure as you think.
To make sure that what I described before would never happen to me again, I started using ExpressVPN. The great thing about ExpressVPN is that I don't even notice that it's running, since the connection it provides is so fast. I have it on my computer and on my phone, and I keep it on whenever I'm connected to the internet. With ExpressVPN, I know everything is secure.
My web browsing, all my passwords, all my data, and of course, anything that's behind an account wall, like a bank account. It can't be tracked and no one can access or steal your data, which is terrific. If you'd like to start protecting your internet activity using ExpressVPN, you can go to expressvpn.com slash Huberman and you can get an extra three months free.
Again, that's E-X-P-R-E-S-S-V-P-N.com slash Huberman to get an extra three months free. And now for my discussion with Dr. Laurie Santos. Dr. Laurie Santos, welcome.
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Chapter 4: How can social connections enhance well-being?
Thanks so much for having me on the show.
I want to talk about this thing that everyone seems to want, but most everyone has trouble keeping themselves in a state of happiness, which raises the question of whether or not we should even be seeking to constantly be in a state of happiness. But just to sit back from that question for a moment. How should we think about the relationship between emotions and this thing that we call cognition?
Because I think a lot of where we're going today is to distinguish between feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. And as neuroscientists, psychologists, et cetera, we have to understand the difference between emotions and cognition and maybe where they overlap. So if you could educate us a bit on that, I think that will set the stage nicely for understanding happiness.
Yeah, well, I'm glad you started there, actually, because the very definition of happiness, I think, as social scientists tend to think about it, includes both of these parts, right? So I think social scientists tend to think about happiness as being happy in your life, and being happy with your life. So being happy in your life is sort of the emotion side, right?
A decent number of positive emotions, maybe slightly less negative emotions. Like you existing in your life feels good. That's kind of an emotional part, right? But then there's also kind of how you think your life is going. Do you have purpose? Are you kind of happy with how things are going? It's how you think about your life, which is sort of a cognitive thing.
And so even the earliest social scientists who started thinking about happiness, at the time they call it subjective well-being. So I think psychologists were like, oh, happiness sounds too wooey. Like, we'll call it something else. But it means exactly the same thing. It means subjective well-being, right?
When they started thinking about subjective well-being, they divided it into this sort of affective emotional part, which is like how you feel in your life, but also this cognitive part, how you think your life is going. So that basic dichotomy has been there since the very beginning of folks studying happiness scientifically. Yeah.
I'm already struck by this distinction between how things are going in your life versus with your life. One requires a kind of first-person experiencing of life in your life. You know, do you wake up feeling good? Are you feeling good with your – inside of your friendships and other relationships, family, romantic relationships, school, work? The other involves a bit of a third-personing of self.
Yep. I'm looking at one's – CV, either actual CV or reflected CV through the lens of other people and kind of getting a sense like, am I doing well? Am I not doing well?
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Chapter 5: What are the effects of technology on happiness?
Oh, that's interesting.
How much suffering they report.
So this is the question is, is this sort of cognitive part the like third person part or is it the reporting part? And I think when the psychologists are thinking about it, they really think about it as the reporting part, right? And this gets tricky, right? Because, you know, I see folks having their nice glass of wine on the beach and I'm thinking like that's coming with lots of positive emotion.
Like I bet if I tested them and could have a direct look at their sensory experience, it'd probably be pretty positive.
It's only when they reflect on their life and they're asking, well, how's it going that they say, oh, I don't know, my stocks went down or like- When I hear about lack of happiness, let me think of some of the kind of bullet point ones that seem to come up repetitively. They are indeed not related to lack of resources. I don't hear that.
What I've heard, and this is also true for where I spend part of my time and where I grew up, which is in Silicon Valley, which is also Not everyone, but there are people there who have accrued tremendous amount of wealth. The mean has shifted very high and hence the cost of living. But it's often concerns about their kids or their mother is ill. Their child is struggling in a particular way.
Very often that's what it is. They're concerned about the lack of well-being in their kids related to mental health or physical health or other relatives' mental health, physical health. Or they're upset about something politically. But we won't go there. We won't go there.
Yeah, no, I think this is true, right? You know, so much of our happiness is made up of the happiness of other people, right? Both kind of how they're doing and how we think they're doing cognitively, but literally just emotionally, right? You know, if you've ever been around a family member or a spouse who was – incredibly pissed off, really sad.
It's incredibly hard not to catch those emotions yourself. And we as psychologists know how these processes work, right? These processes are emotional contagion where you're literally catching the emotions of other people.
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Chapter 6: How do negative emotions contribute to happiness?
Even if I double or triple or quadruple your income, on those metrics, you're not going to see any increase.
And those are pre-tax 2010 numbers?
Yeah, they didn't get into like their real – because you're like, oh, my God, well, I live in California. Like if you live in Iowa, maybe it's not so bad. But like – and those numbers will change. But the upshot is there's probably some number in like 2025, 2024 numbers that might be like maybe $100,000, $120,000, whatever it is.
The point is that there's some number at which getting more is not going to increase your happiness at the same slope. Now, there's been nuanced fights about this, as there is a lot in kind of real research, about, well, is that really true? Does the slope really ever go up?
And now the picture seems to be, well, the slope might go up a teeny tiny, like negligible bit, but it doesn't go up as much as, say, getting an extra 10 minutes of exercise in or another 20 minutes of sleep or scribbling the things you're grateful for, all those things. will impact your happiness much more than like quintupling your income. And so do your resources affect happiness?
Yeah, if you ain't got any resources, you definitely will feel happier if you can get them. But if you have a lot, getting more really isn't going to help.
Sorry to interrupt, but lately I've been saying on the basis of those findings about this Venn 75. Yeah. K per year, probably now, like you said, 100 to 125 K, let's just say something like that would be the equivalent amount that money indeed cannot buy happiness, but it can buffer stress. Do you think that's true? You're making me rethink that statement.
Maybe it doesn't buffer stress past a certain amount.
Yeah. I mean, I think in the original Kahneman data, he found that it doesn't, right? I mean, how much stress you report on a daily basis was literally one of the measures they were using for happiness. But I think you're right. The risk around it can buffer it, right? I think if you're at a certain set of means, you know that if a bad thing happens, you're going to be okay.
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Chapter 7: What is the importance of gratitude and delight practices?
And rather than saying, well, hang on, maybe that hypothesis was wrong. More money doesn't work. They say, ah, the hypothesis, it's all right. More money will make me happy. It wasn't $50 million. Now it's $100 million or whatever it is. And so I think that that's a lot due to the fact that folks are comparing their wealth levels against others.
Our comparison system sucks because we constantly compare ourselves against others, but we never pick people that are doing worse than us. We always pick people who are doing better than us.
I know a fair number of very happy, wealthy people. I know a fair number of very miserable, wealthy people. I know a fair number of happy, non-wealthy people and a fair number of miserable people. Inside, they report feeling miserable on wealthy people.
Well, it fits completely with what a lot of the happiness research suggests, right? Which is that it's much less about our circumstances. than we think when it comes to who's happy and who's not, right? You know, we often think, you know, if I could get more money or if I could get more accolades at work or if I could get a new partner, if I could move somewhere, I'd be happier.
But exactly what you're saying, if you look at people with all those different life circumstances, both the good version and the bad version, you find some happy folks and some not so happy folks. Now what researchers are starting to think is that it actually doesn't involve our circumstances as much as we think. Again, I like would bracket it, unless those circumstances are really dire.
circumstances don't matter as much as we think. It tends to be the kind of stuff that's much more under our control than our circumstances, right? It tends to be how we behave, what thought patterns we use, the emotions we seek out, the social connection we experience. Those things matter much more.
And so I think, you know, your experience with the happy and not so happy rich folks and the happy and not so happy poor folks kind of bear out what we think, which is like, it's just not your circumstances that doesn't matter as much as you assume.
Let's talk about this relationship between feelings, thought patterns, and behaviors in the context of happiness. I think anyone listening to this or watching this probably wants to be happy as much as possible. I mean, I suppose there are a few songwriters, poets, and I've got some friends in those domains of life, and they do seem to derive a lot of –
insight and inspiration and have done amazing things through the kind of depths of unhappy human emotion. We can get back to that later because I do think there's something about the contrast of moving from these more painful emotions to happiness that's very different than moving from a state of immense happiness to slightly less, but we can get back to that.
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Chapter 8: How can we adjust our happiness set point?
So what do I mean by in real time? You know, you and I are sitting in a studio right now chatting and we're kind of chatting in real time. I can see your face. We're live. But we might have been able to do this like over some sort of video chat. Wouldn't be as good, you know, but it's pretty good. And the reason it seems to be pretty good is we're doing it in real time, right?
Our auditory system, our visual system, all these systems that are used to as primates processing things with other folks around you, it works reasonably well. What doesn't work so well is how we often communicate, which is like over Slack, over text. I text you, vroom, a few minutes later, vroom, it comes back.
Like our primate brain is just like – that's just not the way communication is set to work. And so I think sometimes when I bring up social connection, people think like, oh, I got to see people in person and my friend is going to live far away and I'm like at work all day.
It's like, no, no, no, you can connect not necessarily live and in person, but as much as possible, try to do it in real time. And I think that's in part, and if possible, try to do it with video, I think, for the reason that you were just talking about, is faces activate us. But, you know, we're primates that are also really good at language and paying attention to the voice.
I think it's one of the reasons that like an old school phone conversation, no video chat with your friend can be some of the most emotional, connective conversation, sometimes better than Because when we're a person, we're pulling out our phones and checking and paying attention to other stuff. But we've got to get back towards in real time.
The other stuff just doesn't have the same psychological oomph.
Is there any evidence that texting actually drives more of a desire for more social connection and thus leaves us feeling less well than prior to a text exchange? I realize it's very hard to separate out the variables about what's the nature of the text exchange. Totally. How often do you see this person in real life, et cetera?
But I could imagine that texting, I don't do the sound effect as well as you do. I like that. But that texting could be the equivalent of getting crumbs of nourishment, not full nourishment. I could also imagine that It's like putting nourishment just out of reach.
Yeah.
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