Interview - The Scientific Hows and Myths of Happiness with Sonja Lyubomirsky

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson.

More wisdom in less time. Well, I am so excited to be with Sonja Liebomirski this morning and talking about happiness. Sonia is one of my favorite teachers and I've learned so much from her. When people asked me what one book I would recommend to them, I get this question all the time. And I frankly didn't have a good answer until I read her book, her last book called the how of Happiness, where she lays out the science behind how we can achieve more happiness in our lives. And just extraordinary. And Sonia has a new book out called the Myths of Happiness. I'm excited to talk with her about both of those books today. Sonya is so happy to have you on this chat.

I'm so happy to talk to you.

Right on. Well, let's jump straight in. So the first question that I think we need to address is why be happy? What are the benefits of being happy? Something you talk about in the how of Happiness and I'm sure in your new book, the Midst of Happiness. But why? Why do we want to be happy?

Sure, it's a great question because I think a lot of people think that happiness is sort of something selfish, that, you know, happiness is something that makes us feel good. And then people who want to be happier are just, you know, kind of thinking a lot about themselves. They're egocentric and selfish. But it turns out that happiness has a lot of benefits that go beyond the individual. So happier people, healthier, they're better leaders, they're more likely to cooperate and negotiate. They have better relationships with others, they're better liked, they make more money, they're more likely to find marriage partners. So if you're a happy person, you're not just going to. And also happy people are more outward looking, so they're more other oriented. So they actually are not selfish, they're more helpful to others. So if you want to be happy, it doesn't mean that you're sort of a selfish person. I mean, because happiness has always all these benefits, not just for yourself, but for your family, for your community. And I would argue for the, for the world at large.

That's amazing. Well, that's a heck of a list of reasons to want to be happy. And paradoxically, it sounds like the unselfish thing we can do is to really dedicate ourselves to creating more happiness. And, you know, following the principles that you outlined and giving ourselves more fully to the world as a result, that's exciting. So why be happy? And then the next obvious Question is, well, how can we be happy? And in your last book, the how of Happiness, you talked about the 40%. I'm curious, is that 40% still what you see scientifically? Can you talk about what's within our control of how we can actually shape our happiness?

Sure, sure. So, yes, in my first book, the how of Happiness, I argued that about about 40% of our happiness is under our control. Right. So that some of our happiness is genetically determined, some of it is determined by just our life circumstances. But a great deal is under our control, you know, sort of through the ways that we think, through the ways that we behave, we can become happier. And actually, I regret a little bit, kind of putting a number on it, because I think people take that number too seriously, because it's not, you know, it may not be exactly 40%. The point is that it's a large portion of happiness that is under our control, that we have sort of the power to change. And that's still the case. So research still shows up to be the case. I and other researchers have done lots of what we call happiness interventions, which are basically experiments where we ask participants or volunteers to engage in certain activities or strategies to make themselves happier. We follow them across time, and we find that people do become happier when they try to be more grateful, for example, for the people in their lives or when they try to do acts of kindness for others, etc. So, yes, that is still the case that we can become happier. It just takes a lot of effort.

That's fantastic. It's funny because as preparing for our chat, that was actually the next idea, was it takes effort. It takes commitment. And you describe it beautifully that if we want to master anything in our lives, whether it's art or a language or a sport, it takes effort. We need to show up, we need to do the work. And I think that's what's so compelling about your work. Work is showing the scientific underpinnings of how, when we're willing to do that work, we can achieve these results.

You said it better than I would, but, yes, absolutely. Two of the themes of my books and my work in general, one is that it's all supported by empirical research. It's all supported by science. This is not my opinion about what people should do to become happier. And yeah, and the other one is that it's just like any goal in life, becoming happier takes work, takes effort, takes energy, takes resources. You know, a lot of reporters, especially for, like, for example, for women's magazines, will ask me questions like can you give me some 5 minute happiness strategies? And you know, because readers, especially in the United States, they want kind of, you know, easy solutions, sort of the magical easy formula to become happy. But there are no easy solutions. Just like when we want to become more fit or lose weight or raise, you know, healthy and happy children or advance in our careers, we have to put the work into it.

Yeah, that's fantastic. And again, in your first book, you Talked about the 12 Happiness activities from gratitude and cultivating optimism and an extraordinary list of practices. I'm wondering, do you have a favorite in those 12?

Well, I have a favorite for myself personally, which is living in the present. More. I think it's just because it's something maybe I like to do, but I also have trouble doing. I'm very busy. I have three kids. I have a very busy job. And so it's easy to kind of, you know, focus on like your to do list, you know, what you have to be doing. And so you don't really, really savor and enjoy what you're doing in the moment because you're kind of focusing on what you have to do tomorrow. And so I really like that one. So like when I'm with my kids, I really try to focus on just enjoying that moment, you know, not thinking about anything else.

And then. So are there any details you can share about how you do that? Because obviously we all have that challenge. As you move so quickly, is there anything that your research has shown that if you do this, it will be one of those practices that can really help you savor and enjoy more?

Sure. I should start by saying that everyone has to kind of choose what works for them. So what works for me is not necessarily what's going to work for you, but for example. Well, I think a big theme of actually both my books, the House Happiness and the Myths of Happiness, is the importance of attention. So it's all about where you direct your attention. What are you focusing on today? Are you focusing on the negative things or the positive things? And so, for example, one of my favorite activities in the world is cuddling with my kids. And my two older ones are too old. They refuse to do that anymore. But I have a, fortunately I have a toddler. And you know, when I'm like holding her and I just really, it's about the senses. You know, I kind of breathe in her smell and, you know, she babbles and you know, you sort of focus on sight, sight, sound, smell, you know, taste, and really, really kind of live in that moment. And really savor that. Again, there's not really kind of a magical solution for how to do that. You sort of do what works for you. But you know that that really puts me in the moment and I don't think about anything else at that moment.

That's so great. Well, I just before this call, I was actually cuddling with our little one. And we share that as a favorite activity. There's so much there that I love. One, you make the point that we need to all choose what works for us. And I think you articulated that so, so well in your first book of look, here are the ideas. This is what we know works scientifically, but you need to find the one that not you think you should do, but that you're really inspired to do. And I love the way you describe that. And then on attention, the idea of being able to put our attention, I like to say, where we want, when we want. And Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi puts it as controlling the contents of our consciousness is such a key attribute of happiness. Can you talk more about that and why that's important and how we can go about cultivating that?

Right. And I think you can argue attention is the most important thing. William James has this quote, oh, if I had it in front of me, and it was something. William James is a famous philosopher who's considered to be the father of psychology. And he said something like that what we pay attention to determines our experience. I mean, it's up to us. We can spend our days paying attention to one thing, X, Y or Z. And what we choose to pay attention to determines our life. And in my new book, the Myth of Happiness, I have a chapter about health and I talk about being diagnosed with serious illnesses and I talk about people who have terminal illnesses. Now this is kind of an extreme example. And they say things like, you know, I could spend all my time thinking about that I'm going to die. That's a choice that they can make. And they aren't going to die, and probably soon. But they make the choice of not spending all their moments to think about that. They may choose to think about other things. So that's kind of an extreme example, but it's about the importance of directing your attention. It doesn't mean that we should always direct our attention on the good stuff. There are times in our life that we need to direct our attention on, for example, on injustice. So we can feel angry about that and we can fix that, or sometimes we need to feel anxious because it's forces Us to prepare harder for some kind of upcoming challenge. But again, attention kind of determines our experience.

That's so great. Have you found ways, again kind of that empirical evidence based ways for us to cultivate that attention? The ability to call attention where you want.

Right, right. Well, for example, lots of research on meditation and mindfulness is about. I actually have not done studies myself on this topic, but research on meditation and different kinds of meditation, including mindfulness meditation, is essentially teaching people to practice directing their attention on certain objects. But a lot of the studies that I have done, for example, my interventions that I've done where I try to get people to be more grateful, I mean, that is also directing attention. Directing attention on what you appreciate in your life and what you're grateful for, as opposed to, you know, comparing yourself to others and thinking, oh, that, you know, my neighbor has a bigger house than I do, or you know, focusing on things in the past that are negative, but they're done and over with, you know, ruminating. I used to do research on rumination, which is sort of this passive and negative and repetitive dwelling on negative things in your life that kind of leads to no good. You know, you just, you don't feel any better after you ruminate than when you began.

Yeah, I love that. I mean, one of your. I think it was the third in those 12 happiness activities of avoiding, overthinking and just. I've shared that so many times that ruminating when in a negative mood or ruminating is what you do when you're in a negative mood really is toxic in that you cannot create a sustainable level of happiness if you continue doing that. So that's again another one of those. If we have control over our attention, we can choose to look at the things we're grateful for versus the things that aren't quite going the way we want.

That's right. And actually I've done some very simple studies where I ask people who are feeling dysphoric or depressed just simply to distract themselves. I mean, you can distract in very, very trivial ways. I don't know, like look outside, look at the view, even watch tv. Like do something that's. Just engage yourself in something other than your negative thoughts. And something as sort of simple as that can work as well.

Well, so then how do we differentiate between the negative thoughts and. One of the things I love about your work and the general kind of science of happiness, positive psychology movement is it's not about eliminating all negative feelings and getting into a quote, positive thinking mindset. It's about Interpreting reality accurately and choosing the most empowered distinctions, etc. But how do we differentiate between the negative emotions and states that we need to distract ourselves from versus those that deserve a bit of contemplation? Is there a way that we can frame that?

Yeah, it's a hard one to answer because I think a lot of common sense, I guess, is involved. I mean, sometimes we have a problem, like we have a problem at work or in our marriage that we need to address. So it would be hard for me to kind of answer that question in a general way because it's so specific to particular situations. But if you find yourself just kind of dwelling on negative thoughts that don't lead to anything, you're not solving a problem. You're just kind of going in a circular way. You're going from A to B, back to A, back to B, back to A. You're kind of passively in a circular way, going around and around. You're not making any progress. Then you know, that's something that you do not want to continue doing.

That's great. That's great. I think that healthy dose of common sense is always a good idea.

Yeah. Hard to teach that, right? You can't say, well, this is common sense, but, you know, that's great.

Well, this is fantastic. I feel like we could talk for a whole weekend on the other activities. But I'd love to hear you describe more about your new book and the myths of happiness. What are the myths of happiness?

Sure, sure. So, yes, the new book is called the Myths of Happiness, and I essentially talk about two general myths of happiness or two categories of myths. And the first myth is what I call I'll be happy when. So this is the idea that, well, I'm not happy now, but when X, Y and Z come to pass, then I'll be happy. When I have a baby, I'll be happy. When I get married, when I get that promotion I've always wanted, when I'm rich, I'll be happy. And the problem with that myth or that misconception is that those things will make you happy, undoubtedly, but they won't make you happy for as long or as intensely as we think they will. And so a big theme of my book, which I also mentioned in the house, happiness, is called hedonic adaptation. So hedonic adaptation is the phenomenon that human beings, all of us, are remarkably good at getting used to changes in our lives, especially positive changes. So after we get married, after we get a new job, after we make money, we're happy. For a while, but then we end up reverting back to our sort of. To our previous kind of baseline point. And so the problem with the SNF is that, you know, after a couple of years of marriage, if we're not feeling the same kind of excitement and passion that we once did, or after a new job, we feel like this job isn't what it used to be. We sometimes think like, oh, there must be something wrong with us, or there's something wrong with the job, or there's something wrong with the relationship. And some of us, you know, can make some poor decisions. You know, we jettison perfectly good jobs and relationships, you know, because we think that sort of. That they're not what we wanted them to be. And so I think it's very important for us to understand that hedonic adaptation is this very human, very natural, very commonplace process that happens to everyone. And so there's not something wrong with you when you kind of lose that initial excitement. And, of course, we also talk about ways that we can kind of bring back a little bit some of that excitement.

Yeah, that's great. So I'd love to hear that. I mean, so totally get the theory of that, of we adapt very quickly. What are some of the practices such that we can maintain our happiness without jettisoning some of the things that are really actually working quite well if we look at them in a different way.

Right, right. So, I mean, the first step is really understanding that this is normal and that this happens to everyone. So, you know, if your job feels like kind of a little bit more boring, you know, than at first, this is just a normal process. So you have to kind of see that big picture. You know, one of the main practices, one of the main kind of strategies you can use at this point is what we already talked about, which is basically appreciation, you know, gratitude, Appreciation. Really focus on. Because we often take for granted all the good things about the new job or the new relationship. And then we focus on those little bath, the little things we don't like, you know, because there is no perfect job or relationships or house or whatever we have. So we have to really kind of do look at the big picture and appreciate the good stuff. And sometimes it may. This sounds counterintuitive, but sometimes it may involve even comparing. I actually suggest with jobs, to think about the previous job you had that wasn't so good, to kind of really hone in that the new one is a lot better, because a lot of us, for example, think that there's some kind of dream job out there or there's a dream partner out there for us, and those dream partners and jobs probably don't exist. That's one way to do it. And then I also talk a lot about bringing in novelty and variety and surprise into our life, because that's kind of one of the best ways to thwart or slow down adaptation is to kind of open yourself up to new opportunities, new challenges, meet new people, create variety. Because basically we adapt to things that aren't changing. And so when things are changeable, like kids are constantly changing and growing, so we don't adapt to having kids, or at least we don't adapt very much to them. So I talk a lot about that, too.

That's fantastic. Yeah, this idea, too, I call it a holy grail chase where people are just constantly looking for that perfect and to really deepen into the appreciation. And it sounds like appreciation, just to go back, that was your number one in the how of happiness, gratitude, appreciation. And can you just touch on that a little bit more? Just the research that you've done, and from my understanding, that's probably one of the most easy to implement and most sustainably powerful practices we can do. Is that a correct? That's right.

I mean, it seems so trivial, right? Oh, just appreciate what you have. Be grateful. You know, count your blessings. It seems so trivial, and it seems like such a cliche, and yet it's so powerful. And I and others have now, we've done many, many studies where we try to get people to appreciate and to be grateful for what they have, whether it's a particular person in their life and what they've done for them, how much they sacrificed for them or for your health or for sort of big things in life. There's just so many reasons why appreciation and gratitude is powerful. I mean, it prevents us from taking things for granted, which is what I was just talking about. When we adapt to our new house or our new job, it fosters and nourishes our relationships because of a lot. A lot of gratitude and appreciation is about other people. And so we feel closer and more connected to others when we are appreciative of their role in our lives. Also, I'm doing some new research now where I'm showing that appreciation and gratitude kind of prompts people to want to become a better person. It's like you want to kind of prove yourself worthy of the good things in your life. You want to kind of pay back or pay back or pay it forward. Forward. So, yeah, so there's Just so many good things about gratitude. I can't say enough about it. Even though it might sound kind of hokey to some people. It might sound like a cliche, but it's very, very powerful.

That's amazing. And then again, the practice of this. Have you found a particular recommendation that people really engage in and get the most results from? Is it a weekly gratitude journal? A daily throughout the day? Do you have any thoughts on that?

Well, I have one study that showed that counting your blessings once a week on average was more effective than doing it more often. So that's a study that showed this sort of on average effect. But I have to add the caveat that it's really a matter of fit. I mean, every person, because I have people coming up to me, say, after I give a talk about gratitude, and they say, well, I practice gratitude every single day. And that really works for me. So it just depends on the person. So for some people, it might be every day. For some people, it's once a week. And sort of how you do it too. I mean, some people really like to talk about what they're grateful for to others, to their friends or family members. I know people who are very artistic, and they kind of might create a gratitude collage, cut out things that they're grateful for, or draw something and put it up, say, in front of their computer so they can see it every day. So how you practice gratitude is really up to you. So you have to choose what works for you.

That's great. So again, what works is what's best, what works for you, the individual path. And then you mentioned in the Myths of Happiness, there were kind of two myths, and we talked about one. I think the I'll be happy when. We'd love to hear the other major ones, right?

And it's say, I'll be happy when this. I have different chapters in the book that talk about different life transitions or events. So one is about, I'll be happy when I have children. I'll be happy when I get married. I'll be happy when I get rich. I'll be happy when I am successful. Now, the other myth is really about sort of I can't be happy when. And it's about, you know, really, a lot of us are sort of terrified of the potential for unhappiness, like when certain things happen to us, when we don't have, when we don't make the money that we want to make, when our dreams don't necessarily come true, when we don't find a life partner. Maybe we remain single for a long time or even forever. When we're diagnosed with, say, a chronic health condition, we think, oh my God, if that happens, our life is over. We're never going to be happy again. And I think that myth is really toxic and harmful as well because it makes us going to. It creates a lot of anxiety and dread in us and I think also can lead us to make some poor choices. One of those myths is about aging. So people just feel like, oh, when I get older, I'm getting older. It makes people very unhappy. They feel like they cannot be happy when they're old. So I have different chapters on all of these kind of life sort of situations or transitions, and I'm happy to talk about them sort of more specifically. But anyway, some people make kind of poor choices when they're so kind of terrified of things that they think will make them unhappy, when they really don't. Mean people are remarkably resilient. That's kind of the opposite side of the coin from the first myth that we, on the one hand, we adapt very quickly to positive changes in our lives, but we also adopt. Adapt fairly well to negative changes as well. We're very resilient. I think understanding how resilient we are will kind of give a lot of hope and relief to people.

Yeah, Again, this is just fantastic when we talk about resilience. So adaptation vis a vis resilience. Any practices that come to mind on that. And again, I keep on coming back to the practice because that's what I'm always encouraging. People theory is great. What can we implement in our lives? So seeing how much so that we can pack into this quick chat.

Right, right. Well, you know, it's really. It kind of depends on the topic that we're talking about. You know, like in my chapter about health or ill health, I talk about sort of theories and kind of studies that suggest sort of what people can do. A lot of that is about attention. So, for example, what we're just talking about, how you're going to focus on the fact that you have this illness or you're going to engage yourself and become absorbed in other things that make you happy in your daily life, doesn't mean that you ignore the illness, it doesn't mean that you deny it, but that you don't sort of spend all your time thinking about it. So it's about redirecting attention. I have a section about the role of nature, for example. So it turns out that being exposed to natural environments makes it just a big difference in Our happiness, it kind of feels us. It restores our. It kind of makes us. How do I say this? Like, gives us energy, makes us less. And so just exposing yourself to natural scenes, even if it's a picture on the wall of a natural scene as opposed to an urban scene or like an aquarium with some fish in it, I mean, it seems like little trivial things, but something like that, like a little nature intervention can help us sort of cope. And then, of course, I talk about social support, the importance of, you know, having a support network, about having friends and family members you can depend on, you can talk to. It's really critical in resilience and coping. Gratitude, of course, too, and spirituality. You know, people who are spiritual or religious get a lot of comfort from that. So anyway, so there's sort of many, many things we can talk about, how we can be resilient.

We're going to have to have a part two. Well, this is just great. So one thing that I know you're a huge advocate of, and I am as well, is the idea of exercise. I just want to talk about a couple of other fundamental things that I think are just fundamental exercise. I know that you're a big advocate. Can you tell us why scientifically, exercise makes so much sense?

Sure, sure. Well, you know, kind of engaging in any goal that you, you know, where you decide to, like, you decide you want to run a marathon and sort of pursuing that goal and taking the steps toward it can give you so much meaning and structure to your life, and it can get you in touch with other people. Often exercise involves doing it with other individuals. And of course, there's a sort of biological component as well. I'm not an expert in biology, but just your mood improves. Your health, of course, improves when you exercise. But I think. I think the biggest is the mood improvement. Sort of the sense that you're. You're accomplishing something, something that might be hard. Right. Because exercise can be very hard and it can be painful, and it gives you that meeting, gives you that structure, and it puts you in touch with other people. A lot of exercise. So some exercise is sort of lonely. It's just you, you know, you running alone and having nothing to do with other people. But a lot of it involves other individuals. So anything that has to do with other people, you know, contributes to happiness. Research shows.

That's awesome. And then you mentioned goals. So happy people have projects. That's another one of my favorite ideas from your first book. Happy people have projects. Why do goals. Why does. You mentioned kind of Structuring our lives. But can you tell us more about why that works and why it's so powerful part of a happy person's life?

Right. I mean, partly it's like what we're talking about, attention, you know, for attending to you. If we're focusing on our goals and pursuing our goals and making progress, I mean, that means we're not focusing on, we're not ruminating on sort of negative things in our life. So that's partly. That's part of it. When we're absorbed in a goal, it absorbs our attention in a really productive, positive way and it gives us meaning in life. I mean, meaning comes from a lot of things. It can come from our legacy, it can come from. But it can also come from accomplishing goals. You know, it could be creating a work of art, or we're raising children who are good people, or we're trying to lose weight. I mean, that lends meaning to our life. And as you said, it also lends structure. It's sort of because we're taking steps and we, you know, our days. I mean, when you think about someone who's really depressed, they're like sitting around not doing anything all day. So that's sort of the opposite of a happy person who's engaged in, as you say, like lots of projects, lots of activities. So, yeah, goals are really critical.

Love it. So two more quick questions for you. One, in your research over the last X years, have you had what's like your biggest.

Aha.

That when you just saw this data, you said, wow, that's transformative.

Sure. Well, you know, two quick answers to that. And it's actually two studies that I've just done. One is in press right now in the journal PLOS One. And as a study, we asked people, we asked kids. So we went to the Vancouver School District. They were interested in working with us. And we did an intervention with 9, 10 and 11 year old kids with the 4th, 6th graders. And we asked them to do acts of kindness each week for a period of six weeks. And we found that kids. And we also had a control condition. We found that kids who did acts of kindness, not only did they become happier, but they became more popular with their peers, with their classmates. And I love that. And the thing is, the acts of kindness were not even. Most of them were not even done in the classroom. They were done at home. Like, the examples would be like, you know, I vacuumed, you know, I vacuumed the house, you know, because my mom, you know, wanted me to do that. Or because I thought it needed to be done, I hugged my grandmother. And so somehow that carried over into the classroom. And so the kids were better liked by their classmates when they were. When they did access credit. So I think that's really great. Really great. And the other study, you know, it takes too long to explain, but we did a study in a workplace. This was at Coca Cola, at the Coca Cola offices in Madrid, Spain, where we asked people. It was kind of like a Secret Santa intervention where we asked people to do acts of kindness for the colleagues. And we had givers who were the ones who did acts of kindness. And then they all got a list of what we called receivers. And so when you get this list and they're like a list of 20 colleagues, and you're asked to choose three to do acts of kindness for each week. So that's why it's sort of a Secret Santa manipulation, because the receivers didn't know that they were on these lists. And we found that the receivers got happy right away. You know, it's like suddenly everyone, people are being nice to you. Right. But the givers had really big and really kind of major benefits. I mean, they got happier, they got less depressed over time. And this lasted for like months after the intervention was over. And even the wow moment was that people who were not even involved in the study, but who just were sort of acquaintances or colleagues of the givers and of the receivers, they got happier too, and they started doing more acts of kindness in the workplace. So it was kind of a pace forward effect. And we think what happened is that they sort of saw people being nice to each other, thoughtful to each other, and they were inspired. Maybe they felt elevated by that. Maybe they were recipients as well, and they wanted to sort of pay it forward. So that was really cool. I think it looks like we transformed the whole workplace environment to be kind of a happier, more connected and kinder environment. So that was really cool.

Yeah, I would say get goosebumps throughout that. That's amazing. You're spending your time coming up with these studies, implementing them. What a great. What a great calling. Oh, that's so great. Definite wows on that. Thank you so much for sharing. And again, I look forward to continuing this conversation. One last thing. So I know you're so great on. You need to do what works for you. And that might be your answer to this question, but do you have, like, one kind of number one tip you'd give someone if they were looking to optimize their lives?

Yeah, I don't know if I can answer that because it's really. Well, I mean, maybe it'll be about attention. It would be about sort of focus on what your great, you know, what's good in your life. Look at the big picture. You know, don't sort of focus so much about sort of the little bad things on a daily basis. But yeah, I would say that. But you know, it's really hard to answer that question because as you say, it really depends on the person, depends on the situation that they're facing. You know, that finding that right fit is really critical.

That's great. Well, and I wanted to put an asterisk to that question too. Of this certainly isn't a quick fix. This is about putting in the diligent and patient and persistent efforts so we can actually transform our lives consistently over the long run. So thank you so much Sonia. I know you're so, so busy and I appreciate you taking so much time to share your wisdom and just feel so grateful for you and all the work that you do. So thank you.

Thank you so much, Oscar. You had some great questions and I enjoy talking to you.

Great talk to you soon.

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