The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos

It's hard to stay hopeful sometimes. Things can look pretty bleak and divided, especially around election time. But if you're losing hope in your fellow humans, stop and listen to the science. Other people are kinder, friendlier and more co-operative than you might think.   

Using insights from his new book Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness, Stanford's Jamil Zaki joins Dr Laurie Santos for a special season t...

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? Laurie and Saadia openly discuss cu...

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 coaches. They share their story with Dr ...

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 reflects on the happiness lessons she's ...

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 parts of that private conversation wi...

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 face - and that's not easy for a than...

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 emails and monitoring Slack). Dr La...

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 listening to what she wants now, and the pr...

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 around our block. And Dr Laurie exp...

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 explains why some caregivers suffer badly ...

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 our brains can come up with the most ...

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 telling you to always push yourself...

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 happiness demons and try to defeat...

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 your podcasts. 

See omnystudio.com/...

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 rise!  

Suggested reading from this e...

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 workplace. 

See omnystudio.com/listene...

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 Shiro (author of The Unexpected Gift of ...

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 2024 World Happiness Summit to disc...