3 Levels of Happiness | Dr. Laurie Santos & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | This thing that we call happiness has at least three levels or layers that we filter it through

00:00:08.200 | when we ask ourselves, "Are we happy?

00:00:10.320 | How do I be happier?"

00:00:12.600 | This element of contrast with negative experiences seems to be a repeating theme, momenta mori

00:00:17.280 | being a negative sort of dark cloud from which we're supposed to see the light and act in

00:00:23.720 | the light.

00:00:24.800 | Happiness exists in religious narratives, philosophical narratives, and scientific reality.

00:00:32.280 | I can imagine three layers.

00:00:34.000 | The first is sensory experience.

00:00:36.400 | The reason to take a cold shower, folks, in addition to the fact that it'll save you on

00:00:39.320 | your heating bill, is that the warm shower that follows, in fact, that's how I do it,

00:00:44.440 | feels so good.

00:00:45.440 | 10 times better than it would if you had just gotten into the warm shower, I promise.

00:00:49.400 | Same thing about getting out of the cold plunge.

00:00:51.480 | There's a lot of debate about these things, but this is just pure sensory experience and

00:00:55.340 | contrast of the sort that we're talking about today.

00:00:58.140 | Hunger and then eating a delicious piece of food or eating a not so delicious piece of

00:01:01.720 | food, but you're hungry and so it's that much more delicious, okay?

00:01:05.840 | Million examples we could spiral towards.

00:01:07.080 | So there's sensory experience, there's raw sensory perception and experience from which

00:01:11.720 | the contrast creates this thing that we like feel better, aka happiness sort of.

00:01:18.080 | Then there's story, like, "God, last year was a tough year.

00:01:22.000 | This year was better."

00:01:23.620 | There's also, and I've seen this before, like, "We were killing it for two years and then

00:01:27.480 | this year was kind of a meh year."

00:01:29.080 | This is not the case, by the way, but I'm very fortunate that the podcast has continued

00:01:33.240 | to grow and expand.

00:01:34.360 | But for some people, they're not as happy with their whatever salary this year because

00:01:38.840 | even though it's spectacular by somebody else's standards, by their standard, it's down from

00:01:42.920 | previous years.

00:01:44.080 | So there's the story that we create that has...

00:01:46.760 | It's not sensory experience, it's perception based on dopamine and it's perception based

00:01:51.540 | on reward and punishment, etc.

00:01:54.260 | And then there's this third layer, which is meaning.

00:01:56.840 | Like, you said, yeah, you know, spending time with in-laws, like, okay, every moment of

00:02:01.960 | it might not be as awesome as you might like, but there's meaning in spending time with

00:02:06.040 | people that are extended family, especially when elders and younger are in the same room.

00:02:11.840 | It's something really...

00:02:14.600 | It layers on story to create this sort of other level that we call meaning.

00:02:19.800 | And so what I'm realizing is that these are three timescales.

00:02:22.920 | So we have the immediate timescale of happiness, we have the kind of intermediate one where

00:02:25.820 | we introduce a story, and then we have meaning, which is kind of like this whole picture.

00:02:31.420 | So it seems to me that we need to approach happiness from all three levels, that it's

00:02:36.520 | not enough to just be like a dog, which are in the sensory experience, presumably, of

00:02:43.120 | happiness.

00:02:44.120 | If they tell stories, they don't tell them to us.

00:02:47.660 | And if they have meaning, I don't know.

00:02:49.440 | But they seem to like nail the first level.

00:02:53.200 | So and there are probably five more.

00:02:54.200 | And they probably don't have the capacity to do the other two.

00:02:56.120 | So it's not like they're not doing it and kind of missing out.

00:02:58.440 | They kind of have brains that don't let them notice they're missing out.

00:03:01.120 | But we unfortunately have brains that would feel like we were really missing out if we

00:03:04.520 | just had the sensory experiences, you know, without the good stories.

00:03:08.080 | I think you're pointing to this idea that sort of being happy in your life and being

00:03:11.160 | happy with your life.

00:03:12.160 | The "with your life" part has the kind of medium timescale stories, but also the really

00:03:17.160 | big ones, right?

00:03:18.160 | You know, is my life, am I doing anything really meaningful with my life?

00:03:21.080 | Am I finding purpose?

00:03:22.180 | And so on.

00:03:23.800 | The funny thing, though, is to get to that big timescale to find a sense of purpose and

00:03:27.820 | stuff like that, sometimes it pays to do stuff at the local level, at the medium and shorter

00:03:32.440 | term timescale.

00:03:34.440 | And one of the things researchers have found is that if you're engaging in activities at

00:03:38.480 | the short term timescales that kind of fit with your values or what these positive psychologists

00:03:43.320 | have often called your strengths, that can be a way to sort of achieve purpose.

00:03:47.800 | So what are strengths?

00:03:48.800 | So researchers do this thing where they want to look at like all the valuable things people

00:03:51.960 | can do out in the world, right?

00:03:53.320 | And so what are the things that you value?

00:03:55.640 | And folks like Chris Peterson and colleagues have come up with this list of what they call

00:03:59.240 | different character strengths.

00:04:00.640 | And there are things that like, you know, you can actually if you Google online character

00:04:03.600 | strengths, you'll get the big list.

00:04:05.280 | Often people talk about there being 24, but they're just universally good things like

00:04:09.000 | being brave, you know, citizenship, humor, like, you know, social intelligence, love

00:04:13.480 | of learning, right?

00:04:14.480 | You know, kind of empathy, fairness, right?

00:04:16.560 | These kind of sets of values that we have.

00:04:19.740 | People differ in how much they value one or the other, you know?

00:04:22.920 | So I could ask you, Andrew, like, what's better, like bravery or humor?

00:04:25.720 | Probably both pretty high for you, I would imagine, but like about prudence versus love

00:04:30.240 | of learning, I guess.

00:04:31.400 | Yeah, I mean, if I had to pick between bravery and humor, I think bravery is probably more

00:04:36.680 | important to me.

00:04:37.680 | I see, more humor, yeah.

00:04:38.680 | I mean, I love humor, but if I had to pick, it's sort of like, you know, steak and coffee,

00:04:42.880 | I'm going steak.

00:04:43.880 | Yeah, okay.

00:04:44.880 | Well, the point is we, there are individual differences in this and there are formal tests

00:04:48.480 | you can do online.

00:04:49.480 | If you Google the VIA character strengths test, you'll see these 24 and you can do one

00:04:52.920 | of these very systematic, you know, kind of tests to do it.

00:04:56.400 | But really just trying to think about like, what are the values that you value?

00:05:00.400 | And the ones that come to mind as being particularly about you, the ones that you resonate with

00:05:04.160 | are what somebody like Chris Peterson would call your signature strengths.

00:05:07.400 | They're the ones that when you execute them, you kind of feel like things are meaningful

00:05:11.000 | and purposeful and so on.

00:05:13.000 | And so the idea is that one recipe for a purposeful life at the local level is trying to engage

00:05:20.680 | in behaviors that allow you to use more of these values or strengths.

00:05:25.800 | And one of my favorite pieces of research that looks at both the power of this and how,

00:05:30.000 | even though if it seems like that those are hard things to bring in, like you should bring

00:05:33.880 | them in more, is some work by this woman, Amy Resninsky, who's a professor at the University

00:05:38.360 | of Pennsylvania.

00:05:39.360 | And she does these studies on what she calls job crafting, which is a practice where you

00:05:44.160 | take your normal job description as whatever your job is and figure out ways that you can

00:05:48.320 | infuse your signature strengths into them.

00:05:50.520 | You know, so you as a podcaster, if your signature strength was bravery, you could bring in guests

00:05:54.640 | that made me feel a little bit intimidating to you, probably like me, I imagine.

00:05:59.200 | Or like you could take on topics that are a little bit harder, right, that kind of push

00:06:02.380 | you a little bit, right?

00:06:03.680 | If your signature strength was humor, you'd add more company or make more jokes.

00:06:07.240 | If it was love of learning, you'd pick topics that like you didn't know anything about,

00:06:10.000 | but you kind of dive in, right?

00:06:11.680 | You take whatever your normal job description is and you find a way to build in your strengths.

00:06:16.000 | And the reason I love Amy's work so much is that she studies signature strengths not in

00:06:20.720 | academics like us who have very flexible jobs or podcasters.

00:06:24.120 | She studies signature strengths in hospital janitorial staff workers who are, you know,

00:06:28.960 | these are people who are cleaning the linen in a hospital room or mopping the floors and

00:06:32.520 | stuff, not a job where you think there's lots of flexibility or you could build in things

00:06:36.800 | like, you know, humor and love of learning and the stuff.

00:06:39.440 | But she finds interestingly that like around a quarter to a third of these janitorial staff

00:06:44.960 | workers say that their job is a calling.

00:06:47.600 | They love it.

00:06:48.600 | They get a lot of purpose from it.

00:06:50.160 | And they're the ones that are naturally building in their signature strengths.

00:06:53.800 | And she tells in her work, she tells these lovely stories.

00:06:56.040 | This is a story of a janitorial staff worker who worked in a chemotherapy ward.

00:07:00.680 | And if you've been unlucky enough to have cancer and had to have chemotherapy or know

00:07:04.240 | someone who did, you know that people tend to get really sick because the medicine makes

00:07:07.420 | people really nauseous.

00:07:08.420 | So a big part of this guy's job was like cleaning up vomit basically.

00:07:12.720 | But he said, you know, my job isn't to clean up vomit.

00:07:14.660 | My strengths are like humor and social intelligence.

00:07:17.600 | And what I do is I make a joke.

00:07:19.160 | This is somebody who's having a really crappy day and I'm going to do something that's going

00:07:22.120 | to make them laugh.

00:07:23.120 | And if I do that, then I won.

00:07:24.120 | It's not my paycheck.

00:07:25.120 | And I guess he had a standard joke, which was like, oh, my God, this is a big pile of

00:07:27.960 | vomit.

00:07:28.960 | Overtime, like for me.

00:07:29.960 | And like, you know, you're laughing.

00:07:30.960 | Listener's probably laughing.

00:07:31.960 | He's like, that's my job.

00:07:33.800 | I talked to another worker who worked in a coma ward.

00:07:37.080 | So this individual couldn't talk to the patients because they're in comas.

00:07:41.800 | But her strength was creativity.

00:07:43.160 | And so every day she like moved the artwork and the plants around, you know, just kind

00:07:46.840 | of created some changes.

00:07:48.400 | And she thought maybe that would pop people out of their coma.

00:07:50.840 | I don't know if that's medically plausible.

00:07:52.680 | Probably not.

00:07:53.680 | But it doesn't matter to her.

00:07:54.800 | She felt like she was executing her creativity.

00:07:56.960 | And so the moral of this job crafting work is no matter what your job is, there's probably

00:08:02.800 | some room to building some more purpose.

00:08:05.560 | If you take some time to think about like what are the strengths, what are the things

00:08:08.720 | that get you going?

00:08:09.720 | If you need a tip, you can kind of Google these things.

00:08:12.080 | But then how could I infuse that into my normal job description?

00:08:15.680 | And there's probably a lot more flexibility than you think.

00:08:18.520 | You don't need to quit your job and become a podcaster to like get this flexibility.

00:08:22.600 | Whatever you do, there's some window where you can build that in.

00:08:26.480 | That's awesome.

00:08:27.720 | Those are awesome stories.

00:08:29.160 | I also was just thinking about the janitor cleaning up the vomit, like to like restore

00:08:34.120 | some dignity to these people that clearly know they're making a mess and like, you know,

00:08:38.320 | humor being the ultimate bridge.

00:08:42.280 | And darn it, why'd you make me have to choose between humor and the other thing?

00:08:45.460 | Because humor is so awesome.

00:08:46.460 | Sorry, now you're like, "Humor's pretty good.

00:08:47.460 | Humor's pretty good."

00:08:48.460 | Now I'm rethinking my answer.

00:08:49.460 | It's very brave to clean up vomit as well, I think, right?

00:08:51.240 | Yeah.

00:08:52.240 | I mean, you bring humor to a place where, you know, some people might presume humor's

00:08:56.720 | not allowed, but goodness.

00:08:59.940 | The signature strengths in the list of, you said 24 of them, where can people learn more

00:09:04.740 | about these signature strengths?

00:09:06.000 | I think this would be a really powerful exercise and we can always find the link and put it

00:09:09.680 | in the show note captions, but is there like a place that people can find this stuff?

00:09:13.800 | The values in action is the viacharacterstrengths.org.

00:09:18.280 | So I can share the link and you can stick it in your show notes, but yeah, people can

00:09:21.120 | go on there for free and do one of these kind of, you know, formal psychometric tests where

00:09:25.040 | you measure your strengths, see what they are.

00:09:27.280 | And it's a fun website too because you get to kind of – they give you some suggestions

00:09:30.920 | because some of these, you know, values are like prudence is one of them.

00:09:34.120 | It's like, "How do I exercise prudence and love?"

00:09:35.960 | You know, these are different things.

00:09:37.840 | They also make the suggestion – this is a homework assignment I give in my happiness

00:09:41.160 | class of suggesting you do this with a good friend or a romantic partner.

00:09:45.440 | Have each of you do this and find strengths that you share together and then you can go

00:09:50.400 | on what researchers call a strength state where, you know, if you both have bravery,

00:09:54.540 | then that means you guys should do the – I don't know, the obstacle course or do some

00:09:57.280 | really scary hike.

00:09:58.280 | If you both have humor, now you go to a comedy show.

00:10:00.920 | If you both love learning, now you go to a museum or something.

00:10:03.200 | So you find the thing that's like your convergent strengths and you do something that exercises

00:10:08.200 | them.

00:10:09.200 | So that means you can use your strengths to get purpose not just in your work but in your

00:10:12.040 | leisure too.

00:10:13.040 | I think this is another spot where we get stuff wrong.

00:10:14.760 | I think a lot of us have work that tends to use our strengths.

00:10:18.040 | We tend to gravitate towards careers, many of us, where we can use our strengths.

00:10:21.080 | A lot of folks aren't that lucky.

00:10:22.320 | But in our leisure time, we don't often do that so much, right?

00:10:27.040 | Often our leisure time is like plop down, watch Netflix where a lot of folks like – if

00:10:31.640 | you think about how you can build your strengths into your leisure time, it gets even more

00:10:34.960 | exciting.

00:10:35.960 | So you're talking about working with your hands and doing all this stuff like build

00:10:39.000 | the bravery and the humor into that somehow and now you get your leisure time doing double

00:10:42.960 | duty for giving you a sense of purpose and meaning too.

3 Levels of Happiness | Dr. Laurie Santos & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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