Hello everyone welcome back to the savvy psychologist I'm Dr Ellen Hendrickson and every

week I'll help you meet life's challenges with evidence-based research, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.

To please or not to please, for most people, that is the question.

But for people pleasers, the question is moot because there's only one answer.

Of course I can help you. So if you're ready for a change but don't want to throw in the towel on common decency, you are in luck.

Because today we've got five tips that are sure to please.

Now there is nothing wrong with playing nice and getting along. That is why this whole

humanity thing hasn't already ended in a giant fireball of infighting. Not yet anyway.

But people pleasers rely on others' approval to feel good about themselves

and saying no makes them feel guilty or worry that others will think they're selfish, unreasonable, or inconsiderate.

And so in order to feel worthy and accepted, they say yes, and yes, and yes.

And it turns out this may go beyond habit and into hardwiring.

A 2016 study in the journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience

found variations in the brain activity of people who had difficulty

disagreeing with others.

Specifically, the less often they disagreed,

the more certain parts of their brain

lit up in the FMRI scanner when they actually disagreed.

But regardless of whether people pleasing is brain-based or just a bad habit, constantly

striving for others' approval while ignoring your needs and well-being takes a toll.

And though people-pleasers may convince themselves that making others

happy makes them happy, the self-administered pressure to manage others emotions can be

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