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Happiness Podcast

#559 Stop Numbing, Start Living

Happiness Podcast

Dr. Robert Puff, Ph.D.

Mental Health, Health & Fitness

4.5 • 955 Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Stop Numbing, Start Living: Your Biggest Threat to Happiness (and How to Beat It)

What's the single biggest threat to your happiness? It's not your job, the news, or even social media. It's the quiet, daily choice to numb ourselves.

We all do it: we check out with endless scrolling, we overeat, we overwork, and we use fleeting comforts to avoid our feelings. These habits give us temporary relief, but they kill our potential for true joy and deep connection.

Today, we're exposing the numbing epidemic for what it is. More importantly, we're giving you the playbook to stop numbing, finally face what you're avoiding, and start living a fuller, more authentic life.

If you're ready to finally beat this hidden threat, stick around. Let's dive in.

New Episode of the Happiness Podcast with Dr. Robert Puff, Ph.D.

🎧 Listen now at https://www.HappinessPodcast.org

Do you want to live a peaceful, happy life? Are you struggling with anxiety or depression? Or are you simply ready to take the next step toward your full potential?

Join Dr. Robert Puff, a licensed clinical psychologist with over 30 years of experience, on the Happiness Podcast. With over 20 million downloads, the podcast explores the specific actions you can take to create lasting happiness.

A licensed psychologist in Newport Beach, California and author of 15 books, Dr. Puff has spent decades studying human achievement and sharing what he's learned. He wants to help you learn the steps you need to take to soar in your own life.

His blog for Psychology Today has captivated nearly 3 million readers, establishing him as a leading thinker in mental wellness.

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·       LinkedIn ▶️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/doctorpuff

·       Twitter ▶️ https://twitter.com/HappinesPodcast

·       Facebook ▶️ https://www.facebook.com/HappinessPodcast/

 

Music: By Kevin MacLeod

#Numbing #StopNumbing #NumbingEpidemic  #AvoidFeelings #EmotionalAvoidance #DrRobertPuff #FindingHappiness #NewportBeachPsychologist #Happiness #HappinessPodcast

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff. Do you know what the biggest threat to our happiness is?

0:11.0

It's not the news. It's not your job. It's not even social media. It's the quiet, daily choice to numb ourselves.

0:22.9

It's both so tempting and so easy to do it.

0:27.9

Perhaps we just had a very long day.

0:30.9

Or maybe we got in a fight with someone that we deeply love.

0:36.1

Perhaps we lost our job six months ago and we still can't find work,

0:41.5

or someone we love is gone. We don't like the feelings that accompany these events. They're

0:51.6

painful. They're hurtful. So what do we do instead? We check out with

0:58.2

endless scrolling. We overeat. We overwork. And we use these fleeting comforts to

1:06.8

avoid our feelings. And when it's really hard, and life just seems unbearable,

1:13.9

then we turn to the supernumbers, like drugs, like binge drinking,

1:21.8

things that we know when we do them, the pain will be gone temporarily.

1:28.8

So what's happening here?

1:30.6

Why do we numb?

1:32.9

There's a modern assumption that life should be easy, painless, and constantly comfortable.

1:40.7

These expectations fuel the need to escape discomfort.

1:45.4

Haven't we all known or seen or maybe even participated in the storyline, in the reaction

1:52.2

that when someone we love leaves, we go and get plastered to get over our pain?

2:00.5

At the time, it may seem funny,

2:03.2

but if we're truthful and we look at the result of these binges,

2:08.7

the pain doesn't go away.

2:11.2

It just gets buried deeper.

...

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