Happiness Break: A 10-Minute Guided Practice, with Dacher Keltner
The Science of Happiness
PRX and Greater Good Science Center
4.4 • 1.9K Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2022
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We guide you through a reflection of three things you're grateful for today. This practice is shown to boost happiness, connection, and motivation while reducing stress. Happiness Break is a new series by The Science of Happiness.
How to Do this Three Good Things practice:
Take a few deep breaths, and notice how you feel.
Think back on your day. Start from when you woke up, and mentally trace your steps forward in time.
What was the most beautiful, amazing, or interesting thing you saw all day? How did it make you feel? Take a moment to feel grateful for it. Think what had to happen so you could see that thing today, and let yourself appreciate those things.
Keep reflecting on your day. What’s the best sound you heard all day? How did it make you feel? Take a moment to feel grateful for that, and think about how you came to hear that thing today.
Look back over your day again: What’s the best thing that happened all day? It could be anything. Sit with your gratitude for that thing. What caused that thing to happen? Take a moment to appreciate all the factors that led to this good thing happening today.
Notice how you feel now.
Find the full Three Goods Things practice at our Greater Good in Action website: https://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/three-good-things
More resources from The Greater Good Science Center:
Take our Gratitude Quiz: https://tinyurl.com/yc3dc53c
Why Gratitude is Good: https://tinyurl.com/fr4r2xyw
Tips for Keeping a Gratitude Journal: https://tinyurl.com/6khs9k28
Can Gratitude Help You Live More Sustainably? https://tinyurl.com/bdfws2e5
Four Great Gratitude Strategies: https://tinyurl.com/2s4h6z3f
How Gratitude Helps Your Friendships Grow: https://tinyurl.com/yc55bvw8
Cultivate more gratitude for the people you love with the Mental Subtraction of Relationships practice https://tinyurl.com/mthra2jd
How Gratitude Can Help You Through Hard Times: https://tinyurl.com/m9jz5atd
Today’s host:
Dacher Keltner is the host of The Science of Happiness podcast and a co-instructor of UC Berkeley’s course by the same name. He’s also the founding director of The Greater Good Science Center and a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley.
Tell us about your experiences trying this version of the Three Good Things practice by emailing us at [email protected] or using the hashtag #happinesspod.
Help us share Happiness Break!
Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and copy and share this link: pod.link/1340505607
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On our first episode of The Science of Happiness back in 2018, people reflected on three |
| 0:09.3 | good things that happened to them each day. |
| 0:12.3 | Sunny days. |
| 0:13.3 | No stress. |
| 0:14.3 | Music, usually. |
| 0:16.7 | I only had enough money to pay for 16 minutes of my parking meter and I didn't get a ticket. |
| 0:25.4 | The three good things practice gives us a small break in the day to focus on gratitude, |
| 0:30.1 | kind of like a lunch break or a coffee break, but instead, a happiness break. |
| 0:34.8 | I'm Dacker Keltner, welcome to Happiness Break, a new series by The Science of Happiness, |
| 0:40.0 | produced by UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, and PRX. |
| 0:43.9 | On each episode, we'll guide you through exercises to help you cultivate kindness, forgiveness, |
| 0:49.1 | joy, resilience, and all the other emotions and ways of being that help us craft happier |
| 0:54.3 | lives. |
| 0:55.5 | We also look at the research behind why these practices are effective, all in about five |
| 1:00.6 | minutes or so, a little break in your day. |
| 1:03.6 | It'll air on alternating weeks from The Science of Happiness, so we'll return with another |
| 1:08.4 | science of happiness episode next week. |
| 1:11.5 | Now let's turn to three good things, and remember, we're going to try it together right here, |
| 1:16.4 | right now. |
| 1:17.8 | What I love about this practice is it can help you appreciate the good in the day to day. |
| 1:23.0 | You know, so often we take the positive stuff in our lives for granted, we just let it pass |
| 1:26.6 | us by without really enjoying it. |
... |
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