Happiness Break: Pause to Look at the Sky, With Dacher (Encore)

The Science of Happiness

PRX and Greater Good Science Center

Science, Social Sciences

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2024

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Take a moment to appreciate the beauty and vastness of the sky. Dacher Keltner guides us through a practice of pausing to turn your gaze to the sky as a pathway to awe, creativity and wonder.

Link to episode transcript: https://tinyurl.com/yc5xfwp4

Practice:

Go someplace where you feel safe and also have a nice view of the sky.
First, focus on your breathing. Take a few slow inhales and even slower exhales. As you breathe in and out, relax your shoulders, your hands, and your face.
On the next breath in, look up at the sky. Notice how vast it is.
Breathing naturally, notice everything you can about the sky. What colors are present? Are there any clouds? Do you see any gradation of light?
Expand your gaze to get the fullest view and sense of the sky that you can. Spend a few moments taking it in.
On the final deep breaths in and out, reflect on how doing this practice has made you feel.

Today’s Happiness Break host:

Dacher Keltner is the host of the Greater Good Science Center’s award-winning podcast, The Science of Happiness and is a co-instructor of the GGSC’s popular online course of the same name. He’s also the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center and a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Check out Dacher’s most recent book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life: https://tinyurl.com/4j4hcvyt

Resources from The Greater Good Science Center:

Why we Should Look up at the Sky (Podcast): https://tinyurl.com/fn3bttw6
Six Ways to Incorporate Awe into Your Daily Life: https://tinyurl.com/3j5hdtj7
How to Choose a Type of Mindfulness Meditation: https://tinyurl.com/py6b729h
How Nature Can Make You Kinder, Happier, and More Creative: https://tinyurl.com/2fmpdpkj
Why is Nature so Good For Your Mental Health? https://tinyurl.com/23zavth3

Tell us about your experiences with wildlife! Leave a comment on Instagram @scienceofhappinesspod. You can also e-mail us at [email protected] or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Help us share The Science of Happiness!

Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	When's the last time you tilted your head to the sky and just let your mind wander?
0:10.0	Well, today we're going to spend a few minutes together doing just that.
0:16.0	I'm Dacker Keltner. This is happiness break.
0:18.0	Part of the science of happiness where we take a little break and find a few minutes of happiness.
0:22.0	We've been developing different practices. take a little break and find a few minutes of happiness.
0:23.4	We've been developing different practices to get you outdoors
0:26.8	and to enjoy the benefits of nature.
0:30.1	We know from hundreds of studies that just getting outside and reflecting upon your relationship to nature benefits us in really a dozen different ways.
0:38.0	It changes our sense of self.
0:40.0	We become less stressed.
0:42.0	It shifts our physiology away from the fight or flight profile
0:46.2	of stress to a profile of higher vagal tone and less cortisol and more connectivity.
0:53.2	I think that the benefits of taking in what is vast,
0:56.8	which are numerous, come about
0:59.1	because when we remind ourselves
1:01.6	of the vast things out in the world like vast oceans, forests, vast trees, vast
1:07.5	skies, vast starlit skies.
1:10.8	We remember very dramatically that we're just a tiny part of the universe.
1:14.5	Our concerns aren't as significant as we make them out to be.
1:18.8	And we also feel a sense of we're part of something larger, right,
1:22.4	that gives us a sense of strength and purpose.
1:25.0	Studies in our Berkeley lab find that when we take in vast things like views and large trees or the sky. We feel less entitled, we feel less stressed
	...

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