Welcome to Untangle. I'm Patricia Carpice. Today's encore guest is Dr. Rick Hanson, a psychologist and New York Times bestselling author of several books, including the book we discussed in this interview, Hardwiring Happiness, the New Brain Science of contentment, calm, and confidence.

He shares how we can hardwire our brains for happiness using practices that help us cultivate

and experience the good in our lives while reducing our natural negativity biases.

He shares why it's easier to ruminate over negative feelings rather than bask in the warmth

of positive feelings.

Confusing, right?

The negative stuff is like Velcro.

It just sticks.

But it doesn't have to.

He says we can build our inner strengths and capacity to override the brain's habit of defaulting to the negative, to pessimism.

He suggests a simple method that uses the hidden power of everyday experiences to build new neural structures full of happiness, love, confidence, and peace.

Now on to Dr. Rick Hansen.

Rick Hansen, welcome to Untangle.

I'm so happy to have you on our show today.

Patricia, really?

It's a pleasure.

Aw, I loved your book.

And I want to know what inspired you to begin researching how to hardwire happiness.

I guess this would be your origin story.

Once upon a time, I was a little boy, and like a lot of little kids, I knew things I couldn't put into words.

And one thing I knew is that there was a lot

of unnecessary unhappiness around me. My neighborhood, my school, I could see the grown-ups.

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