Hello, Dr. Laurie Santos here, your guest host for the week.

Welcome to Radiohead Space and to Tuesday.

This week is all about how to find happiness.

Today, I'm going to talk about self-care.

When we think of self-care, long baths and drinking tea can come to mind.

But research shows that leisurely activities often don't make us feel as good as trying

things that challenge us.

So stay tuned as I share some tips on how to take on a self-care routine that's more engaging

and beneficial in the long run, even when we just feel like relaxing.

I think our minds really mispredict the sorts of things that are going to give us pleasure.

And this includes when we're trying to relax.

I think that there's a distinction between relaxing activities and ones that will really enjoy,

ones that will really find fun.

There's lots of evidence, for example, that the kinds of activities we enjoy the most

are the ones that give us something that's known as flow.

Flow is the state where you're feeling in the zone, where you're kind of feeling engaged

but also challenged.

And we often get those from activities in which we're learning something, learning a new

language or doing something that's a little bit tricky, making sourdough bread or even

like coding if you're a programmer, right?

These things aren't necessarily the huge definition of relaxation, but if you look at

and engage the life, it often involves a little bit more flow-based activities than just

...