The science of happiness with Laurie Santos | How to Be a Better Human

TED Talks Daily

TED

Creativity, Ted Podcast, Ted Talks Daily, Business, Design, Inspiration, Society & Culture, Science, Technology, Education, Tech Demo, Ted Talks, Ted, Entertainment, Tedtalks

4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2023

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The phrase "comparison is the thief of joy" might be the kind of cliché that makes you roll your eyes — and yet, it's an idea that is, scientifically, pretty accurate. In today's episode, psychologist Laurie Santos — a Yale professor and host of "The Happiness Lab" podcast — discusses some of the surprising evidence behind what does and doesn't make us humans happy. Laurie also shares strategies on how to improve our well-being, discusses the irony behind "self-care" and explains why happiness is often a journey not just within, but beyond, ourselves. This is an episode of How to Be a Better Human, another podcast from the TED Audio Collective. Listen to How to Be a Better Human wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective.
0:02.0	Audio Collective.
0:04.0	Hey Ted Talks Daily listeners,
0:11.0	thank you so much for listening to and
0:12.6	downloading our podcast this year.
0:14.8	Thanks to you, we made Spotify's top 10 most listen to
0:18.5	podcasts on the planet in 2023.
0:21.5	So thank you so much. To celebrate the end of the year we wanted to share
0:24.7	one of our favorite episodes from How to Be a Better Human, another podcast from the TED
0:29.4	audio collective. We hope you enjoy it and if you like what you hear find how to be a better human wherever you get your podcasts.
0:37.0	You're listening to How to Be a Better human. I am your host Chris Duffy.
0:44.0	Here's a strange thing that I have noticed about my own brain.
0:47.0	Often, the times that I feel the happiest are where I have a lot of irons in the fire.
0:52.0	There's all these possibilities and
0:53.2	there's this sense that exciting things might happen. But the thing that's weird is
0:57.4	that I often feel happier in that moment where the irons are in the fire than
1:01.5	when they actually come out and become a real thing.
1:04.3	Right? Like, even if I have accomplished something that feels really big and special,
1:08.6	like we finished recording a season of this show, or I did a big live show and it went well I crash so hard that night or the next day
1:16.1	as soon as I've done the thing that I thought that I really wanted to do. It's like I have a
1:20.0	happiness hangover. I'm confused to be honest about why it is that accomplishing
1:24.8	the things that I thought I wanted to accomplish often don't make me feel very
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TED, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TED and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.