The Surprising Benefits of Joy for Mood, Immunity, and Heart Health with Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.

Dhru Purohit Show

Dhru Purohit

Alternative Health, Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2023

⏱️ 92 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode is brought to you by Joovv and Rupa Health. With rates of depression and mental illness at an all-time high, it’s crucial to take stock of and consciously make time for the things that bring us joy. Joy is an embodied feeling we get when we feel connected to our inner selves, relationships, and the world around us. The question is, how do we create more of it? Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with Kelly McGonigal to discuss how to cultivate more joy in our lives using the power of movement, nature, community, and so much more. Kelly shares how movement can help familiarize our bodies with the physical sensations of joy so that it is more easily recognizable. She also discusses how a sedentary lifestyle can rob us of joy and how leading a healthy lifestyle can help us better connect to ourselves to find deeper meaning and purpose that leads us to live a joy-filled life. Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University specializing in understanding the mind-body connection. Her mission is to translate insights from psychology and neuroscience into practical strategies that support personal well-being and strengthen communities. She is the best-selling author of The Willpower Instinct and The Upside of Stress. Kelly’s last book, The Joy of Moment, explores why physical exercise is a powerful antidote to the modern epidemics of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. In this episode, Dhru and Kelly dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): -How to create more joy in our lives as we age (2:40 / 2:40) -Why joy is so underrated in people’s lives (5:28 / 5:28) -Increasing our sensitivity to joy (11:00 / 8:27) -What we get from having more joy in our lives (20:22 / 17:50) -How being sedentary suppresses our capacity for joy (33:33 / 30:38) -Kelly’s background story and how she handles chronic pain (42:35 / 40:02) -The Joy Workout (53:10 / 50:37) -Kelly’s Joy prescription (59:00 / 56:30) -The relationship between friendship and joy (1:03:59 / 1:00:57) -Tips for making friends and meeting new people (1:07:24 / 1:04:51) -The power of integrating movements with relationships (1:11:24 / 1:08:57) -Top motivators for increasing movement in our lives (1:17:48 / 1:15:15) -Tips for cultivating love and compassion (1:19:16 / 1:16:45) -End of the day replay exercise (1:29:42 / 1:27:08) Also mentioned in this episode: -The Joy Workout featured in The New York Times -The Joy of Movement For more on Dr. Kelly McGonigal, follow her on Instagram @kellymariemcgonigal and on Facebook @kellymcgonigalauthor, or her website kellymcgonigal.com. Enhance your health with red and infrared LED light therapy with Joovv. Right now, Joovv is offering an exclusive offer on your first order. Head over to Joovv.com/dhru and apply my code DHRU. Rupa Health is a place where Functional Medicine practitioners can access more than 3,000 specialty lab tests from over 35+ labs like DUTCH, Vibrant America, Genova, and Great Plains. You can check out a free, live demo with a Q&A or create an account at RupaHealth.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Joy creates a biology that helps you engage with life, so it's really great for your heart health and your immune system.
0:09.0	You release brain chemicals like endorphins and endocannabinoids, and depending on the type of joy, maybe oxytocin, maybe adrenaline,
0:17.0	but a lot of chemicals that boost your mood, that increase your sense of confidence as well as your willingness to trust others.
0:26.0	If you're curious about the top things in life that rob us of joy, strip our joy away from us and create more on happiness.
0:34.0	The day's episode is absolutely for you. Welcome to the Drupal podcast.
0:39.0	Each week we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset.
0:45.0	This week's guest is Kelly McGonicle, and we're talking with Kelly about all things joy and how to create more of it in our lives.
0:53.0	Now a little bit more about Kelly. Kelly McGonicle is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University who specializes in the understanding of the mind-body connection.
1:03.0	As a pioneer in the field of science help, her mission is to translate insights from psychology and neuroscience into practical strategies that support personal well-being and strengthen communities.
1:14.0	She is the best-selling author of the willpower instinct and the upside of stress.
1:20.0	You might also know her from her TED Talk, How to Make Stress Your Friend, which is one of the most viewed TED Talks of all time with over 20 million views.
1:29.0	Might I add that Oprah Magazine honored Kelly in her work by noting her ability to quote,
1:34.0	transform scientific data into wisdom. They even named her an O visionary, a leader whose groundbreaking way of seeing the world meant a better future for us all.
1:45.0	Kelly was on the podcast previously to talk about her last book called The Joy of Movement.
1:49.0	We'll be mentioning some of the key themes in there, especially in the context of our summer series on healthy body composition.
1:55.0	But primarily today we're focusing on optimizing our life for joy, which we all could be better off.
2:02.0	You know, we search for happiness and we end up coming up short often.
2:06.0	But something magical happens when we optimize our life for joy, and that's what today's interview is all about.
2:12.0	Stay tuned for a fantastic podcast with Kelly McGonagall.
2:17.0	Kelly McGonagall, welcome back to the podcast. A pleasure to have you here.
2:21.0	I want to jump right in, and here's the question that I know my audience will love.
2:27.0	So you shared as we were chitchatting, a big part about aging is our self perception.
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