00:00:00
life expectancy's been declining yeah the last few years how do we reverse that Trend these are the five safest
00:00:06
things to do Dr Decker Keltner a renowned expert in the science of human emotion discovering ways on how we can
00:00:13
improve our happiness he's also the author of several books including the power paradox I read just someone touching you can
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make you live longer and be less stressed is that true yeah there are all kinds of findings that speak to this you
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have premature babies they used to just put them in these little units that warm them and they would die and then they
00:00:32
figured out they needed skin-to-skin contact like they need food and they live they gained 47 weight gain you know
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the deepest craving we have is to be appreciated by other people you want to be happy practice compassion
00:00:45
and if you want others to be happy practice compassion if I am kind to you
00:00:50
my act of kindness makes you more kind Downstream and then that person you've helped actually is Kinder to another
00:00:57
person and they've proven that yeah so that karma is a very real thing it's very real that'll save eight ten years
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of life you've got to find a few moments just to be kind are we worst people the
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Richer and more powerful we've become yeah so we've actually done experiments right you know it's a movie about a
00:01:14
child who has cancer and poor people show activation to vagus nerve which is part of compassion well-to-do people
00:01:20
less activation the wealthier you are the more you navigate it for serious economic policies that hurt the poor
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Jesus and this is where it gets really works then I just want to start this episode with a
00:01:33
message of thanks a thank you to everybody that Tunes in to listen to this podcast by doing so you've enabled
00:01:39
me to live out my dream but also for many members of our team to live out their dreams too it's one of the
00:01:44
greatest privileges I could never have dreamed of or imagined in my life to get to do this to get to learn from these people to get to have these
00:01:50
conversations to get to interrogate them from a very selfish perspective trying to solve problems I have in my life so I
00:01:56
feel like I owe you a huge thank you for being here and for listening to these episodes and for making this platform what it is can I ask you a favor I can't
00:02:03
tell you how much you can change the course of this podcast the the course of the guests were able to invite to the
00:02:10
show and to the course of everything that we do here just by doing one simple thing and that simple thing is hitting
00:02:15
that subscribe button helps this channel more than I could ever explain the guests on this platform are incredible
00:02:20
because so many of you have hit that button and I know when we think about what we want to do together over the
00:02:25
next year on this show a lot of it is going to be fueled by the amount of you that are subscribed in that tune in to
00:02:31
this show every week so thank you let's keep doing this I can't wait to see what this year brings for this show for us as
00:02:37
a community and for this platform
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[Music] could you start by giving me your professional
00:02:52
academic resume uh wow well that it begins early with my
00:02:59
parents who were you know very important in my education and my formation so my dad is a visual artist and my mom taught
00:03:05
literature and poetry and Romanticism and got me interested in you know all kinds of things about the
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human mind um and then I was at UC Santa Barbara as an undergraduate and then went to
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Stanford for PhD subsequent to that worked with Paul Ekman as a postdoc who's
00:03:22
kind of a Pioneer in the study of facial expression uh and inspiration for the show lie to me and then became a
00:03:29
professor uh Wisconsin uh and then UC Berkeley for 27 years and helped run the
00:03:37
greater good science center which is about disseminating kind of the new knowledge of meditation
00:03:43
and compassion and stress to a broad audience and have taught at Berkeley
00:03:50
which I love for 27 years you reference at a greater good science center yeah
00:03:55
what's the what's the mission of the greater good science center yeah thanks for asking you know um 20 years ago uh
00:04:02
post 911 um you know we were in a world much like post Trump and uh Boris Johnson and
00:04:08
others you know like are we are we fragmented what happened to humanity
00:04:14
um what happened to community um why are life expectancies in the
00:04:20
United States dropping the last two years what's going on right so I saw that yeah striking right really
00:04:25
disturbing um and we had the conviction and there was this new science of things like if
00:04:32
you have strong social ties it adds 10 years of life expectancy to your life right if you practice kindness
00:04:40
um it quiets down the threat regions of the brain and so we at Berkeley
00:04:46
in partnership with the journalism School kind of had the sense early like if we can get this knowledge out right
00:04:52
inactionable Pros where you read it and you say oh I could teach breathing to my
00:04:59
my medical team or I could teach an aw walk to my neighborhood friends uh that
00:05:05
would be good for the world you know I'm super compelled by that thank you the Great's a good science center can you let's talk about some of the things that
00:05:12
you've you've given away in terms of knowledge and some of the sort of discoveries that I think would surprise most people you mentioned some of them
00:05:18
in passing there yeah about breathing and all walks and um how you can add 10 years to your life
00:05:25
yeah what give me some of the top line um more detail on some of those Top Line findings
00:05:30
this really comes into Focus for me Stephen when I speak to Medical audiences I do a lot of work with
00:05:35
Healthcare Providers um you know teaching medical doctors residents uh helping programmatically with
00:05:43
kind of the spirit of hospitals and the like um I talk about uh awe that the feeling
00:05:49
of awe reduces activation in the inflammation
00:05:55
system in your immune system your immune system is all these cells distributed throughout your body that helps you
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protect against dangerous elements on the outside viruses and bacteria and the
00:06:06
feeling of awe sort of reduces the activation of the cytokine system which heats up your body and if your body is
00:06:13
always hot that is bad news for your heart it's bad news for your diabetes and awe helps moderate that I
00:06:23
um you know I teach the work on compassion that you know 65 year olds who practice altruism and compassion uh
00:06:32
have greater life expectancy um you know and you can go on each of these what used to be thought of as kind
00:06:39
of new age soft things like awe or Compassion or breathing benefit us you know just
00:06:46
simple breathing if you breathe in and out counting to four as you breathe in counting out to four actually increases
00:06:54
neural density in the this part of your brain the prefrontal cortex which helps you handle stress what is all for
00:07:01
someone yeah Oz just feeling an emotion you have when you encounter something
00:07:06
big or vast that's outside of your frame of reference right of reality that you
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don't understand that I I think I like the word mystery uh you know wow who I
00:07:18
can't figure this out and and then that emotion of awe stimulates Wonder right
00:07:23
like how do I why do people why do rainbows exist what you know how are
00:07:29
they produced when water when light bends through water molecules so it's it's an emotion that drives wonder and
00:07:36
creativity what is the um positive net impact on humans of
00:07:41
experiencing or other than because when I think of ore I think of going to like Machu Picchu and seeing those big mountains yeah what the hell is this
00:07:47
this is insane and I think of that as being like a memory oh that's fun that's
00:07:52
amazing I take the picture yeah put it on my Instagram get the likes go home yeah but there's something deeper going
00:07:58
on right physiology yeah thank you you know one of the fascinating things
00:08:04
Stephen when you're you know is when you study this complicated realm of emotion
00:08:09
is we have these words that we all use to talk about an emotion and they're
00:08:16
much as we have words about you know ethnic categories or class categories always lower class or he's he's
00:08:22
African-American those are just words and Concepts that may not capture reality at all and awe
00:08:30
suffers from this which is when people talk about awe or they share it on Instagram they show they share the big
00:08:35
moments of like I was at the Grand Canyon or I was in the Lake District or by this Cathedral
00:08:41
um but in point of fact you know there are a lot of ways in which we feel awe all the time right uh encountering
00:08:50
somebody who's really kind in the streets you're like wow that was really generous so yesterday on the train the
00:08:56
team were coming up to Manchester where I was speaking and a an elderly lady overheard them saying that they were
00:09:01
going to climb a mountain for charity the elderly lady got up walked over gave him five pounds and said I climbed that
00:09:07
once his five pounds put it towards the charity and for all of us it went into our like company chat that that happened
00:09:13
it was a real moment of like an affirmation of what it is to be a human and kindness I guess yeah and what's
00:09:19
stunning to me and this is a digression is your story just gave me the chills yeah yeah and that's amazing it's very
00:09:25
incredible isn't it it is incredible that I wasn't there I've just got the chills myself just yeah just saying you
00:09:30
have the chills it's just giving me this it's amazing and that we don't understand scientifically the contagious power of chills and all but you know all
00:09:39
it it's not the stereotype that we are led to understand or think about with
00:09:44
words it's around us all the time right the generosity and the Train the beautiful clouds a piece of music a
00:09:51
visual design you know driving here to your studio all the incredible design of London it's around us
00:09:57
um and so it's there every day and you know Stephen I I'm not a uh I don't know
00:10:03
why this happened to me but I've taught happiness to hundreds of thousands of people online and in classes and the
00:10:09
like I was a grouchy kid stressed out most of my life terrible meditator but I
00:10:14
was forced into this job and you know serving the science of Happiness we've been talking about man two minutes of
00:10:22
awe every other day is about as good for you as anything you can do you know it
00:10:27
calms stress calm stress regions of your brain talked about inflammation it reduces
00:10:33
inflammation activates the vagus nerve which is this bundle of nerves the wanders all throughout your body and
00:10:39
calms your heart rate it's good for digestion so you know it's good news for
00:10:45
the human psyche and when we talk about giving a little stressed out 12 year old
00:10:51
young 12 year old some awe each moment in a classroom we know that's really good for health and creativity so
00:10:59
um it's good news in terms of what it can bring to us talk to me about some some science then
00:11:06
um that supports that assertion where yeah the science shows that every day or
00:11:11
so like accessible or yeah the all that I could go get out in the street or that I could actively go practice after
00:11:17
listening to this conversation yeah has proven to have a positive physiological impact on humans or their emotions or
00:11:24
their behavior yeah yeah you know this was one of the most exciting developments of the science of
00:11:30
our um when we started to get this picture of the health benefits of less stress a
00:11:36
sense of time reduce loneliness right loneliness 40 of people in globalized
00:11:43
cultures feel lonely right that is hard on the body we started to think about
00:11:48
all interventions um and you know one of my favorites uh
00:11:54
that has compelling Health Data if you will is um
00:11:59
a lot of people go for regular walks the UK is famous for its walking Traditions
00:12:04
you know it's one of the great cultural strengths you know just paths and you know and walks and you know Etc and and
00:12:12
uh so we just added one element to people's regular walk uh and we called
00:12:18
it the ah walk which is when you go out pause take some breathing deep breathing
00:12:26
get synced up with your footsteps this is a classic kind of walking meditation
00:12:31
approach and then look for awe right look take a moment to look at small things look at the reflection on this
00:12:37
cool mug then pan out and look at you know the vastness of where you are City
00:12:43
or nature up at the sky that was it right and that gets you into this ah
00:12:49
mindset and our participants were 75 years old or older
00:12:56
um at that age a lot of data suggests you start getting more anxious and depressed right your people you love are
00:13:04
dying your body's falling apart you are facing your mortality and they all walk
00:13:09
over eight weeks once a week compared to a really rigorous control condition LED
00:13:16
our 75 years old participants to feel less distress less pain and more awe and joy in their
00:13:24
lives so it's just this simple addition to a daily walk right
00:13:29
listening to some music do it more intentionally and and a lot of the studies of awe are really simple you
00:13:36
know just watching all video share an off story which you shared to me that just gave me the Goosebumps you know that Goosebumps is a register it's these
00:13:44
little muscles around hair follicles that are part of what are called your parasympathetic autonomic nervous system
00:13:49
which calm you down so share stories of all so so there's a ton of ways in which you can build more everyday awe into
00:13:56
your life what's the evolutionary basis for this um the you know in 1978 I think Richard
00:14:05
Dawkins published selfish Gene massive book right you know if you read that
00:14:11
it's it the argument which is true is there we are the we have these genes
00:14:16
that are replicating themselves through us we are these machines that replicate genes right uh and all of our
00:14:23
characteristics are ways to do that and and it's all the language is very aggressive and adversarial these genes
00:14:29
are competing with these genes I'm competing with other people in the game of evolution and there's been this
00:14:35
massive shift in evolutionary thinking in the past 40 years where you know we're just starting to discover you know
00:14:42
around the world people share 40 to 50 percent of a resource with a stranger if
00:14:48
asked just like as a default that's our intuition um we have neurophysiological systems
00:14:54
like oxytocin parts of the brain and the vagus nerve which help us sacrifice and
00:15:00
give we readily we are contagious in our feelings your
00:15:05
story gave me the chills and then my chills bounced back to you and you got the chills so we're United and connected
00:15:11
and now you know it it the thinking is we're very Cooperative alongside violent
00:15:18
and rapacious and the like and and Collective we're hyper Collective
00:15:23
um we synchronize with each other physiologically we mimic each other we collaborate unlike any other primate
00:15:30
we're that's just who we are it's probably our big strength um I think because in part
00:15:37
um hyper vulnerable Offspring needed a lot of care right to live food scarcity warming in the face of
00:15:44
cold and we need emotions and social practices that make
00:15:50
us feel like we're Collective and awe is it when you know it's it's so striking
00:15:56
Stephen I don't know if you've had in our experience in nature recently
00:16:01
just being outdoors oh yeah I mean yeah so I went to I went to Bali in Indonesia
00:16:06
to write my book in Ubud and that's one of the places where I mean you're in a vast jungle yeah but also whenever you
00:16:13
get to top of a mountain you look out across the jungle and I remember one particular moment looking out across the jungle stood on this platform that was
00:16:19
awe-inspiring yeah but also it's quite weird that I my awe-inspiring
00:16:24
experiences in that country are always just being on the moped and going through the countryside yeah because this because it's this it feels like the
00:16:31
essence of nature there's something about I don't know what it is there's there's this realness to it that makes
00:16:37
me feel like I'm at home it's hard to explain but and that's feel like you're at home right and it's
00:16:44
striking think about it conceptually like here I am on a moped in nature with you know the the ecosystems kind of
00:16:52
moving into my body and my brain and out of that comes the concept I'm home and
00:16:57
that's what awe does is it says I'm part of this people right the other the other time was actually last week I was at
00:17:03
SoHo Farmhouse which is a sort of like a uh like a hotel Village they've
00:17:09
constructed where you can go on the weekend to be in nature and it was actually walking back to my cabin I looked up up for the first time and
00:17:16
obviously when you're in the countryside yeah you get to see the stars in London you don't have that I'm not sure no and
00:17:21
I looked up and I saw the stars and I started talking like having a mental conversation about what that is like what I'm looking at that is a I mean
00:17:28
that one over there is a bigger than planet Earth and it's I'm basically this tiny little into seemingly insignificant
00:17:35
piece of irrelevant dust and that made me feel a sense of all the feeling is
00:17:41
really because I am so small I am part of this
00:17:46
bigger thing yeah you know when you don't look up and when you're looking down let's say figuratively
00:17:52
there's a sort of an individualism yeah whereas like it's it's me yeah I'm the center of the universe when you look up
00:17:59
you realize that you are irrelevant but therefore also part of this greater thing I guess yeah thank you for bringing that up you know and one of the
00:18:05
simple actionable things that we've been teaching at greater good we have a practice on this is look at the sky just like look up take a minute if you ask
00:18:13
the average citizen in a city like London when's the last time you looked at the sky right yeah I don't see it
00:18:19
yeah and it's powerful yeah the you know one of the paradoxical qualities of awe
00:18:26
and and is this shift this transformation and sense of self that you're talking about and it's
00:18:33
profound which is you know in the s in one of the early writing Traditions
00:18:40
around awe which is spiritual journaling a lot of people early accounts of awe
00:18:45
and the bhagavad-gita and Julian of Norwich and you know the great Christian writings almost every spiritual
00:18:51
tradition the Buddha uh it's this like God I'm having this ecstatic ah mystical
00:18:56
experience what's it like and they write about the uh the self just like Vanishing you know
00:19:03
psychedelics has a rich tradition of ego death in it Carl Sagan it has this great
00:19:08
statement about space like yours like man when I think about the universe
00:19:14
look at me I'm just asleep yeah yeah I'm a little speck of dust you know but the
00:19:20
self is huge in our minds yeah and ah quiet said it puts it into perspective
00:19:26
and what's striking Stephen which you know it took us a long time to figure this out scientifically is
00:19:31
it actually feels liberating you know oh it's the you know what when I'm stressed I remind myself of how insignificant I
00:19:38
am because stress is often the like the um the like the Fatal decision to
00:19:44
overestimate the significance of your your problems like relative to you know
00:19:49
to whatever but the other day I was I was a little bit um I was overthinking something a lot and I could feel myself getting a little bit stressed and I
00:19:57
reminded myself of looking down on a plane yeah over a country and just how irrelevant I am in the grand scheme of
00:20:03
things because of you know I became a dragon on the on Dragon's Den and the podcast became bigger you know it's it's
00:20:10
easy sometimes to fall into the Trap of when there's a lot of people talking about you or writing about you to to to
00:20:15
think that this is the center of the universe in some respect I'm leading a movement of two million people yeah but
00:20:22
whenever I go up in a plane and I look down I go nothing that I do is really math matters in a good way yeah it's
00:20:28
funny because it's a paradox it's like I want to be empowered and I want to think that I matter yeah but at the same time
00:20:33
I I like to realize that I absolutely don't matter in any respect and I love saying this to people because it you can
00:20:39
see that kind of their ego Square yeah when you go when you put in context that we are as an individual we absolutely
00:20:46
don't matter you know in the in the millions or whatever billions of years that the Universe has existed we are
00:20:51
just This Blink and I'm just this irrelevant Speck of dust and once I'm gone you know give it another million
00:20:57
years no one's even gonna remember yeah or whatever probably a couple of years but but that's what's great about I on
00:21:03
the human mind right is we we need the ego and the self and we need to maximize our interests and desires and
00:21:08
reproductive possibilities Etc status you know all that obsessive stuff but man we have this great realm of
00:21:15
transcendence that awe is part of that you know in our studies you know we we
00:21:21
literally we took students up to the tower on the UC Berkeley campus they got to look out at the the and they no
00:21:28
longer felt stressed about things we had students look up into trees and just admire these we have a lot of tall trees
00:21:35
on campus and I hope you visited sometime that are beautiful and tall and make you feel like you know they're we
00:21:41
have redwood trees that are a thousand years old you know that oh this little moment of Consciousness that
00:21:48
is so self-critical or or stressed or or ego maniacal is just a
00:21:56
moment in time of seven nine billion people it's you know for me personally
00:22:03
it was liberating to find this in awe like like you're saying like this is all this is just one human's
00:22:09
effort so why did you write this book of all the things you could have written
00:22:14
about you're a very smart individual you've studied so many things relating to sort of social sciences and how
00:22:19
humans behave and why we why we do what we do but to commit your life to writing a book about this subject matter yeah is
00:22:26
writing books is not easy yeah it takes a long time a lot of effort yeah to promote them Etc why this book why now
00:22:33
yeah thank you for asking that um
00:22:38
yeah you know um it is hard to write books and we had done a lot of research on awe and
00:22:46
you know one of the reasons I wrote the book was um
00:22:51
you know I'm now at an age where I've been following how we're doing as cultures and and a lot of the things
00:22:57
that have surfaced here Stephen are true like you know people feel lonely they feel
00:23:05
um adrift they're circing they're searching for something more meaningful than
00:23:12
elevating a paycheck and and I felt that awe was part of that story that all gets
00:23:18
us to what is Meaningful to us is individuals at a moment in history um and then
00:23:24
uh my younger brother died and he um he was he was born I'm one year older
00:23:34
we had this wild childhood you know of like born in Mexico and raised in the
00:23:39
late 60s in Laurel Canyon a very experimental Place wandering the foothills of the Sierras and
00:23:45
and uh he was my source of meaning in many ways in life
00:23:51
um and he got colon cancer and died and it was brutal and horrifying and at
00:23:56
the moment of his dying uh the last night he uh sitting by his bed
00:24:03
and um and he he was my moral compass in life you know he really he was very
00:24:08
courageous super kind I really only cared about like devoted his career to the least
00:24:16
uh resource kids in the country these four poor kids and um when I was watching him die
00:24:22
uh I had an awe experience I was like you know what is going on he seems
00:24:30
really calm he's heading into a space I don't understand I saw like pulsating light
00:24:36
you know that was uniting everyone around him in this sense of reverence
00:24:42
and the sacredness of his life and uh
00:24:47
afterward um I was knocked into a really profound
00:24:53
state of grief where um this about five years ago uh I couldn't make sense of the world
00:24:58
you know I could do my work um but I just did I was lost because he was
00:25:05
a very important voice to me you know and I was waking up wasn't sleeping panicky and and I like a lot of
00:25:13
people in grief I was like you know hallucinating like I would see him follow a guy in the streets like and
00:25:20
he wasn't him I'd wake up thinking he was there I felt his hand on my back a couple times
00:25:26
and uh it was weird I was I had this Epiphany
00:25:31
in this really bad State of Mind the worst I've ever felt like
00:25:37
um I gotta find awe again you know I have to my brother you know he and I went dancing and did
00:25:44
wild things and backpacking and you know just live this life of awe he was my
00:25:50
source and he was gone um and so I wrote the book you know and I I dug in and just started writing
00:25:56
about him and he features prominently in the book you know what he meant to me and how I
00:26:02
grieved his loss and then worked up the science too so in many ways you know
00:26:08
what we're observing in our our globalized culture is is this the
00:26:15
problems of capitalism the search for meaning the you know Rising the reduced
00:26:20
life expectancy U.S Rising anxiety depression and I was kind of in that state you know
00:26:26
suddenly like wow my career is good but uh you know and so um knowing a little bit about the
00:26:32
science I was like I've got to do this myself and go get it did you find that war again I did it it
00:26:39
it it took a lot of work you know I was in a really tough place and uh you know
00:26:46
I um I just was I just started Anew like
00:26:51
where do I find meaning and I find meaning working with prisoners
00:26:57
I don't know why you know um but just you know being in prisons volunteering helping with the formerly
00:27:03
incarcerated I challenged myself to find on places I wouldn't ordinarily
00:27:11
find it like just to open my mind like whoa I'm at a symphony you know I love African music and Sona Joe barte and you
00:27:19
know and here I was in the symphony not understanding it but starting to feel it um you know nature is easy for me I've
00:27:24
always backpacked and gone into the mountains I had a lot of spiritual conversations you know of like I'm not a
00:27:30
religious person and I was like what is this you know why why mystical also and what it gave me I
00:27:37
think with respect to my brother's death is an openness like we don't know what life is we don't know where it goes we
00:27:44
don't you know uh and it opened my mind to a lot of new sources of awe
00:27:50
there's almost an injustice I had in that story because of the way you characterized your brother and his
00:27:56
behavior yeah for him then to have passed early from cancer yeah feels in
00:28:01
many respects to me like the opposite of or or you know the universe being uh
00:28:07
compassionate or fair or whatever and that yeah yeah it hit me hard you know
00:28:13
it was uh and that's what I put like for the first year you know you you ask these questions
00:28:20
like why would a guy who teaches speech therapy to the poorest kids in the United States go and
00:28:26
his with a teenage daughter and a young family come on you know come on and
00:28:32
Donald Trump is you know indestructible and you're like the world is [ __ ] you know and and I grappled with that
00:28:39
uh very hard and then I was as you well put I was in this antithesis
00:28:47
state of awe I was like nothing meant anything you know it was all pointless
00:28:53
I could sense nothing bigger about life that mattered and that's why you know that's why I
00:29:00
said all right I have this career that allows me to do these investigations and we're all
00:29:07
investigating we're all cert see searching for these things in music or
00:29:12
moral beauty or being in collectives or Sports and I just threw myself into it and and uh
00:29:18
and you know frankly um it you know the idea of everyday awe
00:29:24
which is very important in the book we can find it anywhere you know on the train with the act of generosity that is
00:29:30
now it just feels alive all the time what's kind of the through line to
00:29:36
gratitude because when you were talking about the whole question when you picked up this
00:29:42
um mug the silver mug we have in front of us yeah and you started admiring it it almost sounded a bit more like gratitude to me yeah and even the the
00:29:48
study where you had the elderly participants do the walk and then sort of self-report I'm guessing on how they
00:29:54
felt yeah it sounded like nature also gives us a sense of sort of gratitude for our lives for the way we live in
00:29:59
yeah what's the distinction or difference if there is one yeah what a terrific question and there's a deep
00:30:05
philosophical tradition um of David David Hume Scottish philosopher
00:30:11
um Charles Darwin Martha Nussbaum more recently a Chicago philosopher that we
00:30:17
and it really animates a lot of this conversation the work I've done is like we have these amazing emotions that are
00:30:24
like deep intuitions about the world that are good for us and good for the world you know compassion take care of
00:30:29
people who are vulnerable oh you know connect to others to face fast mystery
00:30:34
and gratitude Adam Smith the great Economist felt like this is the emotion
00:30:40
that holds societies together gratitude the feeling of reverence for things are
00:30:45
like wow this is really important and sacred of things that are given to you
00:30:51
and that is key like oh my friend helped me with my work
00:30:56
um my work colleague brought me lunch um you know my my child did the dishes
00:31:01
tonight you know whoa I feel grateful gratitude really close to awe as as you
00:31:09
into it but it tends to be different in that awe tends to be about vaster things like you know
00:31:16
uh you almost get into a car crash or you get into a car crash you almost die and you're like I'm just I feel
00:31:22
awestruck that I'm alive you know and then awe has more mystery to it you
00:31:28
can't understand it like music or right like music yeah exactly you know music
00:31:33
rushes into you and you start crying right and you're like oh my God so what's a recent
00:31:39
experience of that for you of music yeah um it would be where you just start
00:31:45
sobbing and you know or not oh something or chills it would be we do this live show for
00:31:52
it's called the driver CEO live and we toured the country last year we did three nights at the Palladium then we took it to all these theaters and I'm
00:31:57
stood and there's a house Gospel Choir of about 40 people behind me for the whole two hours while I'm speaking and I
00:32:04
mean [ __ ] Jesus yeah facing a lot of like just songs as part of the message that I'm conveying and I mean every
00:32:11
night I'm you know I'm crying it's funny because I rehearsed it I rehearsed it I practiced
00:32:16
I practiced it but then with the people there the audience of 2500 people and the choir that I would cry every night
00:32:22
yeah which is bizarre which is strange isn't it striking it's a sense of connectedness maybe I wonder why in the
00:32:29
live show when there's thousands of people there then I feel the most intense emotions yeah versus when we're
00:32:34
in rehearsals yeah that's a complicated question but your examples tell us you know that you the
00:32:41
vastness of that experience of like wow there are sound waves that I'm producing that are moving bodies I see this
00:32:47
pattern of movement and I am part of that and as the poet Ross gay says these
00:32:52
boundaries between self and other become very porous you're like Whoa We are one
00:32:57
organism that's awe vast and and I don't understand why gratitude is more you
00:33:02
know you're at the show and you know somebody looks you in the eye and smiles and and you feel like they're grateful
00:33:08
for you it has this more readily understood economy to it almost or
00:33:14
um and why you know in writing about awe um the you know there are some things
00:33:20
that are intuitive like oh nature makes us feel awe and people's moral Beauty and kindness your story on the train
00:33:28
but how in the world music sound waves hits our ear produces a
00:33:35
neurochemistry in the brain and the next thing you know you're crying you know and feeling one
00:33:41
that's amazing to me and we still I don't know if science will ever answer it you know it's it's just the
00:33:47
Transcendent power of music and you're lucky to share it do you have any insight into the positive impact that
00:33:52
gratitude has on US based on any sort of studies that have been done it's huge and you know Stephen like when following
00:33:59
and teaching the science of Happiness literature for 25 years you know at UC
00:34:04
Berkeley I started teaching a happiness course I think it was Harvard and us for the first 25 years ago tracking like
00:34:10
what are the what are the things you can count on you know and when I go out and teach happiness
00:34:16
um it's very humbling like you asked me in some sense
00:34:21
um a related question to have a parent come up to me and say you know my son is
00:34:27
massively depressed and suicidal what do I do you know and obviously you go see a therapist and you consider medication
00:34:33
but the happiness literature can point to like these are the five
00:34:39
safest things to do social connection develop some way to
00:34:45
use your body to calm down breathing yoga Sports whatever and gratitude as a
00:34:51
winner and I think Oz up there now too but you know gratitude practicing gratitude uh benefits the
00:34:59
cardiovascular system it helps people who have heart vulnerabilities patience
00:35:04
they do better it is very good for your place in social
00:35:10
networks like I join a group I'm I'm worried I'm socially anxious what do I do practice some gratitude you
00:35:17
know say thank you and uh show a little appreciation of people you will have stronger social ties we did research
00:35:24
showing it's good for romantic bonds you know the if Partners simply say on
00:35:30
occasion like hey thanks for doing the dishes or I appreciate how you the jokes
00:35:36
you tell or I love your music selection it helps right so it's it's a safe bet
00:35:41
for a happier life you know this I've come to learn that there's so many forces in our day-to-day lives that act
00:35:47
against gratitude yeah and um stifle its presence but in the
00:35:53
context you've given there whether it's in a social group or at work or in a relationship or even with yourself I've
00:36:00
come to learn how important it is to not rely on gratitude just showing up but to
00:36:05
try and create a system for frequent gratitude yeah now one of the things that's been a real unlock for me my
00:36:12
companies over the last couple of years is in every company that I run
00:36:17
we have a gratitude chat yeah so it's just a channel yeah and it's open there's really no instruction but it's
00:36:24
funny that we we created the Channel first at Social chain and then in my current companies and when you just
00:36:30
create the channel what happens is gratitude pours in yeah so today there'll be I can guarantee at some
00:36:36
point today there'll be a message in there that says thank you so much Ross for going and getting me that cup of
00:36:42
coffee um that I didn't ask for but you knew that I needed or whatever or thank you Jack for helping me lift that box
00:36:47
upstairs and it pours in and it's such a simple thing to do yeah but it creates
00:36:52
this insane um um hard to understand amount of like
00:37:00
connectiveness and appreciation yeah I imagine for the individual on the receiving end of the gratitude
00:37:07
um a sense of like worthiness or or respect respect or mine yeah and it's
00:37:13
such a small thing to do it is that I think every company should consider which is having a system yeah to move
00:37:18
gratitude friction free yeah across your organization yeah to back bind it together but in your purse in your
00:37:24
relationship the same thing yeah like you can rely on it being a you know your partner helping you with the bags or
00:37:29
helping you with your packing or whatever but it would it's great to also in a relationship have a system for yeah
00:37:35
gratitude and what I love about your system Stephen you know I've taught gratitude in a lot of organizational
00:37:41
contexts and sometimes people force it like you know okay let's see what we're grateful to for each person in the in this you know
00:37:48
this meeting and it's like oh God you know that's tricky but to allow it to be spontaneous and intuitive like you did
00:37:54
right and let it flow that's that's the strong source and manifestation of gratitude and it reminds us you know in
00:38:02
Western European thinking probably largely Western European male thinking has been so hostile to emotion uh this
00:38:10
is what I was saying when I said there's so many forces acting against it yeah and it's just like why would you ever say thank you it
00:38:16
makes you weak it makes you vulnerable and the like Etc but there are a lot of great thinkers from
00:38:23
David Hume Adam Smith Charles Darwin you know early a lot of the East Asian you
00:38:28
know contemplative philosophies like our best human Tendencies come out of emotions of gratitude and express them
00:38:36
um and and I think that your example speaks to sort of a big shift culturally
00:38:42
and what do we do with these emotions at work they're really vital to our sense
00:38:48
of connectivity and community makes me think a lot about relationships and I know this is something you've
00:38:54
written about um extensively the the role that a romantic relationship plays in health
00:38:59
outcomes etc etc but then I also was um I was pondering this idea of monogamy broadly yeah whether so my kind of
00:39:06
question is kind of twofold is yeah are we meant to be monogamous yeah um and also
00:39:14
this I'm thinking a lot about how the relationship Dynamics and Alchemy is changing in some in some ways uh eroding
00:39:20
yeah I was reading some stats around marriage and how people are getting married less yeah you know having less
00:39:25
kids and all these kinds of things yeah what's your thoughts on all of that are we meant to be monogamous you've done a lot of research on apes and yeah you
00:39:33
talked a lot about them in your in your work yeah but are we meant to be monogamous and if so
00:39:39
how does that relate to the fact that being in a relationship extends our life what a terrific question well you know
00:39:44
anytime that you pose these questions right you have to remember um you know and I always approach things
00:39:49
from an evolutionary framework you know which is humans are many different kinds of individuals right there's massive
00:39:55
individual variation and when I um you know and there's cultural variation so some cultures will be less
00:40:02
monogamous others more um yeah I think that I think that
00:40:07
um the the safest answer we can offer and it's dispiriting and I teach it to my young students at Berkeley is you
00:40:14
know I hate to tell you this but you're in love right now but odds are very good that that's not going to be the last relationship you're in and so we tend to
00:40:21
move from one semi-committed relationship to another um so serial monogamy or uh is is what
00:40:30
many believe to be kind of our default orientation there's variation around that some are more polyamorous others are really
00:40:37
fiercely monogamous given genetic makeup and cultural makeup um my belief is
00:40:46
um and and your generation is really bringing this to the fore which is that the old model of single monogamous
00:40:53
relationship for 60 years uh probably is not working when you look at divorce rates 50 percent
00:40:59
those people who stay together half of those marriages are really pretty unhappy so it's it's not working you
00:41:06
look at certain cultures I was struck Steven recently as you know the Scandinavians always do really well in
00:41:12
happiness measures right and it's like and I just Google like you know what is
00:41:18
the um is sort of living configuration romantic relationship configuration in Sweden
00:41:24
Sweden has really high rates of people co-parenting but not living with the
00:41:29
parent right and that may be a model to be not not living with a partner sorry
00:41:34
um and so I think that we have many kinds of Love uh one of them being a
00:41:41
monogamous love um it it puts a lot of pressure to uh
00:41:47
with this old kind of romantic chivalrous Victorian ideal of like
00:41:52
that's the only person I don't think that works right and so we're moving towards more flexible Arrangements where
00:41:59
we express many kinds of love and and it comes with a lot of complexity so I when
00:42:04
I teach love I say there are all these kinds of love right Walt Whitman
00:42:11
love friendship you know I I mean friendship love and a lot of the data
00:42:17
friends give you more happiness than any kind of relationship right oh I shouldn't say I
00:42:23
shouldn't say I agree my girlfriend is somewhere upstairs you know I understand yeah I understand
00:42:30
so the I think this this model of like you know singular devoted all consuming
00:42:38
romantic love is misled us and we need varieties of romantic love which your generation is creating which is exciting
00:42:44
and then we need to remember the other forms to to have the rich life and then
00:42:49
you get at that you know I got the right social configuration to give me those 10 years of life expectancy
00:42:55
I've always been going back and forth about marriage because I understand some people say marriage is a A system that
00:43:01
allows for the rearing of kids yeah um it's a it's a form of commitment which changes things in the relationship but
00:43:08
the but I've always wondered if there's another way yeah that's more you know
00:43:14
where which kind of I don't know is there another way like I'm not even sure
00:43:19
me and my partner would get married but I'm sure we'd make some kind of commitment to each other but you know I'm not sure involving the law
00:43:26
in church and all these things in the in the process is necessarily conducive with a productive outcome I
00:43:32
know and not only that but just think about like you know I'm gonna be wait I'm gonna do everything from physical
00:43:37
exercise to streaming movies to cooking food with one person right
00:43:44
um you know it's interesting Stephen um the there's this really striking
00:43:50
literature you know one of the raw facts of our evolution is our offspring are very vulnerable they're the most
00:43:56
vulnerable offspring of any mammal on the face of the Earth they take seven to eight to twenty years just to I even say
00:44:03
like 55 years to you know to even be semi functioning as an individual but
00:44:08
what that meant is love in our our hominid Evolution was
00:44:14
distributed in communities right and there's this concept called aloe parenting which is we all kind of take
00:44:20
care of young ones even if they're not our own we're all affectionately related to each other in that work we're all
00:44:28
there's much more sexual fluidity in that Dynamic that probably reflects the truth of today that we don't face with
00:44:35
this Victorian ideal of singular romantic love and and maybe your generation is moving us toward
00:44:43
that that sort of more communal approach to love uh of com and it's complicated right it
00:44:50
involves different ideas about sexuality and different ideas of caregiving um but probably healthier and I hope it
00:44:57
happens why why won't it work and why doesn't it work because you know when we think
00:45:02
about polygamy or um popping polyamorous I don't know the difference going to be honest yeah they sound similar polygamy
00:45:10
multiple wives polyamorous multiple people you love okay yeah so when we think about those Pollies yeah
00:45:17
um It seems impossible in the modern world yeah to execute a poly situation yeah without jealousy and all the other
00:45:25
[ __ ] yeah and you know I grew up raised around hippies you know my parents were Counter Culture I grew up
00:45:31
in Laurel Canyon in the late 60s very wild place and I saw a lot of this as a young kid and it was comical you know
00:45:37
it's like who you're fighting over the dishes and I don't get to sleep with my wife tonight that's you know he gets my
00:45:44
my roommate does ah you know it's hard you know um yeah uh you know and a lot of things
00:45:50
get in the way I think that you know I I forgive me but you know I think of the U.S and how much of United States
00:45:57
culture is designed around you know the nuclear monogamous family of you know
00:46:02
single homes suburbs driving in a car
00:46:07
um you know really structured around that and and maybe that's poor design it doesn't seem to fit our evolutionary
00:46:14
past of being in these you know these collectives that are sharing in the raising of Offspring
00:46:20
and um and sharing and to a certain extent in romantic partnership so are you
00:46:26
married yes you've been married for a long time yeah they're uh 90 I think
00:46:33
it's 33 years wow geez yeah important context yeah
00:46:38
some people might you know think that um you were like anti-marriage or anything like that but
00:46:44
you're clearly I can see from the room in your face yeah but I grew up around a mom who you know she taught women's
00:46:50
literature and feminism in the 70s and you know that early feminist critique of
00:46:55
marriage is right you know early on it it women did a lot of the work it
00:47:02
constrained them it cost them in terms of job uh mobility and so I've always questioned it and then I
00:47:09
think the evolutionary literature we talked about is like wait a minute maybe love is more distributed it comes in
00:47:15
many varieties and that's how we get this love work done so I'm glad you guys
00:47:21
are questioning it seriously yeah good luck yeah the good thing is
00:47:27
we're really like we're really open to new things as in we're open to like building new systems for our
00:47:32
relationship in the modern world based on how we feel we're very good at being um resistant to like social pressure to
00:47:39
to follow a a conventional path yeah so even with Valentine's days and things like that we have a conversation about
00:47:45
like does this make sense like why would we do this and yeah what's more important yeah which a lot of people don't I've been in relationships before
00:47:50
where you you don't hit the perfect like a social Cube to show up or give flowers
00:47:56
or whatever and you get like a [ __ ] an essay and you're you know a bad guy for that day but um okay Max one of the
00:48:02
points you said you were talking about how men in particular struggle to show Express those emotions yeah
00:48:08
um and you know stereotypically we're not as affectionate and kind as as our
00:48:15
female counterparts one of the things that you talk about is the difference in social class yeah yeah and how things
00:48:21
change oh man oh are we
00:48:26
worst people of richer and more powerful we become
00:48:31
because your research seems to show that yeah I would say yes
00:48:38
um and I'm sorry to say that you know it's it's uh you know we um
00:48:44
uh I got interested in social class um actually living in England you know I
00:48:51
lived in England in 1978 um and the United States is very blind
00:48:56
to social class we're now more aware of it Bernie Sanders Etc rightfully so one
00:49:02
percent critique you know 80s 90s were just blind to it as a morgalitarian time and I lived in
00:49:08
Nottingham England very working-class town in a very tough time in England's history of you know coal strikes and the
00:49:14
like and it was tough and and the English had this
00:49:20
um just much more sophisticated understanding of class and differentiations between on the Dole and
00:49:26
working class and Posh and you know all these categories I was like Wow classes everywhere it affects how people speak
00:49:31
and dress and eat and so forth and so we started to apply social class to what
00:49:38
we've been talking about like The Compassion ah gratitude empathy kindness
00:49:43
sharing altruism and just you know across um studies and and you know largely in the
00:49:50
United States I think you could question whether this applies to Holland or UK or
00:49:56
Japan where there there's less inequality I might add um you know as you rise in wealth and
00:50:02
privilege you share a less you feel less compassion to images of suffering
00:50:07
you know you see an image this was a striking study to me of you know it's a movie about a child who has cancer and
00:50:15
poorer people show activation of the vagus nerve which is part of compassion you know causes you to like want to help
00:50:22
well-to-do people less activation uh they feel less awe as you rise in the
00:50:27
social class hierarchy in the United States are more impolite and so that was part
00:50:34
of my power Paradox book was that story about the class I you know I I hesitate
00:50:39
I worry about like in my worst person and I you I'd rather use your earlier language of like what are the structural
00:50:46
conditions that get in the way of this and you think about you know rising in in wealth and privilege in
00:50:53
class is introduce you create a life that makes it harder to be kind you know
00:50:58
that you're people are assisting you with things and um you don't come into contact with
00:51:04
suffering you know you live in a neighborhood in the United States or probably UK where it's like you don't
00:51:10
see it you know and so it doesn't train those Tendencies and you know frankly
00:51:16
um Stephen I you know I think this is increasingly true in the UK but in the
00:51:22
United States uh you know with one in six people impoverished uh life expectancy's dropping you know
00:51:30
six seven hundred thousand unhoused people in the United States where I live Berkeley California everywhere you go
00:51:36
you're bumping into somebody who doesn't have a home I I think it's our Central failure in
00:51:42
the U.S is how privilege has short-circuited our our
00:51:49
better human tendencies how do we know that
00:51:55
it's the increase in wealth and social class
00:52:00
that is causing us to become less kind and less empathetic less compassionate
00:52:06
or it's just [ __ ] go further yeah yeah there's a distinction there like
00:52:12
maybe these people were always [ __ ] and that's why they became successful or rich or wealthy or whatever or or in a
00:52:18
higher social class yeah I I mean they're too and that's a critical question right and and people have long
00:52:23
championed this idea that well maybe all of this what it really tells us is you
00:52:29
you if you practice our compassion you don't rise in the ranks and you don't gain wealth and the like and there are
00:52:35
two rebuttals to that idea the first which I chart in the power Paradox which people still don't believe too much but
00:52:42
on balance today um people who practice empathy who
00:52:47
listen and and share resources practice gratitude rise in the ranks they they do
00:52:53
better in social hierarchies and that replicates in a lot of contexts and and
00:52:59
really what happens is is this is why I call it the power paradoxes once I have everybody's respect and you know wealth
00:53:08
and the like then it I tend to misbehave right in the ways we've talked about through a lot of different uh uh forms
00:53:15
of unethical Behavior the other rebuttal is we've actually done experiments right and you can take a middle class
00:53:21
individual and you can get them into the mindset like hey you're actually
00:53:27
have a lot of Advantage vis-a-vis most of society through simple manipulations right just think about how you compare
00:53:33
to a lot of poor people and they're like oh I'm doing really well and that simple
00:53:39
shift in mindset leads to reduced compassion reduced empathy so you can
00:53:46
you can actually move people around where you give them the sense that they're privileged and it tends to
00:53:52
undermine these these Tendencies Jesus I know it is and you know
00:53:58
um I worry about it I worry about it a lot what um you know the the kind of poor
00:54:04
distribution of privilege in the United States and increasing UK and other countries is doing to the social fabric
00:54:10
it's it's uh problematic it's interesting because there is there's kind of a long um prevailing stereotype
00:54:16
that rich people are like bad like yeah less compassionate
00:54:22
um less empathetic and I and I always wondered whether that was just I don't know was it true was it
00:54:28
um was it was it people being jealous was it um just too much of a broad generalization was that you know based
00:54:34
on the acts of maybe a few yeah but you're telling me that the science supports the fact that generally the
00:54:40
more the Richer you are and the how you are in terms of social class and the less compassionate less empathetic you
00:54:47
are as a human yeah you know and it is that I mean that's the broad argument
00:54:52
I've given you a couple of findings here there are all kinds of other findings that speak to this Jesus um you know one
00:54:59
this is one of my favorites is you know in these um these epidemiologists who
00:55:04
are studying broad Trends and social behavior discovered this accidentally they're interested in whose shoplifts as
00:55:10
a teenager in the United States you know a basic unethical tendency really costly
00:55:16
for businesses in the United States is it the rich picture the poor well you know what who I do I would
00:55:22
assume it would be but I feel like I'm wrong it's the rich rich high school kids in
00:55:28
the United States are more likely to shoplift right and that's striking they've got their
00:55:34
parents credit card they can buy whatever they want and they violate that social rule this is where it gets really
00:55:41
worrisome my former student Michael Krauss did really nice work on U.S senators and U.S policy makers
00:55:49
you know American politicians are rich they increasingly so and he was simply
00:55:56
interested in does your degree of privilege or wealth predict
00:56:01
regressive policy preferences like let's not give resources to schools for the
00:56:07
poor let's not fund you know Medicare let's really move wealth through
00:56:12
taxation policies to the well to do and the wealthier you are the more you produ you preferred and advocated for
00:56:20
you know serious economic policies that hurt the poor and benefit the well to do
00:56:25
who already have you know in the US the one percent they have enough they have more than enough right why not share a
00:56:32
little so it's deep and I think and then you look across history
00:56:37
European aristocracies and you know the popes and so forth and it's it's I think
00:56:43
it's one of the you know frankly Stephen and I hate to say it you know Lord Acton uh you know power leads to abuse and
00:56:51
absolute power absolute corruption our power is corrupting um it's a pretty safe law in human
00:56:57
behavior I hate to say it it's because you're rising in prominence and facing a new
00:57:04
life and you better watch out yeah I think most of the time you're talking which is like how do you avoid that how
00:57:09
do you avoid yeah how do you avoid the uh that scientifically supported tendency to
00:57:15
become an [ __ ] with with the more wealth and power you accrue um I guess my my assumption was just
00:57:21
being conscious of the fact yeah the first thing yeah but also just like there's probably act things you could do
00:57:27
actively to remain uh uh aware of your own
00:57:35
insignificance maybe not the word yeah like the fact that everybody is exactly the same yeah it's like the way I describe it yeah I mean I think that
00:57:41
there's an awareness Dimension to this that you've suggested there's an ethical practice of like how
00:57:49
do I create more gratitude in an organization if that's what we care about Etc
00:57:54
um how do I counteract my own biases then as well so yeah how do I put you people around me who represent and we're
00:58:01
thinking here I'm thinking here about governments that represent the entirety of the population not just the rich
00:58:06
private school right colleagues that I might surround myself with which has often been the case in government and
00:58:11
that is hard to work against right that is a deep sociological process that like you appoint the cabinet member from
00:58:17
Oxford or whatever and you're in trouble yeah you know it's it's uh
00:58:22
it is uh you know a lot of economists a lot of the work coming out of um you know spirit level UK this is a central
00:58:29
challenge of of the structure of our societies today it's this this increasingly unequal distribution of
00:58:37
privilege and wealth and all that goes with it to people that are wealthy and in higher social class live longer
00:58:44
because I say that because the the attributes are becoming less empathetic and rude around these things seem to be
00:58:49
the antithesis of Social connectedness and yeah all of these things and you even said earlier that you know
00:58:55
wealthier people experience less all yeah and all of those things are um uh are associated with living longer
00:59:03
yeah so one would assume that if you become rich and Powerful you're then there's also then also a risk to your life expectancy yeah that's terrific
00:59:09
that's a really striking question and we don't know um and I think your reasoning is right
00:59:14
on the point which is wow you have less friends right privilege knocks out these these these important
00:59:20
tendencies that help with inflammation and vagal tone and the like um rich people do live longer
00:59:27
um that's right yeah yeah and food you eat and so forth sure um you know opportunity for health you
00:59:34
know yoga all the things that benefit us um uh rich people this is interesting
00:59:40
um surprised me rich people are less likely to experience anxiety and depression in the United States yeah
00:59:47
interesting isn't it we think so lonely and anxiety producing to be at the top no mental health issues are really
00:59:54
concentrated in the poor for obvious reasons working two jobs riding the bus you know schools are under resource Etc
01:00:02
but to your point and it's interesting the effect of wealth on happiness is
01:00:09
much smaller than people think people think you know in particular in a
01:00:15
country like the United Kingdom or you know Great Britain or U.S like
01:00:20
um once I make a lot of money it'll be Bliss and happiness and contentment that turns out not to be
01:00:25
true it's a weak relationship and I think part of the reason is you know when you you gain in resources
01:00:33
you don't have these raw feelings of compassion as often or God I'm grateful
01:00:39
for that gift right that you gave me or this is awesome this person's courage or
01:00:45
how they overcome overcame obstacles and so that diminishes how wealth could make
01:00:50
you happier so I think it's at play in some of these phenomena and maybe in others
01:00:56
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a DM tag me let me know what you think back to the podcast you talked about how life expectancy's
01:02:47
been declining in the last few years why yeah you know in the United States
01:02:54
um and I don't know the data in the UK um and and it's um it's it's really
01:03:01
related to inequality and opportunity and the poor distribution or uh of of
01:03:09
opportunity and resources is um there have been these amazing findings uh related to what's called Death by
01:03:16
despair and certain populations in the United States
01:03:21
um very poor white people large group of the large subculture in the United
01:03:26
States are often forgotten in the cultural discourse they're poor I grew up around
01:03:33
these people very poor don't eat good food schools are not that good you know work is
01:03:41
uncertain and they and they feel disrespected in some sense and those that subculture in
01:03:48
the U.S has been killing themselves you know with opiates and you know drinking
01:03:55
and drug addiction and suicides and the like and it's a serious problem and it's part of that statistic
01:04:02
and then I think that you know if you think about the problems of contemporary
01:04:09
culture concentrated in the United States of lack of Civility rage self-focus a lot
01:04:17
of things that undermine our physical health through the mind
01:04:23
um that probably is part of this story too too much stress too much loneliness
01:04:28
um not enough music and joy and shared communal experience
01:04:35
um we are struggling um and and that's part of probably that
01:04:40
statistic too and so that's why you know as I mentioned like the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy a very smart team looking
01:04:47
at these kind of processes and saying how do we build community you know and they're they've got a big program now so
01:04:55
it is alarming and that statistic is important for I think thinking about
01:05:01
where we are I looked at the life expectancy on Google a couple of years ago and I I could see that it was
01:05:07
basically going up every single year yeah and then there was these two years I think it might have been last year the year before this was I think before the
01:05:13
pandemic um there was these two years where it had dropped both in the UK and the US yeah in a row yeah
01:05:19
um and I was trying to understand why that was and I heard some social commentators say that there's this epidemic of purposelessness yeah yeah
01:05:26
and describe that as leading to the opioid crisis but also suicides and all these other behaviors yeah
01:05:32
um is that is that a good way to in your in your view to Define it like this epidemic of purposelessness yeah it is
01:05:38
you know thanks for bringing that up and you know purpose a lot of people now call it meaning yeah right what vague
01:05:46
term has many different definitions but it's you know I as an individual how do
01:05:53
I connect to things that are larger than the self that don't have to do with income or status or directly but like
01:05:59
what's my point here in my brief life on Earth
01:06:04
um you know what am I going to serve what's the big cause that I'm part of and this is really emerging in the
01:06:14
science of Happiness as a central focus of you know um you know we we know well uh how to
01:06:23
find income we have good ideas about sensory Pleasures what's good to eat how do I drink wines what's the great coffee
01:06:29
and the like but we've lost sight of meaning you know churches and religions used to give that
01:06:35
to us you know and religious participation is on the decline in the west dramatically so for people your age
01:06:42
um where they gave us a big picture of life and now you know young people are hungry for it
01:06:49
and they're challenging a lot of the the approaches to happiness
01:06:55
that that don't give meaning you know new conceptions of work like I don't have to stay at one career if it isn't
01:07:01
meaningful new conceptions of romantic relationship and so I think you know I think a lot of
01:07:07
different perspectives are saying this is one of the crises of our times is
01:07:13
meaning is what will be the big thing you're devoted to
01:07:18
if you went to Father how would you answer that question uh which question what are you devoted to I'm devoted to
01:07:23
so many things I'm devoted to this this this podcast in the show for so many reasons for very selfish reasons but
01:07:29
those selfish reasons happen to be selfless yeah a lot you see what I mean like yeah doing the podcast I know helps
01:07:35
helps the people some of the people that listen because they come up to me in the street and they tell me all the time wherever I go and the stories they tell
01:07:41
me are like uh I remember I was at um Old Trafford uh two days ago the Manchester United
01:07:48
stadium and a guy who was the he said he was the nearest Survivor to the Manchester
01:07:53
um terrorist attacks um approached me in his in his wheelchair and told me that of the
01:07:59
impact this has had on him yeah and I literally had to walk like I took the
01:08:04
fight with him walked um like two meters out out into this um this balcony and I
01:08:10
remember feeling just overwhelmed with emotion and it was this wonderful reminder of like
01:08:15
how why I do this yeah for both the listener but also for me so this is something that I'm increasingly devoted
01:08:22
to because of those experiences and thank you to that young man he's tweeted me about for doing that because I needed I needed the reminder I feel like you
01:08:28
need the reminders sometimes often I'm devoted to my relationship with my partner my dog my family yeah
01:08:34
um my team and I'm I'm devoted to myself I'm
01:08:39
devoted to like my my um Health my you know of both my body and my mind yeah
01:08:45
I think that's what I'm devoted to and I think I'm devoted to um the the yeah probably answer this in the
01:08:52
first piece but the the greater good of like the collective so yeah you know
01:08:57
um yeah and you know it's so interesting you know Stephen one of the reasons that I got really excited about awe as an
01:09:05
emotion to study a brief state that you you know you go out and you see the the moment of generosity that you saw or
01:09:11
look at the sky or you know think about a big idea the idea of space or Infinities is it does bring people it
01:09:18
kind of moves people away from transactional considerations so in one of our studies look up into the trees
01:09:25
you feel oh you're less interested in money you're less focused on the self and you're you're really more focused on
01:09:31
the greater good like what how do my actions promote healthier societies
01:09:37
um and and I think that um you know a lot of of young people are
01:09:43
raising questions of meaning right now with climate crises and economic inequality the state of democracy like
01:09:50
what is the point you know when you know you think about conversations
01:09:56
from the last century in the centuries before you know in reading for all people would use words like the soul
01:10:02
yeah and spirit and like this is what I'm really about in life uh and we've
01:10:08
lost sight of that you know and so hopefully with this book people how whatever language they want to use
01:10:13
they're asking questions like what am I devoted to what's sacred what is why do people suddenly care it seems
01:10:20
like this young generation Millennials and yeah gen Z they all want to change
01:10:27
the world yeah now they don't necessarily know what they want to change yeah but they want to be involved in the process and this is literally a
01:10:33
quote and I say this because of the amount of young people that come up to me various times DM me and said I said
01:10:38
like what you want to do they they'll say things like I want to change the world yeah how do you want to change it and they're
01:10:44
like they don't know they don't know but they want to be involved in changing the world yeah I've always wondered if this is like virtue signaling because it's
01:10:50
good for social media probably probably right yeah or there's been some inherent change you know from my father's
01:10:56
generation to my future kids generation and my generation where we suddenly are these great philanthropists and we yeah
01:11:02
yeah change everything yeah no it's exciting for me I mean you know the and
01:11:07
there are a lot of good findings on this that when Thatcher and Reagan hit in 1980 and that's when I was 18 right we
01:11:14
had this big return to materialism and you think about the movie Wall Street being iconic greed is good and that
01:11:22
truly that was the idea right of like the point of life is selfish genes and
01:11:29
maximizing my wealth and we had this massive you know shift in Wall Street and that became our ideology and that's
01:11:35
been documented sociologically like in my generation
01:11:41
you know suddenly coming out of the 60s and all the social Revolutions of those times now young people are allowed to
01:11:48
say I want to make a ton of money I want to live in a big house I want to you know I want to drive whatever car and
01:11:54
your generation is reacting against that big pendulum shift right and suddenly it's like hey that didn't work look at
01:12:01
the Amazon look at economic inequality Bernie Sanders right what about climate
01:12:07
crises Greta tunberg right suddenly new model and it's it's coming but it's not
01:12:13
because of social it feels like that social media and the internet has played a huge role in yeah making us this like one Connected Mind yeah and we know from
01:12:20
our sort of evolutionary past that we we prefer members of the the true tribe that are that serve the tribe that are
01:12:27
good yeah you know that are I think there's a there's a term you use when we're talking when you're talking about
01:12:32
gossip um how we will gossip against people who are not doing good for the tribe
01:12:37
essentially yes so we know that like being part of the tribe and serving the tribe and being you know empathetic and
01:12:44
caring about others is a good trait now we're all connected on these glass screens as if we're one brain and we're
01:12:49
rewarded with these likes and these retweets and we do good yeah so if I if I you know if I do something really good
01:12:56
for society or whatever um then I'm rewarded with I don't know comments or likes whatever or you know
01:13:01
everyone collapse and I feel part of the tribe yeah so is social media made us these philanthropic Warriors that are
01:13:09
seeking for ways to like virtually signal our goodness yeah you know I I mean there's one argument
01:13:17
in that in general any Act of virtue and way of promoting the greater good
01:13:23
becomes co-opted and exploited by people who have power you know and there's a critique you know I hate to say this but
01:13:29
you have a lot of non-profits that they kind of they create these virtuous organizations and pay people good
01:13:34
salaries and don't do a lot in the world and that is a critique out there and I think it could be even more robustly
01:13:42
uh levied against the digital virtue is like it's I it you could say it's
01:13:48
meaningless let's take that hypothesis right oh we we turn acts of generosity
01:13:54
and kindness and appreciation that you saw on the train into digital things that don't affect anything right black
01:14:01
lives matter everyone was told to post a black tile on their Instagram on a Tuesday like I did a post about how um how much
01:14:09
that misses the point in many respects yeah if we're trying to deal with systemic racism yeah posting a black tile on a Tuesday really does nothing to
01:14:17
um address and evoke the conversation that needs to be had yeah but it was like an easy quick yeah cool way to say
01:14:25
I'm a good person it's and to do very little thereafter you know and if it's not changing hiring practices or PA
01:14:31
practices or school admissions it is BS and it's a and and probably counter
01:14:37
works against social progress I had a call during that time from one of the biggest brands in the world who who
01:14:43
asked me on a conference call um there's five of them what should we do you know we need do we do we do a
01:14:50
donation what should we post on our Twitter Channel like what should we do and say and part of you know it was the
01:14:56
five Executives at this huge company and I said I think the most important thing is actually to get your home in order first it's startling that there's five
01:15:03
white men on this phone call right now talking about um race relations
01:15:08
and inequality I think it's it's better not to be the contradictions it's better to get your home in order first before
01:15:13
you start you know and that's not I mean there's you can almost see the expression in
01:15:19
their faces it's like oh that's so hard that's the hard thing we'll get to work yeah exactly it's much easier just to do
01:15:25
a donation right in those situations I want to talk about um compassion yeah it's a word I've struggled to understand if I'm honest yeah because like what
01:15:32
does it mean does it mean being nice to people no you know um compassion is
01:15:40
um the feeling of concern about other people's suffering okay and and then taking action right uh empathy empathy
01:15:49
is I feel the same thing as you I understand your mental States if you're in pain I feel pain compassion is you're
01:15:58
in pain and I want to I want to make your circumstances better I want to lift
01:16:04
up your your well-being um so it's interesting um compassion is
01:16:09
a very Dynamic emotion it's an empowered emotion it isn't nice is great you know
01:16:15
it's politeness and Civility and being considered I think we uh we need more
01:16:21
niceness in the world and I think we often I think the connotations of the word nice uh sort of devalue how powerful it is
01:16:29
but compassion is powerful it is the state of wanting to lift up the welfare
01:16:35
of other people who suffer um and what's striking about it and and I love the neurophysiology of this and
01:16:42
that the which really speaks to its power which is that I can see somebody suffering dying
01:16:50
cancer Flesh Wounds crying in pain and when I
01:16:56
lock into the compassion response certain regions of the brain are activated that are different than
01:17:01
empathy the vagus nerve is activated and it's it really just throws you into
01:17:07
altruistic action right so um and that's why you know when the
01:17:12
Dalai Lama um you know who's now one of the most prominent spiritual figures in the world
01:17:18
says if you want others to be happy practice compassion
01:17:24
and if you want to be happy practice compassion that gets to it right like man if you
01:17:30
can stay close to compassion you and other people and the greater good will do well it's a really Dynamic
01:17:36
emotion is there scientific evidence that proves that you will become happier if you're compassionate to others yeah
01:17:42
and what does that scientific evidence show improve it's amazing you know and it it begins with a study by Liz Dunn
01:17:51
famous study replicated in many different cultures which is you give people some money and they can give it
01:17:57
away to us to help somebody or spend it on themselves giving it away boosts
01:18:02
happiness more than spending it on yourself there's research I love this work and
01:18:08
contagion has been part of our experience here where um if I am kind to You Stephen
01:18:16
um this is kind of extending from the study uh that boosts my life expectancy it
01:18:23
shifts my physiology it shifts my stress but I love this work where if I'm kind to you and then the experimenter watches
01:18:30
you in your next interaction you're kinder to that person right I'm not around my act of kindness makes you more
01:18:37
kind Downstream and then that person you've helped actually is Kinder to
01:18:43
another person in a subsequent interaction so you know they're proving that yeah and really nice research on
01:18:51
the contagiousness of altruism and compassion um yeah it is like gratitude it's one of
01:18:58
these big Winners you know if I there's a loving kindness practice where comes out of East Asian traditions
01:19:06
where you just calm yourself get into some deep breathing find a quiet safe space
01:19:12
and Orient kind phrases to other people I I may you be filled with loving
01:19:17
kindness may you be safe from inner outer danger well and body and mind at
01:19:23
ease and happy and that simple practice two minutes right uh just calms the
01:19:31
amygdala threat related region of the brain activates reward circuitry so
01:19:36
you know um you know you talked about and you asked about what are these structural conditions of our busy lives that get in
01:19:43
the way of of the good life and you've got to find a few moments just to be
01:19:48
kind I was blown away um when reading your your work and
01:19:54
watching videos that you produced about um so many things the one of the real startling things is the the power of
01:20:02
touch yeah I read I read um that if you pat a kid on the back in the classroom that child
01:20:09
is three to four five times more likely to try hard problems on the Blackboard and that touch can make you live longer
01:20:16
and be less stressed just someone touching you yeah is that true yeah I
01:20:22
mean it's you know touch in a lot of mammalian species
01:20:28
including humans is just connection it's it's identity it's I'm with you you know
01:20:34
you think early in life we are constantly being held and in skin to skin contact with our caregivers it's
01:20:41
foundational it's where my sense of me and you connection emerges the
01:20:47
physiology of touch is mind-blowing you know our hands are incredible they're
01:20:53
spectacular um you know evolutionary adaptations they can do all kinds of things including touch our skin eight pounds
01:21:01
billions of cells our immune system is in the skin you know it registers touch
01:21:06
in many different ways from the sexual to the friendly to The Cooperative goes up into the brain and says man you're
01:21:13
being touched in this way uh and and that has Direct effects on
01:21:18
your immune system and your vagus nerve and your heart rate and the health of your body and so you know early
01:21:24
discoveries um you know you have premature babies they're gonna die
01:21:30
and and they used to just put them in these little you know um sort of units that warm them and had
01:21:37
them sort of be comfortable and fed and they would die and then they figured out you gotta hold the premature baby they
01:21:45
needed skin to skin contact like they need food right and they live they gain 47 weight gain
01:21:52
um and then you know they're they're just studies time and time again you know nice uh lower cortisol uh nice
01:22:01
Embrace with somebody elevated vagal tone um the studies that you referred to of
01:22:06
you know patting kids on the back they they do better in school um you know and it's so interesting
01:22:11
parts of English culture you know Victorian culture Western European culture they
01:22:20
came up with the idea like touches sexual it's you got to get it and it is
01:22:25
but only certain kinds of tetosexual there's a lot of friendly touch we need right and it just shut it down
01:22:31
and now it's coming back it's uh thank goodness it's it's good for us we we talked before we start filming about the
01:22:37
study with the Recess Monkeys yeah I can't remember that through who the researcher was but yeah I was saying to
01:22:43
that Harlow Harlow that was it yeah um how that was mind-blowing to me at 16 to learn that they put these monkeys in
01:22:49
these cages they had like a pretend wire mother so a mother made out of like metal and then they had another one made
01:22:55
out of like cloth yeah like a mother made out of cloth which was essentially a teddy bear and there was huge variance
01:23:02
between the outcomes of those kids right yeah I mean if you defrive those monkeys of the nice touch they they don't learn how to behave
01:23:09
socially effectively you know if you give them a choice between a wire uh
01:23:15
monkey mother and that provides milk and then a terry cloth one they always hang around the terry cloth one right they
01:23:22
just love the social contact if you deprive non-human primates of touch they
01:23:28
they are almost schizophrenic or Psychopathic or they're just like personality disorder aggressive they
01:23:35
can't handle social interactions you know orphans deprived of touch famous orphan studies
01:23:40
you know in human same thing they just like they don't become human in some way or they are human but they have trouble
01:23:47
with social contact yeah you know I mean part of the questioning of that you're
01:23:53
engaging in Stephen or the literature is like well what can I do just to live a more meaningful life and you know from
01:23:59
gratitude to kindness to find some ah man you know if you're not hugging people you love if
01:24:05
you're not if you don't have a rich language of touch with your friends you know I learned at playing pickup
01:24:11
basketball basketball which is the I believe the most fascinating sport in human history it
01:24:18
has this amazing language of touch you know and it's it's Unique to the court right you're fist bumping chest bumping and the like if you're not doing that
01:24:24
with your friends you're missing out on one of the great languages of human kind which is to be in contact with each
01:24:31
other so you know parents you know when you have kids
01:24:37
and I hope some of your listeners are doing that you know it's this mystery like
01:24:42
should they take naps on my body should we how should I hold them should I carry them in public am I indulging them and I
01:24:49
think the more friendly kind touch the better so we're moving back to where we
01:24:54
began evolutionarily and I think it'll be a good thing but if I'm touching a dog
01:24:59
yeah I mean dogs evolved yeah because we love them and they love us and there's
01:25:05
all this new amazing dog science where this is one of my favorite studies and touch releases oxytocin uh which is this
01:25:12
little chemical that floats in your brain in your blood and it helps you be kind to other people and cooperate and
01:25:19
there are now studies from Japan showing you may do this with your dog Steven where if you look into the eyes of your
01:25:26
dog you your dog will have a surge of oxytocin and you will have a surge of
01:25:32
oxytocin so so it's like all of this social stuff that's so simple of eye contact and
01:25:38
touch uh brings us good things even with our dogs it makes me kind of realize two things
01:25:43
the first is that men tend to be stereotypically much worse at that yeah much worse at touch we don't we we do
01:25:50
the like the Macho Hub where you like on the back you know like we Pat them in the back and say get the [ __ ] off me
01:25:56
um we're we're less good at even things like eye contact yeah sort of emotional engagement and then you look at the
01:26:03
stats around male suicides and all of those you know uh drug addiction and all
01:26:09
those things and it's significantly higher yeah I think I believe the stats say that the biggest killer of men under
01:26:14
the age of 40 is themselves in this country Yeah by Suicide um and they really need Fields like they
01:26:20
need to be a reversal of that yeah the adjacent point is it just the one we talked about earlier which is just loneliness yeah and now it kind of makes
01:26:27
sense as to why if you are lonely you have a
01:26:32
significantly worth worse Health outcomes um and a shorter life expectancy because
01:26:38
you're not getting the compassion the touch you're not you're probably experiencing less or gratitude Etc yeah
01:26:43
um and I feel like we have to we have to talk about how we fix that yeah like you know because some of the saddest moments
01:26:50
I can I think about when I've had private conversations are men coming up to me after like a talk on stage and
01:26:56
whispering to me that the part I said about me being lonely when I was like 23 24 and I'd given everything just for
01:27:02
this business coming to the office every day sacrifice friendships family relationships I'll have men come up to me and whisper
01:27:09
to me that that was the part that they um it needed to hear the most but then
01:27:15
asking me what they can actionably do to fix that yeah as if they don't want the the group around me to hear that they
01:27:21
are lonely yeah and they want to do something about it they are sat on their computers often playing video games or on the Internet
01:27:28
um struggling to attract you know maybe the opposite sex or the same sex or
01:27:33
whatever whatever they're interested in and it feels like it's going in one negative Direction generally I mean the
01:27:40
stats kind of support yeah the fact that we're getting lonelier and lonelier yeah yeah I mean those are such deep insights
01:27:47
um and uh really worth thinking more concretely about what to do I think that
01:27:53
the you know kind of the the gender complexities here are really striking right men live significantly fewer years
01:28:01
than women in most western globalized cultures and and I think you're on a
01:28:06
really interesting hypothesis Steven which is that you know if the gender stereotypes and
01:28:12
these rigid Concepts and then The Lies We lead don't allow us to hug and feel
01:28:17
grateful and feel empathetic it countervails that and they're those are gender stereotypes right oh if I
01:28:24
practice compassion at work I'll be weak and I won't rise that's not true that's a gender stereotype and it it denies men
01:28:32
um disproportionately this opportunity for these emotions right and that's that
01:28:37
you know with new conceptions of gender new ideas about work is changing dramatically uh that will shift and I
01:28:43
think it'll be good news for the health of men um and and then loneliness
01:28:50
um loneliness in some sense is the deprivation of everything we've been talking about it's that you don't get to
01:28:57
hug somebody like you would like to every day and that you don't hear the words of appreciation William James you
01:29:04
know the deepest craving we have is to be appreciated by other people you don't hear it you don't hear the thank you you
01:29:10
don't get to go out and feel awe with somebody or feel kindness um you know so I think we have to
01:29:18
think very actively about building these emotions into those contexts in the United States
01:29:24
there are 35 000 long-term care facilities the elderly in the United States
01:29:31
a lot of them live alone you know if when people from India
01:29:36
see how we treat the elderly or people from Mexico it's just like the unhoused they're like
01:29:42
what are you guys doing you know you're taking the vulnerable and and sort of shunting them off alone
01:29:47
but the but these emotions point to really direct actionable things to do right with awe practices and compassion
01:29:54
so it gives me hope but we've got you know I think in part historically we
01:30:00
took these pro-social emotions out of our lives right and now we gotta build them back
01:30:06
in and if we do it's good for not just ourselves but it's good for the recipients of those emotions you know
01:30:12
hugging hugging my dad or hugging my mom or hugging anybody is is a mutually beneficial
01:30:17
um behavior in terms of all the you know life expectancy happiness reduction in stress and not only that but you know I
01:30:24
just heard 50 of U.S Healthcare expenses are on the last five years of life when
01:30:30
a lot of those people are living alone and feeling lonely and there are simple ways to address that as we've been
01:30:36
talking about so it's it there's a bottom line that's really relevant here too and then the the really the the bit
01:30:43
I imagine a lot of people will especially those that I'm much more spiritually inclined will love is the idea of that Karma and how you know if I
01:30:50
hug one person or if I'm kind of some person or Express that gratitude or compassion it has this sort of cascading knock-on effect yeah and how they go
01:30:57
through the day so like in that sense karma is a very real thing it's very real yeah in every respect even in the
01:31:03
in the the con concept of Gossip where how you treat someone will spread I think you said in your your book that
01:31:09
um when we treat someone badly people on average gossip that bad
01:31:14
treatment to 2.5 people yeah which is you know which is slightly terrifying
01:31:20
but it's but it makes sense um yeah you know it's in part of our theme
01:31:26
in our conversation is how we're all connected and United in these these super organisms some people call them through practicing gratitude and sharing
01:31:33
resources that spreads through uh these social networks and then the the compliment is also true which is you
01:31:40
know and and as much as I don't like gossip and I didn't like being gossiped about it's a human Universal it can be
01:31:47
horrifying and and we've got to worry about it like online cat fights and ah that it escalates but we study these
01:31:54
social groups and and the thing that people really gossip about is when you're not kind right they're like look at what that that person just said
01:32:00
these harsh things that spreads through the network and it tries to keep those problematic
01:32:07
tendencies in check I guess that's a good thing it's like a community sort of Regulation tool yeah
01:32:13
thank you so much I've had a wonderful a brilliant time over the last week learning more and more about all of your
01:32:19
work and reading and watching your your content in great detail this book is absolutely fantastic
01:32:25
um it's very challenging but it's this this concept of all was one was not one that I'd ever thought of before you know
01:32:32
you think about these other sort of emotions gratitude compassion there's a lot written about them but yeah I've almost never heard someone talk about
01:32:39
the topic of all as a very accessible but very profound powerful human
01:32:44
medicine I would say and the way that you do that throughout your book is um is incredibly important and I've as I
01:32:50
said I've really never encountered a book quite like it so I highly recommend everybody goes and gives it a try and the reviews on the back by people like
01:32:57
Adam Grant and Stephen Pinker I mean they speak for themselves so thank you for writing such a brilliant
01:33:02
book and thank you for having such a brilliant eye-opening conversation with me today we have a closing tradition on
01:33:07
this podcast where the last guest asks a question for the next guest huh okay funny
01:33:15
um the question that's been left for you is
01:33:21
do you think obesity is a choice
01:33:26
[Laughter]
01:33:32
um it's a terrific question right and obesity is I think in the U.S I think
01:33:38
the latest estimate's 56 of U.S citizens probably pretty comparable here in the UK
01:33:45
um and man when I think about the food that we put into our bodies
01:33:51
the lack of activity that are not chosen right that depend on what kind of soft
01:33:57
drink that's readily available and cheap and how fast food is so cheap and provide us provides us a certain kind of
01:34:03
high to me that says that it's mainly not a choice of the people eating but it
01:34:08
is a choice of the policy makers so I would make that argument
01:34:15
and there is some sort of three lines between the conversation we've had today about stress connectedness and all of
01:34:20
those things very much yes to food and diet and anything which is again social constructs and and access to Art
01:34:28
um there is a movement Parks living near Parks London is one of the greenest cities in the world living near Parks
01:34:34
boosts life expectancy I think through awe uh there's a movement in the united in California that everybody should be
01:34:41
10 minutes public transport away from a park for free um 360 million people uh went to the
01:34:48
national parks in the United States last year so there's a lot of with this stress profile that we've been
01:34:54
talking about culturally they're easy solutions and one and one pathways through being outdoors with all
01:35:01
I want to close in just on that point about yeah a sort of an adjacent Point what you've just said which is about and you also talked about prisoners earlier
01:35:07
I read once upon a time when I was doing some research for one of my books that um prisoners who had a exposure to
01:35:15
nature yeah were significantly less likely to become depressed than those that were like basically looking out at
01:35:20
concrete yeah um which is mind-blowing to me it is the thought that just seeing nature can have
01:35:27
a massive impact on our our chances of depression and anxiety yeah do we need to put more of that stuff in
01:35:33
prison sir we do we do and that you know you've been challenging me Stephen like all right what do we do just look at a
01:35:40
hospital put some nature in it right look at a prison prisons are horrifying in the United States Norway has more
01:35:46
open prisons with views and so forth uh different recidivism rates so I take
01:35:52
from this science and I'm really grateful to you for profiling it you know in such a uh uh scholarly and thoughtful way like
01:36:00
we got to use this knowledge and prisons is a nice application but even in our own homes yeah you know we most of us
01:36:06
are living in these white boxes in big cities and those that live in social housing unfortunately are living in even
01:36:12
worse conditions often yeah um and nature is somewhat of a privilege it seems it shouldn't be especially in
01:36:18
the home environment just having some plants I have zero in here I have loads upstairs because I have a girlfriend and she's just she's very in touch with
01:36:24
those things but she's she's filled my house with with plants but yeah that's a simple thing we can all do to be happier every day is just have a bit more nature
01:36:30
and our in our environment it's not a bad First Step okay thank you so much thank you Steven it's been an honor and
01:36:37
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