Finding Holiday Happiness (Dr Laurie on the How God Works podcast) AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos

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Episode: Finding Holiday Happiness (Dr Laurie on the How God Works podcast)

Author: Pushkin Industries
Duration: 00:38:31

Episode Shownotes

The holidays are supposed to be a time of joy. But all too often, the darker, colder days of winter, and even the stress of preparing for the holidays themselves, can lead people to feel something else: rushed, stressed, lonely, or even hopeless. How can you make sure this year

is bright? Dr Laurie joins Dave DeSteno on his show How God Works: The Science Behind Spirituality to unpack the psychological secrets of celebrations from Christmas, to Hanukkah, to Yule, and more. They’ll also discuss how we can put that wisdom into practice, whatever our beliefs, to make this season a happier and healthier one for all.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_03
Arnold Schwarzenegger is many things, but did you know that he was once a director? And that the only film he has ever directed is a 1992 made-for-TV remake of Christmas in Connecticut.

00:00:11 Speaker_05
Nobody calls the biggest star in the world and says, hey, they want to direct your TV movie.

00:00:15 Speaker_03
On our Revisionist History Christmas special this year, we are telling the really very funny story behind the making of the most improbable Christmas movie of all time.

00:00:23 Speaker_06
The first thing out of his mouth is, so what have you guys been doing since Commando? Clearly not going to the gym.

00:00:34 Speaker_03
Listen wherever you find your podcasts.

00:00:43 Speaker_01
Pushkin. This is our final show of 2024. And it's a good opportunity for me to thank you for listening to and supporting the Happiness Lab. Your support means a lot. But you don't have to wait long until we're back.

00:00:57 Speaker_01
On January 1st, we'll be launching a new series for the new year. I'll be doubling down on the practical happiness advice I know you all appreciate.

00:01:05 Speaker_01
We're making a series of how-to guides to help you joyfully navigate things like relationships, stress, and the messiness of our daily lives.

00:01:13 Speaker_01
By the end of each show, you'll have heard at least five tips that you can put into action right away, direct from the mouths of some of the smartest well-being scientists and thinkers. All that starting January 1st. I know you'll love it.

00:01:29 Speaker_01
But right now, the holiday season is here. It's supposed to be a time of joy, but way too many of us are feeling rushed, stressed, lonely, and even hopeless. What are some scientific strategies we can use to have a happier holiday season?

00:01:44 Speaker_01
And can we also get some happiness insights from the traditions of the past? These are the questions I had a chance to explore with my good friend Dave Destetto. Dave's a psychology professor at Northeastern University.

00:01:55 Speaker_01
He also hosts a podcast called How God Works, an entire show devoted to looking at the wisdom we can get from ancient traditions, no matter what our own beliefs are.

00:02:04 Speaker_01
Dave and I had a super fun chat on his show about how we can put psychological science and ancient wisdom into practice this holiday season to feel happier and less stressed. So I decided to share that episode with you today.

00:02:16 Speaker_01
It's my holiday gift to you. I hope you enjoy it.

00:02:34 Speaker_04
You know that turn of phrase, the dead of winter? Well, there's a good reason for it. In the northern climes, this is the season of death, dark, and dormancy. All the color and bounty of the fall harvest is gone.

00:02:49 Speaker_04
Even the sun is disappearing earlier and earlier. And the shorter, colder days we're facing lead to a drop in serotonin levels and changes to our circadian rhythms. The result? Feelings of stress, gloominess, anxiety, in isolation for many people.

00:03:06 Speaker_04
And as much as we might like to hibernate and sleep away these dark, cold months, for us humans, life goes on.

00:03:19 Speaker_04
Which is one reason why many Northern cultures have come up with some of the most festive, cozy, and celebratory winter holidays to help get us through.

00:03:28 Speaker_04
From lighting candles, to reciting communal prayers and songs, to giving gifts and aid to others, many of these traditions are rooted in religion.

00:03:36 Speaker_04
But there's also reason to believe that these traditions can bring comfort and happiness regardless of faith, if you do them right. By that, I don't mean reciting the prayer correctly or lighting the candles just so.

00:03:50 Speaker_04
but rather by focusing on the heart of the traditions and advice they give.

00:03:55 Speaker_04
Which is why I'm so thrilled to have my friend, podcast host, and happiness expert Lori Santos join me today to talk about how and why these time-honored holiday traditions work on our brains and bodies.

00:04:06 Speaker_04
And for those of us who find the traditions themselves a source of worry and stress, we'll find ways to reconnect with the good stuff, to make this holiday season a brighter, happier one for all of us. Hi, Laurie. Thanks for coming on the show again.

00:04:24 Speaker_01
Thanks for having me back.

00:04:25 Speaker_04
And happy holidays.

00:04:26 Speaker_01
Happy holidays, Dave. Did you know, I don't actually, like I'm not that into the holidays. Did you know that?

00:04:31 Speaker_04
I was going to ask you, because actually you and I have been friends for a while, but I didn't think I ever asked you, were you doing Christmas as a child or something else?

00:04:38 Speaker_01
Yeah, I grew up with Christmas, a little bit Thanksgiving, although that wasn't really a big holiday. But my favorite one was Halloween. So I'm really into Halloween, you know, the costumes, the candy, all the spooky stuff.

00:04:49 Speaker_01
And when November 1st comes around, I have to work really hard to not wind up in a deep depression because, like, my favorite holiday is done.

00:04:57 Speaker_01
When they take out all the Halloween stuff and they move the candy out and they put the Christmas lights in and the decorations, it's a little period of mourning for me.

00:05:04 Speaker_04
Well, I think you're not that alone. I mean, the surveys show that for a lot of people this time of year, even though many say they're looking forward to the holidays, they're also feeling a good bit of stress, sadness, fatigue, and even loneliness.

00:05:18 Speaker_04
So given that you are in some ways one of those people, what do you think leads to that? What makes this time so hard?

00:05:24 Speaker_01
part of it is our expectations. I mean there are literally songs jingling on the radio claiming it's the most wonderful time of the year.

00:05:32 Speaker_01
So if you're thinking like this is a kind of time of year when I feel a little bit lonely or this is a time of year when I feel super overwhelmed because there's just like a lot on my plate, you can start to feel like you're doing it wrong, there's something wrong with you.

00:05:44 Speaker_01
And so I think that this expectation that it's supposed to be the most wonderful can lead us astray. I mean, as you know from so much work in behavioral science, it's really not the objective way that a situation plays out.

00:05:56 Speaker_01
It's really our expectation that affects how we think about it. So if our expectations are really high, even a reasonably good, just fine holiday can make us feel kind of crappy.

00:06:07 Speaker_04
Like, we're not doing it right. But I recently saw a study that piqued my interest. And it was looking at people during the holiday season.

00:06:15 Speaker_04
And what it showed is that people who celebrated in the more traditional way actually ended up having more positive emotions, higher satisfaction with their lives, and greater well-being. And so that led me to the question of,

00:06:29 Speaker_04
what parts of these traditions boost happiness, and what can we learn from that, whatever our beliefs might be? And that, my friend, is where you come in.

00:06:37 Speaker_01
It's not my deep hatred of the holiday season, it's my deep knowledge of behavioral science and happiness, yeah.

00:06:43 Speaker_04
Yes, yes, but sometimes coming from a place where it wasn't working and learning how to put it into practice along with that science is really important, because as we all know, having the goal is important, but understanding how to actually make it a practice and not just a goal is what really matters.

00:06:59 Speaker_01
Yeah, and this is actually something that I've been putting into effect in my own life. Given that I don't like the holidays, what can I do to make them a little bit happier? Find my own rituals and so on.

00:07:09 Speaker_04
Let me start with one thing that often I think gets in my way in the holidays. All the rushing that we do. It almost feels like a frenzy to prepare. It's like, shop, cook, write cards, and then wrap and shop some more.

00:07:24 Speaker_04
And even though I know I'm supposed to be enjoying the season, I'm not really doing it as I go along. I keep saying, when this is done, I will have time to be happy. When this is done, I'll be happy.

00:07:34 Speaker_04
And then it's like the day after Christmas, and I'm like, where did it all go?

00:07:39 Speaker_01
Yeah, I mean, I think there's lots of studies on this just broadly in the field of happiness science, this bias that researchers call the arrival fallacy. It's kind of like, I'll be happy when, right?

00:07:49 Speaker_01
I'll be happy when I just get through all the shopping and we can, you know, get to the actual day where we open the presents. Or I'll be happy when New Year's rolls around and I'm through all the work parties, right?

00:07:58 Speaker_01
We're kind of constantly sort of fast forwarding, like this moment where we can take a breath and stick around and savor and notice all the good stuff. And of course, as you might imagine, that arrival fallacy messes us up for a couple reasons.

00:08:10 Speaker_01
One is that we're not enjoying the journey as we go through.

00:08:13 Speaker_01
So these moments that could be kind of fun when you're shopping and hearing the cool music and seeing people and enjoying the bustle, there's a kind of really richness to that that we could get into.

00:08:22 Speaker_01
We're not doing that because we're just like fast forwarding until we get that done and go on to the next thing. And so it means that we're missing these moments of joy along the way that we're not paying attention to.

00:08:32 Speaker_01
But the second reason that falling prey to this arrival fallacy is so bad is that we tend to get these predictions wrong. Christmas morning with my family sitting under the tree, we think, when I get there, I'll be so happy.

00:08:43 Speaker_01
But we're forecasting that that's going to feel really awesome. And in fact, it's going to have its problems too, right? Maybe it's kind of cold out or I didn't get the gift I liked.

00:08:51 Speaker_01
Very few people have the privilege of having a holiday that goes swimmingly across all those expectations. it's going to actually have its like little bumps.

00:08:59 Speaker_01
And so inevitably we wind up kind of fast forwarding to this time that we're forecasting is going to be super perfect, but might not be as perfect as we think.

00:09:07 Speaker_01
And then we wind up having missed out on the stuff we should have been enjoying along the way.

00:09:11 Speaker_04
But when I was a kid, and I see this in lots of young kids, it's, what's the next present? And I open it and I look at it and I'm like, thanks, and I throw it to the side. And then what's the next present?

00:09:23 Speaker_04
Do you have any advice for getting really excited kids to savor during the holidays?

00:09:28 Speaker_01
Well, in some ways you're like asking the wrong person because when I was a kid and even in my family now, you get the presents and everybody just like rips them open. Like you're in your own little me, me, me world.

00:09:39 Speaker_01
And when I first went to the holidays at my in-laws family, which you go to my husband Mark in Iowa, they had this tradition that was so incredibly foreign to me where they waited and went around the room, and everybody opened one present at a time.

00:09:53 Speaker_01
And it was so funny to me how, like, I was, like, ready to rip in, and he was kind of looking at me like, Lori, like, Mom's opening her present. Just wait. And I was like, oh.

00:10:00 Speaker_01
And it winds up being a very long procedure, which kind of, you know, was really hard for my normal temporal discounting where I kind of wanted to open my presents right away. But they turn it into, like, a really day-long event.

00:10:12 Speaker_01
And we kind of open presents, and we talk about each present, and we go through. But for kids, I think you need to get creative about the rituals of this, right? And so that can be having something that happens in between every present.

00:10:25 Speaker_01
Maybe people have to comment on presents. You have to say one thing you're grateful for in between every present, or you need to share a delight that you have at the end of the day throughout the holiday season.

00:10:35 Speaker_01
And sometimes you'll find that even when you're struggling to figure this stuff out, If you give them a new tradition, especially little kids, they sometimes really get into it.

00:10:44 Speaker_01
And for many parents, I think seeing the holiday season through the eyes of a kid, if you can help that kid articulate the things that they're savoring, that can be so good for your own positive emotion.

00:10:54 Speaker_04
But that's a really important point that I didn't think of because if you do it that way and if you reflect on it that way, that's the opportunity for the savoring and for the gratitude.

00:11:06 Speaker_01
Exactly. And so I think whatever you can do to sort of extend it out can be really powerful.

00:11:22 Speaker_04
In the Christian tradition, there's Advent, you know, four weeks before when people come together, do crafts together, pray together, eat together. In Hanukkah, there are eight days of families coming together. In Yule, it's 12.

00:11:36 Speaker_04
And I think they just give you more opportunities. to savor. And right now, you know, in the U.S. at least, we've kind of made Christmas one day, and it's the be-all and the end-all, right?

00:11:49 Speaker_04
So, if we're trying to think this season about how to take more time to savor, to not fall prey to the arrival fallacy, what should we do?

00:11:59 Speaker_01
So one of my favorite suggestions, which I actually learned from Liz Dunn, she's a professor at the University of British Columbia, she actually suggested harnessing our pro-social emotions to savor more.

00:12:10 Speaker_01
One of the things she suggests is to give your savoring as a gift to someone. So what does she mean? Let's say it's a holiday event. I'm making gingerbread houses with my niece. And it's messy. I'm feeling a little frustrated.

00:12:22 Speaker_01
But if I was thinking pro-socially about what I would want to give my niece, I would say, let me try to be fully present and have a really good time. This is going to turn into a fun memory that she's going to look back at later, right?

00:12:33 Speaker_01
In some ways, I'm not savoring for me because it's going to help my journey in the holiday season. I'm savoring for my niece. Or, you know, a different holiday version. Sometimes family tensions can come up.

00:12:43 Speaker_01
But it's like, you know what, I'm going to engage in this holiday event with no tension. I'm just going to shut all that off so that we can have a good time. And that's the gift to my mom.

00:12:51 Speaker_01
Even when savoring is hard for us, if we're setting this up as a gift for somebody else, it can help.

00:12:55 Speaker_04
What that suggests in some ways is that presence is a shared experience. And what we're learning more and more from behavioral science is that experiences in some ways matter more than material goods for happiness, right?

00:13:10 Speaker_01
Yeah, that's right. And I think this is something we can really get wrong, especially in the holiday season. We get obsessed with kind of giving a particular thing.

00:13:17 Speaker_01
But what we know from a lot of the behavioral science and happiness field is material possessions just don't really increase our happiness as much as we think, or definitely for as long as we think.

00:13:27 Speaker_01
We'd be much better thinking about gifts of experiences. Whether that's something we literally give somebody, you know, give somebody a gift card for going to a cool new restaurant or a gift card to take a course online.

00:13:39 Speaker_01
But it can also be the experiences we give people during the holiday season when we're present with them. One of the cool things about the holiday season that we forget is it's one of the few times of year that we kind of all are in the same groove.

00:13:52 Speaker_01
people have time off for the major holidays and New Year's and so on, it's a time that we can kind of like connect together, even though we're all busy, like we're all sort of going through it together.

00:14:03 Speaker_01
And so I think it's really a time when we can harness social connection to feel a little bit healthier.

00:14:11 Speaker_04
But I want to get back to the gifts, because in some ways that is such a big part of the holiday season. You know, you and I can talk about this, and people can say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, where's my present?

00:14:20 Speaker_04
For many people, as you said, this can seem like one of the most stressful parts of the holidays. I've got to get this for my kids, I've got to get this for my co-workers, my great-aunt Jenny, she hates everything, what am I going to get her?

00:14:31 Speaker_04
But in reality, I think the reason many of these traditions remind us to give gifts isn't just to make other people happy, but to let us realize that the act of giving itself brings us joy and happiness.

00:14:44 Speaker_04
So what does the science of happiness tell us about giving to other people, whether it's spending money on them or giving them our time?

00:14:54 Speaker_01
Well, the evidence here is super clear, which is that doing for others is one of the fastest ways to make ourselves happy. And I think this is something our culture gets wrong a lot.

00:15:04 Speaker_01
It shifts a little bit in the holiday season where it's the sort of season of giving. But even in the season of giving and definitely for the rest of the year, it feels like we're not in the season of giving.

00:15:13 Speaker_01
We're in the season of self-care or treating ourselves right. I mean, even in the holiday season, you can look at these sort of self-help books, which is like, how to get self-care during the season of giving, right? It's all about us.

00:15:31 Speaker_01
So controlled for the amount of income people have, people who donate more money to charity are happier than those that tend to not donate as much money to charity.

00:15:39 Speaker_01
Controlled for the amount of free time people have, people who volunteer their time to support others wind up being happier than those that keep their time to themselves.

00:15:46 Speaker_01
And in studies where you force people to do nice stuff for others, you wind up finding that even forcing somebody to do nice things for others makes them feel happier. One of my favorite of these studies is based on some of the work of Liz Dunn.

00:15:59 Speaker_01
She and Lara Ackman, they just walk up to people on the street and hand them 20 bucks. Here, I want you to spend this 20 bucks to do something nice to treat yourself. That's one condition.

00:16:07 Speaker_01
Or here, I want you to spend these 20 bucks to do something nice for somebody else. You could donate this money to charity. You could buy something nice for a friend.

00:16:13 Speaker_01
And what Liz finds is at the end of the day, and even later on when she surveys people, people who spend the money on others are happier. Now, this is an effect that really violates our intuitions.

00:16:24 Speaker_01
I think generally anything we can do that has a positive effect on other people winds up increasing both their happiness and our happiness more than we expect. Nick Epley, who's a professor at the University of Chicago, has this great term for this.

00:16:37 Speaker_01
He calls it undersociality, or alternatively he sometimes calls it the prosociality paradox, We kind of know that doing nice stuff for others is going to be good, but we completely underestimate how good it's going to feel, both for the other person.

00:16:50 Speaker_01
Nick has all this evidence showing that, like, if you predict, say, how good a compliment will feel to a stranger on the street or kind of, you know, giving a, like, little gift of coffee if you're at the coffee shop, buying the coffee, you know, for the person behind you, we predict it's going to be good, but we consistently super underestimate how good, both for the other person, but also for us.

00:17:09 Speaker_01
And those biases are really problematic because if you think about when do we make these decisions to do nice things for other people, it's usually because we have a prediction about them, right?

00:17:18 Speaker_01
You know, my brain has this little mental calculator that's assessing like, well, should I buy the latte for myself or should I gift the latte to the person behind me?

00:17:26 Speaker_01
And if you're predicting like, well, for myself, it's going to feel great, you're usually going to act on the basis of that false prediction.

00:17:32 Speaker_01
And that's why I think these religious traditions can be so helpful, because they force us to develop habits of doing that. You know, you just kind of build in charity, etched into the belief system that you're working with.

00:17:44 Speaker_01
Or they allow us to form habits where we get some experience with this, right?

00:17:47 Speaker_01
So we get practice with it over time, and we can learn like, well, even though my intuition says this, you know, last time I donated the money to charity when I had a little extra and I was feeling bad, it felt kind of nice, so maybe I should do that again.

00:17:59 Speaker_01
And so I think it's helpful to have these structures to help us.

00:18:03 Speaker_04
One thing that I learned is that the fifth night of Hanukkah is focused on giving to others outside of the family. And actually, children are encouraged to give gifts too.

00:18:13 Speaker_04
So it's not only that they're receiving, but whether they're given money or they buy toys. they're encouraged to basically give it to other people, other children. And by that act, they're basically in Liz Dunn's study in some ways. Exactly.

00:18:28 Speaker_04
And learning that. And again, right here is where I think we see some of the wisdom of these spiritual traditions and these holidays that are all about giving.

00:18:36 Speaker_04
I think part of it is sometimes you have to actually have the experience to realize that all the data we're talking about actually is true and means something to you. But it's not just money, right?

00:18:51 Speaker_04
It's giving of yourself time, care, reaching out, whatever it might be. Is it true that engaging in service to others outside of the giving of money has the same effect?

00:19:04 Speaker_01
For sure. And I think when you see the phrase service to others, it almost feels like, well, I got to pack my bags and go to the soup kitchen for like 10 hours.

00:19:11 Speaker_01
No, a service to others can look like texting a friend you haven't talked to in a while and just saying, hey, thinking of you. It can be giving a compliment to someone on the street.

00:19:20 Speaker_01
It can be expressing gratitude to someone in your workplace who did something really great. It can even be, and I think this is super important to remember in the holiday season, it can even be asking for help.

00:19:31 Speaker_01
Because the act of asking for help often lets somebody do something nice for you.

00:19:36 Speaker_01
One of my favorite examples of this is think back to the last time you were walking around and someone asked you for directions, especially directions to somewhere you knew. How did you feel about that? You're like, yes, I get to do this nice thing.

00:19:46 Speaker_01
I get to show my knowledge, like I'm helping this person. Like you got asked for something, but you felt great. And that's typically true when people ask us for stuff, especially stuff that's pretty easy for us to do.

00:19:57 Speaker_01
It winds up making us feel really good. And so during the holiday season, when you're feeling overwhelmed, think about the possibility of like asking a family member for help.

00:20:07 Speaker_01
It's such a simple action, but it makes other people feel competent and gives them the benefit of helping you. And then everybody kind of winds up feeling happier.

00:20:16 Speaker_01
It kind of boosts the overall pie of good cheer in the holiday season in ways we don't anticipate.

00:20:33 Speaker_03
Arnold Schwarzenegger is many things, but did you know that he was once a director? And that the only film he has ever directed is a 1992 made-for-TV remake of Christmas in Connecticut.

00:20:44 Speaker_05
Nobody calls the biggest star in the world and says, hey, they want to direct your TV movie.

00:20:48 Speaker_03
On our Revisionist History Christmas special this year, we are telling the really very funny story behind the making of the most improbable Christmas movie of all time.

00:20:56 Speaker_06
The first thing out of his mouth is, so what have you guys been doing since Commando? Clearly not going to the gym.

00:21:07 Speaker_03
Listen wherever you find your podcasts.

00:21:24 Speaker_04
As Laurie said, every act of giving doesn't have to be a major project.

00:21:29 Speaker_04
In fact, when time is short, like it often is at the holidays, finding simpler ways to help others might be what makes those good deeds not just more possible, but also more enjoyable.

00:21:41 Speaker_04
And that idea of scaling down, of not being the person who's got everything together and does everything perfectly, can apply in other ways too.

00:21:51 Speaker_01
We recently just talked to the writer Oliver Berkman for my podcast, who has a really great new book on the idea of imperfectionism, where what would it look like to kind of do things a little bit less good in ways that allow you to not feel so overwhelmed so you can be present and happy during the season?

00:22:08 Speaker_01
And he had this notion that I loved of scruffy hospitality.

00:22:12 Speaker_01
Where the idea is like, if you go to the holiday party and the cookies aren't really done yet, and everything's kind of a little bit of a mess, and the host is like, hey, can you kind of help frost those little sugar cookies because I need some help?

00:22:22 Speaker_01
You feel like you're seeing a vulnerable side of the people you're interacting with, and you're comfortable. But sometimes you go to that holiday dinner party and it's like, perfect. It's got the candles and everything set up.

00:22:33 Speaker_01
And how do you interact if you're a guest there? You kind of feel a little maybe on edge. Should I take my shoes off? Should I put my napkin in the right spot?

00:22:41 Speaker_01
If you go with the Scruffy version, you personally don't feel as overwhelmed when you're running your own dinner parties and so on.

00:22:47 Speaker_04
You are absolutely right. I've had this experience with people I know, and I've gone to these parties, and not only have I felt like, OK, which fork do I use? But I also feel like, oh, my God, I can never have them to my house.

00:22:57 Speaker_04
I can't reciprocate because I'll never be able to pull this off.

00:23:00 Speaker_01
And, you know, one of the things we know from the work, from the research, is that, you know, social connection is such a huge part of our happiness.

00:23:07 Speaker_01
But I think some of us shy away from social connection, especially during the holiday season where we feel like, you know, maybe I don't have enough money for presents or I don't have, you know, the time or the bandwidth to decorate my house.

00:23:18 Speaker_01
We can get kind of messed up about how much we have to do. And so I think resetting those perfectionist expectations, giving yourself permission to do it 85 percent, 89 percent, just that permission can be really powerful.

00:23:31 Speaker_04
This brings up the second point I wanted to talk about, about gift-giving and getting. It's sometimes I get a gift and I'm like, oh God, now I got to get this person something.

00:23:41 Speaker_04
And I'm not proud of that response, but it feels like an indebtedness, right? I'm not feeling gratitude for it. I'm feeling like it's another responsibility. And so the question that I have is how do we

00:23:55 Speaker_04
cultivate more of a sense of gratitude and not like, oh, great, now I owe you something at the holiday season.

00:24:02 Speaker_01
It's interesting, gratitude, it's a complicated positive emotion, right? Because it makes me feel good that someone thought about me, but it does have this kind of sense of indebtedness. Like, I kind of want to give back.

00:24:13 Speaker_01
And that kind of motivation, this is kind of getting to the pro-social emotions that you've talked about and the kind of ways that gratitude motivates us to be good people.

00:24:22 Speaker_01
It can be the little juice we need to do that nice good act to somebody else, which winds up making us feel better, right? And so, one of my favorite strategies for this is to commit to being a good gift receiver.

00:24:35 Speaker_01
Sometimes we think that the way to be a good gift receiver is to, like, give materially the same kind of financial transaction back, right? You know, if you get the socks, it's like, well, I have to get something equivalent for the socks to, you know.

00:24:45 Speaker_01
Aunt Jolene, who I didn't think was going to get me anything. A different way we can be a good gift receiver is to really verbally and clearly express our gratitude about the gift. And I think best expressions of gratitude are ones that are specific.

00:24:58 Speaker_01
So, oh my gosh, I really like these socks. They're a particular color that goes with my suit. I can see myself wearing them. So you're kind of simulating the specifics of why that thing is really helpful for you.

00:25:09 Speaker_01
But an even better way to be a good gift receiver is to thank people, not just at the moment where you rip the present open, but when you're actually using them later. So I've committed to trying to do this with gifts that I've got.

00:25:19 Speaker_01
Like I have this wonderful Dutch oven that my dad and my stepmom gave me at this point many years ago, but Dutch ovens, you know, live on. And there's moments when I like, you know, I'm just making some casserole or something and I think,

00:25:30 Speaker_01
This is so cool that they gave me this gift." And I'll just like a quick text of like, I'm still using your Dutch oven, still around, I'm still enjoying it.

00:25:37 Speaker_01
Another great thing gratitude can do is it can get rid of what's called hedonic adaptation, which is like you just kind of get used to stuff, that it's good stuff in your life, but you kind of stop noticing that it was really awesome.

00:25:48 Speaker_01
Take my Dutch oven, for example, right? When I'm thinking about, man, I'm so grateful that my dad got me this thing, it makes the Dutch oven kind of feel a little bit more exciting when it could have just been in its pot, you know?

00:25:58 Speaker_01
And again, it's just a boost for all of us and a boost to the relatedness.

00:26:02 Speaker_02
To the relationship.

00:26:03 Speaker_01
Right? Because that's what the gifts are really about. It's not like, well, financial transaction, and now I'm in debt. No. The goal is to create more of a connection, and ideally one that lives past December 26, too.

00:26:14 Speaker_04
And I think one thing that we learn from the spiritual traditions is when they talk about gratitude, it's not so much focused on the object, it's focused on the effort and the cost to the person to do it. Maybe they knitted me a hat.

00:26:30 Speaker_04
Maybe it's a hideous hat. But they put their heart and soul into that thing, right? And in some ways, that means more to me than a beautiful hat that somebody got me at Macy's on their way out of the store as an extra, you know, gift topper.

00:26:46 Speaker_04
And so I totally agree that we need to thank them for it and keep those relationships going. I think, you know, part of what we need to do more is to appreciate the intention behind the gift.

00:26:57 Speaker_01
I think it can help if you try to think about that intention in terms of the relatedness, right? You know, the hat that was knit. Maybe you don't love that. You're not going to use the hat.

00:27:06 Speaker_01
Like, you can think back to like Derek moments where, you know, that cousin was sitting there, you know, knitting this wonderful thing for you, thinking about you enjoying it.

00:27:14 Speaker_04
I often talk about gratitude related to how it makes us more virtuous people, more generous people. But what does it do just for our health and happiness?

00:27:22 Speaker_01
Oh my gosh, it has so many positive effects that are like kind of striking when you read the literature. So individuals who are generally just you know personality wise a little bit more grateful wind up sleeping better.

00:27:34 Speaker_01
There's evidence from folks like Bob Emmons lab that it can reduce things like inflammation. How does gratitude reduce something like inflammation? When you're more grateful, you're more future-oriented. You eat a little bit healthier.

00:27:44 Speaker_01
You go to the gym a little bit more. That by itself is going to reduce inflammation.

00:27:48 Speaker_01
So it has this cascade of tiny positive effects, both physically and I think mentally, that allow us to engage in the right behaviors and motivations that wind up making us healthier and happier over time.

00:28:00 Speaker_04
So if we're celebrating traditionally, we're doing gratitude prayers during Advent and Christmas, during the eight days of Hanukkah. If we're kind of celebrating in a secular way, what are the ways that you encourage people to cultivate gratitude?

00:28:14 Speaker_01
There's lots of secular gratitude practices that work pretty well. The simple act of writing in a gratitude journal every day, you know, three to five things you're grateful for, that can wind up making you feel happier.

00:28:24 Speaker_01
If that feels a little bit onerous, one of my favorite alternative versions of that practice is something I've done with Katherine Price, who's a journalist. She actually talks about developing a delight practice.

00:28:35 Speaker_01
Where if you just see something delightful in the world, you just text each other, I saw this ridiculous thing. Delight, you know? The normal bias we have is a negativity bias, right, where we're out seeking the tough stuff.

00:28:47 Speaker_01
And I think in a holiday season where our expectations are high, that negativity bias can be on, like, you know, high alert. But a gratitude practice or a delight practice trains your attention to find the delightful things.

00:28:58 Speaker_01
And like religions, it's ideal if you do it with somebody else. One of the reasons religious traditions work so well is most religious traditions aren't, you know, you in your house all by yourself, you know, engaging in something.

00:29:09 Speaker_01
It's doing something with other people.

00:29:11 Speaker_01
If you're doing a delight practice with other people, you've got to find the delights because, you know, they're going to text you three times with delights and you're going to feel like, oh, man, I've got to find something.

00:29:18 Speaker_01
But then your attention is out there looking for the good things in the world, looking for the nice stuff.

00:29:24 Speaker_04
When I think back about the holidays that I did throughout my life, some of the ones that seemed most rich and brought me the most joy involved doing the traditional things for Christmas, and one of those was going to Mass, Christmas services.

00:29:53 Speaker_04
I was raised Catholic. I was an altar boy. I am none of those things now. I'm a good old agnostic scientist. But I still like going to those services with the majesty and the music.

00:30:05 Speaker_04
And this got me thinking about your friend in mind, Dr. Keltner's work on awe.

00:30:12 Speaker_04
And it seems like during these holidays, there are these times when you can experience awe, the art, the music, the beauty, even lighting your first Christmas tree at home with your family.

00:30:25 Speaker_04
And so what do we know about how those experiences of awe affect happiness?

00:30:30 Speaker_01
Research shows that experiencing awe winds up having these very important positive consequences. One of them is that it winds up making us feel more socially connected.

00:30:39 Speaker_01
This is some of my favorite of Dacher-Keltner, who he mentions work, where he does these studies where he puts people in a really awe-inspiring situation. He doesn't use the Christmas trees or the holidays.

00:30:48 Speaker_01
He brings people to these kind of places like Yellowstone and where you can kind of experience this sort of awe in nature. And he says, hey, you know, Look at this little map of you and your community and show me how much overlap there is.

00:31:00 Speaker_01
Is there kind of a lot of overlap or less overlap? And what he finds is that people self-report experiencing a lot of overlap with their community, right?

00:31:08 Speaker_01
Which is kind of striking because they're not, again, they're not in front of a Christmas tree with their family. They're looking out at this vast landscape with nobody in it, yet they're feeling really socially connected.

00:31:17 Speaker_01
And I think that's what awe does in the holiday season too, right? One that Dackard talks about a lot is the sort of awe that we get from moral actions.

00:31:25 Speaker_01
I think the holiday season is one of the only times of the noon cycle where we can see people doing really wonderful, good things in the world. It's also a moment where we get all from collective effervescence.

00:31:36 Speaker_01
You know, why does the music at a church resonate with you if you don't believe any of that stuff? It's because we're all kind of singing it together.

00:31:42 Speaker_01
When you're in the middle of a Hallelujah chorus, you know, you could be the biggest atheist in the world, but something's pumping through your brain that's making you feel really socially connected.

00:32:00 Speaker_04
The holidays are supposed to be a time for rest and renewal too, right? If we're going to be happy, we need that downtime, that time to disconnect. And so whether it's prayer or simple contemplation, these holidays build those moments in.

00:32:14 Speaker_04
And it's interesting because it's often around the idea of candles and candle flames, right? Which is an ancient technique for focusing the mind. So Christians focus on candles that they light in the Advent wreath.

00:32:28 Speaker_04
Many Jewish folks often focus on the candles in the menorah. There's even some Jewish traditions that emphasize focusing on the candles of the menorah as a way to meditate.

00:32:39 Speaker_04
And even in the old celebration of pagan Yule around the solstice, there was this idea of the Yule log. And I don't know if you had this, because I grew up in New York. In New York, there's something called the Yule log TV show.

00:32:51 Speaker_00
This Christmas Eve, when all the wonderful old traditions of this special night are so much in our hearts, WPIX television and 102 WPIX... Channel 11 in New York on Christmas Eve would all night show a picture of a log in a fireplace burning.

00:33:05 Speaker_04
I love this. And for those of us who didn't have fireplaces at our home, we would sit there and we would look at it and it was soothing and it would lead to contemplation.

00:33:12 Speaker_00
...preempted all regular programming and commercials to bring you the warmth, good cheer and friendliness of a new log fire. accompanied by the most beautiful and familiar Christmas carols.

00:33:24 Speaker_01
I'm laughing at you, but actually when I first moved into the house that my husband and I live in in New Haven, we bought the house because it had this nice fireplace.

00:33:31 Speaker_01
But it turns out we didn't look into the fireplace, and it turns out it's bricked off at the top. It's just like a fake fireplace. And so I actually bought like a little DVD of Flaming Fireplace. I didn't know this was like an old school thing.

00:33:42 Speaker_01
I thought it was DVD technology. But no, but the reason we like looking at it is that you get back from that, you know, traffic-y moment of shopping and so on. and you look at the flame and your breath kind of entrains to it.

00:33:54 Speaker_01
And working on the breath is a really powerful way to hack the relaxation system that we experience.

00:34:00 Speaker_01
You know, a lot of the holiday season activates what's called our fight or flight, our sympathetic nervous system, which is we're kind of on high alert, we're incredibly vigilant, our heart's beating faster.

00:34:09 Speaker_01
What we really want to do is to activate the kind of sister system to our fight or flight, which is what's called the rest or digest or the parasympathetic nervous system.

00:34:17 Speaker_01
And when you look at a flame and you're just kind of watching it over time, your breath kind of entrains to the slow movement of the flame.

00:34:25 Speaker_01
So I think the fire is a really great way to do that and maybe one of the best ways to do it, you know, in the holiday season. Plus, it's light. You know, in your intro, you talked about this is time that's dark and our serotonin is going down.

00:34:37 Speaker_01
And so something that gives us light in a way that also entrains our breath and gets us kind of a little bit meditative. It's a super great practice, especially for secular folks.

00:34:48 Speaker_04
And you know, speaking of secular folks, it's true that a lot of people celebrate holidays like Christmas, even if they aren't very religious. It's more about Santa than the birth of Jesus, right?

00:34:58 Speaker_04
But there's probably still ways they can practice elements of the holidays to find that joy, connection, and all the other good things we're talking about.

00:35:07 Speaker_04
But that makes me wonder, is there a way that we can create our own rituals and traditions, ones that don't have anything to do with the existing holidays, but still allow us to celebrate them in a way that feels meaningful?

00:35:23 Speaker_01
This is the time when you can kind of create these traditions, and you'll be surprised at how many of them kind of stick. My mom has one.

00:35:30 Speaker_01
I mean, she was very close to her godmother, who has now passed a long time ago, and her godmother really enjoyed lobster. It was her favorite thing. And so my mom, kind of in honor of my godmother for the holidays, will purchase a live lobster.

00:35:44 Speaker_01
My mom doesn't eat shellfish, though, so she doesn't like to eat the lobster. What she does is she takes this live lobster, to the beach, and she sort of releases the lobster into the beach.

00:35:52 Speaker_01
And the idea is it's just, you know, it's a way of kind of thinking about her godmother and sort of giving back. It's very funny.

00:35:59 Speaker_01
If you watch the ritual, it's really fun for the lobsters, because the lobsters kind of get the little lobster cloth, and he's taking off, and they're on the beach, and they're like a little confused, but they're like, great, and they just dive into the ocean.

00:36:12 Speaker_01
One of the things I think we forget about rituals is that like, you know, my mom's case, she's buying a slaughter, but like they don't have to cost any money. They don't have to make sense, right? They can be kind of dumb, like even sometimes absurd.

00:36:23 Speaker_01
And at least for, you know, a more atheist, secular person like me, the kind of absurdity is sort of fun in rituals. But these are the things we can embrace. And I think especially if you feel frustrated by holiday traditions,

00:36:38 Speaker_01
Maybe you're grieving the old holiday tradition, you're looking for something. This is a spot where building new stuff can feel really good. This is something we've done in my own family.

00:36:47 Speaker_01
I have a family where there's divorce and there's lots of families vying for our attention in the Christmas season. There's somebody who's going to get you on Christmas morning, but it's really hard to be in all the places on Christmas morning.

00:37:00 Speaker_01
And so our family has developed a new tradition of celebrating around the solstice. which is not as busy a time. You know, flights are a little bit cheaper so everybody can get together.

00:37:09 Speaker_01
And it's like we just developed all these dumb rituals at the Solstice. And we go Solstice cake, watch some Carl Sagan and these kinds of things. And so it's like you just make stuff up, but really it winds up feeling a lot better.

00:37:21 Speaker_04
But it's bringing you together. You're having those experiences of gratitude and sharing. That's amazing.

00:37:26 Speaker_01
Like turn these things into rituals as though they were sort of blessed by some religious authority and you have to do them every year. And those kinds of rituals will wind up making you feel a lot better.

00:37:36 Speaker_04
The doing is the point. Listeners, right now, as Lori and I are going to be leaving, it is cold and dark in Boston.

00:37:49 Speaker_04
And I will say that I can attest to this because my holiday season is already feeling better because I have social connection with my good friend Lori, who I haven't seen in a while.

00:38:00 Speaker_04
I'm incredibly grateful that she's so busy that she made time to come on this. And so thank you.

00:38:05 Speaker_01
Thanks, Dave.

00:38:06 Speaker_04
And happy holidays.

00:38:07 Speaker_01
Happy holidays.

00:38:12 Speaker_04
That's it for season seven of How God Works. If you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us some comments or stars wherever you listen.

00:38:20 Speaker_04
We'll be back in the spring with new episodes that explore more of life's big questions and what advice science and spirituality has to offer.

00:38:28 Speaker_04
In the meantime, we'll be sharing some special surprises as well as some of our favorite episodes from the archives. For now, all of us here are wishing you and yours a truly happy holiday season and all the best for the coming year.

00:38:49 Speaker_04
How God Works is hosted by me, Dave Desteno. This episode was written by Josie Holtzman and me. Our senior producer is Josie Holtzman. Our producer is Sophie Eisenberg. Our associate producer is Emmanuel Desarme. Executive producer is Genevieve Sponsler.

00:39:06 Speaker_04
Merit Jacob is our mix engineer and composed our theme, which was arranged by Chloe Desteno. The executive producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzalez. This podcast was also made possible with support from the John Templeton Foundation.

00:39:20 Speaker_04
To learn more about the show and access episode transcripts, you can find our website at howgodworks.org. And for news and peeks at what's coming, feel free to follow us on Instagram at HowGodWorksPod or me on XorBlueSky at David DeSteno.

00:39:46 Speaker_03
Arnold Schwarzenegger is many things, but did you know that he was once a director? And that the only film he has ever directed is a 1992 made-for-TV remake of Christmas in Connecticut.

00:39:57 Speaker_05
Nobody calls the biggest star in the world and says, hey, they want to direct your TV movie.

00:40:01 Speaker_03
On our Revisionist History Christmas special this year, we are telling the really very funny story behind the making of the most improbable Christmas movie of all time.

00:40:09 Speaker_06
The first thing out of his mouth is, so what have you guys been doing since Commando? Clearly not going to the gym.

00:40:20 Speaker_03
Listen wherever you find your podcasts.