The Seven-Minute Secret To Happiness That No One Is Talking About

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[00:00:00] LM: Dacher, welcome to the podcast. I was just telling you how excited I am to have you here. I’ve never had a former professor of mine on.

[00:00:06] DK: It’s good to be with you, Liz.

[00:00:07] LM: Has your research around awe made you not afraid of death?

[00:00:11] DK: No doubt. Awe becomes this powerful ingredient for trauma reduction.

[00:00:15] LM: I’ll find it energy giving to connect with somebody.

[00:00:18] The initial hump feels hard, so instead I scroll on my phone and retreat into myself. Yeah. How do I break through that blockage? Essentially, what fills us with awe can point us in the direction of what will fill us with a sense of meaning and purpose.

[00:00:32] DK: Awe gets you to meaning. The bigger challenge is to figure out your whole life context of awe and go get it.

[00:00:39] LM: Hello, friends, and welcome to the Liz Moody podcast, where every week we are sharing real science, real stories and realistic tools that actually level up every part of your life. I’m your host, Liz Moody, and I’m a bestselling author and longtime journalist. And today I’m joined by Dr. Dacher Keltner, who is actually one of my professors back when I went to UC Berkeley.

[00:00:59] [00:01:00] So this entire episode is a really crazy full circle moment for me. Docker is one of the world’s leading emotion scientists. He is a psychology professor at Berkeley, still to this day. He’s the director of the Greater Good Science Center, and he’s authored over 200, 200 scientific publications and six books.

[00:01:18] The man is prolific. And are you ready for this? This is about the coolest thing that I have ever heard personally, he was one of the scientific advisors for both inside out movies. So he was the one consulting on which emotions were shown on screen, how they would all be portrayed and all of that. And we get into some really fun behind the scenes stories about that.

[00:01:39] actually in this episode. His most recent book is called Awe, the new science of wonder and how it can transform your life. It is so fascinating and it informs a lot of what we talk about today. We get into what exactly is awe in practice, how it can have such a large impact on our happiness and how we can harness the power of it to truly change our lives [00:02:00] in much, much less time than you would think.

[00:02:03] This is wonder. One of my all time favorite conversations that I have ever had. It is deep, it is powerful, and it’s filled with these really actionable things that you can do in the moment to feel better, to feel wholer, to feel happier, and I am so excited for you to hear it. Dacher, welcome to the podcast.

[00:02:21] I was just telling you how excited I am to have you here. I’ve never had a former professor of mine on.

[00:02:26] DK: It’s good to be with you, Liz. I’ve never been on a podcast of a former student.

[00:02:29] LM: Wait, really? Yeah. Oh, this is fun. Okay, this is going to be really fun. We’re going to get into so many things happiness today, but let’s start with awe because that is your most recent area of research.

[00:02:39] We’re all so busy and we’re told to so many things that we should be doing all the time. So I’d love for you to start us off by just making a case for why awe is worth prioritizing in our lives.

[00:02:49] DK: I thought hard about that, right? I mean, awe sounds. rarefied and available to only people who have resources and the like.

[00:02:56] But there’s actually a really fundamental case for awe. One [00:03:00] that people like the Surgeon General are taking really seriously. He’s very interested in promoting awe. And the case I think is a couple fold and relates to your question. And the first is just 15 years of science shows that awe is, you know, elevates vagal tone, which is good for your heart, reduces inflammation in your immune system.

[00:03:18] It reduces anxiety. It reduces daily stress. It helps with long COVID. It helps you be more generous with other people. Helps you see the world in a less polarized way, politically. So it’s an antidote to all of the struggles of our times. That science led me to really, you know, feel bullish in saying, man, if you can go find three minutes of awe a few times a week, you’ll do better.

[00:03:45] And that’s what the science says. And the second reason, you know, that we really should. make the case for awe is, it’s all around us, you know, and that was just striking. And one of the surprises of all this research we did is that we just started asking [00:04:00] people every night, you know, in China and India and Mexico and the U S and other places like, Hey, do you feel a lot today?

[00:04:05] And I thought it would be like maybe once every three weeks, four weeks. And it was. two to three times a week. And people are feeling all about obviously, you know, a sunset, nature, a tree, falling leaves, and then really striking social stuff. I remember this guy in London was like, God, I just was riding on the tube and I made eye contact with this person.

[00:04:26] And we just sort of recognized each other’s fundamental humanity. So it’s all around us, you know, Liz, and, and that tells us it’s good for us and it’s easy to cultivate and we should be building it into our lives.

[00:04:41] LM: That’s a lot of benefits.

[00:04:43] DK: Yeah.

[00:04:44] LM: What is the mechanism of action by which all these benefits are happening?

[00:04:47] DK: Yeah, fundamental question. Spoken like a Berkeley undergrad. Why is this working? What’s happening, and it’s really interesting, is that awe is [00:05:00] proving to be kind of the magic ingredient of a lot of things that people are now turning to for health benefits and well being benefits. Dance, right? Listening to music, getting out into nature.

[00:05:11] It’s so good for you. Psychedelics, right? One of the proximal or primary ways in which psychedelics work is through awe. And then that begs this question of like, well, what is going on with awe that helps me? And one is it changes your physiology or your body, right? It just makes you. more relaxed in terms of your cardiovascular system.

[00:05:33] Your brain has different patterns of firing that make you less defensive and self focused. So one is the body. A second is the sense of self. It really shifts you away from being self critical, you know, which is so epidemic today, to being open to the world and not caring as much about yourself, right?

[00:05:55] Just like, freed from the nagging voice of yourself. Another thing is just your [00:06:00] sociality and, and this is really striking, which is you can go have an awe experience in nature by yourself and you come back and you feel connected, right? And that’s important. So, so you put those three things together and it’s good news, right?

[00:06:12] Your body’s different. Your sense of self is different. Your sense of relationality is different. And that’s why I think awe is making its way into therapy. It’s making its way into meditation. It’s, it’ll be making its way into medicine, you know, and dealing with the hard problems. So

[00:06:31] LM: what do you mean by making its way into medicine?

[00:06:32] DK: I do a lot of work with Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest healthcare deliverers in the country, if not the largest. You go to the doctor and let’s say you’re feeling chronic pain, which is a 10 billion dollar. problem and it leads to opioid addiction. They look at you and they’re like, well, you know, you know, we can give you some pharmaceuticals very rarely, but they should be recommending a dietary approach to less inflammation.

[00:06:59] And then there are all [00:07:00] these things that give us awe that reduce pain, right? Getting out in nature, watching sunsets, new study out on music, which produces awe, reduces pain as powerfully as pharmaceuticals, right? So they’re getting very interested in Awe through music and visual art and nature, thinking about the moral beauty of people as a way to handle fundamental health problems.

[00:07:23] And I think we now have the science to make the case.

[00:07:26] LM: Can you define what awe is? Because I think that it sits proximate to a lot of other emotions. How do we know when we’re experiencing awe?

[00:07:35] DK: Thank you for asking that question, because I spent 10 years in obscurity working on that. Awe is an emotion. And thank you for already letting our audience know that we should be thinking about awe in relationship to fear and beauty and admiration and gratitude.

[00:07:51] And we’ll get to that. But awe is this emotion we feel when we encounter vast things that are vast [00:08:00] physically or semantically, a big tree, a big idea, you know, an earthquake or, you know, things that are just vast beyond our typical frame of reference, and that are mysterious, that are like, I don’t understand that.

[00:08:14] I can’t categorize it. You know, I was backpacking with my daughter, Natalie, and we were up high in the Sierras and this once in every thousand year storm came over us. And I was like, man, look at those clouds. And I could categorize them. And then they were so dramatic and so filled with electrical energy.

[00:08:36] And they started sending lightning bolts down that I, it was beyond my understanding. I’d never seen anything like it. And it was awesome. Right. And then we. Became terrified. That sounds really

[00:08:45] LM: scary. Yeah,

[00:08:46] DK: you know. So awe is vast and mysterious and it’s this feeling. We’ve done a lot of work that I’m very proud of that answered a hard question, which is how is awe different [00:09:00] from things like fear and terror and beauty?

[00:09:02] Beauty is really more understandable, right? It doesn’t blow your mind and it sort of feels affectionate to you. Ah, it’s like, Wow, it’s mysterious, it’s vast. Terror and fear have threat just at its fundamental core, right? And awe largely doesn’t have the threat and peril, sense of peril, that those emotions have.

[00:09:24] And we’ve pulled apart, I’m going to ask you a question, Liz. Give me a sound with your voice if you felt awe. Nice. Give me a sound of your voice if you felt fear. Ah! Right. Different sounds, right? So, we know the emotions are different. How do I know I’m feeling awe? I remember I was, I was teaching and this woman came to me and it was kind of poignant and she said, you know, I understand this conceptually, but how do I know I’m feeling awe?

[00:09:53] You know? And it’s actually a really hard problem. Do I trust words? Do I trust my [00:10:00] body? What the science points to is a set of things that happen when you feel awe, so you might tear up. Have you ever teared up when you feel awe? Like, what’s an example?

[00:10:10] LM: Nature has made me tear up if I see really, really beautiful nature.

[00:10:14] Connections I’ve had with other human beings has made me tear up. Songs have made me tear up, for sure. Feats of accomplishment have made me. Like, watching the Olympics, I bawled like a baby. Like, every day I’d turn it on and I’d just start crying and I didn’t even know why. I was just, like, crying immediately.

[00:10:29] DK: Yeah. Well, so that, that’s a sign of awe, right? And so that tells you, and your examples are perfect. They fit into this framework of awe that I write about in this book. And so, you know you’re feeling awe when you get tears, when you get goosebumps, right? These chills rushing up your back of your spine.

[00:10:45] You know you feel awe when you feel sort of quiet. Like, God, I, I can’t put words to this. You know you’re feeling awe when yourself is sort of small. You’re like, God, I just feel like I’m a small part of everything. And then you feel [00:11:00] awe when the words arise. Oh, I’m feeling awe or astonished or filled with wonder.

[00:11:03] So when you put that whole package together of tears and goosebumps and warmth in the chest, which is the vagus nerve and words and a sense of self and quiet and then the behavioral stuff, the voice, then you feel awe. are pretty certain, I’ve, I had an awe experience.

[00:11:19] LM: Some of these feelings feel really big, and even the things that I mentioned feel big.

[00:11:23] But a big concept in your book is the idea of everyday awe, that we can go out and experience awe right outside our doorstep. So can you speak to that?

[00:11:31] DK: We’ve done a lot of science on awe. And I feel really proud of that. And then I’ve taught a lot and then, you know, promoted in healthcare and, and then writing this book, there are certain things that just emerge when you think about something for 10 years.

[00:11:47] And I had originally thought early in this work, say 2010, that all was like once in a lifetime, couple of times in a lifetime. I remember when I first met the Dalai Lama and he gave me this [00:12:00] big hug. I was just like, crying and goosebumps. And I’m like, this is all, you know, and I think most people would have experiences that they could cite like that.

[00:12:09] But our data started to say that it’s around us. And when we gathered narratives of awe from 26 countries, and we just spent years reading these stories, there was this everyday component, you know, just like walking in a park and seeing leaves fall off a tree and passing through a neighborhood and just watching kids play, you know, and just this everyday stuff.

[00:12:35] And that really shifted my understanding of all Albert Einstein, you know, and then current, you know, philosophical thinking about what is consciousness. Part of consciousness is feeling, right? It’s just like, I feel compassion and awe is one. And our science says this is a fundamental state in our mind that we can access pretty [00:13:00] readily.

[00:13:00] And when I learned that, and when the data started to say, man, this is a state you can bring someone into a lab, And if they start telling a story about somebody who’s morally inspired them, or Olympics, right, they start to tear up, and they access awe, and it’s like, that’s right there for us. It’s a, it’s a layer in our mind, and if we clear out certain things, and we give ourselves the right set and setting, if you will, you can find it.

[00:13:27] And then, you know, when I wrote the book, after my brother had died, And it was blown off the map and in need of awe, I found that, you know, I was just like, if you just set your mind and you open your mind to finding it on a walk or listening to music or reflecting on your past, it’s there to experience.

[00:13:47] It’s part of the mind.

[00:13:49] LM: We’ll come back to everyday awe in a moment, but I do want to linger on what you just said about your brother because you said that you needed awe then. But something I found really compelling in your book is that you [00:14:00] also said that you experienced awe in the feelings of your grief.

[00:14:05] And I think that we categorize awe as this really positive emotion, and grief is scary and hard.

[00:14:12] DK: Yeah.

[00:14:12] LM: Can you pull those two ideas together?

[00:14:15] DK: I just got goosebumps thinking about when a grad student opened my mind to this. This is in part why we do science, right? 80 percent of us, estimates suggest, will experience the trauma of someone who dies too young that we love.

[00:14:32] It is the life cycle. Every philosophical tradition grapples with that fact. It’s the fact of life and evolution and the universe. Things are born and they grow and they die. 80 percent of us will watch someone die who is too young, like my brother. And in the West, it’s now, you know, just commonplace to say, like, other cultures, Day of the Dead ceremonies, Irish wakes, taking [00:15:00] care of the body in Tibetan traditions.

[00:15:02] I mean, they have these rich rituals around us. And in the West, in the United States, it’s like, the person’s in a hospital bed, the room sucks, it’s horrible, you don’t know what to do, and then it’s over. You know, we’ve moved away from religion, so we don’t have a framework to talk about it. When my brother died, I loved him as much as any human being ever.

[00:15:22] We did everything together. Younger brother, and he got colon cancer. And the first moment of all was his passing, you know. And thankfully, Liz. I had a grad student, when we gathered these 2, 600 stories from 26 cultures, she came to me yawing by and said, man, I found this eighth source of awe around the world.

[00:15:45] It’s when people die. Watching mom die, watching a sister die when you hold her hand, thinking about, you know, being in combat, watching somebody die. It’s just, it’s mysterious and it’s fast. It’s all. And knowing that, I was [00:16:00] prepared. You know, it was so fascinating. I was like, my brother is gonna die. And, and now I was open to it.

[00:16:05] I wasn’t scared. And I was really guided by Roshi Joan Halifax’s, writings about that. And it was all, it was, it was transcendent. It was like, I felt I saw a soul. I felt like I understood new dimensions to existence. And then afterwards to your question, as Joan Didion, I think the greatest nonfiction writer of the 20th century, wrote about her grief.

[00:16:27] So much of it is awe. It’s just mind. altering and I heard his voice and I felt his presence. I felt two times his hand touch my back, you know, after he passed away. He was in my mind and it was horrible. It’s anxiety provoking, but it was also transcendent, you know, and it changed how I look at the world, how I am in the world, and that’s what awe does, and there’s a lot of interest right now in this, which is, a lot of us feel trauma, you know, sexual trauma, and political [00:17:00] trauma, and trauma of economic deprivation, and violence, and watching people die, and awe often comes out of trauma.

[00:17:07] Our minds want to understand, they want to, Have an enhanced view of the world in face of such hardship, and it’s a new pathway to healing in some ways.

[00:17:17] LM: Is there anything that we can do to access the awe from trauma to get to that place of trauma getting us closer to awe?

[00:17:25] DK: You have to be really careful, and I can’t offer you the, what I try to do, which is like, well, there’s science on this and, and now we have established practices.

[00:17:37] But what we do know, and I think in the psychedelic space, they’ve worked on this in setting, right? And I would apply that to awe based therapies to trauma. So there’s a lot of work not only with psychedelics, but with veterans going out in nature. And we did a study of that. And so it’s set. It’s like, okay, we’re going to be together.

[00:17:59] [00:18:00] Veterans, in our study, they went rafting on the American River for a day. And let’s be aware of that and let’s be thoughtful and let’s be sensitive to this. And setting, right? Well, what is it? What context and activities will you be in and engaged in? And if you get that right, awe becomes a special thing.

[00:18:20] powerful ingredient for trauma reduction. Our study, veterans rafting for a day, 32 percent drop in PTSD, a measure of trauma. And then I think that applies to other approaches with grief. What is your mindset going into the last stages of life of this person you love? Be open, be curious. Let them guide, know this is part of the cycle.

[00:18:44] What is the setting? What do you want to, what rituals and things do you want to bring in? You know, with my brother, I had no guidance from culture, but I was like, well, we definitely got to like, look at family pictures together, tell stories together, he wanted to [00:19:00] give every one of us something really meaningful, right?

[00:19:03] That I still have. There are approaches to trauma with awe that are, Important we bring back.

[00:19:10] LM: Would you say then that if we’re incorporating everyday awe, we’re kind of micro inoculating ourselves against the trauma of everyday life?

[00:19:19] DK: Yeah, we do have a paper. If you just find everyday awe, I’ll go for a little awe walk in nature.

[00:19:25] I’ll watch the sunset. I’ll listen to a piece of music. So it brings me tears, right? If, if we cultivate it, the stresses of life feel easier. And I bet people in our audience know that, you know, like, God, when I was out. I went to this beautiful park for a day, and I came back and everything I was worried about just felt different.

[00:19:46] We did a study during the pandemic of healthcare providers just published. One minute of awe a day, you sit and you go, what’s awe inspiring about this moment? That helped people with depression and anxiety [00:20:00] providing healthcare. during a very hard time in that career. So I think it’s one of our best shots at the high levels of stress and anxiety right now.

[00:20:09] LM: This is similar to set and setting, but as I was reading your book, it kind of seemed like there were two ways to access awe. It’s one to go seek out awe experiences and one to change the way that you’re experiencing the things you’re already experiencing. Is that correct?

[00:20:24] DK: Yeah, I wish I had said that.

[00:20:26] That’s a really You did

[00:20:27] LM: say it. I got that from your book.

[00:20:28] DK: Well, no, I don’t think so. And I think that’s a really thoughtful way to encourage awe. And this is what we’re working on now, which is like, let’s take teenagers and people who are new or are caregivers. Your mom’s getting really old and, or you just had a new baby.

[00:20:47] And we know caregivers really suffer emotionally. And so one approach is like, Seek it out. And I tell people like, I got this teenage son and he’s in the basement, never gets off the computer. He’s depressed [00:21:00] like a lot of young people are. And I’m like, you got to think about things that will bring him off and get him to do them.

[00:21:05] It might be backpacking. It might be a rock and roll concert. It might be some mass sporting event. It may be somebody they care about morally. So do that. But the subtler work is the second observation of yours, which is how do I train my mind? And the contemplative traditions have been really interested in this.

[00:21:27] Zen Buddhism, and the Tibetan Buddhists, uh, Southeast Asian Buddhism, and Hinduism, like Quaker prayers. Like, what do I do with my mind to open my life to awe? And, you know, one thing is, Pausing, breathing, putting words to the side if you can. Now, you know, when I go out into nature, I don’t try to name everything, which I’m terrible at anyway.

[00:21:52] But, you know, just like, let the experience come to you. There are ways, you know, out of Harvard, and we’re working on this, a version of this, you can look [00:22:00] at art. Just look at things for a long time. It’s called slow looking. You know, they tested it in art museums, but you can do it anywhere. I just have my Berkeley undergrads like, go look at the sky for two minutes.

[00:22:15] They go outside and they look at the sky and they’re like, I notice the colors in the cloud and they’re like, wow, you know, and they’re like, they like text me, I’ve never looked at the sky like that, you know, two minutes. So changing your mind is the hard work of life to get to awe.

[00:22:30] LM: Are the things that make people experience awe pretty universal or does it differ person to person and then also culture to culture?

[00:22:36] Because you’ve done this research all over the world.

[00:22:37] DK: The. The thing we know, this is really across the science of emotion, is that the broad categories of what makes us feel awe are pretty universal. Nature, moral beauty, music, visual stuff, Islamic patterns in tiles or the Dutch masters, spiritual stuff, life and death.

[00:22:59] [00:23:00] movement together, dancing in prayer and so forth. But then there’s a lot of variation in what, you know, makes you feel awe in terms of who you are as a person and where you are in, in culture. If I were to hang out with a bunch of political libertarians, they would freak out about free markets, you know, just like, wow.

[00:23:19] And I’d be critical and skeptical and I’d be freaked out about communal existence, you know, so there’s variation, but also universality.

[00:23:27] LM: I’ve always wondered why some people like love the desert and some people love forests and some of it makes sense because you’re like, oh, this is conducive to human life.

[00:23:37] But some people like love places that are absolutely not conducive to human life and there’s no evolutionary purpose for them to find it I’m like, what’s going on there?

[00:23:45] DK: I would even say that’s true of music. When I ask people, tell me a time when you’ve teared up and got goosebumps and felt awe when you listen to music.

[00:23:56] And if it’s a random sample of people, there’ll be somebody [00:24:00] who mentions choral music and somebody who mentions Taylor Swift, somebody who mentions hip hop and somebody who mentions. Garth Brooks and someone who mentions the Grateful Dead and I’ll say Iggy Pop and who could make sense of that? And it’s the same with landscapes, right?

[00:24:15] The trees. And I think there’s something about identity in it. The music and the food and the landscape of my core identity, my childhood, my people, my family. That’s what brings us all, but no one’s tested that scientifically. So, and we’d have to do that work to really be confident about that.

[00:24:36] LM: All right.

[00:24:37] Well, that’s the best explanation that I’ve gotten yet. And it’s something that’s, that’s bugged me for a long time. Are religious people typically happier because they have this built in structure for awe in their lives?

[00:24:47] DK: Yeah, we do know religion. It’s a fascinating thing for our audience to think about.

[00:24:53] Big reviews of evidence. Hundreds of thousands of people in these reviews. finds [00:25:00] that religion, a religious practice helps you live longer. You’re less vulnerable to depression. You’re happier. You know, these are not big effects, but they’re there. They’re probably as important as gender. Big question is why?

[00:25:15] And I think you’re onto something and the field hasn’t looked at it. And I write about this in the book, which is that in some ways, religion becomes a technology of awe. I was raised without religion and I was like, what is this thing, religion? And I got to college and I, Went into this Catholic service and stood there and I sang some music and that felt pretty good.

[00:25:37] And we did some rituals together and I’m like, wow, we’re all moving together. And then they had these big ideas about love and Jesus. And, and then, you know, we hugged each other and we saw some beautiful stained glass windows. Those are all sources of all great religious experiences. And now you think about secular versions like retreats and Burning Man or whatever it is.

[00:25:59] bring a [00:26:00] lot of these wonders of life to us. They give us music and ritual and movement. And, you know, I was looking at Poussin’s paintings of Jesus’s seven sacraments. And I’m not religious, you know, but I love art. And these are these famous series, I think, from the 18th century of when Jesus blesses different things.

[00:26:20] And they’re all about his moral beauty. You know, they’re like, he’s blessing a prostitute. I was like, wow, you know, that’s, that is righteous. And that’s what religion gives us. And so the challenge for a lot of us, I won’t speak on behalf of your religiosity, is I’m not a religious person. It’s like, how do

[00:26:35] LM: I get that secular?

[00:26:36] DK: Right. Right. I

[00:26:37] LM: literally, all of those things, I’m like, I want to go to a place and have community on Sundays. I want to hear a really interesting lecture about some sort of philosophical subject. I want to sing with other people and then I want to eat snacks afterward. Right. Like, where is that?

[00:26:51] DK: Yeah. And that’s our challenge today.

[00:26:52] Right. And it used to be 90 percent. Go to church. Now it’s down to 55, I think, in the U. S. Your generation, [00:27:00] so we’ve got to recreate it.

[00:27:02] LM: How? Where is it?

[00:27:03] DK: Well, I think there are a lot of movements around systematic forms of gathering. Like you gather, you sing. My friend Kasper Terkiel, T E R K A U I L E, does a lot of this work of like, systematic gathering with people.

[00:27:19] And you sing, you share food, you do some cool visual stuff, you maybe do a little bit of dance. So Daybreaker is huge. I admire that organization and they bring a lot of awe. So we got to find it. And I hear you. It’s a real irony of our secular lives that we miss those parts of religion.

[00:27:39] LM: You mentioned the eight types of awe.

[00:27:41] Can you run us through them quickly?

[00:27:43] DK: We gathered these stories of awe from around the world, 26 countries, and this is a really wide range of cultures, Mexico and Russia and India and China and South Korea and New Zealand and Germany. And, you know, we covered our bases and we started to [00:28:00] code these stories of awe.

[00:28:01] We just said, Hey, write a story about when you’ve encountered something vast and mysterious. Then we translated them, classified them, and we call these the eight wonders. And we’ve talked about some, but it’s just worth, you know, reflecting on a few. The most common one is moral beauty. It’s like other people’s kindness and courage.

[00:28:21] And that blew my mind. It’s my next book. I’m so captivated by it. It’s like, not only are we kind and generous and share 40 percent of what we have intuitively, but If we see somebody do that, it’ll change our life, you know?

[00:28:38] LM: That one makes the most sense to me, though, from a evolutionary, like, perspective.

[00:28:43] Yeah, because we want people to do esteemable acts so that society as a whole can flourish.

[00:28:48] DK: Right. Exactly. Well, I hadn’t thought of that, although I taught evolution for 20 years. And, and then this finding happens. I’m like, that’s phenomenal. Not only that, but when we hear stories, Oh man, I saw [00:29:00] this other guy on, you know, in the streets and he gave away all his money.

[00:29:03] We start crying. And that’s moral beauty. Then nature, obviously, collective effervescence, which is a good one. You dance together, you pray together, you cheer at football games, or basketball games, or baseball games, or the Olympics. And then we get to culture, which is music, visual stuff, and spirituality.

[00:29:20] And then we get to the conceptual, which is The life cycle, birth and death. A really interesting category, which is big ideas. I love asking people in audiences, because this one’s like, big ideas make you feel aww. I’m like, well, who’s got a big idea that just freaks them out? And they open their, like, hands go up like, infinity, black holes, you know, free markets, quantum physics, evolution, whatever it is.

[00:29:45] Big ideas are our eighth category. Do you have a favorite big idea that brings you some awe?

[00:29:49] LM: The universe when I look up at the stars. I love it. I feel so small and that’s so comforting to me I’m somebody who experiences a lot of anxiety and something [00:30:00] about how tiny I feel compared to the stars It’s very very soothing to my anxiety.

[00:30:05] But then if I think about it too much, I’m like, oh my god like what are the edges and And if there’s no edges like it freaks and I guess that’s infinity as well

[00:30:14] DK: I’ve gotten thousands of responses to this question in research and teaching. And there are the space people who love space. There are the earth people who you get them talking about trees and fungi.

[00:30:26] And that’s my dad. Yeah. Just like, wow, I was a dinosaur person. Like other species from the past are hominid predecessors.

[00:30:34] LM: Do you have an ideal AWE prescription if we wanted to achieve maximum AWE benefits?

[00:30:39] DK: It’s really exciting because people are starting to work on that. So there’s work coming out of China and we’re doing it in our lab.

[00:30:48] And what happens is you start doing the basic science, like, wow, AWE is good for your immune system. And then you start to think about what are ways I can cultivate this. I [00:31:00] would really return to your very astute observation, which is there are two things we should be doing. One is, at some moment in the day, cultivate a mindset of awe, right?

[00:31:13] And we’ve tested this, one minute of awe in a hospital. What that entails, the mindset, slow down. Pause, put away your devices. So often we, okay, I’m going to pause and I’m looking at my phone. That’s a joke. Put away your devices. This is harder. I cite Rachel Carson writing about this, like, put aside your words.

[00:31:35] And then just in this moment, think about what is something vast and mysterious you’re connected to. It’s really striking, Liz. Like, these are medical doctors and nurses during COVID. People are dying. They were understaffed by 30%. They’re stressed. And it’s like, pause and think about what you’re part of.

[00:31:51] And they’re like, I’m part of that woman’s life that I am attending to, or I’m part of the Hippocratic Oath of reducing suffering. So [00:32:00] that’s pretty easy to do. And, and I try to do that once a day for a minute or two. Okay. I just did it today. Like, you know, wow, I’ve been working for seven hours, 2 p. m. Like, I’m going to go out, lie down in the grass and just think about.

[00:32:15] Wow, I’m part of this university. What’s that mean? That’s number one. And number two is to bring those eight wonders into your daily habits and your schedule. You should be thinking about pausing in a place of nature for a minute or two and letting the nature speak to you. When I walk to work, I go by this park.

[00:32:38] We’re very lucky in Berkeley. We have redwoods and streams. I go by the same tree every day. And my daughter and I, Serafina, when she was stressed out as a teenager, we used to walk by this cedar tree every day and just like touch it. So take those eight wonders and just give yourself a minute of them once a day.

[00:32:58] Could be pausing in [00:33:00] nature, could be listening to music, like, what’s a piece of music that really speaks to me? It could be pausing and looking at something slowly and look for the designs. The contemplating moral beauty is really interesting. I really encourage people like, and this is easy to do. Just pause and think about who’s someone who really.

[00:33:19] moved you to change your life? Who would it be for you?

[00:33:24] LM: My first thought was an English teacher that I had in high school.

[00:33:29] DK: Yeah. What did that person give you?

[00:33:31] LM: She gave me a belief in the power of storytelling, I think, that really impacted my entire career and my life path and a belief in myself to tell those stories and engage with those stories.

[00:33:44] DK: Yeah. There you go. We’re so, you know, we’re looking at Instagram, whatever it is, our minds are full of cynicism and that’s needed, but, but just pause and like, do that. If you go to Greater Good in Action, there are a lot of awe practices, our podcast, [00:34:00] nature, moral beauty, listening to music, moving with people, visual stuff.

[00:34:06] Just look for five minutes a week. That’s all you need. And then, like you said, there’s work on this. Like, don’t shy away from the big experiences too. Go get those. And everybody’s different. It may be a dance festival or Daybreaker or backpacking. You know, I, I love backpacking. Find the big ones too.

[00:34:25] LM: Where would having a kid fall in the awe world?

[00:34:28] DK: Yeah, it’s the life cycle.

[00:34:30] LM: Okay. Number

[00:34:30] DK: seven. I think I, I think I listed as number eight in the book for strategic reasons. And it’s interesting at its core beauty. and awe are about sort of tracking life. And in some sense, beauty, which is different from Oz, the feeling you have when you detect life in a human face or a spring flower or leaves on a tree and awe tracks the whole cycle, right?

[00:34:59] We have a [00:35:00] lot of stories of childbirth, people observing it, grandparents, caregivers, moms and dads. It’s transcendent. It changes your life profoundly. And then just the idea, the visuals of like, It used to be a big belly, and now it’s a being. And for me, one of the great joys of writing this book, and this is part of cultivating awe, is to remember moments of awe.

[00:35:21] That’s a powerful technique. Just remembering, seeing my daughter Natalie’s face, because I studied the face, and I was like, wow, it kind of looks like my wife’s face, and mom’s face, and looks Scandinavian, ah, you know. Off I went. The life cycle’s a very powerful source of awe.

[00:35:37] LM: The dopamine effects of social media make it harder for us to experience awe.

[00:35:42] I’m thinking of a specific experience I had when I just felt very dopamine imbalanced. I felt like I was having a really hard time tapping into motivation, pleasure in everyday life. And I went to Glacier National Park and it was a place that I normally think it’s my favorite national park in the country.

[00:35:58] I think it’s so beautiful. And I remember [00:36:00] driving, going to the Sun Road and just kind of being like, like, it just felt like meh. Yeah. And I. I was on my phone a lot at that time. I just had a really bad relationship with social media. So can that impact our experience of awe? It’s

[00:36:13] DK: like white static noise.

[00:36:14] Like that’s problematic for awe. And the other thing that’s, you know, a little bit more anecdotal, I’ve looked at thousands of stories of awe. And it’s all direct experience. It’s not, Oh man, I took a photo of the concert, you know? It’s like, you are there directly experiencing things in nature or in a musical experience or in collective effervescence or thinking about moral beauty.

[00:36:42] And that’s telling. My sense, and you know, and I’ve consulted for really sophisticated Technological entrepreneurs from Pinterest on, like, is there gateways to sources of awe, but they’re not the thing. For the reasons that you talk about, it kind of, it numbs you, it orients your attention to a [00:37:00] really small thing.

[00:37:01] LM: Whereas awe is more expansive vast, yeah.

[00:37:04] DK: So, I’m an anti technologist when it comes to awe. For the most part.

[00:37:07] LM: Talk to me about psychedelics in awe.

[00:37:09] DK: I worry about microdosing. And I think in 10 years, any time that you, a lot of people take drugs, marijuana, alcohol, heroin, you know, and this is empirically documented, you get trouble because it’s just not thoughtful.

[00:37:30] They’re doing it for the wrong reasons, and, and the data on microdosing, it’s mixed right now. It’s like it can help you with depression, but it makes you ruminate more and more anxious and makes you more isolated. So I worry about that. But what I’m really excited about with respect to psychedelics is it’s really proving to be good for hard problems of suffering, veterans and trauma.

[00:37:52] OCD, there’s work coming out. Drug addiction, it helps with nicotine addiction. And then people who get terminal [00:38:00] diagnoses. You’re 40 years old, and the doctor tells you, man, you know, you’ve got some weird stomach cancer, you got six months. People are blown off the map, and psychedelics helps with that. So it helps with all those hard problems.

[00:38:13] And Peter Hendricks, David Yadin, Johns Hopkins, our lab, others are saying, as you suggested earlier, that the magic ingredient is awe. People who have taken psychedelics are like, duh, you know, but people go take psychedelics and like 65 percent feel like this is the most transcendent experience, one of the top five of their life.

[00:38:35] Awe. What’s important is knowing the awe science. We can now start to map the ways in which these psychedelics help us. Is it through the self? Is it through vagus nerve? Is it through your sense of connectivity? And we’ll have really good answers to why they work.

[00:38:51] LM: I love that. I used to do a lot of drugs in my youth, but I had a really bad experience at the end of that time.

[00:38:59] And it made [00:39:00] me have a lot of anxiety around them. And I’m kind of annoyed by myself because I use them up in my party days. So I can’t use them in like my therapeutic days. Yes.

[00:39:06] DK: Well, you’ve got time, you’re young.

[00:39:09] LM: But I love the idea that I can access some of that through awe, through building these big awe experiences into my life, then maybe I can touch some of what people are saying they’re benefiting from these psychedelic experiences.

[00:39:23] DK: And that’s like my goal. Colleague, Dr. Yia Swin, who’s indigenous, says, you know, in the indigenous world where the spirit medicines were really ayahuasca, peyote, psilocybin, they come from indigenous traditions, obviously we should be giving back some of the prophets to those peoples. They’re part of a larger approach to life.

[00:39:45] The psychedelics or the the spirit medicines are just one of the days out of a whole multi-day ceremony. Dance, music, visual stuff, talking stories, legends. Cosmology, and your comment earlier about like, man, [00:40:00] wait, isn’t that just religion? Shouldn’t we build this back up? Yes. And that’s the problem with how Westerners use psychedelics is they forget about the broader context.

[00:40:11] And we got to return to those things, whether or not you want to use psychedelics to enhance it. But the, the bigger challenge. is to figure out your whole life context of awe and go get it.

[00:40:22] LM: Has your research around awe made you not afraid of death?

[00:40:27] DK: Yes, no doubt. You’re the only person who’s asked that question.

[00:40:30] Thank you, Liz. It was a mixture. And because my research into death, and I’ll get into some specifics, was both the discovery that, wow, people feel awe when they watch others die. There’s a whole science on near death experiences. People feel awe when they’re about to die. They feel oceanic and love and embraced and part of [00:41:00] something large.

[00:41:00] Obviously, death varies. There’s a lot of pain. Sometimes there’s horror, but there is this oceanic consistency. That’s amazing. For me, the mixture was, I started doing the scholarship around this for the book as my brother was dying and contemplating the loss in his passing of, you know, this person who was and is irreplaceable.

[00:41:23] Coming out of that and watching him go and then also knowing that as we leave this earth, awe comes online. This oceanic feeling of merging, very reliable in pretty nice studies carried out at the University of Virginia. My own approach to it is maybe there’s a quantum physics of us transcends time. We don’t know.

[00:41:52] And now I don’t. And I used to fear it profoundly. I had a couple of years anxiety [00:42:00] runs in my life too. As a teenager, every night I was like, I think I’m going to die when I fall asleep. And I couldn’t sleep doing this research and then learning about awe as a companion as you leave the earth, right?

[00:42:15] You’re connected to vast things and feel oceanic and purposeful. It changed how I approach it.

[00:42:21] LM: Is there anything you could tell me if I’m still afraid of death?

[00:42:24] DK: Yeah, you know, it’s very interesting. There are different strains of Buddhism and one of the strains is the Himalayan Buddhism, which is Tibetan and Bhutanese and, um, Dalai Lama, and they meditate a lot on death.

[00:42:42] And there are different approaches to this. You know, imagine your own death. And I’ve done that. And that’s good. And one of my favorites comes out of Bhutan. And the school kids do this in Bhutanese schools, where you take somebody you love and you imagine their [00:43:00] life cycle. You imagine them as a child, as a baby, toddler, a child, an adolescent, an adult, young adult.

[00:43:07] middle age, getting old and dying, and you just take people you love, it could be a child of yours, right, and imagine the life cycle, and the science around that shows it reduces your worries about death, because you’re just like, this is the form of life, it’s a cycle. If you’re still fearing it, there are contemplative traditions that focus on it.

[00:43:31] LM: Other than awe, what do you think is the lowest hanging fruit that we’re all missing in terms of living happier lives?

[00:43:40] DK: I mean, I’ve taught happiness at Berkeley for 20 years. I’m sad you didn’t take that class. Taught it to a lot of people out in the public, and it always comes into focus to me when I’m approached by somebody who’s like, they’ve got a friend who, or a child, or whatever.

[00:43:56] It was just suicidal or really, really in [00:44:00] trouble. And that’s where this science is really put to the strongest test. And to me, it’s, I would say, three or four things. Connect. The world in the United States conspires against connection. We’re online, we drive by ourselves, we commute, I live by myself. Even if you’re an introvert, you know, find what your social, diet is and just, just do it.

[00:44:28] And you’ll find that adds 10 years of life expectancy. And that’s why the Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, he’s like, that’s the first thing. The second thing for me is service, compassion or service. Like, okay, how am I going to be kind? And make that commitment, you know, and yeah, some people screw you over.

[00:44:47] And this is Buddhism, certain strains of Western thought, and a lot of science, just like, And Jesus, you know, it’s like first thing is kind. Gratitude is a big winner. I remember when my brother was passing [00:45:00] away, I was like, God, I teach happiness. And, you know, I am not feeling that right now. And I was like, okay, you know, this is a hard one.

[00:45:07] Like, what am I grateful for about this? And a lot came forward. Well, I now realize even though I only had my brother for 50 years, 55 years, they were worth 200 years, right? So gratitude is a good one. And I put awe up there. The thing that’s interesting about awe in the happiness world, we talk about the pleasures like, Oh, I love food and burritos and massages and so forth.

[00:45:32] We talk about positive states like gratitude. We talk about social connections. And Crystal Park has gotten us to start thinking about meaning, like. What’s the point of your work right here, right? And awe gets you there. Awe really is a good meaning compass. It’s like, Oh man, I feel awe. You know, for me, it was and is working with prisoners.

[00:45:54] I don’t get publications from it, but it’s just like raw. That’s what I gotta do. And every time I [00:46:00] do it, I feel strengthened. So, connect, gratitude, service, and then the meaning. Like, what’s your story of your life? And that’s harder. Sometimes it gives you doubts. Sometimes you feel uncertain. And awe helps with that.

[00:46:17] LM: Okay, I have so many questions on that. So the last thing that you’re saying is that essentially what fills us with awe can point us in the direction of what will fill us with a sense of meaning and purpose.

[00:46:26] DK: Yeah, you know, there’s a whole tradition with respect to the meaningful life or happiness that says what we have to do, and your questions have really almost invoked this tradition, it’s like cultivate experiences that are good for us.

[00:46:41] Drugs sometimes don’t help, money doesn’t help, jobs don’t help, cultivate those experiences. And it’s interesting, you find that tradition in Aristotle and David Hume, this great British philosopher, Charles Darwin, Buddhism, like find your experiences, a lot of the wellness industry. And those [00:47:00] experiences get you to different ways of being in the world.

[00:47:04] So if I cultivate compassion, I’m going to be really good at serving. And that’s good news for happiness, right? Like, God, I cultivate a lot of compassion. When I go out in the day, I’m more generous. I help someone. If I cultivate amusement, I take things more lightly. If I watch a bunch of SNL videos, that’s a passion, amusement.

[00:47:24] And then I’m laughing about, you know, the faculty meeting or work or whatever. Awe gets you to meaning. Awe gets you to, like, What’s the point of this? Why am I feeling awe about, like, your question? Like, this piece of music, or this, this conversation with this person, you know? This idea. Oh, I care about justice, or I care about sensory beauty, or reducing harm in the world.

[00:47:51] So awe is a meaning emotion. Anger, which is good for social context in some ways, is about justice. And there are a lot of data on that. When I [00:48:00] feel angry, I’m going to go make things fair, you know, ah, doesn’t necessarily do that. But it definitely gets you to like, what’s the purpose of what you’re doing?

[00:48:08] And, and we need that right now.

[00:48:10] LM: Then going back to my other questions, gratitude. Gratitude has become such a buzzword. It is. People are confused about how to do it. Do we, find our gratitude for the same things every day, do we have to find new things every day? Are we writing it down? Are we thinking it?

[00:48:23] So can you give us your ideal gratitude prescription based on the research that exists?

[00:48:28] DK: My recollection is that one of the best researchers in this field, Sonja Lubirmirsky, down at UC Riverside, is doing the careful work. And this is how science progresses. You get these effects, people freak out, wow, let’s promote gratitude everywhere.

[00:48:45] And then it backfires. So what’s the right dose? And My recollection is Sonia saying like once a week, right?

[00:48:53] LM: That’s not

[00:48:54] DK: that often or hard. Or, you know, if you’ve got a regular practice, five minutes a day. The big winners [00:49:00] are twofold, which is a way of noting and savoring. What’s good and everything thinking about my brother dying.

[00:49:09] It’s like, this is horrible. Colon cancer is, is, is a horror show, you know, and it was horrifying. But what, what here can I appreciate what in nature, right? So you go out and just pause and savor it and name a couple things and form images around it. So that it enriches your memory of it. So that’s one. And then the second is, you know, we did some of the research on this with Amy Gordon now at Michigan.

[00:49:37] Just express appreciation to people. And you got to do it thoughtfully, carefully, and intentionally. Get into a practice of once a week. This comes in some sense out of the gratitude letter. study, which did really well in the comparisons of gratitude techniques, write a letter to somebody, that’s good news.

[00:49:55] But also when you’re really feeling it and you have good words and it’s tailored to [00:50:00] the person, say it, right? And in the right way. And people are wise and they can figure that out. And that’s good news in our work, you know, romantic couples that were just sort of, Hey man, thanks for doing the dishes, you know, that really it’s powerful.

[00:50:15] So note things and savor them that are worthy of reverence and then express it to people.

[00:50:22] LM: Okay. I like that because what I find when I try to do this, like structured practice is I’ll get in bed at the end of the night and I’ll be like, okay, I’m grateful for my cat. Okay. I’m grateful for my husband. Okay.

[00:50:31] I’m grateful for the weather. And they just feel like these. I’m just listing the same things every day and it almost becomes a rote.

[00:50:37] DK: Yeah, it does. And that’s why I said a little bit different. And those do work. You could probably construct ways in which they would backfire. That’s why I like when you’re in places and your body is telling you like, Wow, this is good.

[00:50:51] Pause and say like, Why am I grateful for this? And then the good stories will come. I’m grateful for this because I get to [00:51:00] do this concert experience with this old friend regularly and it makes me think about the whole history of that. So, focus on the experience in the moment and savor it.

[00:51:09] LM: I love that.

[00:51:09] And then the last one I wanted to go to was connect. I’ve been trying to deconstruct why I sometimes choose not to connect, even though every fiber of my body wants to, even though I know the research shows it’s good for me. And the best I can come to is I’m just so burnt out and tired by the end of the day.

[00:51:27] And even though there’s this intellectual part of me that knows. I’ll find it energy giving to connect with somebody. Yeah. The initial hump feels hard. So instead I scroll on my phone and retreat into myself.

[00:51:39] DK: Yeah.

[00:51:40] LM: How do I break through that blockage?

[00:51:42] DK: You’re not alone. And I feel that way too. And I think the first thing, and, and we’re working on this, uh, Everett Wechler in my lab, And, and I think the science is really helpful here.

[00:51:52] We know some generalities, which, and then we’ll get to your question, which is we know, you know, massive [00:52:00] studies, connection is 10 years of life expectancy. It’s good for you physically. We know it’s good for your well being on balance. We know that it works no matter who you are. Yeah, it works for the extroverts.

[00:52:14] I have some friends who are extroverted. They’re like, I got to connect all the time. I like solitude, right? We know it works for the introverts. So it’s, it’s good news. And then the challenge is what you’re talking about, which is you’re tired. Everybody’s working too hard. We’re saturated with digital stuff.

[00:52:31] And so what do I do about real social connection? And I think that the first thing in our work is really starting to speak to this, which is that you want to think about your diet of connection. Almost like, what’s the right balance for me? Given my personality, I’m introverted or anxious. I’m Scandinavian and the Scandinavians, a lot of them live alone and I’m not an extrovert and I don’t like big crowds and do that careful analysis, [00:53:00] right?

[00:53:00] I think people hear about the social connection literature, you know, I’ll get emails like. Yeah, I heard that on your podcast and, you know, I went to this giant gathering and I had an anxiety attack. Well, you know, and so like be thinking about, all right, what’s the right mixture for you? And often there are surprising answers.

[00:53:18] I find a lot of really powerful connection with yoga. I’m in a yoga class. I don’t know people’s names. We’re doing the patterns together. I walk out of the like. The second thing, and this is really interesting and underappreciated. I think we’re a romance heavy culture. A lot of the data say that friendship is just the game.

[00:53:45] I provoke my undergrads, I show some of the most famous happiness studies. Like, when are you most happy? And it’s with friends. So remember that, right? Like, build in those twice a week friendship, you know, and you, I hope you do. The [00:54:00] first. step in cultivating happiness is to inquire and look at what your profile is and and just notice like what brings you joy in social connection What are the harder thing or the less successful approaches and my sense?

[00:54:14] We’ve got findings. They’ll probably get published is in person matters. It lasts longer It’s more meaningful. The world is working against that. I require my students, no Zoom, right? You gotta come to class. Cause in person is where a lot of the magic happens for meeting each other. You could take the science, think about all the connections around you, observe what brings you the biggest dopamine hit or whatever it is, and then design your life.

[00:54:44] LM: Hmm. Which would probably also mean, Hmm. Identifying the things that are draining me so much that I can’t prioritize these things that I know are important. Um, I, I work too hard. I’m on my phone too much. I [00:55:00] think my mental health is part of it sometimes too. Also my social anxiety. I think my need to feel sparkly and like I’m entertaining people and giving them the best time of their lives.

[00:55:11] DK: Look at your book.

[00:55:11] LM: It makes me feel like hanging out is more exhausting than it needs to be. And I think that’s pressure I don’t need to be putting on myself.

[00:55:20] DK: Yeah. Your questions are pointing to where this field needs to go, which is like, Well, what is the right way to practice gratitude? What is your awe recipe?

[00:55:29] Knowing the realms of the domain, the kinds of awe and what really speaks to me. And the same is with connection, right? And I find some things that people love, cocktail parties, I don’t like them, you know, big gatherings mixed. This is embarrassing, but I go to a climbing gym. It’s people who are not like me at all.

[00:55:50] They’re often, you know, little itinerant and living in their car, but man, doing the sauna with those guys and just talking about life. This is, [00:56:00] it’s like, it’s a high. So do that careful work. And I, coming out of this experience focused tradition that we alluded to a Buddhism and David Hume and Rachel Carson, you know, the great environmentalist, like, listen to your experience.

[00:56:15] Like what, What are the connections that thrill you, that make you feel empowered, and that’s what you should be doing? For me, as I write about in the book, it was like, I got the chance to go into San Quentin. I felt like I was part of the most meaningful social stuff I could do with those prisoners. And so I make sure that’s, you know, I socialize with a lot of former prisoners.

[00:56:37] So just as a way to like, find meaning in it. So listen to the experience.

[00:56:40] LM: It’s so permission giving that the ways that we feel like we should be connecting are not necessarily the ways that connecting is best for us.

[00:56:48] DK: You know, and it’s funny, society gives us Categories, like, well, you should have dinner parties, and you should go to cocktail parties, and you should go to this party that’s going to have a lot of interesting people there.[00:57:00]

[00:57:00] Who knows? You should listen to your experience. Well, and then if

[00:57:03] LM: you don’t like those things, you tell yourself, well, I don’t like to be around people. It’s exhausting. Yeah, and that’s not true. You just don’t like to be around people in that way. Are there micro habits that we could be incorporating for happiness?

[00:57:13] Like little things that people might not think of. I read recently, this is around stress relief, but that reading results in a 68 percent reduction of stress, which I think is amazing and so cool. And more people should talk about that.

[00:57:24] DK: Yeah.

[00:57:25] LM: Are there things like that for happiness?

[00:57:26] DK: I mean, this is what I teach in the human happiness class.

[00:57:29] It’s kind of the two levels that you’ve encouraged us to think about, which is first of all, do the micro work. If you take all the happiness wisdom of connect and gratitude and compassion and awe and laughter and meditation and mindfulness and telling stories about your life and listening to music, look for little moments, that’s all.

[00:57:52] And then build them in in a habitual way to parts of your day. Try to cultivate a kind stance to as many people as possible and don’t [00:58:00] pressure it, but just build it. Think, you know, be kind and try to give them things away. Get outdoors. Today I was really stressed out. I got up at 5 30. I had worked till 2.

[00:58:11] Man, I’ve already worked whatever, eight and a half hours and it’s, I still got six hours to go. And I was like, I’m going to go lie in the grass for 10 minutes. It was amazing. Right? Get outside, feel your senses. So there are a lot of micro things to do. And go to ggia. berkeley. edu. Those micro things require a mindset of like, okay, I’m going to pause my schedule.

[00:58:35] I’m going to put away devices, and I’m just going to feel the sun on my skin. And I have my Berkeley undergrads do that. I’m going to, they’re going to look at the sky. for a minute. I’m gonna look at some clouds. And that’s easy to do, and just start trying that stuff. We practice diet, we practice exercise, we should be doing this.

[00:58:53] Micro leads to macro, and as you do this work, you know, I’m a [00:59:00] very, I was a very anxious person. It is off the charts in my family. I’ve had more panic attacks in my thirties than, you know, the average twenty Americans or thirty Americans. And it was through these micro habits that really Help me find contentment and, and meaning.

[00:59:20] And then, you know, we gotta be pressing on the big ones, too. Like, what’s your church? You know, you brought up the analogy, like, if you were to design a space and bring in all these tools of happiness to you, like good churches do, what, what is it? And, and, and go build that and make it part of your life.

[00:59:39] LM: Did your experience of anxiety inform Anxiety in Inside Out 2?

[00:59:43] DK: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

[00:59:46] LM: I think that’s the coolest thing. Like, I like, I know you’re like, one of the most esteemed researchers on the planet, but also, like, the fact that you developed the emotions for Inside Out and Inside Out 2, I’m just like, I would lead with that at every dinner party.

[00:59:59] [01:00:00] I know you did it with Paul Ackman and one other person, right? So it’s not just you, but like, didn’t the film creator, like, come to you and he was like, yeah. How many emotions do we need? And you were like, 20. And he’s like, we can’t do that. And you were like, five.

[01:00:12] DK: Yeah. Pete Docter, the director of the first film, who’s a genius, three time Academy Award winner, you know, inside out.

[01:00:18] Hey man, I’ve heard your class at Berkeley. What should we do? Wow. You know, and then inside out too is like, okay, she’s a teenager. What emotions should we cover? And, and I was like, embarrassment is a teen emotion or early teen emotion. Envy is a good one. We should be thinking that. Teenagers are anxious.

[01:00:36] LM: Well, and Anxiety was the star of that movie. It’s the

[01:00:39] DK: star, yeah.

[01:00:41] LM: Which is an interesting statement to make in a lot of ways.

[01:00:44] DK: Profound. It’s profound, just like Sadness was the star of Inside Out. And Pete and I and Ronnie Del Carmen, I was very much involved in that. Argument because, you know, America has this weird relationship to sadness, but sadness is beautiful.

[01:00:58] It’s poignant. It’s wise. It’s [01:01:00] when people die, you’re going to get sad. Be in it. And when you break up, you’ll be sad. And when you lose jobs and, you know, life and, you know, we know from emotion science that emotions are there for reasons. They’ve been designed by evolution. They tell us things. They’re often useful.

[01:01:17] You know, anger leads to social protest and historical change. And, and here’s anxiety. It’s already changing the world. Like how we view these anxious times. Like it’s okay. You should be anxious about climate crises. and the rise of fascism. We should worry about that. And now use the power of that to lead to actions that are effective.

[01:01:41] LM: Yeah. And that anxiety, you don’t have to let that anxiety, like take over the entire control panel.

[01:01:47] DK: Yeah. And then, you know, the panic attack scene, which I think that scene is awesome. I think

[01:01:53] LM: if I had watched that scene, When I was like a teenager before I had, I I’ve gone to the hospital because I thought I was having a heart [01:02:00] attack when I’ve had panic attacks, you know, and to see it come to life on screen in that way made me feel so seen.

[01:02:06] And I just wish I could have sent it back to my younger self.

[01:02:09] DK: I know, I hear you. And, you know, I had a young guy come to me after class, brilliant young Berkeley undergrad. People always think like, oh, he teaches happiness, you know. And I am happy, but it’s like, he’s always been happy. Not so, you know, I had more panic than I was one out of a thousand, you know, genetically and where I was in my life.

[01:02:31] And, and I got through it through the things we’ve been talking about. And this young guy came to me and it was the same story. It was like, I have these like things I keep thinking I’m going to die. And first it’s my heart, you know, yep. You’re already shaking your head. And I thought it was a brain tumor.

[01:02:47] LM: I’ve been there.

[01:02:48] DK: I’ve been there too. For people to realize. And I think that’s what the film does. It’s like, This is kind of what it looks like. This is just my body. It’s going to change.

[01:02:55] LM: Is there anything else from that movie that you feel like was an [01:03:00] important lesson about how emotions work that you wanted to make sure people understood or you want to tease out?

[01:03:05] DK: I mean, in some sense, The first film laid the foundation of, like, control panels, emotions shape how you see reality. I mean, those were fundamental state. Emotions are useful. They have their purpose.

[01:03:19] LM: Sadness has a huge purpose. Right.

[01:03:22] DK: The deep foundation was in that first movie. You know, what’s striking to me about the second one is the lessons about anxiety, which we’ve talked about.

[01:03:30] And then, you know, there are certain stages of life that present hard, difficult emotions. Some parts of life are easier, you know, the data shows. So like when you’re 10 years old, if things are going okay, you know, it’s a pretty happy time. It’s like you have no hormones and it’s kind of fun and you’re smart and you get to play sports and you know, it’s a pretty good time.

[01:03:57] And then adolescence is hard. [01:04:00] People are pretty happy until about 75. And when you’re 75, Other people start dying and your body really starts falling apart and you really start having pain. And we know a lot of techniques for handling pain now. And I think the the deep lesson from the film, the second one, was about the uncomfortable emotions that we often Envy, right?

[01:04:25] We call it one of the seven deadly sins. Well, that’s not true. There are certain kinds of envy where you’re like, Oh man, I envy what that person has, but I’m going to work hard to get it and I’m not going to undermine them. That’s how I feel. It animates a lot of good work in the world. Darwin, you know, when he heard about Russell Wallace’s theory of evolution, he’s like, Oh my God, he’s going to beat me.

[01:04:48] I feel envious. And he published his paper. So, so I think it taught us teen years. We have a lot of discomfort and we medicate it and we, we expel students for behaviors coming out of [01:05:00] discomfort and they get, take drugs. We should just be embracing it, you know, and sitting in the emotions and, and watching out when they lead us into trouble.

[01:05:09] Anxiety can lead us to trouble, but knowing that a lot of this is, is healthy and shared with other

[01:05:15] LM: people. I love that. We like to end the podcast with one homework assignment. Okay. And that Anybody can do the second they turn off the podcast and feel an instant result in terms of whatever we’re talking about.

[01:05:27] So can you give us one homework assignment for happiness?

[01:05:29] DK: It’s to think about someone of moral beauty, of kindness and inspiration who changed your life. There’s a lot of work coming out on this now that we live in this time of moral ugliness. There’s a school shooting today, but there’s a lot of good in human beings and moral beauty is a pathway to reflect that.

[01:05:48] And so there are now these. Studies that are just like, and people used to do this all the time. Read literature who inspires you in terms of moral beauty. Think about [01:06:00] a hero of yours. And that’s what I asked you to do. And that’s what I’d ask our listeners to do is just pause and think about someone who, you know, their courage and their, Capacity to overcome things and their generosity or kindness really meant something to you, to them, our listeners, and, and just take a minute to do that.

[01:06:20] It tells you a lot of interesting things, like your answer, canonical, right? Well, I had this English teacher and she taught me the power of communication and ideas and writing and have confidence in myself. Wow. One little form of inquiry.

[01:06:33] LM: And just to remind people that’s a path to awe.

[01:06:35] DK: Yeah.

[01:06:36] LM: So you’re gonna get all the benefits that we just talked about.

[01:06:38] Your brilliant book is called Awe. It’s incredible. I highly recommend it. Is there anything else that you want to spotlight in your own words?

[01:06:45] DK: You know, the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley is free. In the spirit of public education, you can go to Any of these practices, if you want to start doing it, a couple minutes a day, ggia.

[01:06:56] berkeley. edu. Our Science of Happiness podcast [01:07:00] is a good resource. We have a lot of new work on nature focused contemplation, which I think is a future. Dr. Yuria Salidwan, she’d be a great guest for you. Flourishing Kin has a book out, Indigenous Perspectives on this. We’re testing it. Reach out to us. We have a lot of good work to do on prisoners, you know, in their lives.

[01:07:21] And if people are interested, I’m happy to talk to them. Sort of give them guidance or sort of what’s happening there.

[01:07:29] LM: Amazing. Thank you so much. I loved this conversation.

[01:07:32] DK: Me too, Liz.

[01:07:33] LM: If you loved this episode, then you have to listen to the episode with Dr. Robert Waldinger. He was the leader of the world’s longest study about happiness.

[01:07:40] He conducted it at Harvard and he came on the podcast to share absolutely everything that he learned from over 80 years of research. There are some real mind blowing secrets to happiness in that episode. I will link it for you in the show notes so you can go and listen next. Oh, just one more thing.

[01:07:56] It’s the legal language. This podcast is presented solely for [01:08:00] educational and entertainment purposes. It is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, a psychotherapist, or any other qualified professional.