#478： Mastering Mindset to Improve Happiness, Health, and Longevity
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Summary
Having a positive mindset comes with an unbelievable number of benefits, from better physical and mental health to improved relationships and performance at work. If you ve ve ve got a more negative bent, you re missing out on a lot. Fortunately, my guest says it s possible to shift into a more positive gear. Her name is Dr. Katherine Sanderson, and she's a Professor of Psychology at Amherst College. In her latest book, The Positive Shift, she highlights scores of studies that show how a positive outlook on life can make us healthier and happier. And how that mindset can be achieved.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast having a positive
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mindset comes with an unbelievable number of benefits from better physical and mental health
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to improved relationships and performance at work if you've got a more negative bent
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you're really missing out on a lot fortunately my guest says it's possible to shift into a more
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positive gear her name is dr katherine sanderson she's a professor of psychology at amherst college
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in her latest book the positive shift she highlights scores of studies that show how a positive mindset
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can make us healthier and happier and how that mindset can be achieved today she shares those
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insights with us beginning with debunking the idea that a positive outlook means being naively
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pollyannish in disposition katherine then walks through what the research says about the surprisingly
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robust benefits of having a positive perspective which affect every area of your life we then
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discuss specific tactics you can use to develop a more positive outlook even if you have an inborn
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inclination towards being negative after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is
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katherine sanderson welcome to the show thanks so much for the invitation to be here so you are a
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professor of psychology and you've written this book the positive shift mastering mindset to improve
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happiness health and longevity so what got you researching and writing about the benefits of
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positivity or positive outlook on life so i teach a variety of classes i do research on health
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psychology issues i do research on relationship satisfaction and within about the last 10 years
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within the field of psychology there's been a growing movement to looking at how those things
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actually interrelate that in fact the quality of our relationships has a major impact on our health
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and as i started doing more and more reading and research on this topic
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it really became clear to me that so much of our happiness and our health is actually within our own
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control and for me someone who's not naturally positive this was actually really encouraging
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yeah i found that i'm i'm sort of an eeyore at times too we'll talk about how we can control
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that and how much of that's genetic but i feel your pain right but let's let's what do we mean by
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positivity because i think a lot of people listening to this particularly guys they think of like
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hayley mills and pollyanna you know just like it's like super super positive super cheesy is that what
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positivity look like or what what does it look like actually yeah that's a really important question
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because it in fact is not you know going through life like everything is perfect and it's all you
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know sunshine and rainbows positivity basically means not getting bogged down in terms of negative
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emotions and i think for women you're exactly right that there may be different sort of ways in
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which that manifests itself women are more likely to feel anxious depressed men have other kinds of
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negative emotions that are more prevalent like anger for example if you think about road rage or
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something so positivity isn't about going through life just being like everything's wonderful but it's
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really about reducing the experience of negative emotions whether that's anxiety depression loneliness
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anger frustration etc so it looks a lot like resilience oftentimes absolutely and it's frankly
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being able to bounce back when bad things happen because the reality is bad things do happen and they
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happen to all of us personally professionally and so on and people who have a positive outlook are
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better able to buffer these negative experiences and not sort of get stuck in negativity so you spent a lot
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of the book talking about the benefits of positivity let's walk through some of those for example what
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are the we often think of positivity as an emotional a mental uh the benefits there but there's actually
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physiological like health benefits of having a positive outlook on life what are some of those
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so that's such an important finding because what we now see in the research is that people who
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have a general positive outlook on life experience lots of positive benefits and this includes as you
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noted physiological changes in the body so this is things like lower blood pressure you know lower
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heart rate there's evidence of lower levels of a hormone a stress hormone called cortisol and the
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people who tend to be positive have lower levels of these other physiological markers that are linked
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with worse health outcomes so what are some of like the worst the bad health outcomes that can come
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from being like an eeyore all the time well pretty much you name it and it's there i mean from small
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things like people who are more negative are more likely to acquire the common cold so there's a you know
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pretty low level problem that we've all experienced but research has shown that if you measure people's levels
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of positivity and then with the people's permission you inject a cold virus in their nostril people who are
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positive are less likely to manifest signs of the cold later on so that's just a really clear marker
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of how people who are positive have a stronger immune system and therefore can buffer negative effects of
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things that would get other people down so there's a you know pretty low level problem the common cold
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research has also shown that people with a positive outlook are less likely to experience more serious
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problems heart attack stroke angina you know cardiovascular problems there's also evidence
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that people with a more positive outlook actually live longer so really across the whole range of
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different levels of health outcomes there are tremendous benefits of positivity yeah i mean it can
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even affect things like obesity or blood glucose because cortisol all plays an influence on whether you
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retain fat or whether your blood glucose is elevated and that can lead to type 2 diabetes
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absolutely and and that's one of the ways in which the research has been so clear over the last you
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know five to ten years that we're now understanding the interconnection between our thoughts and
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physiological markers in the body that of course are linked to these negative health outcomes well so
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you talk you mentioned aging people who have a positive outlook on life tend to live longer than
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people who are negative but also having a positive outlook on life can make aging more enjoyable and filled
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with vitality because people typically think of getting old as like oh like the grandma and like
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movies from the 1950s where they wear a shawl and you're just like shuttling through the hallways like it
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doesn't have to be like that no and and one of the things that i just think is so clear is that in our
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society images about getting older are so negative i literally turned 50 about a month ago and people
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were like oh you know oh 50 whatever and i'm like you know what it feels great to be 50 and i really hope
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i feel that way at 60 and 70 and beyond but the reason why we have these negative images is that
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exactly as you said we have this assumption that you know people shuffle along and you know people
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can't drive and you know they develop you know hard of hearing and dementia and whatever all of these
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stereotypes are so negative and and people with a positive outlook about aging don't buy into those
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and therefore continue to be active in their careers and communities and volunteer work and so on
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and very physically active because they don't buy into those stereotypes all right so they have a
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positive outlook on it and so yeah even like the whole that idea that as you get older you become
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forgetful that's often just a self-fulfilling prophecy right exactly and i think one of the most
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interesting findings is that if it's true that neurologically you know your brain decays with age
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we should see that same association across cultures and the reality is you don't so in cultures in which
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there are positive views about aging you know with age comes wisdom and experience and you know older
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people have so much to give you don't see those negative associations with aging and decay and memory
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and that really suggests it's not just a biological process it's very much self-fulfilling prophecy and
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you see that those are cultures typically in the east correct yeah it's many asian cultures
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right here in the west we think you're young it's it's great to be young here in the west not so much
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to be old but that's not doesn't have to be true exactly also positivity can influence things like
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your career correct absolutely because part of the issue is that people who are positive when they
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experience a failure disappointment you know professional rejection etc they're able to bounce
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back they're able to say you know what i'm going to try harder i'm going to approach this in a new way
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and so on and so when negative things happen they don't get stuck and so professionally they can bounce
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back from failure they also because they know they have this ability to bounce back they're less afraid
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of trying that many people go through life being afraid of failure and rejection personally and
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professionally and that leads them to not take risks and of course the reality is taking some risks
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can really pay off in terms of career advancement in terms of development of romantic relationships
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well we'll talk about relationships here in a bit but like going but staying on the career thing also
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people just your co-workers will enjoy being around you more if you have a positive outlook right i mean
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that helps a lot with your career absolutely and and many careers of course involve directly working
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not only with co-workers but you report to people you have clients people report to you
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so we have whole big networks of people within our professional lives and so people who are positive
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generally get along better with other people people want to be around them more and of course we know
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that happiness is contagious so hiring happy workers really pays off and that's one of the reasons why
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many of the silicon valley companies have gone out of the way to make the workplace fun because they
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understand the link between happiness and professional success how does our outlook on life whether it's
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positive negative influence relationship what do the studies say there people who are positive tend to have
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happier relationships in terms of friendships in terms of family relationships in terms of marriages you
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know long-term relationships and so on and it's very clear that there is a an association between
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marriage longevity so if you look at the benefits of marriage for health there are indeed benefits of
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marriage on longevity and health outcomes overall but the key is it's not just being married it's having
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a happy marriage and people who are full of positivity tend to relate to people better they tend to work
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through conflicts instead of just burying them or denying them or letting them build up and so when problems
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or issues arise in their relationships they're able to work through them solve them and maintain strong
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and healthy relationships so there's one study you talked about the book that i thought was really
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interesting was that people in relationships where they feel ambivalent about it where like they both
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feel positive and negative or actually like they they're like worse off than people who are in like a
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completely negative relationship like what's going on yeah right that's such an interesting finding and and
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again research is still ongoing to really try to unpack exactly what's going on but one possibility
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may be that when you have ambivalent feelings you feel really stuck so if a relationship is all good
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of course that's great if a relationship is all bad you may actually be aware this relationship is
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going to end i'm not going to invest time and energy into it maybe i'm even kind of looking to get out
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of it or exploring other options if you're ambivalent it may mean that you feel really stuck because you
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can recognize the bad but you can also recognize the good and that means that you just really get
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mired in a situation and can't really decide whether to pull yourself out and that again has negative
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effects i can see that happening in jobs too absolutely and and what's interesting is that clarity
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is very decisive for people right because if you know this job is horrible or this job is great
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that reduces the amount of time that you have to do what we call mentalizing meaning thinking about
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it should i stay or should i go and and that sort of ambivalence in fact is very exhausting psychologically
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we've been talking about a positive outlook we'll talk about what we can do to create more of a
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positive outlook on our life while mitigating the the negative but how much of our outlook on life
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whether it's positive negative is due to genetics like just our inborn temperament
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so there's good news or bad news depending on who you are but about 50 of our happiness is due to
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our genes and it's not that there's one you know happiness gene there's a lot of different genes that
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play a role but about 50 of our happiness is in fact determined by our genes and that means that
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some people really do have a head start but also i think there's a role that plays into that is like
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your environment like i guess there's like whole idea of epigenetics right if you encounter certain
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stressors it might turn on those unhappiness genes but if you didn't encounter them you might they might
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not have been turned on absolutely and and so that means that genes play some role but they're not
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definitive and and that means that no matter where you start on this you know genetic lottery
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your environment clearly plays a role and that's why people can undergo the same sort of difficult
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circumstance childhood trauma or you know growing up in poverty or you know times of war etc
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and some people seem to be able to bounce back from that and some people really can't okay so if
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50 is determined by genetics it means we have some control right you might have this sort of baseline
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but you have some control what is 50 is in your control right that is a lot so what can we do
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to start expecting good things to happen like if you're typically like an eeyore what can you do to
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start having a mind shift to to occur mindset shift sure so really important question two sets of
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things so one is actually being aware that your thoughts matter and so for people who naturally are
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are somewhat negative and and i fall into this category and it sounds like you fall into this
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category for people who are naturally negative they're often not aware of it they're just like
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well that's just the world and they're not aware that that's actually not the world that's their
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thoughts about the world so one being aware that your thoughts matter and trying to then catch
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yourself if something negative or bad happens so that you can reframe it so the first step is really
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changing your thoughts but that means you have to be aware when you're having these thoughts and you
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have to practice reframing them so something that used to be seen as you know sort of this horrible
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disaster you're able to put a more positive outlook on instead and so that's one set of things changing
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your thoughts and well and i can give an example of that would that be helpful maybe that'd be helpful
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yeah that'd be very helpful yeah so so here's an example that right now many high school seniors are
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waiting to hear news you know from colleges and and many students will get rejected from you know
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their top choice or whatever and they can think of that as a calamity oh my gosh you know i didn't get
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into my top choice school and i'm never going to be happy or employed or you know whatever and and
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that's an example of course of a of the total overreaction and and people could say hey you
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know what i didn't get into my first choice school this other school is great i'm gonna make a lot of
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friends you know i'm gonna have a great college experience and so when you get better at sort of
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saying this horrible thing happened and putting a positive spin on it over time that gets more natural
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i gave a talk a few years ago on happiness and during the q a a woman raised her hand and she said
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you know whenever i'm stuck in traffic i just take a minute i take some deep breaths and i look out the
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window and i admire the setting sun and it was like this super positive you know view of basically being
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in a traffic jam and i said well thanks for that question and you know you really didn't need to come to
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the talk because she of course was already doing all the right things but we can all get better at
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taking a negative experience and and trying to reframe negative experience in some more positive
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way and i imagine this is something that if you have a tendency to be in your that you'll have to
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work on the rest of your life there'll never be a moment where like you're just a tigger right
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naturally you probably have to work on it forever i think that's true although i will also say i think
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it gets easier so i look at the example of you know let's say that you know you are not a runner
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and you've decided you know you want to run a 10k or something the first day that you lace on your
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shoes and go outside it might be hard to run a mile you know it might you might feel out of breath or
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your knees might hurt or your ankles or whatever but over time your body adapts to it and you get better
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at it so again as i said i'm naturally pretty negative but i've really been working on it in part you
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know through writing this book so i had a disaster in december you know a month ago my computer hard
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drive crashed and i lost everything i mean including a book manuscript that i was on deadline for and
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you know it crashed i went in they were like we can do nothing you know your computer's under warranty
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we can get you a new computer but um but you've lost everything and you know i came home and my husband
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was like you seem to be handling this very well and i'm like you know what it's you know it's not
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cancer it's not and he was like i can't believe it because he like felt worse about it than i did
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so you know it was a bummer and i'm you know slowly kind of you know recreating what i had been working
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on but there's an example in that there are times in which if that had happened to me two three days i
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like would not have gotten out of bed and i would have been you know i'm never going to write a book
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again and i have no ideas and every idea i ever had that was good was on that computer and you know so on
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so there's an example so yeah for some people it comes easier but for all of us we actually can get
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better at doing it with practice in part because we become aware oh yeah you know this is what i
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tend to do and i should stop i had the the computer crash on me thing happened to me in law school i
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had a paper like a like most of it done and i lost it and i had to rewrite it basically but actually
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it turned out better i think the second go around than the first go around so now and did you know
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that at the time no that's the key no i didn't know that at the time yeah okay right so positivity
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it's all about reframing situations let's talk about specific situations where we can reframe
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to take a more positive look so one example you talk about that was really interesting is stress
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because we always think of stress as this negative that we're supposed to de-stress and not be
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stressed but you argue in the book that research shows that we can actually reframe stress so it can
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be beneficial absolutely and i think that's one of the most important research findings because we
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do have this over overwhelming perspective in our society stress is negative stress is bad you know
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stress is debilitating but the reality is stress can also be viewed as exciting invigorating exhilarating
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and people in fact can do their best work under stress so we can think about professional athletes for
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example who you know always do their very best when the game is on the line you know when it's a must
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win situation uh you know game seven world series or whatever and so the reality is that we can take
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examples of stress and we can frame them as this horrible awful thing or we can be like this is
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invigorating and an opportunity and a challenge and i feel you know active and alert and alive
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and and that's a way of reframing a potentially negative experience and that and the research
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shows that people who reframe stress in a positive way like they don't have the the downsides of what
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we typically think of that are associated with stress no they they in fact have benefits in terms of lower
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levels of anxiety and depression they also have better work performance so if you take workers at you
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know a big fortune 500 company and you give them this information about hey let's reframe stress
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they actually are more productive in their jobs so it has benefits personally and also professionally
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we're gonna take a quick break for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show yeah i think
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it's interesting because i think people understand that stress like in a physical way can leads to
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growth like when you work out like you lift weights like you're you're stressing the muscle and
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you know well it's going to grow from that stress but we don't apply that same mentality to
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like our our mental work that we do yeah that's a really great example because it's exactly the same
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process of like pushing yourself and and you experience you know physical or psychological
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or mental or whatever growth as a result all right so the reframe with stress like this is actually a
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chance for me to grow uh get better it's not going to kill me like if you don't if you think stress
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is going to kill you it's going to kill you but if you think it's a chance to grow it'll be a chance
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for you to grow yeah and so i think one set of things is reframing situations like that you know so
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this is a you know big deadline that i'm working on you know paper in law school or you know big
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project that i owe a client or whatever i think the other thing is just kind of recognize what is
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and is not stress so there's a wonderful example and this is not my book but it's another fabulous
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book uh called why zebras don't get ulcers and and i described this in my book but the reality is
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zebras only react physiologically you know heart beating fast etc when they're being chased by a lion
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like when they're actually about to die and of course humans are like oh my gosh i'm in so much stress
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and it's like nothing you know it's i have a job interview i have a blind date i have a lot of you
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know emails in my inbox i'm you know stuck in a traffic jam or whatever none of those are actually
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life or death so it's also kind of saying is this stress or is this not really life or death stress
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and and not taking things or overreacting to sort of the small stresses of daily life that we all
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experience so we talked about having a positive outlook we can actually make old age filled with
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vitality or twilight years so how can we reframe old age so that we get that benefit so we can think
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about all of the benefits so for many people being in old age means that you have more free time so
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people who are no longer you know in the peak of their careers may have more time to devote to
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hobbies you know volunteer work you know time with family or whatever people who are older also have
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very high quality relationships that research has shown that in our younger years we're very focused
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on having lots of people in our lives so very big social networks what you see older people doing is
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eliminating the riffraff like really focusing on high quality relationships and they have fewer of them
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but they're with people who they really care about and who care about them and that leads to a number of
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distinct benefits so there are lots of benefits to being older in terms of quality of life
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right and i think one thing too is the research shows that i guess fluid intelligence does go
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down as you get older basically you can't think as quick on your feet but like that wisdom like
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sort of slower thinking that experience like you have more of that so that has a lot of benefits too
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yes and i think one of the key examples there is that if you think about memory older people don't
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have to memorize facts about you know world war ii or whatever because they actually lived through
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world war ii whereas younger people are like oh yeah what were all those facts and so the reality
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is that having lived longer means that you have all of these experiences and they're very accessible
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and that's exactly why you see this increase in crystallized intelligence as people grow older
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so let's say you're doing all these things to reframe negative experiences in a more positive light
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right so you're more resilient bounce back but what do you do if you find yourself sucked you know
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down this vortex of negativity because something bad happens and you start doing the catastrophizing
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like you were mentioning earlier like i didn't get into this school it means i'm gonna not get a good
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job i'm gonna be broke and live with my parents like how do you manage that and get yourself out of it
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so i gotta be honest it's not easy initially so for those of us who are naturally eeyores it's not easy
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initially so the first step is you gotta recognize what you're doing so i didn't get into the school
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i didn't get this job i wanted you know i lost this client you know whatever is this life or death
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is it life or death and so i think being aware okay you know this is how i'm feeling it but am i
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overreacting so i think step one is really gaining this sort of self-awareness because you have to catch
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yourself doing it because for people who naturally do it they're not aware they're doing it it's just
00:24:48.360
how you think and so being aware that you're having a negative thought and you maybe don't
00:24:53.580
have to have a negative thought is thing number one thing number two is you then have to say okay
00:24:59.380
could i reframe this in some way maybe i didn't like this job so much to begin with or you know maybe
00:25:07.660
this is an opportunity for me to develop skills in you know a different area of my career or whatever
00:25:12.580
so trying to reframe it in a more positive way after you have that self-awareness is really
00:25:18.420
important and besides the reframing things for that i guess i mean it's very similar like what
00:25:22.220
cognitive behavioral therapy does right it helps you like you question your assumptions you have with
00:25:26.540
your your thinking there's other things you can do too like if you find yourself in a negativity
00:25:31.140
vortex like things like go take a walk or go outside can sort of interrupt that negative those
00:25:37.180
negative thought patterns yeah so as i said before there's sort of two sets of things you can do
00:25:41.940
one are thoughts two behaviors and the key with behaviors is that some of the research suggests
00:25:49.100
actually changing your behavior can change your thoughts and that is exactly again the principle
00:25:54.700
of cognitive behavioral therapy and so yeah going for a walk standing up distracting yourself can be
00:26:00.820
useful um spending time in nature so going for a walk is good going for a walk outside is especially
00:26:06.860
good but even other kinds of behaviors can really help us so people who get enough sleep are actually
00:26:13.260
less likely to show the sort of cycle of negativity so we also know that there are behaviors that people
00:26:18.320
can do in their daily lives that can interrupt this negative cycle and increase happiness yeah the the
00:26:25.200
sleep thing is really interesting i've noticed myself i typically get like super negative at night
00:26:29.620
like right before bed like that's when you start like ruminating and like thinking how everything's
00:26:33.800
terrible and i'm like well i should just go to bed i go to bed i wake up in the morning i feel great
00:26:38.520
and i don't i'm not thinking like that anymore but yeah absolutely and i think one of the challenges too
00:26:44.160
is that many people when they have trouble sleeping uh get on social media and so there's this sort of
00:26:50.540
like cyclic thing right you're not feeling great then you go online and check you know twitter or
00:26:55.200
something and you know read an article and then you get sort of more riled up or whatever and and so being
00:27:00.580
able to sort of shut your mind off get enough sleep is a really important way of improving your
00:27:06.060
psychological well-being of course it's also good for you physically that people who get enough sleep
00:27:10.340
are less likely to get you know the common cold they have fewer arguments with romantic partners and so
00:27:16.340
on all right so you just mentioned social media what influence does social media have on our positivity
00:27:20.940
or negativity yeah so it's not good um and and one of the challenges is that lots of research has shown
00:27:28.580
that when people are on social media they overwhelmingly feel worse about their own lives
00:27:34.020
and that's because most people on social media present only the good so you know here are my
00:27:40.540
career successes here's my fabulous family vacation you know my kid's valedictorian you know whatever
00:27:45.400
and and the problem is is that when you go on social media and you see all of these illustrations
00:27:51.220
of other people having these really perfect lives you can feel worse in comparison so for most people
00:27:57.940
social media kind of brings us down besides the social comparison that happened on social media
00:28:03.600
any other aspects of it that can cause us to have a more negative outlook on life well so one of the
00:28:08.940
most interesting findings is that even the mere presence of a cell phone seems to disrupt people's
00:28:15.760
ability to focus on their here and now relationship so the other sort of challenge if you look at
00:28:21.460
a cell phone use in particular is that it can take away time that we would otherwise be spending
00:28:28.200
exercising you know talking with a friend you know doing something you know social going to a party
00:28:34.460
whatever and so it interrupts our ability to really focus on our current relationship partners
00:28:40.200
and that of course has negative influences yeah i've seen studies too this is that social media
00:28:46.280
if you use it to facilitate like in-person meetups or facilitate those those relationships you have
00:28:52.240
with people in real life like family members or close friends it can be a boon where it can like go to
00:28:57.620
negative territories when you're just like reading the about the lives of people you have no clue who
00:29:02.900
they are really um you that that's where things are going down yes and and i think the other key is that
00:29:09.900
there are times and and social media of course gets a bad rap overall but there are also times in which
00:29:14.600
social media can have benefits and i there's one example that i think you know really speaks to
00:29:20.440
that and that is when people are sharing what we call their authentic selves on social media so as i
00:29:27.060
described before lots of research shows people tend to present you know only the good but there are
00:29:31.840
times in which people are on social media and they're saying you know my kid won't sleep through
00:29:36.700
the night or you know i'm feeling really you know lonely and it's valentine's day or whatever
00:29:41.020
and there are times in which if you are on social media and you are being authentic you are expressing
00:29:48.080
what's actually going on in your own life it can actually be very supportive the example that i turn
00:29:52.740
to with this is my mother died about 14 years ago and for years i avoided a social media on mother's
00:30:01.080
day because it was just really brutal you know seeing all these moms and daughters together and you know
00:30:05.460
it was just awful and then i decided to do something new and that is that on mother's day i post a picture
00:30:12.140
of you know me and my mom and all right i'm really missing my mom today and then i will tag all of the other
00:30:20.480
people i know who i'm friends with you know who have also lost their moms which of course you know every
00:30:25.280
year is more and more people and so many people have said to me that it felt so comforting that here's a
00:30:32.700
day that's hard for them and i'm acknowledging that it's hard for me also because one of the things
00:30:38.200
is that feeling sad and alone is worse than feeling sad and like connected to other people and social
00:30:45.320
media can provide that opportunity for people to develop connections and therefore feel less alone
00:30:50.680
i think another way social media can make us more negative is that okay people tend to have a negativity
00:30:55.480
bias so that the stuff that spreads on social media is often like negative like just like unpleasant
00:31:00.720
stuff and so if you constantly see that over and over and over again in your feed you get the idea
00:31:04.920
well everything's terrible when everything's not terrible yes and and and we actually probably are
00:31:11.480
evolutionarily like hardwired in the brain to respond more quickly to negative events because the reality
00:31:17.740
is if you know at an evolutionary level if there's a threat you know there's a snake there's a poisonous
00:31:23.160
spider you know there's a lion or whatever you needed to be able to adapt very quickly and respond
00:31:28.780
to those negative threats in a way that like oh there's a pretty rainbow or a flower
00:31:33.080
evolutionarily you didn't need to recognize those so quickly to survive so there's some evidence in
00:31:38.240
fact that our brains are hardwired to pay attention to negative stuff more than positive so again you
00:31:44.340
have to override that by thinking like questioning like okay is it really as bad as my brain says it is
00:31:50.480
probably not yes exactly so you mentioned comparison on social media but comparison can also happen
00:31:56.300
offline how i mean i think you meant you quoted theodore roosevelt who said that comparison is
00:32:00.880
the thief of joy how can you how can we manage that tendency for us to want to compare ourselves to
00:32:06.900
others and when we usually do that it ends up making us feel terrible so what can we do about that
00:32:11.660
so it's really important to recognize that when we compare ourselves to other people on social media
00:32:17.440
or in other ways we're not really comparing ourselves to other people because all we're doing
00:32:22.780
is comparing ourselves to what we're seeing of them and we don't actually know what goes on in
00:32:28.140
their real lives so often when we do this comparison we're thinking oh everything in their life is so
00:32:33.260
perfect and they just got this great job or you know whatever and i feel worse but we're not actually
00:32:38.680
recognizing all that they're going through and i think that's really important for us to keep in
00:32:43.440
mind that we understand all that's bad in our own lives in a way that we don't recognize what's bad in
00:32:50.040
other people's lives so these comparisons in effect aren't really accurate and being able to disengage
00:32:56.660
from that comparison and focus on yourself and your own goals and achievements and not how do they
00:33:03.640
compare to other people is essential yeah i think that's important because when we compare it's
00:33:08.080
typically relative right like you might be doing great like you're in your career you're making a good
00:33:12.580
salary you know an absolute salary but then you compare it to like the people in your
00:33:17.900
neighborhood and because they're making a little bit more than you like well i'm not maybe i'm not
00:33:22.060
doing as great even though you are doing fantastic right there's something that i think is really
00:33:26.980
illustrates that finding and it's an economics principle which is called the wealthy neighborhood
00:33:32.160
paradox and and this example in fact illustrates that people who live in wealthy neighborhoods so
00:33:38.200
neighborhoods that have been identified as having you know very um high mean incomes based on zip codes
00:33:43.680
people tend to feel less happy and the challenge is these are people who are living in really
00:33:48.180
wealthy places in which you know they're not worried about basic survival or you know food or you know
00:33:53.880
safety or whatever they have lots of money but the issue is they may not have as much as their next
00:34:00.260
door neighbor who has a nicer car or you know a second home or a pool or you know whatever it is
00:34:05.900
and so the challenge is yes that we stop saying am i okay and we start saying oh my gosh these
00:34:13.000
people are doing so much better than i am and that's not the reality because the reality is you
00:34:18.700
can be doing just fine and you should be happy in that there's a whole like big fish in a little
00:34:24.740
pond or a little fish in a big pond if you're the big fish in a little pond you actually might do
00:34:28.820
better like or feel better than you would yeah there's actually really interesting research i think
00:34:33.280
published last year that shows that high school students who go to like really elite you know private
00:34:38.420
schools prep schools can sometimes feel much worse because the comparison is like all around them
00:34:44.040
whereas people who are in you know less selective schools actually have higher self-esteem because
00:34:49.180
they're not forced to do that kind of comparison all the time and because you have you're feeling
00:34:53.420
better you probably will perform better right so it's sort of this vicious cycle yeah right exactly
00:34:58.760
and be happier i mean all of the benefits right so another interesting thing the research you found
00:35:03.460
is that the way we spend our money can influence whether we have a negative or positive outlook on
00:35:08.500
life what's some of the research there so what i think is so interesting about that is that people
00:35:13.340
often assume more money more money more money you know then i'll be happier that's you know very very
00:35:18.140
common belief in our society and the reality is that once you have achieved you know sort of a basic
00:35:24.260
standard of living that you're not you know worried about basic survival there's very little data
00:35:28.700
suggesting that you know greater and greater wealth is going to lead to greater happiness
00:35:33.060
happiness and what matters far more than how much money you have is actually how you spend that
00:35:38.220
money and people who spend money on experiences so tickets to the big game or you know travel or
00:35:45.120
you know concert or broadway show or whatever have higher levels of happiness than people who spend
00:35:50.080
money on belongings you know expensive watch purse you know car shoes whatever so it's not how much
00:35:57.180
money you have it really seems to be how do you spend that money and i imagine spending on
00:36:01.860
experiences with other people like compounds the positivity absolutely and one of the interesting
00:36:07.240
findings of course is that we're more likely to spend money on belongings that are for ourselves
00:36:12.200
you know we often you know don't share our you know coat or laptop or you know whatever with somebody
00:36:17.820
else but when we talk about experiences we often are doing those you know with family members or
00:36:22.780
friends so oh let's all go out and try this new restaurant or you know let's take a family trip to
00:36:27.140
italy or whatever and so spending money on experiences lets you anticipate them lets you
00:36:32.660
reflect back on them and also lets you do them with other people which which adds to the enjoyment
00:36:37.780
and some other interesting research that you highlight and i've seen other places too is that
00:36:41.620
people who just thinking about money can like put you in a negative mindset just like thinking about
00:36:48.020
cash like like a scrooge mcduck is going to turn you into a scrooge mcduck
00:36:51.640
absolutely and in fact even like very subtle primes about money increase people's focus on
00:36:58.540
acquiring possessions and materialism all of which is associated with lower levels of happiness
00:37:04.060
and the the sad thing is that i think millennials and like gen z like they're like this research shows
00:37:10.860
they're very materialistic like they'd rather have lots of money and stuff than like i think the study
00:37:15.220
they said like make a difference in the world or something like that and that's leading to that could be
00:37:19.920
leading to a lot of young people feeling anxious and depressed and there's probably other factors
00:37:24.060
there but that's that could be a factor too absolutely there's been research that has examined
00:37:28.760
the level of narcissism so sort of self-focused on college seniors you know for many many years
00:37:34.920
and research shows that narcissism is rising and narcissism of course is the opposite of empathy and
00:37:41.720
connection and so on and yet what we know brings people happiness the quality of their relationships
00:37:47.980
not how much money they have well speaking of the quality of your relationships that can have a
00:37:53.100
big factor on your positive route your positive or negative outlook on life what is what role do
00:37:58.820
our relationships how can that influence our our outlook on life so the single best predictor of
00:38:04.900
happiness is the quality of our relationships and as i said before it's not how many relationships you
00:38:09.740
have it's whether they are high quality relationships and the people who have high quality relationships
00:38:14.760
again with family members friends dating partners spouses whatever have very consistently higher
00:38:20.820
levels of happiness in part because when we have those high quality relationships we can be our
00:38:26.100
authentic selves we don't have to pretend that we're something we can be who we really are it also allows us
00:38:31.720
to have meaningful conversations and that really provides a boost in happiness and i think this could also
00:38:38.520
mean that if your relationships are terrible like there's like toxic people in your life it may mean you have
00:38:43.040
to cut those off because they're just dragging you down too much and that could be hard yeah there was actually
00:38:47.760
a piece in the washington post you know within the last few weeks about that and the reality is that when you have
00:38:54.160
toxic people in your life it's bad for your own physical and psychological well-being and what i say is if there
00:39:02.660
are people you can cut out try to cut them out but if there are people who you can't cut out you know it's your
00:39:07.700
sister you know or something and and you just can't avoid it try to minimize contact and to try to make
00:39:14.160
sure that after you spend time with that person spend time doing something that you know is going to bring
00:39:19.860
you out of it so i'm going to see my sister at thanksgiving but you know after thanksgiving i'm going
00:39:24.920
to go for a run and then i'm going to go see a movie with my best friend and you know whatever because i know
00:39:30.180
i'm going to need that lift after i have to spend time with this toxic person you can also reframe it like
00:39:35.560
well it's an opportunity for me to practice my empathy and grow as a person by spending time with
00:39:41.340
this person oh so you're very good at this how are you naturally in eeyore that's such a good example
00:39:46.160
i've read lots of books on it so i i know i know the tricks putting into practice the hard part
00:39:52.980
putting into practice the hard part well katherine this has been a great conversation where can people
00:39:57.780
go to learn more about the book so i have a website which is sandersonspeaking.com
00:40:02.720
and that website provides information about this book and some audio courses i've done
00:40:07.840
they're copies of my speeches that if people want to watch a video and learn more about me
00:40:13.040
well fantastic well katherine sanderson thanks for your time it's been a pleasure
00:40:15.900
take care have a nice rest of your day my guest today was dr katherine sanderson she's the author
00:40:20.500
of the book the positive shift it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere also check
00:40:24.820
out our show notes at aom.is slash positive shift where you find links to resources where you
00:40:29.440
delve deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast check out our
00:40:46.560
website artofmanliness.com where you find thousands of well-researched thorough articles on personal
00:40:51.200
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00:41:10.980
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