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Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Reclaim Your Personal Power With Dr. Emma Seppälä [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 465 of Live Happy Now. We live in a world that is increasingly chaotic, and this week's guest has a better roadmap for navigating this uncertain territory. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and today I'm sitting down with Dr. Emma Seppälä, a Yale professor, bestselling author, and research scientist, whose new book is, Sovereign: Reclaim Your Freedom, Energy, and Power in a Time of Distraction, Uncertainty, and Chaos. Emma is here to talk about how embracing both our positive and negative experiences and becoming more compassionate with ourselves, can improve our relationships, cultivate greater personal freedom, and even improve our physical health. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:47] PF: Emma, welcome to Live Happy Now. [0:00:49] ES: Thank you, I'm so happy to be here. [0:00:51] PF: It's such an honor to have you on the show. You've done some amazing work already and you have a brand-new book coming out that we're going to talk about, but I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down and talk to us today. [0:01:02] ES: Absolutely. Yes. I'm delighted. [0:01:06] PF: So, your new book is called Sovereign and that's a word we don't hear a lot. It kind of stops you for a moment. So, it takes a little bit of an introduction to understand what is sovereignty and especially for you, you talk about personal sovereignty. Can you explain that to us? [0:01:23] ES: Absolutely. So, my first book was about science of happiness, and there's a lot to share there, as you know, from your podcast. But after – I used all those practices, and I use them still daily. But I realized there was another element that you can be doing all the self-care practices you want. But if you don't have sovereignty, and I'll explain what that is, then you can't get all the way there. What do I mean by that, you can meditate all day, but if you are highly self-critical, and buy into fears and beliefs about yourself, that are not serving you, and engage in behaviors and addictive habits that are destructive, then you're not going to be able to attain the level of fulfillment that you wish, nor are you going to be able to show up as your best self. So, I think it's helpful if I give an example. [0:02:12] PF: Please. Yes. [0:02:13] ES: Yes, I teach audiences. So, I teach executives at the Yale School of Management and I see these highly talented people coming through. When I ask audiences, “How many of you are self-critical”, 90% to 95% of people raise their hand. As you probably know, from psychology, self-criticism is a form of self-loathing. When you think about that for a second, you're like, “Wait a second, 90% to 95% of people are walking around with self-loathing. That's pretty intense.” When you look at the research, self-criticism, as you’re beating yourself up whenever you make mistakes, which most people do, is linked to anxiety, is linked to depression, it's linked to fear of failure, it's linked to less willingness to try again. All of the things that are the opposite of resilience are the opposite of wellbeing. And you've got to wonder, like, I mean, you can wonder where this all comes from. But that that actually doesn't really matter. I mean, it's social conditioning, programming, whatever you want to call it. But the idea is, once we can acknowledge that this is happening, that's when you can have that awareness and step out of it and reprogram yourself, and question the way you've been doing things because research shows when we have a more life supportive relationship with ourselves, that's when we're really going to thrive. So, I often ask people, what do you say to yourself when you make a big mistake? People usually say, “You're such an idiot. Blanc.” Those kinds of words. But then if you ask people, what would you say to your best friend who've made the same mistake? They'll say, “You're okay. Everyone makes mistakes. You're doing great. Don't worry.” Right? [0:03:40] PF: Right. [0:03:41] ES: So, the question is, what's the difference between you and your best friend, there's no difference other than that you live inside different bodies. You got to wonder, so that's where I question some of these beliefs and I call that the bound state, because that binds us. It's like we have like an inner terrorist living inside of us and that is not allowing us to show up at our full potential. The majority of people on their deathbeds regret not living the life they wanted. Let's not be one of those people. [0:04:09] PF: Yes. I love this because I know people who don't understand why the practices aren't working for them. It's like, but I practice gratitude, and I practice, I want to forgive people and I try these different things, try to take these steps toward joy. I practice kindness and it's just not getting them quite there. This is kind of like tilling the soil, to make the – plant the seeds that will really be able to grow and make those practices bloom. [0:04:38] ES: Absolutely. So, one other example is I have a whole chapter on the mind, and so many of us don't realize that we are conditioning our minds all day long with the information we're taking, and we're taking in over 60,000 gigabytes of information across all our media channels every day, which is enough to crash a small computer in a week. I mean – [0:04:56] PF: Oh, my gosh. That’s overwhelming. [0:04:58] ES: It’s overwhelming. When you think about it, so what is it that we're taking in? And are we aware of what we're taking in, and the impact it's having on us? If you're constantly taking in, let's say, news, you're conditioning yourself for fear and anxiety. If you're constantly taking in, if you're just doom scrolling, and looking at accounts that are making you want to buy something, or making you feel like you're not attractive enough, or whatever the other things, many things that evoke desire are ways that we're conditioning our mind for anxiety, for depression. Many of us are not aware of everything we're taking in, and what the quality of our mind that ensues. So, you are what you eat is also true of your mind. One of the things I'm inviting people to do is okay, what are you conditioning your mind with? Of course, the mind is also conditioned by everything else, it's received, like, for example, that the self-loathing is something that is passed down in families and societies. Yes, I mean, there's so much more to say. I mean, trauma is obviously also something that everybody, most people have to deal with a certain level of it and that's a form of mind conditioning. There are ways that we can help ourselves to become aware of state of our mind and what we can do about it, to have a more sovereign mind. [0:06:11] PF: This is such a huge topic and I look at all the different silos that it affects when you talk about, we're being programmed, we have our own internal cues that we're giving ourselves. How did you even start mapping out what all needed to be included in this? What you needed to address, and then how did you research this? Because it is a massive, massive, and it's not something that I've seen touched on a lot. [0:06:37] ES: Thank you, Paula. This doesn't sound very scientific. But it does, in some sense that I feel like this book came to me. Actually, when we look at research on creativity, we get our ideas. Those aha moments often come in times when we're in meditation, or when we're in this alpha wave, brainwave state. I feel like this book came to me, and I had it all mapped out in my mind. Of course, also, was my own experience. I went through my own experience of feeling like, “Wow, I'm applying all the happiness principles, but I'm still in this bound state and I had like a major health issue.” I realized, “Well, there are certain beliefs, there are certain habits, and things that we engage in that can bind us, regardless.” Like I said earlier, of the practices we're doing. So, the book really mapped itself out in my own mind, and each chapter could be a book on its own. In fact, I've had early readers read it and be like, “Oh, well, I'm not going to write a book about this whole topic that you address in one chapter.” I have one chapter on intuition, which doesn't sound scientific, but there's research on it. Neuroscience research, the military is doing research on it and there's really interesting findings. One of my colleagues was like, “Well, my next book is about intuition, because I read your chapter.” So, you could go so deep and this is sort of an introduction to sovereignty, I think. And then readers can explore the topic further as it applies to them. [0:07:56] PF: How does it specifically fit in this time we live in? Fifteen years ago, it wouldn't land the way that it lands today. So, can you talk about this, why this is a book that is really a book of our times? [0:08:10] ES: We live in a time of hyper-distraction, and to the point where there's so much coming at us that sometimes it's hard to know what we think, who we are, and what we believe, because there is so much and it's a sailing on our senses. And it's a sailing on our mind, and we know that the quality of our life depends on the state of our mind, right? You could be in traffic and still be happy. Or you could be on a desert, on a beautiful – Hawaii or something and be unhappy. It's all about state of our mind. This is a time also where there's just chaos. There's chaos outside, there's chaos on the globe, there's distraction, like crazy through, all of our media channels, different messaging, who knows what to even – what to align with. In a sense, we can so easily lose our footing with regard to our state of mind or state of being and a lot of people are struggling. There are also countless forms of addictive distractions to help us feel better, right? Whether it's – anyway, I'm not just talking about the regular alcohol and drugs. There's – [0:09:12] PF: We’ve progressed past that. [0:09:14] ES: Yes. There's so much now. There's so much and so many people profiting from that and so many businesses run off of them many ways. Even some people it's like, “Well, they're overworking or over exercising or you whatever it is.” I think a lot of people feel lost. [0:09:31] PF: It's like we're bombarded with so much but our lives feel empty. There's such a dichotomy there. But it's like there's so much coming at us and coming at us and we don't really drink in the nutrients that we need for a healthy life, emotional, healthy life. [0:09:48] ES: I love how you just said that, Paula. That's exactly right. So, this book is an invitation to become aware of the many different ways in which we are being bombarded, in which we are standing in our own way without realizing, and waking up to the fact that we have a choice, and what are some things we can do to reclaim the life that we want to live, how we want to live it. Ideally, in the fullest expression of ourselves and to how to navigate these times. [0:10:15] PF: Can you talk about where someone starts? Does it start with identifying where we're at? And then deciding what you need? Or how do we start reclaiming that personal sovereignty? [0:10:25] ES: So, I do include a lot of tools in the book, because I remember this, there was so much talk about self-love at some point, and you kind of felt like, what the heck is that? How do you even do that? As a scientist, I like to keep things really pragmatic. My first chapter is actually about sovereign self. Sovereign self, sovereign emotion, sovereign mind, sovereign relationship, sovereign intuition, and so forth, sovereign body. But I start with sovereign self because of that, like I said earlier, that state of self-loathing that most people are in, and that we don't even realize. I think one of the first steps to sovereignty is becoming aware of how we treat ourselves, and also having – but in order to build that self-awareness, a practice I really encourages meditation, which is now no longer – which is now popular, thanks to research that my colleagues and I did, and we've done some of that research. But I think for a lot of people, meditation is still a strain. Because when there's anxiety and you sit to meditate, it's really hard. So, I think a lot of people have tried meditation and kind of feel like, “It doesn't work for me.” We actually conducted research on breathing. For veterans with trauma, those are my original studies that we ran, because there was such high levels of anxiety that sitting and meditating was not an option. I can relate to that, because I was in New York City during 9/11 and I tried eating after that, and it was just not going to work for me. What worked was a breathing practice called SKY Breath Meditation. Then 10 years later, and I’m working with veterans with trauma, and again, they were falling through the cracks with regards to therapy and pharmaceutical approaches. Then meditation, the mindfulness studies were not working out at the time in the VA that I was in because they were, again, when you have high anxiety, sitting and closing your eyes is just more anxiety provoking. So, we wanted to see, “Well, maybe this breathing practice that I learned all those years go through to that non-profit called Art of Living.” I thought maybe we can work with them, to see if we can work the veterans. We did, and it was really amazing to see how using your breath, you can really reprogram your nervous system. In a sense, and again, actually the nonprofit that we worked with is called Project Welcome Home Troops and they offer this breathing for veterans, military, active, and their families. But what's really interesting to me, as I call it, and Paula, tell me, if you agree on this, that psychology is such a top-down approach. It's like all about change your thoughts, change your life. Right? [0:12:50] PF: Right. We want that simple, like, “Okay, but where do I start? I'm anxious, I don't have time to sit down and read a book. Tell me what to do.” And we can take a breath. You can learn to take a breath. I know that breathing is just a lifesaver. I remember being told when I was going through a very difficult time in my 30s, and someone said, “Paula, just breathe.” I thought, “That's stupid.” Then I breathed, and it's like, okay, and that saying just sticks in my head forever. Like, “Paula, just breathe.” That's that trigger, when I get anxious is like, just breathe. And it does, it changes everything for people. [0:13:29] ES: Changes everything. And it was the most moving research study I've ever run, because the veterans were at risk for taking their own lives and they said, “Thanks for giving me my life back.” And I thought, “Wow, something so simple, and yet so powerful.” In fact, yes, this week, actually, just this very week, I'm actually teaching someone who grew up as an enslaved person in Nepal, working in the sweatshops. I just met her a couple of days ago. In fact, I talk about her in my book in the introduction. She said, “Can you teach me?” It's making a huge difference. It's like, wow, I wish all people and all children and like – imagine everyone learns at 18. There goes your childhood trauma. Move on, sovereign. [0:14:12] PF: There you go. We'll get right back to my conversation with Emma. [MESSAGE] [0:14:15] PF: But I wanted to take a moment to remind you that Mother's Day is just around the corner. If you're still trying to figure out the right gift for your mom, why not give her the very thing you took from her when you were born? Sleep. Sleep is so important to your physical and mental health and one way to get better sleep is with luxurious bedding from Cozy Earth. I recently discovered their incredible super soft bamboo sheets and I'm telling you, this is the easiest way to give your mom an incredible night's sleep. Their temperature-regulating bedding means it doesn't matter if she runs hot or cold. She's going to enjoy a fabulous night of sleep while enjoying the ultimate and comfort and indulgence. This is truly a gift that keeps on giving and even better, we're going to give you a discount so you give her the luxury she deserves with Cozy Earth. Head over to cozyearth.com and use the promo code happy 35 for an exclusive 35% off. That's cozyearth.com and use the promo code happy 35. Now, let's hear more from Dr. Emma Seppälä. [INTERVIEW CONTINUES] [0:15:19] ES: SKY Breath MEDITATION is a really powerful protocol. But what it showed us is that just as you can train your muscles to be strong for you to go out in the world, you can train your nervous system to be more resilient to stress by conditioning it and to be more in that parasympathetic mode. It's stress resiliency and that's what I love. [0:15:38] PF: Yes. That's such an important step. Then what about with all this self-loathing and self-criticism? What's so interesting, because it can be self-critical, but I've never thought of it as self-loathing. I just thought, I'm just mean to myself sometimes. So, when you frame it like that, that gives you a whole different perspective. So, how do people go about correcting that? Because that's a huge part of creating that better relationship with ourselves. [0:16:03] ES: Well, first, you have to want to. It's shocking how many people really relate to – well, I have to be critical of myself, because I'm so X, Y, Z. It's like, “Says who?” Right? So, I think one way that can shock you into paying attention to this is when I was postpartum with my second child, my first child was three, and he heard me saying something out loud, like, “I just can't do this.” Regarding parenting. Someone was screaming. I was like, “I just can't – I'm not good at this.” I said something like that. And then a few days later, when he messed up at something, I heard him say the same words. Sometimes you need a shock like that, like, “Oh, really? Are you going to pass this on? You're going to pass the self-loathing onto your child? Really? Is that what you want for your child?” Sometimes something like that. Because it most definitely has been passed on in our families, in our societies, in our culture. If you're a woman, even more so. What does it do? It disempowers you. It takes away your sovereignty, and you have to decide, “Wait a second, do I don't want this for me, let alone for my child? Or do I want to live the life that I want?” There's that. But that’s like, “Well, how do you do it?” I want to break this down in the most practical way possible. Is that throughout the day, just tuning in, and instead of asking, “Am I good enough?” Which so many people ask themselves. Am I good enough to be a spouse? Am I good enough to be doing the work I'm doing or whatever it is, right? Asking what's good for me right now? What do I need right now? Tuning in a couple times a day, especially when you're feeling stressed, or you're feeling tension. Just what do I need right now? I can tell you that right before this podcast. This morning, I had some different, like, other PR stuff that I'm doing to the book and I tuned in, after lunch, I tuned in like, wow, it's been a lot today. I have an inbox overflowing with people emailing me, again, because I haven't responded to their email and I should be doing that, but I didn't. I went on that couch and I meditated. That’s what I needed to do. What do I need right now? That allows me to then show up for you, Paula, but also, for me to show up for me, in a way that I have taken care of my nervous system. So, sometimes just training yourself to ask that. Sometimes you might need a nap. Sometimes you might need, if you don't have any time, you just have five minutes. But what are you doing in those five minutes? Are you doing scrolling? Or you can take five minutes to go outside and just breathe some fresh air, or pet your dog, or whatever it is. Just a few minutes. In those few minutes are you doing something nourishing for yourself and keeping it really practical? Are you getting enough sleep at night? Are you eating enough? Are you eating quality? Little things like that. But I often think like when you have a child, you're constantly aware, “Oh, wow, they haven't had any water in like four hours if you're aware.” Constantly, like, “Oh, my gosh. If they don't eat soon, they're going to have a meltdown. But we don't do that for ourselves. So, it's a little bit like training that, training that awareness inward. [0:19:03] PF: How do, especially women, get past the idea that self-care is selfish? Because even though we know it's not, we can tell each other it's not – there are still a lot of times that little bit of guilt like, “Man, I shouldn't be taking this time for myself when I still have laundry to do. I have this to do. I've got places I need to be.” So, how does someone get past that and recognize the importance of that self-care both physically and emotionally? I [0:19:30] ES: I mean, this is such a – I mean, scientifically speaking, I can definitely share with you that when you take care of yourself, you show up with more emotional intelligence. So, you're able to enact more successfully with others. You show up with a – so you're going to have better relationships, whether it's at work or at home. You're going to make better decisions. You're going to think more clearly. You're going to remember things better. You're going to be more efficient in what you're doing because you're going to be more present with what you're doing. So, in a sense, if you want to be successful, you doing self-care is going to help you. But it's also going to help others because we all know what it feels like to be around someone who's stressed and burned out. It makes us feel stressed and burned out. Someone who's stressed and burned out is also more likely to fly off the handle, and to be even hurtful ways. Oftentimes, our inability to take care of ourselves makes us hurt the people we love the most and want to hurt the least. So, it's not selfish. It's absolutely essential. If you want to – just for the people around you, if not for yourself. [0:20:37] PF: Yes. So, it's really an investment in not just yourself, but in your working relationships, in your personal relationships. It's improving that for everybody. [0:20:47] ES: Absolutely. Then, when you go to sleep at night, you don't regret something you did or said, right? When you have greater self-care, you're going to be more mindful. You're going to be more thoughtful. You're going to be more perceptive. You're actually going to see more things. Our research shows that when you're stressed, you’re tunnel-visioned. When you’re taking care of yourself and are in the sort of calmer space, you're able to perceive more things, which is when you think about it, whether you're a parent or leader, or whatever you're doing. Being able to perceive more things and think from a broader perspective, is going to make you a lot more successful at what you're doing. [0:21:23] PF: Yes. When you invest in that strong personal relationship with yourself, how have you seen it change people? You've done so much research on this. When they really do make a personal relationship their priority, what does that do for them? [0:21:37] ES: What happens is that they become more successful in everything that they're doing. In their relationships, in their marriage, in their –why is it that marriages are so strained when there's little kids, right? It's because both parents have a hard time doing the self-care. Really, the relationship could be just fine, if everyone had time to sleep, to eat, and a few minutes to just be by themselves, right? That applies for the rest of our lives. So many people might not have little kids, and yet, are straining themselves by overworking, not sleeping enough, not taking care of their mind or body, their sleep, et cetera. Then, they're suffering, and so are the people around them. [0:22:17] PF: So, if someone reads this, and they start making this change, and they make it not just for themselves, they pass that on with their family, and then their friends start making that change. How does this start reshaping the way that we move through the world? Because as you've mentioned, we're inundated with too much information, too much stress, too much negativity. How can we change that? [0:22:39] ES: Well, I think that once people start making more sovereign choices with regard to themselves, and how they live, it can change society, and it can change families and society, and help us to navigate this world in a way that we actually live the life we want to live in accordance with who we really are, and most importantly, we can live in a way that fully expresses the gifts that we have. [0:23:04] PF: That's fantastic. [0:23:05] ES: Yes. I mean, I'm just thinking now of a story that someone shared about his son, who has been so addicted to screens since he was about five years old. But he's now 18, and unable to really focus on anything and sits in his car, and drains his car battery, because he's scrolling through his phone for hours. When you think about that, and that boy who has undoubtedly his own very unique gifts, and how he has been completely bound up by what the technology has done to him. Now, other things may be going on there as well. But we all have our own beautiful, sovereign potential, and are we going to choose to live it? Are we going to choose to model it for others and for our children? That's for us to do and the potential is huge to make this world a better place. [0:23:50] PF: Yes. I think what's so wonderful with your book is it kind of gives us the path to get there, and the hope that we can get there, and through ways that might be more simple than we thought. Not easy, necessarily, but simple. Two of the things that you talked about that I really want you to touch on before I let you go is like elevation and forgiveness. So, can you tell us about what each of those means and why they're so important? [0:24:17] ES: Yes. Whenever you see someone helping another person, it can be very moving to see that, whether you're out in the street, seeing someone helping another person, it's very inspiring and moving. That's a state we call elevation. Psychologists call elevation. What's really interesting about that is that when you see someone helping someone else, you are then more likely to go and help someone else. What the research shows is that whenever one person acts with compassion or engages in acts of kindness, it actually ripples out to three degrees of separation away from them. So, when they do an act of kindness and the onlookers are impacted, and so are two degrees away. Let's say you do a kind act for a work colleague, and then someone else sees you. You're impacting that person's sister’s brother-in-law or whatever. That ripple effect is happening so often, especially in this world that's so chaotic and crazy right now. We think, “Oh, who am I? What difference do I make?” You don't even know the ripple effect that every micro-moment of kindness, the joke you share with the person at their cash register, the kind gesture you do for your neighbor, the kind words you share with your kid’s teacher or whatever. You don't know the ripple effect of goodness that happens. That, to me, gives a lot of hope. Because each one of us can make an enormous difference, without even knowing it, and everybody does. That's one thing. Then, with regard to forgiveness, it can sound so sappy. Yet when you look at the data, forgiveness has nothing much to do with the person you're forgiving. Everything to do with you. Because when you forgive research shows that it literally lightens your load. You literally can jump higher after you've forgiven someone. This research has been done. Just showing just how heavy a load it is to not forgive or to live in resentment. Living in resentment is kind of like punishing yourself for what someone else did. Living in anger, it's like, because you're the one reaping the health benefits, and we know for example, that anger has health impact on your heart health. So, people who tend to hold on to anger or resentment tend to have heart issues. When you're forgiving, you're not only unburdening the other person, possibly, if they know or they don't know. But your own blood pressure reduces, and you're able to move on with much better mental health and well-being. So, forgiveness is really for yourself. [0:26:41] PF: On that note too, self-forgiveness is super important. Because as you've noted, we're self-critical and we can also beat ourselves up for years about things that we did, that maybe nobody else even remembers. You're a wonderful researcher and scientists. How do you discover self-forgiveness? [0:27:01] ES: That's such a good question. Whenever I feel the guilt coming up, often it's around my children. It’s like, “I wish I did this.” I just breathe through it and I bring myself back to the present moment, and I'm like right here, right now. I can always – I'm doing my best right here right now and I did the best that I could then. I think that's one of the mantras, self-compassion mantras I used, I still use, doing the best that I can. [0:27:26] PF: That's wonderful. You have so many tools and guides within this book to help people understand and achieve that personal sovereignty. I'm really excited to see what happens as it reaches the world. You also have some wonderful bonus tools that you're offering people, and so we're going to give links to all of that on our landing page. But what is it, you've poured yourself into this book, you've poured your work into this book, what is it that you hope people take away from it? [0:27:54] ES: I hope people take away that they have a choice as to how they want to live, how they want to manage their minds and their relationships, and that they have the option to live a very fulfilled, happy life in which they can live in the fullest expression of themselves, that they have that for permission. Because sometimes I think we've forgotten that we can do that. If people remember that they have their own gifts to fully express and that they can and have permission to do that, it's going to make their life more fulfilled, but they're also going to become a gift for everyone who meets them. [0:28:29] PF: I love that. If you're not doing it for yourself, do it for those around you, right? [0:28:32] ES: Mm-hmm. [0:28:33] PF: Well, Emma, such a pleasure to talk to you, really excited to see this book come out, as I said, and we're going to tell our listeners where they can find it, where they can order it, how they can get those free bonuses. Thank you again. Thank you again for sitting down with me. [0:28:47] ES: Thank you, Paula. Lots of pleasure. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:28:53] PF: That was Dr. Emma Seppälä, talking about how sovereignty can help us improve our relationships with ourselves and those around us. If you'd like to learn more about Emma or her new book, Sovereign: Reclaim Your Freedom, Energy, and Power in a Time of Distraction, Uncertainty, and Chaos, or follow her on social media, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Live Happy Now, and if you aren't already receiving us every week, we invite you to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, feel free to drop us a review and let us know what you think. That is all we have time for today. We’ll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Days With Jodi Wellman [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 463 of Live Happy Now. What if thinking about death could give more meaning to your life? Well, today's guest says, it can, and she has the research to back it up. I'm your host, Paula Felps. Today, I'm talking with Jodi Wellman, founder of Four Thousand Mondays, a company designed to help people make the most of their time on this planet. Her TED Talk, How Death Can Bring You Back to Life has more than 1.3 million views. And her new book, You Only Die Once: How to Make It to The End with No Regrets is being released in just a few weeks. I sat down with Jodi to find out what started this mission and more importantly, how we all can live better by counting the Mondays that we have left. Let's have a listen. [EPISODE] [0:00:49] PF: Jodi, thank you so much for coming on Live Happy Now. [0:00:53] JW: Oh, I'm just downright giddy to be here with you, Paula. [0:00:55] PF: As I told you, I have been so looking forward to this conversation. We've been emailing for a while. I kind of had to wait until we are closer to your book coming out, and it's going to be coming out soon. But even without your book being on the shelves, yet, you've been creating some incredible content that reminds us to live our life and be alive. I wanted to find out your backstory. How did that become your mission? [0:01:19] JW: Well, thank you for the compliment, and thank you for asking. I have been – I would say, appropriately interested in our mortality for a very long time, so since I was probably my early twenties. Just to cut to the chase, I really do believe that the way that we can wake up to living is through the – sometimes stark, and sometimes, a bit of a splash cold water in your face reminder that, "Right, right, right. We're totally going to die." How do we use that not to feel morbid? I found in my twenties; I was always just fascinated by it. Then, my mom died. She went and had the nerve to die, that lovely lady in her late fifties. It wasn't so much for me that she died, which was obviously a crappy thing. But it was my perception at the time that she died with a bunch of regrets. It broke my heart to see as I cleaned up her place, like the vestiges of all these dreams that were just sort of like – well, I don't know. I think I call it somewhere in the book, like the land of dormant intentions. Like all these ideas that she was talented, and creative, and fabulous and just didn't execute. It really woke me up to this idea that we have an end date, we don't know when it is. Here we are taking our time for granted. I guess that was a huge wake up for me, which was not just so much that, "Oh, you could die unexpectedly early." But it's like, oh, you could die in a way where maybe we didn't do this life justice, because we all have hopes, and plans, and dreams, and goals, and things. What a shame if we don't get to do them? [0:02:54] PF: That's so insightful that that occurred at such a young age, that you're interested in this, and your fascination, because we are immortal into our thirties. It doesn't cross our mind that anything, even when we lose friends unexpectedly, it's like well, that's tragic, and it's not supposed to happen, but it's not going to happen to me. [0:03:14] JW: Right. Thanks for touching on that, because we do a really good job of sort of just denying the inevitable. If it happens to other people, or they're older, or it is just a very rare tragedy and occurrence that will not be my fate. Then, you're right, as we age, we start to see that, "Wait a minute, maybe this ruse I've been telling myself is, maybe it's actually closer than I think." So let's use that instead of triggering an existential crisis. Let's make it like existential catharsis. Oh, we just coined something new here today. Let's use this, right? [0:03:46] PF: Yes, because you could almost call this the joy of death, the way that you approach it. I mean, you give us so much inspiration to like, "Okay, I have an end date, and here's what I've got to do before." It's not like a bucket list, it's different than a bucket list. Can you explain that? [0:04:01] JW: Oh, sure. I think many of us, I have strong feelings about the bucket list. It can be lovely just as an aside to touch on that for a sec. If we do identify things that we yearn in long to do that might light us up, but I do think that there's danger because it creates this sort of false sense of satisfaction. There's research around this, right? The idea that sometimes we identify a goal, we put it on a piece of paper, or a spreadsheet, and we put it away, and then we go and live our whole ho-hum Monday to Friday lives. Because it's this notion that we'll do it later. And danger signs, like let's have flashing lights happen, because this deferral of life. I'm not even just worried that we won't get there, because odds are maybe slim, but many of us were waiting to live when we retire. Well, being exactly in our prime at that stage of life, to be traipsing around the world. But, I just think, what about our lives now, don't they deserve something? It is more than just ticking things off a list. I think I have this framework about living wider with vitality and deeper with meaning. I love just using that as a way to stop and assess how wide and deep is my life while I'm here. [0:05:11] PF: Can you talk about Four Thousand Mondays? First of all, when it started, and then explain to us what it is because I really, really love this. And your TED Talk, we're going to give listeners a link to your TED Talk, because that is a such an excellent 15-minute explanation of it. [0:05:26] JW: Thank you so much for that. Well, Four Thousand Mondays, I named my company that because that is approximately the math of what we get if we're lucky to get that many weeks. I've chose Mondays on purpose, because they're just the most annoying and I don't want to annoy people, but I want to – if it was like 4,000 Saturdays, we’d be like, "Woohoo. Life's great, don't need to think about it." But Monday's do rankle, and I want to rankle in the right way to say, "Are you enjoying getting up on a Monday morning, or are you dreading it, or maybe somewhere in between, depending on the day and week?" So, roughly with that timeline, that's what we have. Started Four Thousand Mondays after I studied positive psychology of all things at the University of Pennsylvania. That was in 2020. A very interesting year in our globe. [0:06:13] PF: That's a great year to be doing positive psychology. [0:06:17] JW: Yes, it was roll time, didn't know it when I started. I'll just share, having been interested in this mortality topic for years, but skirting the edges of it, because I just told myself a story, that while I worked with corporations, either as an executive coach or leadership consultant. Prior to that, working corporately for 17 years. I was like, "I can't talk about the Grim Reaper and have anybody take me seriously." Then, I think I found a way; studying it. Anything that you can say that there's empirical evidence behind, all of a sudden, you can stand on a stage. At least, I could with more confidence. That for me was this, and in addition to the plague happening to our university. It was like, I think I have a chance to restart. I cannot not do this, like I was grabbed. And I don't know, I'm very visual, but I'm imagining myself literally being gripped on the arm by the Grim Reaper. I couldn't let it go. It was, I have to do this, I have to scream from the mountaintops. It's like, "Live, guys, because time is ticking." [0:07:13] PF: I love that. I mean, that's so much purpose, so much clarity of, "This is my mission, and I have to spread this message." I mean, I very rarely seeing people who are that clear, and that determined, like, this is it, and I've got to get it out, and I will find a way to do that. [0:07:30] JW: Maybe it will be a show that for some people that I work with a lot of people who are trying to find the thing that they are super passionate about. It's an important part of living a life well lived, is feeling like you did the thing that sparked you. I feel fortunate that – I think what I did was I listened finally, and lit the spark. Like I could tell that it was sizzling in the background. I feel fortunate that in my mid-40s back then, I came to this like, "Oh, no, I'm doing the thing. I'm no longer putting that thing aside. I will find a way to talk to corporations about legacy and mortality." On one hand, if you're waiting for that thing to bite you, it could still come. Also, just a little shout out to go and sus around, and find that little ember of a flame of passion, and see what's there, give it a go. [0:08:16] PF: One thing you advise us to do is to count our remaining Mondays. I did that, and then I decided like, I needed more Monday, so I decided to live longer. I expanded it. Why is it a good idea to count our Mondays? They might do like I do, where it's like, "You've got to be kidding me?" [0:08:38] JW: Right. Right. Yes. It is definitely potentially morbid, and eye-opening, and good, I say. This granularity that I am hoping we all get like I just like breaking things down to the ridiculous for the purpose of the wakeup call, right? The idea – and I have a calculator on my website if math is not a good way to spend your remaining Mondays. It's on the resources page. It's a way to say, like I know I have 1,841 Monday's left. When you do the countdown, it usually does create that little reaction, and then the science behind it is what's called temporal scarcity. That's that phenomenon that happens when we tune into something that is limited time only. Our perception about it all of a sudden is very different than when we just thought we could live forever, now that we consciously think that. But when we know something is like a pumpkin spice latte, only going to be around for a certain amount of time, or a rare gem. It's so much more valuable. That is exactly the deal with counting our Mondays. I think we get halfway there when we just talk about the idea that we are finite, "Ugh, sucks to be us. What do you want to do?" Then, go answer your next email. But when you do the math, I don't call it morbid math. I guess, I call it motivating math. That is the thing that makes you say – maybe it takes a bit your breath away. I'd like I did it recently about my working Monday's left. I don't really know if I'll ever really retire. But whatever, like at the age that I feel like I'm allowed to say no to stuff, and it took my breath away. It caused me to cease, and say, "Oh, wait a minute, that's not enough time to do the things I want to do." All right, let's just all take a moment of silence to acknowledge that, "Crap, there will never be enough time to live the lives we are to live." Okay. So now, it's just like a recalibration exercise of like, what matters, what do you want to stuff in there? My exercise was like a career exercise of, "Oh, I do not want to be doing these things anymore." So, I redesigned my business. For example, doing weight less one-on-one coaching. It's like, I want to be doing all my things over here for now. We reserve the right to change. This is that editing that we get to do. It's the reprioritizing that we get to do of, how do I fit in what matters? Presuming you've done a little bit of internal work to figure out what really does matter, now, we can do that in an afternoon at Starbucks. [0:10:59] PF: Yes. Yes. What your message does is give us hope that it doesn't matter how many Mondays we have left. I do have friends. They're either thinking about retiring, or they have retired recently. They're kind of throwing up their hands like, "Well, I didn't do that. I wish I had. Da da da." I'm like, "You still have time, especially if you're not working. You can go do it." That is what your message delivers so clearly, just because you didn't do it. Okay. So you didn't join that rock band in high school, and now you're 70. Pick up a guitar, figure it out, do it now. That is the kind of hope that you give us. [0:11:36] JW: Okay. We're right on the same wavelength, and you're just making the burst here at the seams. Because I have this notion, and it might be my next book that I would call, Not Dead Yet. It is this idea that, wow, while we still have – depending how spiritual you are, but the gift of being alive is preciousness. We're only limited by our imagination and our confidence to be super honest. I think it's fear. We all know, the dreaded F word that just holds us back. You're right, it is not too late, and this is what I call pregrets. I know it's a silly phrase, but it's this idea about –   [0:12:07] PF: I love that.   [0:12:08] JW: Okay. When you do that age-old deathbed regrets exercise, like, "Tonight was my night, what would I be thinking? I wished I did that? I didn't do that. Darn it." Make that list. The good news is that, "Well, hallelujah, you're not dying tonight." Knock on [inaudible 0:12:24], here. Yes, it's your chance. This is why it's a pregret. It is a regret in the making that if you continue down your life course, yes, you will regret not learning Italian and not getting into that band. And not maybe starting that side hustle or whatever. But good news, you're not dead yet, so you could do it. Technically now, even a small version of it. [0:12:48] PF: You know what? Last year, I covered the Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp in Nashville. That's where people who have always wanted to be musicians get to come, and they jam with big name musicians. It was the women's version of the camp. I met a woman named Carolyn Price who was 65 years old. When she retired two years ago, she was like, "Well, I've always wanted to play the drums." She went to the School of Rock. Now, if you know School of Rock, these are kids. They're like eight, 12-year-olds. Here she is in her sixties getting out there and learning how to play the drums. I saw this woman get up on stage, and jam with people 20, 30 years younger than her having the ab– she was living her dream. She told me, if that is the only time I ever got on stage like that, worth it. [0:13:37] JW: Oh my goodness, this is fabulous. You reminded me, my sister in Toronto has a friend nearby who was in her early eighties. She said, "I don't know how much time I have left. I got the convertible, and we're driving to Niagara on the Lake, and we've got scarves in our hair like they did in the old movies. And we're driving, and our scars will be blowing in the wind, and we're in a convertible that I just bought, and I just did this." We all know examples. I'm thinking of a fabulous friend who went and got her master's in her sixties, and her early seventies got her PhD. We are not limited. I mean, clearly, sometimes we're resource limited. But usually, we're just holding ourselves back. We get to live wider. Your example there of the school rock gal, that's living wider with vitality at saying, "I want to do these things. I want to feel proud that I showed up and lived it." It's not for optics, it's not just to make other people feel like, "Oh, look at your social media life. It's so glitzy." It's like, I prioritized and I made sure that this list of stuff that I thought would be pretty cool to do, and a life well lived. I made the time for it, and I didn't defer it. I didn't defer it to tomorrow that maybe wouldn't come, or I didn't defer to tomorrow when I maybe wasn't able bodied, and I couldn't actually go on the cruise, and go on the – I know people that have planned, they said I'm going to travel later when I retire, when I retire later, later, and then they did it, Then, their fibromyalgia is so bad, that they basically stayed on the cruise the whole time, and couldn't go on any of the excursions. [0:15:06] PF: Yes. It's so sad because I've seen that as well. We had done some adventure travel, probably 10, 15 years ago, and saw a couple that they had saved up, and they had lived for this adventure, and he couldn't get out of the dinghy to do the climb. Just as sad. It's like, you do, you want to act on your dreams now. One thing that you do to help us get there is you have a quiz to identify how alive we are. I want to find out like, how did you come up with this? And also, what have you discovered through this? [0:15:36] JW: Oh, I've discovered things I did not expect. It's a pretty simple quiz that gets you, it's right on the website. If you go to the website, and annoying pop up will occur, and that's the quiz that will take you there. Pop ups can be good. That it really tracks to the framework that I was telling you about earlier around this idea about living wider with vitality, and deeper with meaning. If you put those two quadrants – not quadrants, those axes together, then you get quadrants. My goal is to help us see where are we today. Are we in the dead zone? Which is like negative on meaning, negative on vitality, faint pulse. Are we vitally empty, which is where we've got lots of fun happening. We are out there, and we are going to the street festivals. But we come home, and we feel like maybe we don't have a purpose, about 10%, 15% of people follow that zone, and 10% fall in that dead zone I told you about. The meatiest zone where most people fall in it, and it oscillates between like 39%, 40%, 41% of people call themselves while they identify as through the survey meaningfully bored. That means, they have enough meaning in their life to be plus on meaning. Maybe they have a job that contribute something, or they're a parent, or looking after aging parents, or something that feels meaningful. But man, do they need a little more fun in their lives? Where's the excitement, and the novelty, and like, I haven't tried Thai food in a while. Like living a little. Maybe the sort of the all work, no play feeling. That's the majority. Like 9% of people are in astonishingly alive, which is truly positive on meaning and truly positive on vitality. That's, of course, where we're aiming to be. If in case, you're a quick mathematician, and you're wondering where the math, there's a big chunk in the middle called the mid zone. That's where a lot of people just kind of it's like a catch all where it's a little bit of everything. [0:17:31] PF: Yes. How do people become astonishingly alive? Because that phrase, it's like, I want to be that. [0:17:39] JW: I know, I know. My first step is to do what I call diagnose the dead zones. Okay. I would be a pretty horrific positive psychology practitioner if I didn't do a quick shout out to identify where the things are feeling lively in your life, and just do more of them. Amplify your positives and strengths. Do more of it, which actually is a great shortcut. It's like, if hanging around with Mitzi makes you feel just like you're laughing, and you pee your pants, and it's so good, hang around with Mitzi more. Okay, do that. But we also have to diagnose where things have flat lined, and I think sometimes we need to clue in and go, "Oh, the thing that's making me feel just kind of, "Ugh" is that I haven't really perked up my social life lately." Or, it could be that, "Wow, my recreation has just fallen off the map, and I haven't really done much lately. I used to go to concerts, or I used to take online courses and learn new things." Maybe if growth matters to you, identify where things need some CPR, so to speak. I've got all the metaphors with the jumper cables on it, and then activate by finding one thing you can do in order to help get a little bit of life back in that action. Many of us think it's an all or nothing thing, or it needs to be a big grand gesture. Like, "I need to go on a big trip I can't afford" or "I need to pick up and move across the country" or "Quit my job and go back to school" and do those things if that really gets you going. But for most of us, we just need like the subtle little sustainable things, which include having a list of things that, again, might be on your deathbed regret list. What's something you really yearn to do, that you would feel that paying of regret for if you're cashing in your chips. What would be a thing? Well, you know, I've always wanted back to speaking Italian. The good news is, we have the Internet now, and we could just look it up, and we could find a way to start to learn Italian tonight. So, just one small step forward. It's sort of committing to a small step is a really big deal. Then, back to the idea about, don't forget to count the Mondays. Don't forget. The memento mori is the concept we're talking about here. [0:19:39] PF: Can you explain that really well. Can you tell us what that means? [0:19:43] JW: For sure. Yes. It's an old Latin phrase that dates back centuries. It means, "Remember, we must die." It is just this whole entire carpe diem philosophy, which is, wow, it's only by remembering through that temporal scarcity that my time is limited. That it will actually egged me on to do those things that normally I would just procrastinate forever, and go to my grave with a whole lot of coulda, shoulda, wouldas. [0:20:09] PF: I think the timing on this, I think it's incredible that you started your map in 2020. You have this whole mission, because I've seen so many people who haven't regained their vibrancy since the shutdown. I see people who are still in their own personal lockdown. I think what you're doing here is reminding us, like, get out there, and do these things again. So, everybody needs to hear this message, because we are still locked up in a lot of ways. [0:20:37] JW: Thanks for saying that. I agree with that fully. Your discussion about get out there, I think about this, like the workshops I give, there are people that rightfully will say, "Hey, what if though, I'm more of an introvert, and getting up, and out there is actually to me my version of like a horror show." I would say, "Well, don't ruin your life. I'm not – there's not a full prescription." You must be out five nights a week? No, because I also am a homebody, and my inclination is like cozy at home with a great movie and a great meal. I also know, it's like finding your right balance for now. But I think we have that sense, if we're being honest with ourselves. Even if you've been feeling like, "No, I like the quiet life, or I just want to read, and I just want the –" great, do that. What else though, look back in history, has made you feel alive? And usually, it does mean saying yes a little bit more to some of those invitations in life. I have to force myself. I in my own case study, because my inclination like I said, "Hello, Netflix." I need to be the one to remind myself when I get an invitation to go out to a happy hour. My first thought is, "Oh, I just want to wash my face, and get in my jammies." Well, you know what? When you come home from the thing from the happy hour, how often have you regretted doing it? Not often. Usually, just makes you feel a little more invigorated and alive. I just know my dose, is I can't have more than one night a week, like one thing a week, but that's my prescription. If I go a month, where I'd have been kind of cocooning, well then, I know. "Oh, honey, you're going to need – remember, don't forget to widen your life with some vitality." What might that look like? [0:22:15] PF: I love that. I love that. You have a new book coming out. It's ready for preorder. It's coming out in May. But we're going to tell listeners how they can preorder it, we'll give them a link to that. Can you talk a little bit about what they can expect from this book? [0:22:28] JW: Oh, thanks for asking. It's called, You Only Die Once: How to Make It to The End with No Regrets. You know what? It's like everything we've been talking about here. It's 10 chapters, or we start with a premortem. It's meant to be experiential, because as a coach, it's like, I'm not just going to be telling you stuff. I want you to do, and think, and then, literally do more. But it's this premortem to analyze, like, "Where am I today? Where do I want to be? What scares me? What would like an astonishingly live life look like?" Then, we get into. Okay, let's just talk for a quick hot sec, that we are going to die, and why all this works, and how like talk a little bit about death. We go on a date with death. Then, we talk about the idea about tapping into your regrets, and how to shake things up, and bust some of your habits that might be just kind of turning you into that highly functioning zombie. Then, talking about how to widen your life with vitality, how to deepen your life with meaning. Then, I'm really literal about like a paint by numbers approach to you designing what would make you feel. Like as Hunter S. Thompson said, like skidding in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out into our graves. I want us to skid in broadside, and so, this book is helping you to figure out what's your version of skidding in broadside. Then, of course, there was a post mortem, which is analyzing, okay, wrapping it all up. What one thing do you want to do next, because it needs to be manageable. So yes, that is the experience. That's the wild ride of you only die once. [0:23:51] PF: So excited for this book to come out. So excited to see what this does and to really share your message with our listeners. If they're listening right now, they can't get their hands on it until May, what do they do right now? Where do they start? How do they get off autopilot today, and really start living with purpose?   [0:24:06] JW: Love it. Love it. Love it. [0:24:09] JW: My thought is let's just go to the good old fashioned, count your Mondays. So go to the resources page at fourthousandmondays.com. Do that. Get yourself centered, see how it feels. You may look at it. I did a workshop earlier this week, and someone was like, "Well, that looks like a lot of Mondays." I said, "Well, high five to you. Still, what do you want to do within those Mondays?" Mind you. she wasn't even at the halfway mark yet. [0:24:31] PF: Then, it seems like a lot. [0:24:32] JW: I remember those years. Yes. I would say, yes. First thing is. count the Mondays, and then. even something simple is just start jotting down notes about the stuff that you longed to do. It could be the most miniature version of a bucket list. Silly little things like – I remember when I turned 33, which was a very big year for me at that time. Three is my favorite number, so that I knew was going to be a big year. I'm going to cook my own artichoke. It just felt like that was something I wanted to do. Then, of course, there were things that were bigger scale that might sound more impressive for whatever, but who cares. Little big, minute, magnificent. Just start listing some things that you might love to fit into this one wild and precious life. Then, when the book comes out, you can make more sense of it. Absolutely. [0:25:19] PF: I love it. I love it. Jodi, we have so much to learn from you, and you make it so fun to learn, which doesn't always happen. I appreciate you sitting down, taking his time with us, and talking to us about living like we were dying. [0:25:33] JW: Well put. In a world where like time is scarce, spending this time with you has been time well spent. So, thank you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:25:43] PF: That was Jodi Wellman. Talking about how recognizing our mortality can help us make the most of the time that we have left. If you'd like to learn more about Jodi, take her free astonishingly alive assessment. Follow her on social media or by copy of You Only Die Once: How to Make It to The End with No Regrets. Just visit us at livehappy.com, and click on the podcast tab. While you're there, be sure to sign up for our weekly Live Happy newsletter. Every Tuesday, we'll drop a little bit of joy in your inbox with the latest stories, podcast info, and even a happy song of the week. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one.   [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Living Better Longer With Caroline Paul [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for Episode 462 of Live Happy Now. We all have one thing in common, and that is that we are not getting any younger. But today's guest gives us a whole new way to approach the years ahead of us. I'm your host, Paula Felps, and today, I'm talking with New York Times bestselling author, Caroline Paul. Her new book, Tough Broad: From Boogie Boarding to Wing Walking―How Outdoor Adventure Improves Our Lives as We Age, turns some common myths about aging completely upside down. Combining stories of women who are embracing outdoor adventure in their later years with cultural and scientific research, Caroline gives us a roadmap for improving and enjoying the journey. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [0:00:46] PF: Caroline, thank you so much for joining us on Live Happy Now. [0:00:50] CP: I'm really happy to join you, Paula. It's going to be great. [0:00:53] PF: You have written an amazing book. First of all, the title describes you, tough broad. So, that had my attention immediately. But this book is so engaging and it's so inspiring, and in many ways, a call for us to up our game as we get older. So, I wanted to find out how this book came about, and really, who you are writing this for? [0:01:15] CP: Honestly, I was kind of writing for myself. I was 55 and looking around on my surfboard and seeing no women my age surfing. I'm not a really good surfer. So, I knew there was a lot of women who could be out there, but they just weren't out there. The same when I was on my electric skateboard. I saw no women my age, certainly no women older. And when I was flying my experimental planes, the same. But I saw men my age and men older. So, I started to think, “Well, I'm seeing 60 blank on the horizon. What is my future look like?” I decided to go and ask women who – because I wanted to keep outdoor adventure in my life, but maybe I wasn't supposed to. I kind of thought I was, but I wanted to go ask women who were there already. This is about those women. It's actually about fulfilling aging and those women explained it to me. [0:02:03] PF: Was it hard to find the people? Because you cover a lot of different types of activity and we'll get into that. But was it difficult to track these women down? [0:02:12] CP: It kind of was. I mean, first of all, women tend not to trumpet themselves on social media and stuff. So, you don't find them that way as much. Frankly, it felt like there weren't a lot of women out there doing these things. It turns out that they are out there. But what I did was I told everybody that I was working on this book and so people gave me names, and that started to snowball. Then, I did hire a researcher who found a lot of people. [0:02:38] PF: Okay. That makes sense, because one thing that we really work on here at Live Happy Now is to make sure that we back everything with science. And your book, the stories are so rich, but every one of them is backed by the science of what it's doing for us. How did that all – how did you marry all that? Did the story come first, and then you did research on what it was doing? Or how did those two components come together? [0:03:03] CP: Honestly, I was going to throw myself sort of like the paraglider that I was, off a cliff, and with an inflated, shoot and float around and talk to these women, and see how the book would come about. But I knew I didn't want it to be – it's not a book about profiles about women. This is a book about fulfilling aging in the outdoors. How the outdoors optimizes that. So, in a weird way, the pandemic was good for me, because it hit just as I was about to go interview people so nobody could talk to me. I had to sit down and do a lot of research about fulfilling aging. And I started to see what we needed to keep in our lives, and I was thinking about how outdoor adventure married perfectly with that. I went out and interviewed people doing specific adventures. I went and did the adventures with them. I usually had a specific idea of where that adventure would fit in to what I considered the five pillars of healthy aging. Usually, it came out completely surprised by something new. I was constantly schooled in this book, because again, it was a quest. [0:04:05] PF: Yes. Can we talk about those five pillars? [0:04:08] CP: Yes. The first four are pretty obvious. It’s we need, and we need as human beings, but they tend to fall away as we age. So, we have to be specifically cognizant that we need community. We need purpose. We need health. We need novelty. Those four things are really important as we age and they are harder to find. The last one, the one that intrigued me the most, the one that I actually started off with was we need a positive mindset about our own aging. The reason I say that is because I was interested in the messaging that we get as older women, because I had a feeling that was why these women weren't out there in the water with me are in the air with me. Because the messaging about women aging is really toxic and subliminal and insidious and we tend to believe it and the people around us believe it. It's basically that our future is one of declining cognitive health, frail bones, and increasing irrelevance. I mean, frankly, we're boring. You'll hear – I mean, I hear this from a lot of my peers who were disheartened about their own aging. We feel invisible. We feel invisible to the culture. So, I was interested in that messaging. Then, I found research that made it even more important to pay attention to because the research says that the way we look at our own aging predicts how well we age. That means negative view of aging, you actually have a significantly higher chance of a cardiac event earlier, cognitive decline earlier, and the opposite is true. If you look at your aging as a time of vitality and exploration, then you are going to be healthier, happier, and statistically, you live seven years longer. That seemed really important, and kind of mind-blowing. But the scientists had told us this, but they didn't say how to get that positive mindset. Of course, when something, how are we going to do that in the face of such difficult and disheartening messaging, and I had a feeling that the key was an outdoor adventure. [0:06:17] PF: It was, as we discover in your book. And I want to go back to what you were just talking about, and the research about how you aging affects how you age. Because it even changes your brain. Weren't you saying that in the book, it talks about the brain of a person who had negative perceptions is actually different after death than someone who had positive perceptions about aging. [0:06:39] CP: Yes, they had all those tangles and the neural ill health that signifies memory loss. I mean, they have actually shown that conversely, if you have a positive view on aging, you have a much higher chance of not turning on that AOPE4 gene that makes you more predisposed to Alzheimer's. That's pretty big. But we think it's inevitable when we see both our parents or our grandparents have Alzheimer's. We have that gene, but it's actually not. [0:07:10] PF: That is so interesting, because we just talked about the World Happiness Report last week, which came out, and one of the chapters was about well-being and dementia. It backs up everything that you talk about in your book where they had done all this research, and people who had a positive view of aging were less likely to develop dementia. At the same time, people with dementia who had a positive attitude, fared better with that dementia. It was really interesting to me to receive this report at the same time I'm reading your book because it was just like this companion research piece. I love how you bring in the adventurer. I wanted to know as I read this, it seems like you were probably always adventurous, and what about women who haven't been adventurous throughout their lives? How can they turn into someone who is a little bit more adventurous and try some of these things? [0:08:05] CP: Yes. After I did my research, I was clear that the outdoors is really good for us. So, just getting outside is super important. Because as the science shows, it's medicinal. From the tree chemicals that are emitted, to bird song, to even the architecture of like horizon lines that are soft and rounded, and the fractal nature of the outdoors is all really good for our well-being. On a biological level, it improves our immune system. It also makes it so our brain processes less noise, which makes it healthier and able to deal with what we really want to deal with. So, people who took walks outside, for instance, tested better on cognitive and memory tests afterwards. Your brain wasn't doing the busy work when it has to filter out noise, and just all this information that urban environments in the indoors, computers and stuff give you. So, I wanted them to get outside. I knew that adventure wasn't for everybody, at least my definition of adventure, which is fairly was fairly high octane. So, I wanted to talk to all different kinds of people who got outside. Among them, for instance, was I went birdwatching. Birdwatching, no one would think of as an adventurer, including me. In fact, I was kind of like, “Yes, I'm doing a book about outdoor adventure.” Then, in my head, I was like, “You're not an adventure but I'm going to include you because I wanted everybody out there.” But it turns out, and all the bird watchers already know this, that bird watching is an adventure. Because there was the quest of trying to see the bird. There was the exhilaration when you saw it. There was the physical vitality because we actually walked and I was with Virginia Rose who's actually in a wheelchair, and so she wheeled six miles. There was a physical vitality of an adventure. Basically, birdwatching had all the rhythms of an adventure and I had to – during the quest of that, was my book. One of the things that happened to me is I had to change, I'd expand my view of adventure and realize it's not about the actual action. It's about how you feel during it. So, if you're accessing your exploratory side, feeling exhilaration, pushing maybe a comfort zone, feeling physical, vital. That's an adventure. That was exciting to me. [0:10:21] PF: One thing that you talk about, and I love this, because we've talked about it on the show, is the importance of awe, and how changing that can be to even just take a walk and experience awe. Can you kind of talk about that a little bit? [0:10:35] CP: Yes. Well, it turns out another great reason why the outdoors is so healthy for us is that it's a surefire trigger for awe. Because all is that feeling that you get in the presence of something bigger. It's something that religion has used mostly, and we associated with religion. But in fact, we feel it when we look at the big sky. We look at the Grand Canyon. Of course, I felt it on some of my adventures. But it turns out, you don't have to go. I mean, it is in the presence of something bigger that you feel, but you can also access awe. You can cultivate awe. They did studies on this here in San Francisco, where the researchers asked people between the ages of 60 and 80 to go on walks, and simply look at things with childlike wonder, with fresh childlike eyes, I think is a quote. They were basically getting their participants to access awe. Then, they had a control group that just walked like we all walk, which is we ruminate and look at our phones. And they found after eight weeks that the people who were doing the awe walks had measurably different inflammatory markers. It went way down. Inflammation is a big sign of ill health. They reported feeling weightless, anxious, and depressed. And this was kind of crazy, they felt more compassion and gratitude, which makes sense, because awe is about seeing yourself in a larger picture. So, it made sense that they feel gratitude and compassion because you feel interconnected. The other thing is, is that we live in a world of anti-awe devices, especially inside. Our phone, our computer, it's all narrowing our focus, and making us seem like we have a lot of power and control. That's the opposite of awe. It's not that good for us. It gives us an inflated sense of ourselves and that's not healthy. So, awe is good for us. Getting outside is a really easy way to access awe. [0:12:25] PF: Yes, it is simple, and it's like, if you get out every day and you do it, it will absolutely change the way that you see the world. As you bring up so many times throughout the book, your mindset makes such a difference in how you age. So, as you look at how you're changing your mindset, what role does awe in developing positivity? [0:12:49] CP: Well, I mean, I think that, just because it does – one of the things they call awe is a reset button for the brain. What it does is that it changes your neural patterns. It kind of shakes them up. It kind of opens them up. You become more open to new ideas. They found more creative. And all that is really important for, well, anything in your life, but certainly for your just exploratory spirit, and your sense that there's more to do, more to access, just that openness. So, yes, awe is indispensable for our emotional well-being. [0:13:25] PF: You talked about how good it is to be out in nature. But in the book, you really drill down into the combination of nature and movement. [0:13:33] CP: Yes. Specifically, I was interested in ironically, not movement, but the brain. I wanted to know how a novelty was good for us, because I knew that one of the big things we worry about as we age is our memory. We need to keep challenging our brain. There is a sense that our brain is hardening, that we can't learn new things, and that it's probably withering away too. Well, it turns out, that's not true. The brain is highly plastic. It is laying down new neural pathways, growing new brain cells, well into older age. I don't even know if it ever stops. Even if you slow down some of the neural pathways for some reason, the brain then decides – they'll figure out how to lay different routes. It's almost like taking a different exit on the highway. I mean, the brain is amazing. So, you can continue to learn and you continue to explore. One of the things I did was I was interested in memory, because we're afraid of losing that. It turns out navigation and memory are in the same parts of our brain. So, I wanted to find someone who navigated in their outdoor sport. I found it orienteer. I went orienteering, which is basically when you race from a start line to a finish line, but you stop on checkpoints on the way that are on your map. Using your map, she called it running with a map and compass but she really call it running and thinking. [Inaudible 0:14:56]. What I found was that researched showed that if you actually are physically moving, you are more creative in your brain. Because our brain is not like a computer. A lot of great thinkers like Einstein would go on walks, and they would come up with great ideas during or after, because there is a way that they have shown that if you use your kinetic self, when you are thinking of an idea, you have a greater chance of solving it. So, an all waves movement, which is obviously important, physically is also good neurally. Also, then you feel better about yourself. [0:15:37] PF: I love that. We've become a society that's just sitting down and stuck in front of a screen and not trying to go outside and get creativity that way. We're trying to find it within. To change that – [0:15:50] CP: We’re on the Internet. [0:15:52] PF: Yes. I'll just Google that. I'll get my OpenAI and write that for me. But it is, like to be able to change that thinking, what have you seen it do either for yourself or someone else to start adopting that approach of saying, “I'm going to get up and move because I'm stuck on this problem.” [0:16:12] CP: Well, let me just say, I'll back up just a tiny bit and just say that. Back to that messaging about how we view ourselves, we have all these sort of subtle ideas about our own limitations as older women, especially because of the messaging that we get, and that's what's stopping us from going outside a lot. Because again, the messaging is about how frail and kind of incompetent we are, and boring, like I said. It's just a sense that our life is narrowing down. But what I found with the women I interviewed, especially the ones that had never gone outside before, that when they did – so, for instance, I went boogie boarding with a bunch of women in San Diego, and they were between the ages of 60 and in their 90s playing in the water. I talked to someone named Lorraine Voight. At 60, she saw these women when she was walking on the beach during the pandemic, and she thought, “Oh, they're having fun.” But she had no outdoor experience. She didn't even like the water. But it was that inflection point. It's the pandemic and she had had really tough 50s with deaths and just a lot of like reversals in her life. It was kind of a what the heck moment, probably, and she got in the water with them, and she was hooked. But not only did she love boogie boarding, she said to me, “Caroline, boogie boarding changed my life.” Now, boogie boarding is a very simple activity. That's something that kids do. I mean, you really are just – you’re just on a little floatation and just let the wave push you to shore. How could it change your life? I asked her, “How could it change your life?” She said, “Basically, look at the big cold Pacific Ocean. Look at the tumbling that happens. Look at the fun I'm having.” Basically, what she was telling me, she had up ended her own expectations of herself by simply taking those steps into the water. Because of that, it opened up all these other things about what she could do. [0:18:02] PF: I love that you bring up fun, because as adults, we tend to forget how important that is. Adventure is fun. It can be terrifying. But also, it's fun, and we need to be able to bring fun into our lives. [0:18:19] CP: Well, I looked into play, which is an actual science. I mean, people look into the benefits of play, and it's incredibly important. I mean, it's what we do to get to know ourselves better, and the people around us and community. I mean, that's what we did as kids. That's what dogs do in the dog park. You're right. It's actually a trust exercise. It's actually, obviously, you're getting physical vitality, but then there's lots of connection because there's a dance to it. Yes, play is important, and it's especially something that we lose not just as adults, but as women, because we're sort of expected to be such a certain way and trod such a particular path. Really, women are really watched a lot during their life in certain ways and judged. So, play is something that is scary for us because it's an abandon that – I say the word unruly in the book, and I think that's really apt. Unruly is an unusual way to describe women. We don't want to be described that way usually. But play is really good for us and it lets loose this sense of judgment. You don't care what other think and you're simply connecting with somebody else. [0:19:28] PF: So, as women are listening to this, and they're saying, “Oh, my God. I want to be her. I want to do that.” But there's something that holds us back. It's like, “Oh, my husband, my spouse, my kids, whatever. What will the neighbors think?” Kind of thing. How do we break out of that kind of thinking of like, “Yes, that's great. I wish I could, but I can't.” [0:19:51] CP: I've heard this a lot from people and it is hard to break out of our comfort zone. Especially, as women, we're not really taught to. I think men are often given training for very young age to kind of burst out and try new things and explore on your own and do it on your own. We are not. I did a lot of research on this for my book for girls. We are basically taught to be fearful about a lot of things at a very young age, which means we don't have that exploratory spirit, and we don't trust ourselves. Here's what I say, I say, I'm just trying to convince you how good it is for you to go outside and have an activity outside, and experience those aspects of adventure, like I said. So, if you believe me on that, you take pharmaceuticals, for whatever ails you, because you think it's going to make you feel better. There are always side effects. In fact, there's a very long list of side effects that are really unpleasant. They look like vomiting, diarrhea, don't drive ahead a vehicle. I could go on. I mean, you see them on the TV. If going outside your comfort zone or feeling a little fear, feels like something insurmountable, I urge you to think of it as just a little side effect of this incredibly health-giving pill that you're going to take. It is not only health-giving, but it's just going to open up your life in ways that I want you to tell me after you do it. Because again, as a rebuke to all the messaging you get, you find out things about yourself in the smoke without even trying. It's not like you're sitting down at a test and being like, “Now, I have to figure out about myself.” No, you're just going outside to birdwatch. That's what I just say. It's a side effect. I want you to take a small step. Do not fly a gyrocopter like I did for the book. [0:21:31] PF: But that was a great story. [0:21:33] CP: Do not BASE jump like somebody else I interviewed. Do not scuba dive like Louise Wholey who's 80. Don't do that. Take a walk with a friend. Do not learn to swim, maybe, like [inaudible 0:21:44] did. But go to the ocean and play in the side of the waves. Just push your comfort zone a tiny bit and I think it'll start to somersault as you find that – first of all, let me add one more thing, which is that every woman told me who was older than me that the 60s was their favorite decade. [0:22:02] PF: I love that. [0:22:04] CP: I know. It was unbelievable, because we're not told that. We're told that our best years are behind us. I remember my supposed best years and they were angst-filled and insecure. Now, I feel great. I enjoy everything, because I have that capacity to do it. So, we cannot let this slip by, by giving in to things like a little fear, like a little discomfort about our comfort zone. Because it's such an opportunity. It will be the best decade of your life or if you're past 60, the 70s, the 80s. [0:22:34] PF: I had an aunt who died at, she was either 96 or 97. I can't remember which. She had told me when I was younger, I was a lot like her. I tended to speak whatever was on my mind. She explained me like, “Yes, you will get in trouble. As a child, they're going to say you're insolent. As a young adult, they're going to say you're immature. As a middle-aged person, they're going to be like, we're not really sure about her.” She goes, “Once you hit 60, you can say anything you want, then now, you're the quirky fun person.” I was like, “Oh, man, so she really had me like looking forward to this.” [0:23:09] CP: We’re underestimated, and sometimes it's good to be underestimated and so – [0:23:13] PF: Exactly. [0:23:15] CP: You're invisible. Go do what you want. [0:23:17] PF: See if anyone finds out. You interviewed so many different women. You tell such great stories. One way I look at this book is as kind of like a catalogue of adventures that you could try. Like, “Oh, I never even thought about that.” I wondered if there was any single person or adventure that affected you most? [0:23:41] CP: All these women were amazing to me. I mean, I looked at women who were of different races, because I know that it's really hard for people of color to feel welcome outside. Of course, different abilities and different knowledge. Everybody amazed me. I feel like that since I mean really honestly, the chapter that was the most moving to me, of course, was writing about my own mother, who turns out was my subliminal messaging that made me blossom because I saw the way she opened up as she aged. That chapter was, of course, really important for me to write and difficult, and perhaps the most moving. [0:24:19] PF: Yes. Did you have any surprise learnings when you set out to write a book – [0:24:23] CP: Every single time. No, I came in with a swagger like, “This is an adventure.” Then, realized, when I went on a walk with a 93-year-old, just a mere walk was eye-opening and exhilarating because of the way she did it. She looked at everything. She quoted poetry while we did it. She looked at the sky, she looked at the birds. I mean, basically we went on an awe walk. I hadn't yet discovered awe, because awe discovered in this book. I did not understand that concept at all until I found it myself. But I had gone on an awe walk with dot. So, I guess I was just continually surprised. [0:25:04] PF: And as you look back on the experience of writing it, what was your biggest learning, would you say? [0:25:10] CP: Well, that, a small thing like an outdoor adventure will cover all the pillars of healthy aging. People say, but I can go to a book club, or I go to the gym, and all that is great. You got to do that too. But I'm just saying, it's to have the whole enchilada, basically, of community, purpose, novelty, vitality, and keep surprising and up ending expectations. Keep that positive mindset about your own aging. It's really an outdoor activity that will do it for you. Here's my final thing is that, with the climate chaos, we need to get out because it's disappearing. We only save what we love, as somebody said, someone very smart. So, if we begin to see just how vital the outdoors is, maybe we can save it before it's too late. [0:25:56] PF: I love that. I love that. Caroline, you have written a fantastic book. We are going to tell our listeners where they can find it. I strongly encourage them to pick it up during your 50s or up, or if you know someone, it is truly one of those books that gives so much inspiration, and even excitement about moving into the next 30 years. First of all, thank you for writing it, and then thank you for coming on the show and talking about it. [0:26:19] CP: Such an honor. Thank you, Paula. Thank you. [END OF INTERVIEW] [0:26:25] PF: That was Caroline Paul, talking about how outdoor adventure improves our lives as we age. If you'd like to learn more about Caroline, follow her on social media, or buy a copy of her book, Tough Broad. Just visit us at livehappy.com and click on the podcast tab. While you're there, be sure to sign up for our weekly Live Happy newsletter. Every Tuesday, we'll drop a little bit of joy in your inbox with the latest stories, podcast info, and even a happy song of the week. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one.   [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: How Happiness is Changing in the U.S. With Dr. Lara Aknin [INTRODUCTION]   [00:00:02] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 461 of Live Happy Now. Last week, the annual World Happiness Report was released. This week's guest is helping break down what it all means. I'm your host Paula Felps. Today, I'm talking with Dr. Lara Aknin, a distinguished professor of psychology at Simon Fraser University and one of the editors of the World Happiness Report. She's here to tell us why the US fell out of the top 20 happiest countries for the first time since the report has been published, which age group is thriving in the US, and talk about why our young people are struggling right now. She also shares some really encouraging findings about well-being and dementia, as well as how benevolence is changing worldwide. Let's have a listen. [INTERVIEW] [00:00:49] PF: Lara, thank you for joining me today on Live Happy Now. [00:00:53] LA: Thank you for having me. [00:00:54] PF: Every year, this is such a big time for us because the World Happiness Report comes out. We dig into it, and we try to cover it the best that we can. So I appreciate you sitting down and talking about it. How long have you been involved in working with the report? [00:01:08] LA: I have been involved for about five years now, back in 2019 I believe it was. My memory since COVID is a little fuzzy, but I believe it was 2019. My colleagues and I contributed a chapter to the World Happiness Report on some of the research we do regarding kindness and happiness. Then shortly after that, I was invited to join the editorial team. [00:01:28] PF: Nice, nice. Such an important report and we learn new things every year. For those who don't know, the report has certain themes it covers every year. Then it'll kind of branch out and do other subtopics every year. One thing they talked about this year was age and happiness. I wanted to know if you had any insight into why they decided to look at that topic. [00:01:53] LA: There are lots of reasons. One major one is that there's this burst of new research looking at some really interesting ideas and questions. So you'll see one of the chapters in this year's report written by Dr. Emily Willroth and her colleagues, I think, presents some of this really groundbreaking research, trying to understand not necessarily actually the predictors of happiness across the lifespan but the consequences of happiness for really important outcomes like dementia. Their chapters kind of split broadly into two parts, but one of the parts that I find so intriguing and then so excited about is how happiness or life satisfaction and well-being might be a protective factor against dementia. As a huge subset of the population is aging, all of us eventually, hopefully will. There's no known cure for dementia. This seems like one very important meaningful way in which we can intercept and perhaps improve the lives for many people. The new research is one key reason that it was – we chose to focus on this year's report on aging and happiness. But the other is the availability of data. One of the main sources, one of the incredible sources of information we draw upon for the World Happiness Report is the Gallup World Pole, which for those listeners who don't know is probably the most representative sample of planet Earth. So it's not just convenient samples drawn from wealthy nations, but it's individuals from rich and poor countries. They go out of their way to reach those who we might not be able to reach otherwise. Now, there are almost two decades worth, I believe, of data that allow us to look back and see these not only trends in happiness over time but allows us to try to tease apart some of the cohort effects from age effects, which is really exciting and promising for getting a closer look into what's going on in happiness across the lifespan. [00:03:38] PF: They touched on so many different things. As an editor, I wondered if there was anything that stood out to you about age and happiness on a global sense, as you were working on the project. [00:03:49] LA: Yes. There are a couple notable findings, and the report is so rich with so much information. I encourage your listeners to go have a look. There's so much to be seen. But two things that jump out at me that I think are kind of remarkable across the data sets and the information presented is, first and foremost, that around the world looking at global data, the happiness is highest among the young, so those under 30. Then begins to drop and remains relatively consistent over the rest of one's life. Now, that's looking at global data, which is really interesting. But get a little bit more interesting and sometimes unfortunate when you drill down into specific world regions. One that I think might be of particular interest to perhaps many listeners is that in North America, particularly in Canada and the United States, the young have started rating their life satisfaction quite a bit lower. In fact, it is one of the only world regions in the world where the young are less happy than the old. That is kind of an interesting point of complexity and intrigue and, for many, I imagine some concern. That is one fascinating finding. [00:04:54] PF: I was completely astonished to see that because in our case of people under the age of 30 in the US ranked 62nd. To put that in perspective, Russia is 68th. Young people in Russia are not that much more unhappy than young people in the US. Do we know what is driving that? [00:05:16] LA: That is a really important question. It’s a complex answer, as you might imagine. But, yes, if I can just pause and highlight what I think is so noteworthy here, which is that, yes, within the United States, older individuals, so those 16 above, are rating their lives much better. I believe there's over a 50 ranking gap between older adults in the United States compared to those under 30. There's something pretty unique going on here with the younger individuals. Why is this going on is a difficult thing to kind of parse, right? These data sets, the complexity and the size of them give us a huge snapshot of what is going on. But the challenge of that is that there are so many moving pieces. It's hard to pinpoint one exact explanatory feature. That being said, some of the authors of chapter two in the report, Dr. John Helliwell and Haifang Huang have done some deep dives to try to understand what's going on. There's a little bit of traction in understanding. In particular, what these two and their co-authors have found is that adults under 30, so Americans under 30, are reporting some interesting differences to compare to those who were 30 several decades ago, so those who were 30 in the early 2000s and up to 2010. In particular, those under 30 these days are reporting less support from their friends and family than did earlier cohorts. They're also reporting less freedom to make life choices, more stress and anxiety, but not more anger, less confidence in the government, greater perceptions of corruption. Another important one is feeling less satisfied with their living situation. I think although incomes are not necessarily especially low, I think they're stagnating relative to the cost of living. So that might be a point of frustration or stress and anxiety for some younger Americans under 30. It seems to be this cocktail of predictors that are associated with lower levels of well-being among those under 30 and different from those that were reported about a decade and a bit ago. [00:07:23] PF: At the same time, those young people are – the report shows that those young people are more benevolent. They're more altruistic, which is so interesting that they would be dissatisfied because one thing we talk about quite a bit on Live Happy Now is how – and you would know this about practicing kindness and acts of altruism. Those increase our satisfaction. That, to me, was just a striking disparity that we have this generation that's more giving, more altruistic, but they're also more dissatisfied. [00:07:56] LA: Exactly. That was going to be my other notable thing. It's always a silver lining for me. Or a really fascinating spotlight in the report is this increase, this upshoot in benevolence, especially since COVID, since pre-COVID years. You're right. Across all three metrics of benevolence that are captured in the Gallup World Poll data, which is helping a stranger, donating to charity, and volunteering. Each of these are relatively high across the board. They're higher post-COVID than they were before COVID. There don't seem to be whopping generational differences in this. If anything, we're seeing the young being equally, in most cases, benevolent across the board. They're more likely to help a stranger and less likely to donate. That might be partially because they just have lower levels of income. But you're right. Benevolence doesn't seem to be the explanatory factor. One might wonder if this is even buffering or supporting their well-being that these differences reported might be even more extreme if these weren't the actions people were taking. I just want to point out, though, that those benevolence ratings are global, and the findings that we're talking about here are within the United States. So I don't know exactly the benevolence levels within the United States, but that would be an interesting question to drill down upon. [00:09:07] PF: The report does an excellent job of parsing out this information, but what it doesn't do and intentionally is say, “Here's the cure.” We get a lot of information, and I think that's what a lot of us want to know is like, wow, if our young people are that unhappy, what is it that we can do about it? As you mentioned, there are several factors driving this, so it's not this small ship that we can just turn on a dime. As people who are not in our 30s and younger, what do we do? How do we start helping support young people and changing the way that they feel? [00:09:45] LA: That's a really important question. Like you say, I don't know if there's a perfect solitary answer to this. I think there's a lot to be considered in part because some of these may be societal changes, right? Concerns, for instance, about less freedom to make life choices and concerns about corruption and less trust in government would be hard for any caring friend or family member to interject upon and maybe change things. It's possible perhaps that there might be other pathways that are a little bit more tractable, so for instance, the support from friends and family. Interestingly, I believe some of the data suggest that these individuals are not necessarily receiving less contact, if you will, from friends and family but perhaps feel like they're not receiving enough. Or at least they're less satisfied with the support from friends and family. One perhaps avenue or strategy for support might be to have some very open conversations with the younger adults in your life and kind of see how they're doing. Perhaps find ways to offer additional support. There might be other factors. I mean, it's hard to support someone's satisfaction with their living conditions. I mean, that's not an easy way to just step in and change. Some of these may be more systematic or societal-level concerns. I’m not saying that this is out of our reach, but I think there's a lot of conversation to be had about which ways to kind of step in and support adults under 30. [00:11:09] PF: Do you think knowing this that now we are going to do that, now that we are aware of this situation is becoming more dire? Do you think there's a community starting with a scientific community that shares this information? Then are we going to start saying, okay, we need to enact some change, some real change in the world to make this better? [00:11:28] LA: I remain overoptimistic. I think one of the main thrusts and the rationales for the World Happiness Report is to present some of this leading evidence on the science of happiness to the public and also to policymakers and individuals who are concerned about the well-being of their constituents and their community members and their neighbors. The hope is that by bringing some hard science to this question to delineate and demonstrate the trends over time and shine a spotlight on those who perhaps are not thriving or doing as well as we would have hoped can direct attention to those areas. There's always a lot of discussion. There are many governments that are trying to pay attention to these well-being reports. I know many governments are starting to ask these questions regarding life satisfaction and well-being in their census data. I think that's a step in the right direction. But as you'll see in chapter I believe it's three of this year's report, which is focused on the youth, there is actually not as much data as we would like to grapple with some strong insights, especially in developing nations. A lot of the evidence is lacking, and so that raises some questions about how people who perhaps are really struggling are not even being assessed and observed. I think that we're certainly making strides, but I think we're far from perfect data and perfect insights on how to address this. [00:12:41] PF: I think that's one thing the World Happiness Report does is every year, we talk about it. Then it's in the spotlight. It's in the news. Then it kind of, uh, slips out. That’s why I love the fact that it comes out every year. It doesn't let us forget that, hey, we still have – this is an important thing. Happiness is an important indicator, and we need to be studying it, looking at it, and figuring out what's going on in our world. [00:13:05] LA: I think it's important because happiness isn't just the absence of negative emotions. It's more than that. I think there's – as chapter four in this year's report nicely illustrates, these protective factors matter a lot. It's not just this wishy-washy vague sense of well-being that we can hope for, but that it matters for some of these really consequential outcomes, even beyond the fact that we care about our own and our neighbor’s well-being. It predicts some really mean meaningful hard outcomes. I think it helps, like you say, shine a spotlight on some of these important pressing issues. [00:13:37] PF: We've talked about the not-so-great news with the young people but great news with the boomers. US is number 10 among the age group, the baby boomer age group for happiness. That's incredibly good news. That means we're doing great in terms of people, what is that, from 1964? [00:13:55] LA: Yes. I think it – yes. I think you're right. I think you're right. I think it's 1964. Yes. [00:14:01] PF: Why? Why? [00:14:03] LA: I think we know less about that. I mean, part of it is I think although objectively boomers have, I think, less in the way of social contact, I think that there is a greater satisfaction with it. That is one memory I have from reading this report multiple times. But I don't think we have never done a drill down among the older boomers in the United States or even the boomer generation just globally to figure out what is exactly the unique predictors there. What we do know is that countries that rank highly among the older boomer generation tend to be those that are ranked more highly overall but to be in the top 20 and certainly among the top 10 and 15. I think the United States is an interesting case where the happiness of the young, those under 30, is really [inaudible 00:14:48] the average ranking of the United States because these adults under 30 are reporting significantly lower levels of life satisfaction. Yes, for the first time in a number of years, the United States has dropped out of top 20. I think the boomers are what's elevating the ranking, but the young are what is dropping it down. [00:15:06] PF: That's interesting. When I first started covering this, we were at number 13. Then it was 50. It’s like – [00:15:13] LA: I mean, we don't have any measurement of this but some. It might have to do with political tensions or divisions in growing levels of income inequality but also well-being inequality that is mentioned a bit in chapter two of the report. But it is also, I think, those societal, political level factors in the United States might be contributing perhaps especially. Who knows? This remains to be tested. Perhaps might be shifting the well-being of the young or influencing the well-being of the young perhaps more so. [00:15:43] PF: Well, does what drives happiness in older populations differ from what drives happiness in younger age groups? Is that part of it at all? [00:15:52] LA: It certainly could be. I don't think chapter two includes any analyses that would answer that question specifically. I mean, many of the – because it's a global report with so much data, usually the focus is on looking for commonalities, not differences across the world but also across the ages. But I don't think there was any analysis that looked at whether, for instance, social relationships was a greater predictor of well-being amongst the old versus the young. That's a really intriguing question. There are some interesting psychological theories that might bring to bear on this question. I'm happy to mention them, but I don't know if it – they weren't tested directly in the report. So you can let me know if that's a – [00:16:31] PF: Yes, go ahead. I'd love to hear it. [00:16:33] LA: Sure. Laura Carstensen has this really fascinating theory arguing that when we're young, time seems expansive. Normally, people prioritize these kind of efforts to go out to search for unique new experiences. People prioritize having usually a diverse set of friends, a diverse set of experiences because it's all about learning and trying new things. It's like this very exploratory mindset. Then as people get older and people start to realize that time is not infinite, instead of taking this purely exploratory approach as they navigate the world, they prioritize things that are particularly meaningful and valuable and positive to them. How this matters, for instance, for predictors of happiness but also for relationships might be instead of trying to maintain dozens of different friend groups, people might prioritize these three, four individuals, these three or four networks in their lives that tend to bring them the most joy and meaning and whatever it is they prioritize. This theory suggests that the predictors of happiness may vary slightly as a function of age. Generally speaking, most people derive a lot of joy from helping others, from being with others. But who exactly are those others may differ, right? When you're 18 and starting college, that might be trying everything there is. When you're 75, that might be your closest friends. Social relationships might matter across the lifespan, but who are those contributing individuals might vary. [00:17:59] PF: That makes so much sense. To me, it was so interesting that this report really focuses a lot on age because when we look at how aging is portrayed like, “Oh, you're going to be lonely. You're going to be falling apart,” there are so many messages that's negative about aging. When you look at this report, it's really an inspirational read. It shows you that that's not what is going on. Has that actually changed, or has it just been always portrayed incorrectly? [00:18:32] LA: It's important to note it might be inspirational for folks living in North America and Australia, New Zealand, where this trend is happiness generally speaking across the lifespan is on an upward trajectory. But there certainly are world regions where the reverse is true. For instance, in Central and Eastern Europe, I believe that it's a downward trend across the lifespan. There are some notable differences across the globe. Different cultures hold aging in different regards, right? In many Eastern cultures, it's an honor. There's a lot of honor and respect for the elders, whereas that isn't necessarily true across all different nationalities and ethnicities and religious affiliations. So perhaps in North America it's kind of seen like as you get older, you're out of touch. You're falling apart. It might be a lot of negative portrayals. But I don't think that's always the case worldwide. But I agree with you. I think certainly from a North American perspective, especially Canada and the United States, the older adults are reporting their lives as much more aligned with their ideal than are the young. That is perhaps inspirational for many people who are in that generation. [00:19:39] PF: Yes, because we're all headed in that direction. We want to know it's getting better, right? [00:19:44] LA: Hopefully, it's all getting better. Yes, for sure. [00:19:47] PF: Well, there's so much in this report. What is it that you would think that is a takeaway that you hope that everybody would get from sitting down and spending some time with this report? [00:19:59] LA: Well, I think broadly speaking, I think the report does what I think and perhaps I'm very biased here, but I think it does a really great job of showcasing what I think is some of the best science on the question of happiness around the globe and some of the most cutting-edge interesting findings. Details aside for a second, I think the report, hopefully, is a nice demonstration, is a convincing demonstration of where the science of well-being is at and convinces many people that this is not a floofy self-help grounded literature but rather a hard science where people are able to self-report how they feel about their lives and how scientists can try to understand what are these correlates, and how does it track over time, and how does it differ across age and region. Many important variables that help us give some traction on perhaps how to improve the lives of others. I hope, big picture, people walk away with an understanding that this is a hard science and one that we can really sink our teeth into and try to improve the lives of many people with. I think two highlights for me in this report are, one, the benevolence finding that we talked about already. I realized that there are some mixed pictures. There’s a lot of nuance in this report. Looking across the world is always difficult with hundreds of thousands of individuals offering their take on their lives. There's so much data to dig into. Normally, just looking around the globe is complex and nuanced enough. But now to split it by age group and cohort or generation is even more nuanced. But I think the benevolence finding is one of the clearest cut across the globe, which is that there's been this increase in benevolence that it's pretty consistent across the generations. I think while many things can sometimes look a mess in this world and in people's well-being, this is one very rosy optimistic picture showing that people are in perhaps better – higher than we would assume, looking out for one another and helping their neighbors, helping their communities. The other finding that I think is really important and worth showcasing is the findings from chapter four, which is on the dementia findings I mentioned earlier, which is just how all of us are, hopefully, getting older. Unfortunately, dementia is one thing that raises significant challenges for many people who are facing these cognitive impairments. But also for their friends and their family who are trying to help these individuals be well and enjoy their lives, even with this very difficult diagnosis. I think there are some really interesting and important information to bring to bear in this year's report about how well-being and life satisfaction can be a really important protective factor for that. I just think it raises the stakes for some of the – thinking about some of this research. It's not just about feeling good, which I think is motivation enough in itself to care about our own and other’s well-being. But I think it really raises concerns about what it is we want in our communities and our societies and how we take care of each other. [00:22:48] PF: I agree 100%. This was so interesting. Lara, I appreciate you sitting down and talking with me. You really distilled a lot of great information for it. We're going to tell our listeners how they can find the report, how they can digest it. We're going to run some things on our website about it. But thank you for making sense of it for us and taking this time with me today. [00:23:07] LA: My pleasure. Thank you for the invitation. [00:23:12] PF: That was Dr. Lara Aknin, talking about findings from the World Happiness Report. If you'd like to download a full copy of the report, read additional stories about the findings, or learn more about Lara, just visit us at livehappy.com. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Live Happy Now. If you aren't already receiving us every week, we invite you to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, feel free to drop us a review and let us know what you think. That is all we have time for today. We'll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. Until then, this is Paula Felps, reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: Healing Paws With Heather Stohr   [INTRODUCTION] [0:00:07] PF: Welcome to Happiness Unleashed with your host, Brittany Derrenbacher, presented by Live Happy. Plenty of research shows that pets can help us heal, and now even hospitals are warming up to the idea. I'm Paula Felps, and this week I'm joining Brittany as she sits down with Heather Stohr, a certified child life specialist at Norton Children's in Louisville, Kentucky. Heather manages the facility dog program at Norton Healthcare, which allows animals to play a very important role in the healing process for patients, families, and their caregivers. Join us as we learn how they are changing lives one hospital bed at a time. [EPISODE] [0:00:45] BD: Tell us what a facility dog program is? [0:00:49] HS: Sure, yeah. Our facility dog program launched in 2017. We have 12 full-time working dogs, and our dogs are trained to help really just support our patients, and our families, and our staff as well in the hospital setting. They just provide that amazing love and laughter like humans cannot, so they asked our leadership team about doing something like that, and they were sure like, “Sure. This sounds great.” So, I did some research and talked to some other hospitals that had programs in place. Yeah, so about a year later, we were up and running. [0:01:30] BD: You're in Louisville, Kentucky. Tell everyone what the name of the program is, because it's so cute. [0:01:35] HS: Yes. Our program is Heel, Dog, Heal. So, H-E-E-L, Dog, H-E-A-L. Yes, our marketing team did a great job of coming up with a name for our program, and I love it very much. [0:01:48] BD: Who are the patients? Who are the patients that the facility dogs are visiting? [0:01:53] HS: What's really unique about our program is we have full-time facility dogs that work in our pediatric areas. Then also dogs that work in our adult areas. I really love that about our program. You'll find that many children's hospitals have facility dog programs, but Norton Healthcare decided that we needed them for children and adults, which I totally agree with. They, in pediatrics, they are on our med surge unit. They are in our pediatric intensive care unit, in our cardiac intensive care unit. We have a facility dog that works on our oncology unit, and then in the outpatient oncology space as well. Then in the adult areas, they just round on the different units, and physicians and nursing staff can put in consults for our dogs if there's a specific need for a patient or a family and have a facility dog visit. [0:02:45] PF: I would love to hear what a facility dog does, like what's a day in their life, and how do they respond to the patients? I would just love to hear what they do. [0:02:55] HS: Yeah. It looks different in the different settings, obviously. For a lot of our patients, it's about getting them up and moving after surgery, so it's much more fun to walk a dog around the unit instead of walking on a walker or having the physical therapist help you. That's true with our adult patients as well, and really in pediatrics, we're focusing on that, but we help our adults too, because they're nervous about getting up. They might have sutures, or they're scared that it's going to be painful and hurt. They do a lot. We do a lot of co-treating with physical therapy, as well as occupational therapy, so it might be something like they need to get some movement in their arms so they can pet the facility dog, they can throw a ball, and the dog will go get the ball and bring it back. It's getting them up. The emulation part of it is a big deal. For our younger patients, a lot of them don't want to take their medication, or taking medicine is hard or it tastes yucky. Our facility dogs can take medicine from a syringe or a medicine cup, so we model that with our patients using pretend medicine. It's just water, but we show them, and nine times out of ten, they're willing to try it if the dog can do it, and kind of the same with when we need them to get their hospital down on, to go back to the OR. We can dress the dogs up in hospital gowns, it makes it just a little bit less scary, a little more normalizing. [0:04:19] BD: How do you see the healing process shift, like emotionally, especially for kids, once dogs enter the room? It's truly amazing. It's almost immediate. When we walk in the room, if I'm by myself, as supposed to when I have my facility dog, when the dog is there, it's almost an immediate, either calming reaction or excitement. The other day, Juno and I were in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, and she was on the bed with a patient, and then the doctor walked in and said, “Wow, I haven't seen you smile this much, and the inflection in your voice just exudes happiness.” She's like, “Well, dah, I mean, there's a dog in my bed.” They just have this amazing way of connecting with people that I myself as a human do not. I don't know if it's, there's no judgment there, they don't ask for anything. It's pretty amazing that I get to be a part of that every day, all day long. Pretty cool. [0:05:20] PF: I think that is such an amazing way to approach healing, because we know the emotions that you get from being with animals, and how much that releases. How do you train these dogs? What does it take for a dog to become a facility dog? Because I look at mine and I know Brittany will agree, because she knows my dog. There's no way a hospital would ever let them in. [0:05:44] HS: Yeah. Our dogs are trained through a wonderful local organization called Paws with Purpose. They breed and train their dogs for facility dog and assistance dog work. Not all the dogs make the cut, but they start training them when they're very young at like eight weeks old. The training process is about two years. As the dog gets a little bit older and further along in the training process, they are deciding like, do we think that this one would be better as an assistance dog or service dog, or can this one handle more people touching them and working in a facility where that's a little bit different than being task trained. It's really interesting. They train them out at the women's prison. The Kentucky Correctional Institution for Women. They have inmate handlers there that train the dogs, and they are amazing. They do the bulk of the training for these pups, but on the weekends, each pup in training has a weekend handler that picks them up. The job of the weekend handler is to help socialize them, take them to the mall, take them to the grocery store, and just get them out and about and exposed to things that they wouldn't see in the prison setting. [0:06:51] BD: Right. that's healing for those women too. [0:06:53] HS: Absolutely. When I got my dog, I was able to meet with her handler at the prison. Our dogs actually continue to go back there. They do their baths and check-ins. So, the handlers there get to hear stories about the great work that their dogs are doing out in the community, like I said, they really do the bulk of the training and are amazing. The things that they teach these dogs, not only just basic cues, but also like really fun and creative tricks, I guess you would call it. It's a really neat program. [0:07:27] PF: When you tell us that, it amazes me, because this one dog, look at how many lives this one dog changes from the time it's a puppy. I mean, it's changing the woman in prison who is training it. It's the weekend handler. It's making an impact. It changes your life to have this dog in your presence and every patient. I think that is a phenomenal touch that just one dog has throughout its lifespan. [0:07:53] HS: So true. It's so true. I had the pleasure of being a puppy trainer for Paws with Purpose, and a pup that I had actually got placed at Norton Children's Autism Center. I do still get to see him, but he was with me for several years. It was tough when I knew it was placement time for him, but also this just feeling of joy and excitement that the amount of people and children that he and his new handler are helping, and it's been amazing. I'm lucky enough that I get to see it. [0:08:25] BD: My work used to be in adoptions. I would work with so many different families to have dogs be adopted. The question always that I would get from people interested and being a foster home is like, how do you give the animal up? How do you let that animal go to someone else? How was that for you, like your first experience with that? [0:08:48] HS: It was mixed feelings for sure, because this dog, I had him a little bit longer, because I had him through COVID, the pandemic. Things stopped for a while, so the dogs through the pandemic had a little bit longer period of training time. I got to keep him a little bit longer and have him more regularly at my home, but when it was time, like I said, I had some mixed feelings. There was some definitely happy tears, and then really, I was excited that he was going to stay in our program. So, he's part of the Heel, Dog Heal Program, and I get to see him when we all get together. That is really great. He and his new mom, his new handler are doing such amazing work. It just, it brings me so much joy. It really fills the heart. [0:09:34] BD: Speaking of joy, can you tell the listeners about who is with you today? [0:09:39] HS: Yes. I have my eight-year-old golden retriever, Juno. She is a white, fluffy ball of fur, smiles everywhere she goes. Well, typically she's holding a stuffed animal in her mouth. She loves to carry her stuffies, especially if it's a lamb chop. So, we get to walk through the hospital halls and put smiles on people's faces that don't even pet or touch her. It's pretty amazing if you walk through the hospital with me to see how people react when they see her. [0:10:10] BD: Her Instagram handle is @juno_bringsjoy? [0:10:13] HS: That's right. Yes, yes. That she does. She brings so much joy to my life and my family, but also just the people that we get to interact with and serve every day at the hospital. We're here at the hospital, when people are here, it's a scary time for them. Maybe they don't know what's going on. Maybe they're waiting for a new diagnosis, but maybe their family members are in a lot of pain or the doctors are trying to figure out what's wrong. We get to be a little bit of light in that day and try to make their day just a little bit better. Yeah, that's why we get to have the facility dogs in the hospital. They reduce that stress and anxiety of being in this hospital setting. There's been research that shows it reduces blood pressure and heart rate. All those things, that's when I was asking my leadership team if I could look more into it. Those were some of the things that I came back with of the evidence base and how it could help our patients and families. Really, the focus was on our patients when we first started the program, but when the pandemic hit, the dogs had to go home. We just didn't know what that was going to look like. So, they were out of work for about six weeks. Then I got a phone call saying they could come back, but the focus was, they could only see staff. What we learned through that, not that the dogs didn't really see the staff before with the focus only being on staff when we were able to come back in 2020, was really we found, happier employees made for happier patients. If that makes sense. That trickles down. So, we've continued that and rounding on our staff, going to staff meetings. If we get an ask, if they've had a rough day on a particular unit, and we try our best to make rounds there just to check in and say hello. [0:11:57] PF: They are such well-rounded workers. I mean, they do so much for everybody that they come in contact with. I wondered, I'm glad you brought up the way that you were able to find the research and bring it up to your team, because it used to be they wouldn't have dreamed of letting an animal near a hospital. Is there any pushback still on things like that or do people realize the benefits, there's not a risk, but there are benefits? What's the – [0:12:23] HS: Yeah. I would say in the beginning, there was definitely some pushback. I don't even know if I call it pushback, but it was more about we wanted to make sure that we were going to keep our patients safe from an infection prevention standpoint. So, had no hospital acquired infections that have been traced back to any of our dogs. The program has been going since 2017, so I'm happy to say that. We put some parameters in place, people use hand hygiene before and after petting our dogs. If the dog is going to get up in the bed with a patient, we put a flat barrier sheet down and then the dog gets on the on the sheet. Then when the dog gets off, we take the sheet off of the bed. Our dogs are, well Juno gets a bath every week. Most of them go. It's about every seven to 10 days. Then we groom them every day when they come in from being outside, we're wiping their paws. They are in amazing shape, that is for sure. Both inside and out. What they eat, they are on a very strict diet. We want to keep them in good shape, so they can work longer. They probably eat healthier than I do in all honesty. [0:13:28] BD: Yeah. All our dogs do. [0:13:30] HS: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. [0:13:33] BD: Yeah. Heather, you're a certified child life specialist. I feel like you can uniquely answer this question. This month is International Day of Happiness. Also, the month of March on the Jewish calendar is the month of joy. How do the dogs in your program bring happiness and joy to children? [0:13:53] HS: Yeah. That's a great question. I think what it comes down to is just their unconditional love, like I said before, there's no judgment. There's the kind of like, that trust and safety and it's normal. It's a normalizing experience. Many children and families have pets at home. When they're in the hospital, they're missing their pet. It gives them that sense of love and connection when they're in the hospital. It's also really amazing when we have children that aren't being open or wanting to talk about what is going on, or happening, or how they're feeling, whether that's they're having pain, but they don't want to disclose that or something traumatic has happened. Truly amazing. Just to walk in as you start petting that dog, they just start talking. We're not asking questions, but they just have this sense of just, like this is a safe environment. The dogs also do a great job of just giving our patients and families an alternate focus. When you talk to our patients, most of them will say there's been a reduction in pain or anxiety after seeing the facility dog. Our dogs are requested for certain things, because they have helped a certain patient in the past. So, we try to make that happen as well. They also, can be really goofy in times and make you laugh. Sometimes in the hospital, it's hard to laugh, right? Because you're so worried and your hurting, nervous about something, they have a great way of making us laugh, writing that humor. [0:15:26] BD: Yeah. That's a lot of duality, right? Because you have a lot of heavy, tough, serious, painful things going on. Then you have these dogs that just come in and they will just ground you in the present moment with their joy and goofiness. I mean, they don't care. They're just going to be them. [0:15:45] HS: They don't. My work is a child life specialist. We work with families that are grieving or in a bereavement situation. So, we do utilize our dogs for those types of situations and really to see my dog work the room and go to the people that need her most is pretty amazing as well. We had worked with a particular family who, Juno and I had seen this woman for about six or seven weeks and she passed away. The family asked that we come up to the room. Juno went to the very people that needed her. I just let her off leash. It was really an amazing experience for me just to see her. She just knew what to do. I didn't give her a cue. I didn't ask her to go see a certain person or anything. I'll never forget. There's many experiences like that, but this one just really sticks out, because we had visited the family for many weeks and gotten to know them pretty closely. [0:16:46] BD: Dogs are so intuitive. I mean, animals in general are so intuitive, but that's beautiful. [0:16:51] HS: For sure. [0:16:52] PF: How do you know what to do? Because the dog is trained. How is a handler trained? What kind of program do they go through? [0:16:59] HS: Yeah. Our handlers work with Paws with Purpose, will teach us everything we need to know about being a handler, so we do about 30 hours of book work with them. Then we start some hands-on training with different dogs. You don't get to pick the dog that is going to be your dog. They have a matching system. They do a great job of looking at the work that the dog's going to be doing, and then what setting the dog will be in. But also, it's your home. What is it like at your home? Do you have a very active home? Do you have young children? Do you have older children? So, you're working with different dogs, just learning the mechanics. Our handlers make it look really easy, but there's a certain foot you step off with when you're getting ready to go and telling the animal let's go. If you step off with the other foot, they won't go. It's like learning all of those things. Paw with Purpose does a great job. They also come into our hospital to help the handler once they're matched with their dog. Then we do follow ups. There's weekly trainings on the weekends that we go to. Then they do a 30, 60, 90 day check in, and then yearly after that to make sure that we're keeping up with the dog skills. We're practicing and making sure they're in tip top shape. [0:18:11] BD: I have a different kind of question, because Paula and I have these smooshy face, brachycephalic breeds that, it's so hard to train. Just very unique, right? We love them. Is there a certain breed that is better equipped and easier to train and maybe a little bit more malleable to enter into these scenarios? [0:18:34] PF: Boston Terriers need not apply. [0:18:39] HS: Well, that's a great question. I think when you look at facility dog programs across the US, most of what you'll find are golden retrievers and Labrador Retrievers or a cross of the two, maybe. I do know some programs have like doodle mix, doodle crosses with a lab or a golden, but yeah, they're mainly, ours are all Labrador's golden retrievers or crosses of the two. Yeah. [0:19:01] PF: I'm pretty interested to know what made you want to do this? How did you get involved? Because if whether it started as a passing interest, it's now become central to you. How did you find out about it, what made you interested in it? How did it all evolve for you? [0:19:18] HS: Well, my entire life, I've had dogs and just throughout things personally in my own life have truly experienced the healing power of the animal. Then I had heard about in 2016, I'd heard about a couple other hospitals that were starting programs. We have a pet therapy program where people can bring their pet dog into our hospital for about an hour a week and visit with patients, but we saw a need to have the dogs here for longer periods of time. When I heard about other children's hospitals doing this, that's when I had approached my leadership team and just to see if they'd be interested, if I could even explore it and they were totally on board and amazing. I went to a conference actually, and gathered all the info and brought that back to the team. Then I started just gathering a team of people and finding champions within our hospital that felt the same way or felt that it would be beneficial for our patients and families. That's just how we started. [0:20:20] BD: What have the dogs that you've worked with and in your career taught you about life, and living, and healing, and community, and love? [0:20:32] HS: Wow, that's a great question. I think I would say for that one is just to, I guess, live life to the fullest, be present in the moment, and don't be afraid to be a little bit silly or funny at times. I love the goofiness of our dogs and really just to, I guess, share the love and connection that we have as humans. Dogs can do that so easily. I think sometimes as humans, we step back and don't want to say things, but the dogs have such a great way of doing that. So, I think it's important to learn from them. Yeah. [0:21:08] BD: There's a big event coming up in October. Tell us – the facility dog summit. [0:21:13] HS: Yes. I am so excited. Our hospital was chosen to host the next facility dog summit. It will be October 14th and 15th at the Muhammad Ali Center here in Louisville, Kentucky. Facility dog handlers throughout the United States will come and we will talk all things facility dog. We're currently working on our schedule now. People are submitting abstracts. Some of that will involve research that has been done over the past couple of years. We'll talk about all kinds of different things. I guess sometimes maybe the struggles of being a handler and what that looks like. Interventions that handlers are doing with their dogs in the hospital setting. Just sharing knowledge and with everybody throughout the facility dog community. [0:21:57] BD: We always like to end the show sharing a story of an animal that is doing meaningful, memorable, magical work in the community. Is there an animal that you work with or have worked within the past that stands out to you? [0:22:12] HS: I manage the program at the hospital. I get to hear all the amazing stories of impact. I'm always asking for those from my handlers. I don't know if I could pick just one, honestly, because they each have done some truly amazing work and they do it day in and day out. It's hard to pick one. I don't know. I feel a little selfish if I pick my own dog, right? [0:22:40] BD: [Inaudible 0:22:40]. It’s allowed. [0:22:41] HS: Yeah, exactly. I obviously think she does amazing work, but I know it's happening throughout the hospital walls here at Norton Healthcare. We're very blessed to have this program. [0:22:55] BD: Well, Heather, thank you so much. This program and what you're doing and all the animals in the community, it's a gift. It's really beautiful, meaningful work that you all are doing. Thank you so much for coming on the show, and for sharing Juno, and the program, and the kids. Thank you. [0:23:11] HS: You are welcome. [OUTRO] [0:23:13] PF: That was Brittany Derrenbacher, talking with Heather Stohr. If you'd like to learn more about the facility dog program about Paws with Purpose or follow Juno, the therapy dog on social media, just visit our website @livehappy.com. Of course, Brittany will be back here next month to talk more about how pets bring us joy, help us heal and can be some of our greatest teachers. Until then, for everyone at Live Happy, this is Paula Felps reminding you to make every day a happy one. [END]