Transcript - The Science of Spooky Happiness With Michelle Palmer Jones and Paula Felps

Follow along with the transcript below for episode: The Science of Spooky Happiness With Michelle Palmer Jones and Paula Felps

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:04] PF: Thank you for joining us for episode 542 of Live Happy Now. Spooky season is officially upon us, and that means it’s time to scare up a little Halloween happiness. I’m your host, Paula Felps. And this week, I’m joined by Live Happy‘s social media manager, Michelle Palmer Jones, who spearheaded this year’s Halloween Happy Acts campaign. Michelle’s here to talk with me about some of the fun research we discovered about why Halloween is so good for us. And she’ll also tell us about this year’s Halloween Happy Acts campaign and how you can be a part of it. Let’s have a listen.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:00:38] PF: Michelle, thank you for coming on Live Happy Now.

[0:00:42] MPJ: Oh yeah, happy to be here, Paula.

[0:00:43] PF: I’m excited. People haven’t met you. I’ve known you for quite some time. We’re now working together. Looking forward to seeing your face and hearing your voice on this podcast more. But this seemed like the perfect time to bring you on the air for the first time because it’s Halloween. And it’s like we’re 10 days away from my favorite holiday. I know there’s a lot of people out there who love it as much or maybe even more than I do. And I know you’re a fan, too. I wanted to start by asking you how you usually celebrate Halloween.

[0:01:14] MPJ: Ooh. Okay. Well, I think that that has definitely changed over the years. As a kid, you just put on your favorite dance recital costume from that year. That’s what I did. And then you just grab a pillowcase, because we all know that a pillowcase just holds the most candy. And then you hit the town, you know. That was it.

High school, a little different. I remember throwing a Halloween party. My parents actually love to tell this story, and here I am sharing it. I told them I wanted to have a few close friends over after trick-or-treating. They got a pizza, some sodas, and then like 40 kids showed up. And they should have known. My closest friends, that was the entire class.

[0:01:56] PF: How far did that pizza go with 40 people?

[0:01:59] MPJ: I’m going to order a few more pizzas. Yeah. Some extra snacks. But it was fun. We bobbed for apples on the back deck. It was great. Everyone gets wild because you’re all hopped up on candy, you know.

[0:02:11] PF: Oh yeah, that sugar high is incredible.

[0:02:13] MPJ: But yeah, that’s like the history of Halloween for me.

[0:02:16] PF: So, are you more of a scary Halloween type, or do you like the playful approach? Especially, let’s talk first about movies. For Halloween movies, do you like the scary stuff or the fun stuff?

[0:02:29] MPJ: I don’t like the scary stuff. I don’t like the boo scary jump out at you, get in my face thing. I do like a psychological thriller, though. Suspenseful, scary, makes you think. Where it’s not like the suspenseful music and then boo. I’m good with that. The Saw movies, IT, creepy, but fine. The ones with the demons, terrifying. I did go to Catholic school, though. So that tracks. Yeah.

[0:03:01] PF: Yeah. So you like it a little bit less terrifying, just in terms of jumping out at you.

[0:03:07] MPJ: Yeah. Don’t jump into my face or have some really calm music, and then all of a sudden it’s like it’s, “Eee-eee-eee.”

[0:03:16] PF: Not. Haunted houses. Do you do haunted houses? What about haunted houses?

[0:03:22] MPJ: I have done them. I don’t love when my fight or flight reflex is tested. And that’s because I am flight every single time. And there’s not really a good place to run in a haunted house. I know this about myself. I’ve come to terms with it. I’m not fighting anybody. I’m not running into the fire. I am getting the heck out of there as fast as possible. And haunted house, you’re kind of stuck.

[0:03:49] PF: Yeah. You cannot hit them with your purse or any other object. I know that now.

[0:03:54] MPJ: That would have gone.

[0:03:57] PF: I wanted to ask you about that. I want to ask you about the haunted house experience because I was super interested to read this study that was in Scientific American. And it said that people who go through those high-intensity haunted houses, or those really scary but allegedly safe Halloween experiences, that they are less anxious afterwards. Because that controlled fear can actually calm them once the experience is over. That’s not your experience with it.

[0:04:29] MPJ: I will say, if I’m watching something scary and something unexpected makes me jump, I do feel better afterward. It is a very fleeting feeling of, “Oh, that was frightening, but I’m okay. Everything’s okay. I’m safe.” I do get that. Yeah.

[0:04:47] PF: Yeah. Maybe it prepares us for something else in life, or taxes, or something like that. It just gets us ready. One of the things that the research talks about is it shows that nostalgia and play are really big factors in how Halloween helps make us happy, but so are the social connection and anticipation. And I know for me that’s what it is, like that social connection. I love the anticipatory savoring of Halloween’s coming up. What about you? What do you love most about the act of celebrating Halloween?

[0:05:20] MPJ: I mean, definitely, I’ve been to some good Halloween parties over the years. That nostalgia thing is like really hitting something for me. You see everybody dressed up. Or even better, have you gone to Halloween parties and somebody’s in like full, complete mask and costume, and you have no idea who they are?

[0:05:39] PF: Oh, yeah. So fun.

[0:05:40] MPJ: It’s like this could be my brother. It could be a stranger.
[0:05:44] PF: It could be an actual serial killer.

[0:05:47] MPJ: Could be. Yeah, I remember being in middle school. My dad would make a really big deal out of Halloween. And I don’t know if you are like this, but besides Christmas, it’s the only other holiday we ever decorated the house for. And that’s what I do now as an adult, too.

My dad had a massive boom box. It’s like late 80s, early 90s. He’d play creepy music. He’d sit in a chair on our front porch and just scare the crap out of trick-or-treaters. Maybe that’s why I can’t stand the pop-out at you scary stuff now, you know? Maybe that’s a core childhood memory that is creeping into my adult psyche.

[0:06:27] PF: It could be.

[0:06:28] MPJ: Yeah. What about you, Paula? What do you like most about celebrating Halloween?

[0:06:32] PF: Well, it really is getting ready for that party. We have friends that throw these over-the-top Halloween parties every year, and it has a theme. Each year, it has a theme. This year, it’s a character from your favorite scary movie. And last year’s was superheroes. And so that’s fun too because you’ve got to plan these costumes. You got to get all that together. And then, like you mentioned, going into these parties and seeing what everybody has done with their costumes, how creative it is. And you get to see people you know. You invariably meet some new people. And so it is. It’s a kind of connection, and everyone is just happy. It’s so lighthearted. A lot of the other holidays have a certain amount of baggage with them. People are going through family things, or they just have stuff going on. Halloween to me just seems more carefree and light-hearted.

[0:07:22] MPJ: Yeah. Love that.

[0:07:23] PF: Yeah. Yeah. The one thing that I don’t experience that you are experiencing is to be able to watch Halloween through the eyes of a child. With your daughter being just almost 2 years old, how does having a little one change your Halloween experience, and how is it making it more special for you?

[0:07:42] MPJ: Yeah, I think just the anticipation and the things that I look forward to for Halloween. This year, the front porch decorations are on point. That’s not for me. That’s for her. And like see her walk outside and take a look at the house. And I bought these really cool neon ghosts. They’re hanging in our windows, and they’re going to be such a big hit with those five trick-or-treaters.

[0:08:09] PF: All five of them.

[0:08:10] MPJ: All five of them. I’m really looking forward to watching my daughter go to see our neighbors. It’s a pretty diverse neighborhood by way of age, race, religion, all of it. And some of our more senior members of the community, I know, have already told me how much they are looking forward to seeing my daughter on Halloween. And just watching them smile at each other, and just there’s so much joy on both sides. They both get so much joy out of that little grading. That is kind of how things have changed for me.

[0:08:43] PF: Yeah. And there is something so fun about that. I know when we lived in Cincinnati, we were in a neighborhood that people would actually bust their kids into our neighborhood. We would have traffic jams of children. And it was fun. I mean, you would get a couple of hundred kids in a night, and it was just so much fun to watch them being that excited to look at all the costumes. It was exhausting. But it was. It was really fun to see it, the joy in their eyes.

[0:09:10] MPJ: Oh, yeah. I remember one year we lived in a pretty big community, and I had to go out and buy more candy halfway through the night because I could not disappoint those trick-or-treaters. Decorated. There was a line out the door to the street, and people lining the street dropping their kids off to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. And I fought the traffic to go to Kroger to get more candy because I could not bear the thought of shutting off the lights and not answering the door.

[0:09:41] PF: And you don’t want to resort to like granola bars and things like that.
[0:09:45] MPJ: Oh, absolutely.

[0:09:46] PF: Raisins.

[0:09:47] MPJ: Apples, toothbrushes. Get out of here.

[0:09:50] PF: Where’s the toiletries I stole from that hotel?

[0:09:54] MPJ: Yeah. Quarters? Maybe that’s like the next best thing.

[0:09:56] PF: Exactly.

[0:09:57] MPJ: Dollar.

[0:10:00] PF: We’ll be right back with more of Live Happy Now.

[0:10:08] PF: And now, let’s hear more from Michelle Palmer Jones. When we were talking about doing the Halloween episode, and we were talking about some of the promotions, some of the things we wanted to do, you and I started doing a little diving into the science. So, we should let our listeners know that we don’t just know this off the top of our head. We actually did do a little diving into the science that connects Halloween and happiness. And we found some very cool research that backs up our love of the spooky season. Michelle, drum roll. What was your favorite discovery?

[0:10:39] MPJ: I really loved the study from Yale that showed that kids have a very similar reaction of joy from a small piece of candy as they do with some large gift. I thought that was pretty fascinating. I think that that puts me in a really good mindset for the entire holiday season. So, Halloween’s kind of kicking it off and then rolling right into Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Especially as my daughter gets older, it’s not about quantity or even quality, really. It’s more so about that surprise and delight and the ritual that the kids are enjoying the most. I’m like, “Well, this is great news because I’m going to take this mindset into the Christmas season.” And not only is that going to put things into perspective for me, but for my daughter, too, of like this really gives a much deeper meaning to it’s the thought that counts.

[0:11:31] PF: That’s cool. Yeah, I thought that study was really, really interesting. And I do like the way that you’ve explained it in terms of how it does set it up for the rest of the holiday season, where what a great reminder that they’re not just in it for the candy. Well, some of them are. But it really is about that surprise and the fact that it’s fun and you’re getting something. I thought that was a gift from someone. I thought that was really cool.

[0:11:58] MPJ: Yeah, I love that. Paula, how about you? What was your favorite discovery from the research?

[0:12:03] MPJ: Oh, I thought it was so interesting that Purdue Agriculture did a study and they found we really do stay happier during the Halloween season. They were looking at online conversations. And throughout that season, the sentiment is really strong and positive among people. It’s like we say happy Halloween. And there’s a lot of festive emojis that were going on.

And what this research suggested was that even though there are other concerns, there are things going on in our world, we were still enjoying that holiday. We were kind of putting aside the worries and the stresses of what is going on outside of us and really getting into the Halloween spirit, if you will, and enjoying the joy of it.

[0:12:46] MPJ: Love that. Yeah, I think like the pressure is off. Halloween, the stakes are not that high. Same with Thanksgiving, unless you burn the turkey. But not completely. Yeah, your main objective is to go have some fun. And who doesn’t love that?

[0:13:05] PF: Yeah. Because even with Thanksgiving, I know people can get too pressured. I know people get caught up in the I’ve got to be at two different dinners. I had friends that last year were just like, “Oh my god,” because they had to go to a noon Thanksgiving feast for one side of the family and then had to be at a 6:00pm Thanksgiving feast for the other side of the family. And it’s too much. And with Halloween, we don’t have that same kind of pressure.

[0:13:32] MPJ: Yeah, I definitely feel that. And you’ve got to pace yourself with your eating throughout the day. It’s like that’s a lot, you know? Not to mention the emotional baggage. But even just the caloric intake is a lot of burden to handle.

[0:13:47] PF: It’s like I cannot take anymore.

[0:13:49] MPJ: It’s too much.

[0:13:52] PF: As we looked at like how celebrating Halloween is such a great mood booster, we of course wanted to bring back our Halloween Happy Acts campaign. So, Michelle, why don’t you tell us what that is all about?

[0:14:05] MPJ: Sure. We have a very special challenge for our happy activists for the month of October, and that is to practice one of our Halloween-themed happy acts, things like dropping off goodies to your local police or fire station. That’s the only one I’m going to mention because I want –

[0:14:21] PF: That’s right. Because they have to sign up and find out –

[0:14:23] MPJ: They got to sign up. But that’s a good one. And everyone should do that regardless, because those folks work really hard and they don’t have holidays off. So we thank them. But when you complete any of the Halloween Happy Acts, be sure to share it on our social media, tag us in it, and then tag a couple of friends who you are going to challenge to also do some Halloween Happy Acts so we can really get this going and share the love.

[0:14:48] PF: You’ve made these Halloween Happy Acts a lot of fun. And I know you and Kim, our fabulous designer, have worked on them. And what is it that you really hope that we can accomplish with this year’s Happy Acts campaign?

[0:15:00] MPJ: Yeah. So, this is going to be an extension of our Happy Acts that we do in March. So, Halloween, spooky season, eerie themes. But it can also be a time of kindness, compassion, community building. Happy Acts you could and should do any time of the year. But this month, it’s really just a special challenge to think about giving instead of getting and being really intentional about that. I think that’s what we want to accomplish for October.

[0:15:30] PF: That makes perfect sense. And it’s done in such a fun way, it’s kind of hard to resist. It’s just so light. Like we talked about, sometimes as we go into the holiday seasons, there can be feelings of dread. There can be feelings of grief and loss. And Halloween is just for me the big exhale before we have to inhale and gear up for the rest of the year.

[0:15:50] MPJ: Yeah. We’re going to start it off on a really good foot with these Happy Acts.

[0:15:54] PF: If somebody wants to sign up for this, they want to be a part of it, and they want to scare up some joy this year, how do they learn more about the Happy Act and get involved?

[0:16:03] MPJ: Yeah, the newsletter is definitely the best way. If you are not signed up, please do so. Go to livehappy.com. And right on that top bar, hover over discover. It’s the very first thing, says newsletter. You click that, put in your email, boom, done. You’ll get our weekly newsletter every Tuesday morning.

[0:16:22] PF: That’s great. So, we’re going to give them all the suggestions for the Happy Acts. Will they get it in their inbox?

[0:16:27] MPJ: They’ll get all five Happy Acts. And then you can do one, you can do three, you can do five. But when you do, please share photos to our social so we can share them and give other people some great ideas of how to perform some Happy Acts for October.

[0:16:44] PF: Absolutely. And if they do something that’s not on the list, we’d love to hear about that, too.

[0:16:48] MPJ: Yeah, we’ll steal it for next year.

[0:16:47] PF: If you have your different Happy Acts, share it with us.

[0:16:52] MPJ: Love it.
[0:16:52] PF: Absolutely. Michelle, are you going to go as a Halloween character this year? Are you dressing up? Or what’s it going to be for you?

[0:17:01] MPJ: My favorite thing about dressing up for really anything, Halloween, a themed dinner, is to find something in my closet and make it work. So, one of my favorites that I did for a themed dinner that I think I’m going to just do all over again is Mob Wives. I’ve got a great fur. It’s faux fur, to be clear. A velvet wrap dress and a killer hat. Mob Wives on point. Mob Wives and Minions. I mean, come on.

[0:17:36] PF: You cannot go wrong with that.

[0:17:37] MPJ: What a great combo.

[0:17:39] PF: That is fantastic. I love it.

[0:17:41] MPJ: What about you?

[0:17:42] PF: Well, this year’s theme for our friends’ party is your scary movie character. So, I’m going as Chucky because I’ve already got the red hair, so just built a costume around that.

[0:17:52] MPJ: That’s so perfect. I’m going to need to see photos.

[0:17:57] PF: All right, we’ll swap. Well, Michelle, thank you. Thank you for taking the time with us. Thank you for all the work you did in this year’s Halloween Happy Acts campaign as well. I’m excited to share it with all of our listeners out there. And looking forward to this being our happiest, spookiest Halloween yet.

[0:18:15] MPJ: Can’t wait. Thank you, Paula. Appreciate it. I hope you’ll invite me back. I hope I pass the test on my first podcast for Live Happy Now.

[0:18:23] PF: 100%. We will talk again soon.

[0:18:25] MPJ: Bye.
[0:18:29] PF: That was Michelle Palmer Jones talking with me about why Halloween makes us so happy and what’s on tap for this year’s Halloween Happy Acts. If you’d like to learn more, just visit us at livehappy.com and click on this podcast episode. That is all we have time for today. We’ll meet you back here again next week for an all-new episode. And until then, this is Paula Felps reminding you to make every day a happy one.

[END]

In this episode, you’ll learn:

How nostalgia and play during Halloween boost joy and reduce stress.
Why even a small piece of candy can trigger big feelings of happiness.
How safe scares — like haunted houses — can actually make us less anxious afterward.

Follow Live Happy on Social Media:

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Twitter: @livehappy

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