The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos
2026 2025 Pushkin Industries2
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SubscribersOn National Stress Awareness Day we've pulled a popular episode from our archive. Stress can suck. Many of us drown in it - worrying about past events and fearing upcoming challenges. We even str...
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- 9 months ago
43:27
Sometimes a two-week vacation just isn't enough - we all might need to leave our jobs for three months, six months or even a year. Taking an extended break can be great for our wellbeing - allowing us...
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- 1 year ago
47:39
Do you trust your government? Do you trust your neighbors or the strangers you meet on the street? Do you trust the media? Or your teachers? Who we trust is changing. And trust in our institutions and...
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- 1 year ago
42:02
Earth Day is coming on April 22, but the whole month is seen as an opportunity to think about environmental issues and what we as individuals can do to help out. It seemed like a good time to re...
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- 1 year ago
34:40
Hell is other people. They can upset us, depress us and infuriate us. Their bad moods can bring us down. And their achievements can make us feel like failures. But it doesn't have to be this way. ...
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- 1 year ago
49:27
What's your purpose? Jordan Grumet thought that becoming a doctor would give his life meaning and direction... but he was wrong. He spent his days doing things he didn't really enjoy and dreaded wakin...
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- 1 year ago
42:59
In the absence of better advice, we learn a lot about love and dating from rom com movies - but is the depiction of relationships in these films leading us in the wrong direction? Let's find out. ...
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- 1 year ago
45:28
Do you go on endless dates hoping to find the perfect partner only to be endlessly disappointed? Or have you stopped meeting people because you've decided that you're undateable? Maybe you need to sta...
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- 1 year ago
47:03
Negative emotions like fear or anger are part of being human. These feelings tell us something - perhaps prompting us to take action or bring about change. However, they're powerful and disruptive - a...
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- 1 year ago
46:55
As children we think we're at the center of the world - but as adults we need to learn to see the perspectives and problems of other people. It helps us connect with those people, but also makes us re...
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- 1 year ago
43:06
Perfectionism isn't just wanting to be perfect... it's the feelings of failure and shame when we simply can't perform at a superhuman level all day, every day. To be happy, we have to accept the reali...
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- 1 year ago
44:43
The holidays are supposed to be a time of joy. But all too often, the darker, colder days of winter, and even the stress of preparing for the holidays themselves, can lead people to feel something els...
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- 1 year ago
38:31
It's Giving Tuesday - a time when many people donate to charity (using websites like this: givingmultiplier.org/happiness). Giving money to help people makes them feel good, but it can also make you f...
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- 1 year ago
42:45
It's the season of giving: colorful paper and shiny bows, sure, and charitable giving, too. In this special episode, Jacob Goldstein, the host of What's Your Problem, gets smart about donating. Did yo...
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- 1 year ago
51:09
It's Happiness Lab's fifth birthday - so as part of the celebration we're playing some of Dr Laurie's favorite episodes. The final selection attracted a lot of downloads when it went out. but also mad...
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- 1 year ago
30:46
To celebrate five years of The Happiness Lab, Dr Laurie has picked out the five episodes she loves the most. And this is a special one - Nerd Out! The Happiness of Being a Fan. Really love a TV show;...
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- 1 year ago
32:57
Happiness Lab is five years old. To mark our birthday, Dr Laurie has picked her favorite five episodes from the archive. The show Why Nostalgia Ain't So Rosy was certainly a memorable one for her. A...
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- 1 year ago
35:21
To mark the podcast's fifth birthday, Dr Laurie is revisiting some of her favorite episodes. And this show - Working Your Way to Happiness - has a special place in her heart. Marty kills rats... but...
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- 1 year ago
35:18
The Happiness Lab debuted back in fall 2019. To celebrate our fifth birthday, we're revisiting Dr Laurie's favorite shows. We kick off with one from way back. Technology allows us to bank, shop and d...
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- 1 year ago
36:27
We're bringing you an episode of Fixable, where Laurie joined Frances Frei and Anne Morriss to discuss whether you can make yourself happier at work. They talk about the concept of time famine, why yo...
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- 1 year ago
34:39
We can spend a lot of time working - and it gives us fulfillment, social interaction and fun - but still one in five of us say our workplaces are "toxic". And even the best jobs can sometimes be stres...
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- 1 year ago
01:01:15
You can't alway win at work. We all have career setbacks and disappointments - and learning how to deal with them is vital. We need to move on from our mistakes, accept that we're not superhuman, and ...
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- 1 year ago
42:38
The biggest names in wellness podcasting - "The Titans of Happiness" - come together to talk about the greatest mental health challenges facing us in 2024 and the very simple things we can all do to b...
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- 1 year ago
01:00:15
We often assume that we can’t fix the big problems we see in the world around us. And that trying is for suckers - who’ll just end up sad, exhausted and defeated. Dr Laurie Santos and Dr Jamil Zaki m...
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- 1 year ago
32:11
It feels like our world is deeply polarized. We seem to fundamentally disagree with so many people - and with those disputes comes anger and hatred. Can anything bridge these yawning divides? It turn...
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- 1 year ago
33:03
Some people think they need to be ruthless and selfish to thrive and survive in life. The theories of Charles Darwin are often wrongly interpreted to support this view that being competitive is the ke...
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- 1 year ago
33:13
It’s hard to stay hopeful these days. Stanford professor Jamil Zaki has been studying the incredible depth of human kindness for decades, but even he gives in to cynicism when he doubts our ability to...
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- 1 year ago
43:06
It's hard to stay hopeful sometimes. Things can look pretty bleak and divided, especially around election time. But if you're losing hope in your fellow humans, stop and listen to the science. Other p...
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- 1 year ago
04:03
We're bringing you an episode of Immigrantly, where Laurie joined host Saadia Khan to discuss the psychology of happiness education and the expansive realm of happiness. Is happiness a fleeting moment...
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- 2 years ago
44:30
America's top athletes need coaches. And those coaches themselves need guidance. It's a hard and stressful job - and one where coaches can easily become burned out and unhappy. And stressed coaches ca...
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- 2 years ago
29:29
Georgia Bell was a great runner as a child - but in college she fell out of love with the sport. She hung up her running shoes - and they gathered dust until Covid hit and she began to run again for f...
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- 2 years ago
33:53
Making shows about her own happiness challenges was both fun and instructive for Dr Laurie, but it also took guts to be so vulnerable and open. She later spoke to her close friend at Yale Dr Tamar Gen...
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- 2 years ago
48:42
Dr Laurie HATES thinking about her own death. It's scary, creepy and morbid, right? Wrong. Thinking about our finite lives can makes us better, happier people. The shadow of death makes us behave mor...
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- 2 years ago
32:37
By 2030 we'll only work 15 hours a week, predicted the legendary economist John Maynard Keynes back in 1930. He thought advances in technology and wealth would let us earn enough money to live in a da...
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- 2 years ago
35:21
We often do things now that will make our lives more difficult or stressful in the future. We spend money, when we should save. We eat junk food, when we should exercise. We agree to commitments, when...
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- 2 years ago
28:15
Awe reduces stress, helps us forget our minor worries and makes us feel more connected to the people around us. We all need more awe in our lives - but surely it's not that easy to find awesome experi...
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- 2 years ago
31:26
Dr Laurie is stressed, and it's harming her health. Constant worry and stress is bad for our bodies and our minds, but how can we break the cycle and relax? It turns out scientists have learned a lot ...
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- 2 years ago
37:16
Dr Laurie HATES boredom! Since childhood she's found it so painful that she'll do anything to avoid being bored. She'll watch crappy TV. She'll find extra work to do. She'll snack. But boredom is actu...
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- 2 years ago
25:30
Holding yourself to impossibly high standards is self-defeating and makes for a miserable life. Can Dr Laurie Santos find ways to tackle her constant perfectionism so she can perform better and have m...
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- 2 years ago
29:43
Sometimes the happiness teacher flunks her own class. In a deeply personal new season, Dr Laurie Santos opens up about the things she really, really struggles with. Things like crippling perfectionism...
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- 2 years ago
01:53
Liz Dunn is a regular guest on The Happiness Lab, but in this extended interview with TED's Chris Anderson she take us on a deep dive into her research. It shows that by increasing our generosity and ...
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- 2 years ago
53:14
A chance to hear a recent episode of A Slight Change of Plans in which Maya Shankar asks psychologist Adam Grant about his new book "Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things". They ta...
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- 2 years ago
42:28
Work is a worry. Are we paid enough? Should we be getting promoted quicker? Is artificial intelligence about to replace us all? Speaking at SXSW 2024, Dr Laurie Santos argues that because of all our ...
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- 2 years ago
56:12
Technology is amazing! We can make video calls, find facts in an instant and watch movies on our phones. We take all this for granted, but have we let our screens and devices take over too much of our...
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- 2 years ago
39:24
Karen Guggenheim was devastated by the death of her husband, Ricardo. She was alive, but dead to the world around her. Slowly she put her life back together and found growing happiness. To share her i...
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- 2 years ago
40:42
Medical doctors are waking up to the importance of happiness, partly prompted by the work of people like Rangan Chatterjee. Dr Chatterjee is Professor of Health Education and Communication, the host o...
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- 2 years ago
52:00
The US is sliding down the world happiness rankings - but it's the unhappiness of young people that's really dragging down the average. What has happened to make Gen Z so sad? And what can be done to ...
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- 2 years ago
37:25
Age is the main risk factor for cognitive decline. So with more people around the world living longer, cases of dementia are set to rise. There's currently no cure - but research suggests that happine...
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- 2 years ago
35:00
There are certain nations which always top the rankings in the World Happiness Report. What are they doing right, that other countries are getting wrong? And what can you do to make your home country ...
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- 2 years ago
37:57
The Happiness Lab’s Dr. Laurie Santos brings together other Pushkin hosts to mark the International Day of Happiness. Revisionist History’s Malcolm Gladwell talks about the benefits of the misery of r...
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- 2 years ago
48:05
Description
You might think you know what it takes to lead a happier life… more money, a better job, or Instagram-worthy vacations. You’re dead wrong. Yale professor Dr. Laurie Santos has studied the science of happiness and found that many of us do the exact opposite of what will truly make our lives better. Based on the psychology course she teaches at Yale -- the most popular class in the university’s 300-year history -- Laurie will take you through the latest scientific research and share some surprising and inspiring stories that will change the way you think about happiness.
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