The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos Folgen

Covid brought disruption and despair... but it also caused many of us to think about our lives and what is most important to us. Listener Dr Amy Comander, Director of Lifestyle Medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, wants to know how we can apply lessons from the pandemic to improve our happiness as we return to normalcy.   Amy helps teach cancer survivors wellbeing tips - and also happens to be an old college lab partner of Dr Laurie Santos - so we invited her to host this episode and quiz Laurie on how to lead a happier post-pandemic life. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It can speak to us in the middle of a work project, the middle of a date, or the middle of the night. The critical voice in our head telling us we're just not good enough and we're headed for failure. Listener Patricia Branigan wrote in to ask what we can do the quiet down this chatter.   To explain what damage negative self-talk does to us and explore some simple strategies to challenge our inner critic, Dr Laurie Santos is joined by "chatter" expert Ethan Kross (professor of psychology and management at the University of Michigan). You can read more in Ethan's book 'Chatter: The Voice in our Head (And How to Harness it)'.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Since Covid hit, many of us have seen fewer people and experienced more loneliness. Listener Ivana Cole wants to know what we can do to reconnect and asks, if we can't reconnect: "Can we be happy alone?"  Dr Laurie Santos looks at social connections and how make them with Stanford's Jamil Zaki (author of the War for Kindness). See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.