Apr 6 • Capacity Lab: Staying Human
The Science of Wellbeing
I took this course a couple years ago. Highly recommend it!
"Santos, the psychology professor behind Yale University’s most popular course, recently launched a free six-week version of the class aimed at teenagers, called “The Science of Well-Being for Teens.” It was developed to address rising rates of anxiety, depression and suicide rates for kids between ninth and 12th grade, Santos says.
Lesson No. 1, she preaches in one of the course’s pre-recorded lectures: Our brains lie to us about what makes us happy.
“For adults, this may mean pursuing money or success at work, and for teens this might mean focusing on the perfect grades and getting into the best colleges,” Santos tells CNBC Make It. “The problem isn’t that we’re not putting work into feeling better — it’s that we’re doing the wrong things, prioritizing the wrong behaviors.”
Instead of focusing on reaching a financial milestone or perfect GPA, aim to program your brain with thoughts and behaviors that make you feel better, Santos recommends. Regularly connecting with friends, taking care of your health and learning how to accept negative emotions all contribute more significantly to your wellbeing than having the right job, car or relationships, she adds in a course lecture.
This isn’t Santos’s first foray into democratizing happiness. She hosts a podcast called “The Happiness Lab,” and launched a free online course for adults called “The Science of Wellbeing,” which has seen over 4 million enrollments since its 2018 launch.
The timing of the teen-specific course, which already has at least 17,000 enrollees, is notable. More than a third of teens self-report experiencing poor mental health, and nearly half feel persistent sadness or hopelessness during the pandemic, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey that surveyed participants through mid-2021."
Additional Resource:
"HAPPINESS RESEARCH, straight up. What is happiness? How do our circumstances affect happiness? Why is the word “gratitude” kinda cringey? What can we do to feel better? Should we feel guilty for feeling happy? When is positivity “toxic?” Yale cognitive scientist, Eudemonologist, and host of The Happiness Lab podcast Dr. Laurie Santos chats about how scientists measure human happiness and what their research has shown helps achieve it, even during the worst of times. Also: silver medal face & countering counterfactuals, which will make sense when you listen."
Check out the ologies podcast featuring Laurie here: https://www.alieward.com/ologies/eudemonology
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The Science of Wellbeing
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