Science-Based Tools for Increasing Happiness | Episode 98 - Huberman Lab  ## Metadata - Author: **Huberman Lab** - Full Title: Science-Based Tools for Increasing Happiness | Episode 98 - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/c96f21fe-20df-439c-a1e5-e6e52c18a8bd ## Highlights - Avoid Bright Artificial Lights Between 10 p.m. And 4 a.m Summary: CNN.com's John Sutter talks about the importance of getting regular bright light in your eyes. He says it can have outsized effects on mood and focus during the day, as well as quality of sleep at night. Another central tenet is to avoid bright artificial light exposure to your eyes from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., he says. Transcript: Speaker 1 Now, before we begin today's episode, I'd like to talk about a very specific tool that applies, yes, to our pursuit of happiness, but actually to our pursuit of everything, including quality sleep and ongoing motivation, etc. I've talked many, many times before on this podcast and on other podcasts and on social media about the critical value of getting regular bright light, ideally sunlight in your eyes within the first hour of waking, or if the sun isn't out when you wake up in the morning to turn on a lot of bright artificial lights and then get sunlight in your eyes for anywhere from five to 20 minutes, depending on how cloudy it is in the early part of the day, absolutely outsized effects on mood and focus during the day and quality of sleep at night. Now, there's another sort of central tenet of getting great sleep and improving mood and focus throughout the day, and that's to avoid bright artificial light exposure to your eyes between the hours of about 10 p.m. To 4 a.m. ([Time 0:06:27](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7f4c8cef-298f-493c-b233-fa929ffc4f0a)) - Tags: #health - Getting Bright Sunlight in Your Eyes Around Sunset Summary: Get some bright sunlight in your eyes right around the time of sunset. It could be in the late afternoon and evening, but it's been shown now in studies on humans. Even 2 to 5 minutes can adjust the sensitivity of neurons in your retina that communicate light information to the brain. Transcript: Speaker 1 Get some bright sunlight in your eyes right around the time of sunset. It doesn't have to be exactly at sunset. It could be in the late afternoon and evening, but it's been shown now in studies on humans and I'll provide a link to at least one of those studies that by getting some bright light in your eyes, ideally from sunlight, in the late afternoon and evening, and of course the timing will vary depending on time of year and where you are located on the planet. But facing the sun around sunset, you don't actually have to see the sun cross down below the horizon, but facing the sun around that time, for anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes or even less, even 2 to 5 minutes can adjust the sensitivity of neurons in your retina that communicate light information to the brain and make it such that in the evening when you use artificial lights, they aren't going to have as much of a detrimental effect on your dopamine system and for impairing your sleep. ([Time 0:10:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/15584bc7-30b9-419c-a7c8-f74182c13733)) - Tags: #health - Measure happiness with numbers rather than language Summary: It doesn't mean that we cannot have a strong data-driven conversation about happiness and what brings us to a state of happiness, but it's very important to understand that language is not an ideal, it may be even a deficient tool in terms of describing our emotions and our states of mind and body. Transcript: Speaker 1 It doesn't mean that we cannot have a strong data-driven conversation about happiness and what brings us to a state of happiness, but it's very important to understand that language is not an ideal, it may be even a deficient tool in terms of describing our emotions and our states of mind and body. ([Time 0:20:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9a8d5564-3b40-4265-b1a8-253d2fb899b1)) - Tags: #health - The Effects of Trauma on Happiness Summary: There are other things that you could imagine would relate to a lack of happiness. For instance, a major trauma, physical or emotional trauma. That could include the loss of a major relationship,. A death of a close to one, being the victim of a violent crime and things of that sort. And yet, it's been argued...that if you wait about a year or so, sometimes even as short as three months after a trauma, people's self reported levels of happiness are not significantly lower than they were prior to the trauma. Transcript: Speaker 1 And of course, there are other things that you could imagine would relate to a lack of happiness. For instance, a major trauma, physical or emotional trauma. That could include the loss of a major relationship, a death of a close to one, being the victim of a violent crime and things of that sort. And yet, it's been argued, in fact, strongly argued that when you look at people's levels of happiness after a trauma, that if you wait about a year or so, sometimes even as short as three months after a trauma, that people's self reported levels of happiness are not significantly lower than they were prior to the trauma. Now, I very much want to highlight, underline and bold and asterisk that statement ([Time 0:54:22](https://share.snipd.com/snip/b460ce22-6e6c-4cb4-8d68-fd695b1e5225)) - Tags: #health - Neuronal Regeneration Transcript: Speaker 1 So I went into this literature a bit more deeply. One of the basis of that general line of thinking is a, what I consider now, classic and very important and important. Frankly, excellent talk that was given by Professor Dan Gilbert on the science of happiness. You can find this on YouTube. I say a classic one because it was done some years ago. It's received millions of views. And one of the points that he makes in that talk, which is grounded in research carried out by his laboratory and other laboratories, is that he poses a question. He says, you know, let's do a quiz. Would you rather be someone who wins the lottery? And he shows a picture of somebody who just won, I think it was several hundreds of millions of dollars in the lottery or was recently made paraplegic, a lost use of their legs. And then goes on to state that one year after people have won the lottery, this major, you know, monetary windfall versus have become paraplegic is that their self reported levels of happiness are the same, which I think is incredibly surprising. Now, I heard this and I immediately thought of an experience that I've had where I teach a course at Stanford School of Medicine on neural regeneration. ([Time 0:56:42](https://share.snipd.com/snip/959f4efe-0337-4225-a1b8-6dd9978c585d)) - Is Your Levels of Happiness Going to Be the Same? Summary: When you look at the whole of those data, at least my read is that when people win the lottery or acquire wealth through inheritance, some form of wealth acquisition. That wasn't preceded by a specific effort to gain that wealth, right? Buying a lottery ticket is a pretty quick thing. Inheritance is something that you simply get by virtue of who you are, not necessarily by effort. Well, that led to increases in self-reported happiness compared to prior to the inheritance of the lottery win. But it wasn't as substantial as you might imagine if you're approaching the notion of happiness simply from, well, more money equals more happiness. Transcript: Speaker 1 When you look at the whole of those data, at least my read is that when people win the lottery or acquire wealth through inheritance, some form of wealth acquisition that is sudden and that wasn't preceded by a specific effort to gain that wealth, right? Buying a lottery ticket is a pretty quick thing. Inheritance is something that you simply get by virtue of who you are, not necessarily by effort. Well, that led to increases in self-reported happiness compared to prior to the inheritance of the lottery win, but it wasn't as substantial as you might imagine if you're approaching the notion of happiness simply from, well, more money equals more happiness. And while it is true that people who are rendered paraplegic or who undergo psychological traumas or physical traumas of any various kind are, and frankly, are remarkably resilient in many cases, they can still manage to go about life and work and engage in relationships, etc. There is a visible decrease in overall levels of happiness and well-being, in particular, if the psychological and physical trauma renders their nervous system different in a way that impacts other major areas of life and enjoyment for them. And that's certainly true one year out from the trauma. ([Time 1:02:30](https://share.snipd.com/snip/71d0e723-99ae-45d1-ab8d-71a66ad7a31e)) - Synthetic Happiness Summary: Synthetic happiness has to do with some really important larger principles about the way that our emotional system and the reward systems of our brain really function. Things like the hedonics set point, for instance, or the dopamine system of anticipation of rewards versus receiving words. And this goes back to a theme I've discussed a few times before in this podcast. Transcript: Speaker 1 One of the great gifts that they've supplied us in the form of data is that there really are things that we can all do and think and access to allow ourselves to so-called synthesize happiness. Now, this notion of synthesizing happiness or synthetic happiness is sometimes called can sometimes ruffle people's feathers a bit because people immediately flip to the idea that, oh, you're just going to tell me to be grateful for what I have or to just navel gaze or just to imagine that I'm happy. But that's really not what synthetic happiness is about at all. Synthetic happiness actually has to do with some really important larger principles about the way that our emotional system and the way that the reward systems of our brain really function. And they point to important concepts that we're going to now discuss, things like the hedonics set point, for instance, or the dopamine system of anticipation of rewards versus receiving words. Just as a brief insight into that, our anticipation of something positive oftentimes leads to greater increases in the sorts of neurochemicals that support a state of happiness and well-being than the actual acquisition of the thing that we're trying to obtain. And this goes back to a theme I've discussed a few times before in this podcast. ([Time 1:06:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/870594dc-b275-4954-b53a-6068f771c682)) - Tags: #health