Q: "Are We Born to Work? Or Born to Live?"

Our surroundings affect our happiness in ways we often don’t notice. The layout of a room, the amount of clutter in our home, and even small changes to lighting can shape our mood, focus, and relationships. As The Happiness Lab continues its spring cleaning series, Dr. Laurie sit ...  Show more

Breaking bad habits often feels like a test of willpower. We tell ourselves we’ll stop scrolling, eat better, or exercise more — and then fall right back into the same routines. So why is lasting change so hard? As part of our spring cleaning series, we’re revisiting a powerful e ...  Show more

Dr. Laurie Santos is Professor of Psychology and Head of Silliman College at Yale University.  She is the host of the podcast The Happiness Lab and is an expert on human cognition and the cognitive biases that impede better choices. Her course, “Psychology and the Good Life,” tea ...  Show more

Cassie Holmes is a professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and author of Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most. In this episode, she explains why having more free time doesn’t necessarily make our lives more meaningful, ...  Show more

1. The simple exercises Laurie conducts with her students at Yale to help them reset their brains and restructure their days in order to access happiness.   2. Why being “time famished” is one of the most common obstacles to happiness, the signals our bodies give us that we are s ...  Show more

If there’s one thing we might regret at the end of life, it’s that we missed out on moments that mattered—not because we weren’t physically there, but because our mind wandered off to some unknown place. In this episode of How to Build a Happy Life, we explore why it’s uniquely c ...  Show more