Savvy Psychologist’s 100th Episode: 5 Tips for a Happier, Healthier Life
I can’t believe it either! After two years, a Best New Podcast iTunes award, and millions of downloads, the Savvy Psychologist podcast has reached episode 100. And believe me, I’ve learned a lot along the way. So join me, Dr. Ellen Hendriksen, for a 100th anniversary special of five best tips to be both happier and healthier.
Ellen Hendriksen, PhD
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Savvy Psychologist’s 100th Episode: 5 Tips for a Happier, Healthier Life
This week, in celebration of the podcast’s 100th episode, we’ll aim for a double whammy: five tips that will improve both your health and your happiness. I don’t close every episode with a promise for a happier, healthier mind for nothing.
What makes this tip list a little different is its specificity. There are lots of happiness tip lists out there, and with all due respect, I’ve found much of the advice to be vague and shape-shifting, like “Choose joy” or “Be open.” So here are five tips for health and happiness that may seem oddly precise, but that makes them achievable (plus grounded in science, but you’re used to that by now).
Tip #1: Take all your vacation time—and look forward to it. The U.S. is notoriously stingyopens PDF file when it comes to vacation time, especially compared to Europe. So you’d think that we Americans would use all of our precious allotment. But so many of us either leave that time on the table, work while we’re on vacation, or don’t take any vacation at all.
Vacations intuitively increase health by offering a chance to relax and recharge. Vacations go along with lower blood pressure, lower rates of obesity, and less depression.
In terms of happiness, a 2010 study of over 1,500 people compared happiness in those who took vacation and those who didn’t, and unsurprisingly, they found that people who took vacation were happier. But it wasn’t in the way you think. Oddly, they were happier before their trip.
Why? Remember the episode on Why We Do Stupid Things? The idea that there are two kinds of pleasure—enjoying the moment versus anticipating the moment—fits perfectly here. There is the pleasure of sipping a mai tai in a cabana, but there is also the pleasure of sitting in your cubicle in the middle of winter looking forward to sipping a mai tai in a cabana. This excitement—looking forward to a vacation—can be just as fun, or even more fun, than vacation itself, especially if you end up with culture shock, fighting with family, or coming down with the trots.
So the lesson is not only to take your vacation time, but also to relish looking forward to it. Plan the best itinerary for you, whether that involves whitewater rafting or beach feet selfies and, most importantly, let yourself fantasize about it before you hit the road.
Tip #2: Minimize your commute. Study after study shows the longer your commute time, the less happy and healthy your life. Indeed, a 2010 study found that longer commutes went along with lower life satisfaction. Yikes!
I know not everyone gets to decide how long their daily commute takes, but next time you move or switch jobs, seriously consider the smaller house or slightly lower salary if it buys you a shorter commute time. That might sound crazy, but healthwise, a long commute makes you sit more every day, which has implications for your heart, weight, and metabolism. They don’t say sitting is the new smoking for nothing.
In terms of happiness, a 2008 study of over 54,000 people found that commutes longer than even 20 minutes led to fewer of what the researchers called “socially-oriented trips,” like having dinner with friends, going out to see a movie, or even catching your kids’ school play. The longer the commute, the more likely it was that people never socialized. And it’s those social interactions—having dinner with your cousin and his kids, playing on a local hockey team, even going to a funeral—that make up so much of the meaning in our lives. To quote Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Dillard, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” So given a choice, shorten that commute and fill your found time with people you love.
Tip #3: Wake up at the same time every day. OK, fine, the same time every day give or take an hour.
You’ve probably heard of your body’s master clock, the group of cells in your brain that controls your circadian rhythms. But did you know that other parts of your body have their own clocks? Your organs, your skeletal muscle, even your fat has its own clock. And all the clocks in your body want to be in synch.
Imagine a store full of grandfather clocks—you want all of them to strike the hour together. Without synchronization, you risk cacophony. So it is with your body. When your body clocks are synchronized, your body is free to regulate your body temperature, metabolism, hormones, the list goes on. But when you throw off your rhythms by flying across time zones, accidentally conking out on the couch in the late afternoon, or yes, sleeping in on Saturday morning, you throw those clocks out of synch. Your body prioritizes getting them realigned, but in the meantime, you feel jet-lagged—groggy, tired, not to mention the headache and GI problems. And that doesn’t make you healthy or happy.
So set your alarm for the same time every day, or at least sleep in on the weekend for less than an hour—the equivalent of one time zone—past your usual wake-up time.
Tip #4: Take a hike. Or a walk, or a stroll—it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re surrounded by nature, and not the concrete jungle kind. Taking a walk on a beach or through the woods is intuitively good for your health, but also boosts your happiness in a surprising way. In the Overthinking episode of my Toxic Habits series, we learned that rumination, or focusing repetitively on upsetting situations in your life, puts you at risk for depression and drives away those who try to support you.
Luckily, a 2015 study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that a 90-minute walk reduced rumination, but only if it was in nature. By contrast, a 90-minute walk through the city didn’t reduce rumination at all. And it wasn’t just a perceived difference: all the participants got their brains scanned before and after their walk. The result? Only the nature walkers showed less post-walk neural activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex, a part of the brain that gets particularly active during rumination.
So while the exercise in either the city or nature was surely beneficial, it’s worth it to head for the hills. Shifting one’s gaze from navel to nature may reduce your rumination, which in turn lifts your spirits.
Tip #5: Put in the time to learn skills. Aristotle put it best when he said, “Happiness is a state of activity.” Put in the time to learn how to do activities that give you pleasure.
Put in the time to learn how to do activities that give you pleasure.
Skills are the opposite of consumption. It’s easy to buy stuff and watch stuff on a screen, and heaven knows I like to do both those things (damn you, Amazon Prime one-click button!) By contrast, learning how to do something—ice skate, barbecue, scrapbook, bowl, geocache, windsurf, make a scuba diver costume for your cat—is hard, especially when you’re just starting.
But a 2015 analysis in the prestigious Psychological Bulletin reported, among many other things, that learning skills helps you build what’s called mastery. Mastery is belief in your own ability. Mastery helps determine whether or not you feel competent and in control, or in other words, captain of your own ship. And it’s this mastery—of playing the flute or learning French—that not only influences your happiness, but crucially, empowers you to make lifestyle changes that affect your health and know you’ll be able to meet those health goals.
That’s it! Five super-specific double whammies to boost your health and happiness. With this 100th episode, I want to say a big thank you to all of you. Over the last two years I’ve been so privileged to discover such a smart, engaged, and compassionate group of listeners—this show would be nothing without you. I love interacting with you on Facebook and over email. You always request the best episode topics—I look forward to seeing what the next 100 episodes will bring. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!
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About the Author
Dr. Ellen Hendriksen was the host of the Savvy Psychologist podcast from 2014 to 2019. She is a clinical psychologist at Boston University’s Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders (CARD). She earned her Ph.D. at UCLA and completed her training at Harvard Medical School. Her scientifically-based, zero-judgment approach is regularly featured in Psychology Today, Scientific American, The Huffington Post, and many other media outlets. Her debut book, HOW TO BE YOURSELF: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety, was published in March 2018.