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Dr. Laurie Santos: How to Break Free from the Mental Traps Stealing Your Happiness | Mental Health | E372

Oct 27, 2025
Guest
Laurie Santos
Dr. Laurie Santos, a Yale psychology professor and creator of the renowned course on happiness, shares insights into overcoming mental health challenges faced by today’s youth. She discusses the myths surrounding happiness, emphasizing the importance of savoring relationships and valuing health over mere pleasure. Laurie explains how societal pressures and evolutionary biases contribute to unhappiness and offers practical strategies to rewire our mindsets for lasting joy, including prioritizing social connections and embracing challenges.
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INSIGHT

Course Born From Campus Crisis

  • Laurie Santos created Yale's Psychology and the Good Life after seeing a campus mental health crisis and realizing students wanted evidence-based tools.
  • The class exploded because young people seek practical strategies to reduce anxiety and depression, not just theory.
INSIGHT

Two-Part Definition Of Happiness

  • Happiness has two parts: moment-to-moment emotion and overall life satisfaction with meaning and purpose.
  • Ideal well-being combines frequent positive emotions and a cognitive sense that your life matters.
INSIGHT

Brain Wiring Works Against Us

  • Evolution prioritized threat detection, not happiness, so our minds bias toward anxiety and negative signals.
  • Hedonic adaptation and social comparison then erode joy as we get used to positives and compare upward.
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