The Surprising Benefits of Joy for Mood, Immunity, and Heart Health with Kelly McGonigal, Ph.D.

This episode is brought to you by Joovv and Rupa Health. 

With rates of depression and mental illness at an all-time high, it’s crucial to take stock of and consciously make time for the things that bring us joy. Joy is an embodied feeling we get when we feel connected to our inner selves, relationships, and the world around us. The question is, how do we create more of it?

Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with Kelly McGonigal to discuss how to cultivate more joy in our lives using the power of movement, nature, community, and so much more. Kelly shares how movement can help familiarize our bodies with the physical sensations of joy so that it is more easily recognizable. She also discusses how a sedentary lifestyle can rob us of joy and how leading a healthy lifestyle can help us better connect to ourselves to find deeper meaning and purpose that leads us to live a joy-filled life. 

Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University specializing in understanding the mind-body connection. Her mission is to translate insights from psychology and neuroscience into practical strategies that support personal well-being and strengthen communities.

She is the best-selling author of The Willpower Instinct and The Upside of Stress. Kelly’s last book, The Joy of Moment, explores why physical exercise is a powerful antidote to the modern epidemics of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. 

In this episode, Dhru and Kelly dive into (audio version / Apple Subscriber version):

-How to create more joy in our lives as we age (2:40 / 2:40)

-Why joy is so underrated in people’s lives (5:28 / 5:28)

-Increasing our sensitivity to joy (11:00 / 8:27)

-What we get from having more joy in our lives (20:22 / 17:50)

-How being sedentary suppresses our capacity for joy (33:33 / 30:38)

-Kelly’s background story and how she handles chronic pain (42:35 / 40:02)

-The Joy Workout (53:10 / 50:37)

-Kelly’s Joy prescription (59:00 / 56:30)

-The relationship between friendship and joy (1:03:59 / 1:00:57)

-Tips for making friends and meeting new people (1:07:24 / 1:04:51)

-The power of integrating movements with relationships (1:11:24 / 1:08:57)

-Top motivators for increasing movement in our lives (1:17:48 / 1:15:15)

-Tips for cultivating love and compassion (1:19:16 / 1:16:45)

-End of the day replay exercise (1:29:42 / 1:27:08)

Also mentioned in this episode:

-The Joy Workout featured in The New York Times

-The Joy of Movement

For more on Dr. Kelly McGonigal, follow her on Instagram @kellymariemcgonigal and on Facebook @kellymcgonigalauthor, or her website kellymcgonigal.com. 

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