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Episode summary:
Shaking yourself out of your normal routine can be hard–but studies show it’s worth it. Creating space for variety, novelty, and awe in our lives is essential for our well-being. Exploring new and diverse environments in our daily life can lead to better stress resilience and can make us feel better. In this episode, investigative journalist Ike Sriskandarajah, shares his experience exploring new places with his family in New York City. Then, we hear from Aaron Heller, a neuroscientist and assistant professor at the University of Miami's Department of Psychology, who studies how exposure to novel places can make us happier.
This episode is made possible through the generous support of the John Templeton Foundation.
Practice:
Break out of your usual daily routine–take a route to work you have never taken before, or visit a park you’ve never gone to. Explore a place you have never been to.
Today’s guests: Ike Sriskandarajah is an investigative journalist and Producer at This American Life.
Aaron Heller is a neuroscientist and assistant professor at the University of Miami's Department of Psychology.
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Transcription:
IKE SRISKANDARAJAH: I've got a nine month old baby and a four year old toddler, freshly four year old toddler. And while I've been on family leave, I've been picking him up from school and asking him if he wants to go to the playground that he usually goes to, to see his friends or if he wants to go on an adventure. I really try to sell it and sometimes I have to give him a nudge if I really want him to go on the adventure, but a couple weeks ago, I thought he'd really get a kick out of Washington Square Park. So after I picked him up from Pre-K, we walked to the train station and we took the train to Washington Square Park. All I told him was it's just like the biggest, weirdest party that's always happening, in the middle of Manhattan. And then the train goes over the bridge and you see the expanse. The city in the distance. You get to Washington Square Park and it's just an incredibly lively, like, the commons of New York City.
It's a marvel of humanity all in Washington Square Park. just like one of the most dynamically acoustic environments. It's like playing music all the whole dial of the FM radio, just all at once.
There's the mashup of Hare Krishna and MIA and a live rock band playing in the distance. it feels great to, share something that you appreciate the throng of humanity. You know, parachuting into the middle of it and not sure of like what you'll find or what's like playful fun or what's threatening fun and trying to figure it out together. And it was really affirming that he was really into that too. And I don't know what door flew open in his brain for the first time but, you think, "Yeah, I'm glad we didn't go to the playground today."
DACHER KELTNER: Welcome to the Science of Happiness. I'm Dacher Keltner, and this week we're going to see what happens when we have a variety of experiences, and visit new places -- without traveling far.
We know from research that people feel happier with more variety in their routines.
So for our show, investigative journalist Ike Sriskandarajah visited new places in New York City, where he lives. And he brought his little kids along.
We'll travel through some of the city's boroughs with Ike, and we also hear from psychologist Aaron Heller about he used GPS trackers to test how people's mood were affected by their daily travels.
AARON HELLER: Having new visual inputs, having diverse sound inputs, having diverse smells, shakes the brain out of a kind of routine of thoughts and feelings, permits space for new kinds of thoughts and new kinds of feelings to emerge.
DACHER KELTNER: More, after this break.
Welcome back to The Science of Happiness. Joining me today is Emmy-award winning Ike Sriskandarajah. Podcast lovers might recognize Ike's name from his time as a producer with Reveal, and now at This American Life.
Ike's reporting has taken him to a lot of places, but he still hadn't seen all of New York City, where he's lived for the past five years and where he's started his family. So for our show, he took his kids to new places in the city, and he joins us now to share his adventures.
Ike thanks so much for joining us on the show.
IKE SRISKANDARAJAH: Dacher, thanks for having me.
DACHER KELTNER: We know one of the most important things to build into our lives for well being is variety and novelty and awe and surprise. Tell us about an experience of visiting a new place with your sons.
IKE SRISKANDARAJAH: I've been on family leave with my youngest, and mostly you get into real routines with kids, and they need routines, and routines are super useful, but I find it really satisfying to tweak those routines. And I love this question that you asked me if we could try having new experiences, because that was something I liked doing. I was hoping to do with my family leave, anyways, it's just an amazing city to explore. You can just get off at a different train stop and see something like mesmerizing, a totally different ethnic enclave or Vista or food to eat. So that's what I spent the last few months doing, taking care of a baby and dragging a four year old to a new place that sometimes he was excited to go to, and sometimes he didn't know why we were not going to the playground that he usually sees his friends at.
DACHER KELTNER: Yeah, I remember those days of taking my daughters to different spots in the Bay Area and exploring. And I'm just curious if you can give our audience just a sense of a story of one place where you've got your two sons and you're going to a new place, and what brought you little moments of happiness.
IKE SRISKANDARAJAH: So I've been nearing the end of this family leave time, so really pressing down on the accelerator of new experiences that like I know that I won't have as much time to get to do once I'm back at work. And the wildest, really, most novel one to me, is just this weekend. I didn't take both of my sons, but my four year old Leroy, and I met two other friends, a dad and a kid who's about the same age, and we went paddling down the Bronx River.
All right, keep your hands safe. It's working. Which, I've seen the Bronx River but never been in the Bronx River. I've never seen anybody in and it was truly like you're in a town, one of the densest urban environments for 8 million people, and you're just on a river surrounded by nobody for five miles, and you don't see anybody. You can hear the city's like all around you, but you're paddling. It's lush, and you can hear the strokes of the paddle in the water. And there's like two kids in this little fold up canoe, and there's these, like prehistoric looking hubcap sized turtles that, like will swim underneath you and carp the size of like my infant is swimming by.
This is the exciting part. Yes, can you give it a shot?
Of course, I'm seeing a lot of city bikes thrown into the river too. So you don't totally forget that you're still in the Bronx River. The part that was the most satisfying to them was just like being outside. You don't have to say no, a lot, because it just that's one of the most exhausting parts of being with parents. Like, can I get this, or can I do this, or can I you're just in a boat happening down the river. So at the end of this, like Safari cruise down the Bronx River, we saw this tree on the edge of the Bronx River where we docked our canoe and got off, and it turned out to have these berries that had the little crowns that you see on the edge of blueberries and like other edible berries. So we checked and it was this berry bush that I'd never heard of. It was called a service Berry, Canadian service Berry, and that was their favorite part. It's like learning that you could eat food off of a tree that you know, 1000s and 1000s of people walked by but hadn't touched and telling everybody who is at this park in the Bronx to like come by and taste the berries from this tree.
DACHER KELTNER: How would you describe the feelings you guys had as you floated down the river on the raft and saw these marvels?
IKE SRISKANDARAJAH: There were times where it's. Like, truly, I was, like, awestruck that this is a thing that could happen in this city, like you can profoundly be surprised by the environment all around you. It's really just like, instead of that din of city life, it's just rushing water. And I think that is an awe inspiring feeling, and it keeps that feeling of exploration, like alive anywhere around you. It's like, Oh, I wonder what else I'm missing. Just like, just behind that fence. I love that you don't need much besides just spending time together. I mean, this was like an exceptional setting, but really, just like we were just sitting together side by side, like looking at things, and that feels true of like riding the train to a new place, or sitting in like Washington Square Park and watching the like spectacle of humanity, and it just like felt affirming that way, like you could change the setting or make it like an adventure or not, but like just getting to sit and observe something new is like pretty accessible and really satisfying.
Can you describe some of the things you've seen today?
Music, fountain, dancing, and...
That's all daddy sorry to say. But can we have ice cream?
No, you may not have ice cream, but do you think we could find something tasty to eat next in this fun big city? Yeah, okay.
DACHER KELTNER: I remember I took my daughter's rafting one time. And you know, when we go out rafting, it's 100 degrees, they're starting to get sunburned, and I forgot the lunch. I hate this. It's like, you know, did you have any backfires in your adventures?
IKE SRISKANDARAJAH: Yeah, I heard about the tallest slide in New York City is on Governors Island, and to get there, you have to get to Red Hook. It's already kind of inaccessible by a lot of trains. And then you take a ferry from Red Hook to Governor's Island. And then from Governor's Island you walk, so I'm pushing the stroller with Louis and Leroy walking towards the tallest slide, really hyping up, the tallest slide, and then the skies just darken out of nowhere. I don't have an umbrella, I don't have any rain suit, and there's no like, easy to get to shade, and it just like, opens up and starts dumping on us. And you like, put the kid, the four year old, on your shoulders, and put, like, your shirt over the stroller, and try to run back without, like, slipping in the rain and the thunder is like, really rattling everybody's emotions and bodies. Then you make it back to the fairy awning and, like, shake off like a dog. And I was lucky enough to have like, two kids who were like, one the four year old just like, wanted to go back into the rain, and nine month old was just like, I'll ride along. I don't get it. I don't know why we're doing these things. Seems like I could have just crawled at home, which is what I was hoping to do today. But, uh, not gonna harsh anybody's mellow over it. And I was really grateful. I mean, not to say these guys don't have meltdowns, but it's never because we're on an adventure.
DACHER KELTNER: Well, Ike thanks so much for taking these adventures with your sons and for sharing your thoughts about them, and thanks for being with us today.
IKE SRISKANDARAJAH: Thanks for the assignment. I loved recording it and having a reason to record it. So thanks for asking you.
DACHER KELTNER: If you're inspired to visit somewhere new in your own city or town, maybe a new park or pathway, a nearby lake or river, take pictures and tag us on Instagram. We'd love to see where you've been. Our Instagram handle is @scienceofhappinesspod, that's science of happiness, P, O, D, all in one word. You can also email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu
Up next, we hear more about the research behind why novel experiences affect our moods and our brains.
This is The Science of Happiness, and I'm Dacher Keltner. Welcome back. Up next we hear from psychologist Aaron Heller about how he measured people's moods through a GPS tracker to examine how novel experiences affect our brains. Here's part of his conversation with Shuka Kalantari.
SHUKA KALANTARI: In all your years of research, what piqued your interest in exploring how novel experiences impact our well being?
AARON HELLER: So this really started in about 2013 when a paper came out looking at the behavior of genetically identical mice. They put these mice in an enriched environment where there are lots of toys and different things to do, and even though the mice were genetically identical, the mice that tended to explore more, that tended to not kind of sequester their time in one area of the cage, were those that actually had greater rates of neurogenesis in the hippocampus, so they had more growth of new neurons in the hippocampus. And what's interesting about that is that neurogenesis in the hippocampus is associated with a whole host of really positive things like more stress resilience, a tendency to evaluate ambiguous stimuli as positive. So this kind of optimistic bias, so to speak. And in contrast, if you're really stressed and maybe developing a depression, like phenotype that is associated with slowed neurogenesis in the hippocampus. And so we started to wonder whether we could kind of replicate this work in rodents in humans. And so we recruited people, both in New York and at Miami, and we tracked them using GPS tracking applications, asking them about their emotional state every other day throughout the entire time to really try and address the question of whether really switching up routines and going to different places new places was associated with increases in positive emotion on a day to day basis.
SHUKA KALANTARI: And what did you find?
AARON HELLER: We found similar to the rodent study that I described earlier, that on days on which people had higher levels of exploration, that they had more diverse experiences, they had more novel experiences, they rated themselves as feeling happier, and this was reliably the case across basically all of the people in the study. We've replicated this in several samples that, in general, days of greater exploration, and in particular, higher amounts of novelty are predictive of better mood on that day.
SHUKA KALANTARI: How are these new experiences supporting our brain activity?
AARON HELLER: Yeah. So the way I think about it is that when you go and work out, if you are lifting weights and you do the same set of curls every day for six months, you're going to experience diminishing returns in terms of what your muscles do and how your muscles grow. And the best way to kind of get strong is to have a diverse set of kind of workouts that you do right? And the brain is very much the same way the brain responds to novelty. The brain responds to novelty in a very positive way. Actually, it challenges the brain in a sense that you kind of have to figure out how to navigate this new thing and those kinds of challenges are incredibly, generally speaking, incredibly positive for the brain and seems to be associated with emotional well being.
SHUKA KALANTARI: I thought it was really fascinating that you also used US census data to capture socio demographic features of the locations that these people were visiting in Miami and New York. What did you find from looking at this data?
AARON HELLER: What we did is we took each location that somebody went to during the entire four month tracking period and categorized a location based upon its US Census properties, what's the median income, what's the median education level, what's the proximity to a supermarket, all of these kinds of things, race, ethnicity. And what we found is that it's not just physical exploration, but exploration of different types of neighborhoods, different socio demographic spaces, that was associated with variation in someone's positive emotion.
SHUKA KALANTARI: Why do you think that is?
AARON HELLER: I think it is a form of what we've been talking about, which is that having new visual inputs and diverse visual inputs, having diverse sound inputs, having diverse smells, shakes the brain out of a kind of routine of thoughts and feelings that permits space for new kinds of thoughts and new kinds of feelings to emerge.
SHUKA KALANTARI: How would you encourage people to seek novel experiences, visit novel places, who might be a bit reticent to do so?
AARON HELLER: I think that one way to do it is to try and schedule it. It doesn't have to be this spontaneous thing. It can become part of a new routine where you're trying out new restaurants or trying out a new going to the beach or going on a hike or going to travel to some new place. But I do think that in our current lifestyle environment, it can be hard to do that, and so literally scheduling those things in as part of your daily, weekly or monthly wellbeing maintenance is probably a good thing, and our data suggests that even just doing those things, whether they're spontaneous or pre planned, can be beneficial.
SHUKA KALANTARI: Well, Aaron Heller, thank you so much for joining us on The Science of Happiness and sharing your knowledge about why we should visit new places.
AARON HELLER: Thank you.
DACHER KELTNER: Hey, this is Dacher. This episode about visiting new places is part of our series on why we should get outdoors this summer. In our last episode, we traveled to Kyoto, Japan to learn about how mindfully cleaning the outdoors can be good for us. On our next episode of The Science of Happiness, we travel to the deep ocean waters near Cape Town in South Africa with guest Craig Foster, who you may know from the award winning documentary My Octopus Teacher.
CRAIG FOSTER: From the beginning of time up till very recently, every person has had these relationships with these wild animals. So what I found was I had a much greater sense of belonging on the planet, and I felt part of it, and not this separation, and that was really good for my general feeling of well being, made a massive difference.
DACHER KELTNER: We learn what happens when we extend our love to the wild animals who live amongst us.
Thanks for joining us on The Science of Happiness. Our research assistants, and my former Science of Happiness students, are Dasha Zerboni and Selina Bilal. Our Associate Producer is Aisha Wallace-Palomares. Our sound designer is Jennie Cataldo of Accompany Studios. Our producer is Haley Gray. Our podcast’s executive producer is Shuka Kalantari. I’m Dacher Keltner. Have a wonderful day.
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