Resisting What You Don’t Want To Feel Just Makes It Worse. Here’s A Different Strategy. | Ofosu Jones-Quartey and Cara Lai

Conflict doesn’t have to suck. These iconic relationship researchers tell us how.  Fight Right: How Successful Couples Turn Conflict Into Connection is the name of a new book by esteemed guests Dr. John Gottman and Dr. Julie Gottman. They are the co-Founders of The Gottman Institute and have completed over 40 years of research with more than 3,000 couples. John is the researcher; Julie the clinician. They have written several books together, including Eight Dates and The Love Prescription. Even though the majority of the Gottmans’ research is on couples, the advice is applicable to all types of relationships.   In this episode we talk about: The three principle conflict styles Why we often don’t understand what it is we’re fighting about Perpetual problems vs. Solvable problems Why the first three minutes of an argument are key  The simple sentence to use at the beginning of an argument How to downregulate defensiveness in an argument Why the Gottmans’ believe there is no such thing as constructive criticism Why apologizing quickly isn’t always the right move When a fight might spell the end  Related Episodes: Dan Savage on how to handle disappointment in your relationships, how to get better at sex, and why “a couple” is an Illusion Lori Brotto on mindful sex Devon and Craig Hase on how not to be a hot mess Myisha Battle on love, sex, dating, and relationship myths Sign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Ten Percent Happier online bookstore Subscribe to our YouTube Channel Our favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular Episodes For tickets to Dan Harris: Celebrating 10 Years of 10% Happier at Symphony Space: click here Full Shownotes: http://tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/gottmans-726

5 Feb 20241h 6min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- We’re dropping a fun little treat in your feed today: it’s an episode of The Puzzler, a new podcast from writer A.J. Jacobs, who was my guest on Ten Percent Happier at the beginning of December. His new book, also called The Puzzler, is all about his exploration of the world of puzzles – everything from word games to jigsaw puzzles to Sudoku and beyond – and how what he calls “the puzzle mindset” can really improve your life. So then he asked me to be his guest on The Puzzler, a daily podcast that he hosts, with so-called “celebrity” guests trying to do puzzles. I’ve said before that I’m not really a puzzle guy, but A.J. is a delight and it was a lot of fun getting to be on his show – and that’s the episode we’re sharing with you today. You can find “The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs” wherever you get your podcasts. And thanks, A.J., for having me.  Sign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Ten Percent Happier online bookstore Subscribe to our YouTube Channel Our favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular Episodes For tickets to Dan Harris: Celebrating 10 Years of 10% Happier at Symphony Space: click here Additional Resources: Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

2 Feb 202413min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- You may be breathing wrong. Here’s how to fix it.  At times, self-improvement can seem like a never-ending hallway filled with limitless shame and insufficiency. So when something as simple as the breath falls into this category, it seems only natural to meet that news with some resistance. Our guest today, James Nestor, argues that many of us, of all things, are breathing incorrectly but that by fixing our breathing, it can help with both physical and psychological ailments. Nestor is a science journalist who wrote a book called, Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, which spent 18 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and was translated into more than 35 languages. In this episode we talk about: How Nestor got interested in breathing in the first place Why we are the worst breathers in the animal kingdom The importance of posture The deleterious effects of mouth breathing Why we need to chew more The relationship between breathing and anxiety The relationship between breathing and sleep And we dive into a variety of breathing exercises Where to find James Nestor online: Website: www.mrjamesnestor.com Social Media: Facebook Instagram Book Mentioned: Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art Other Resources Mentioned: Daniel E. Lieberman The Wim Hof Method Dr. Stanislav Grof and holotropic breathwork Dr. Richard P. Brown Matthew P. Walker More on Kundalini Yoga and Breathing Sudarshan Kriya Dr. Herbert Benson and tummo breathing technique Related Episodes: Three Lessons from Happiness Research | Emma Seppälä Sign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Ten Percent Happier online bookstore Subscribe to our YouTube Channel Our favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular Episodes For tickets to Dan Harris: Celebrating 10 Years of 10% Happier at Symphony Space: click here Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/james-nestor-rerun Additional Resources: Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

31 Jan 20241h 7min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Dan Savage has been writing the popular sex-advice column Savage Love for over thirty years. He also hosts the Savage Lovecast and is the author of numerous books. In 2010 Dan and his husband founded the It Gets Better Project, which was designed to give hope to LGBTQ kids. It was seen all over the world–and won an Emmy.  In this episode we talk about: How to handle disappointment and jealousy How to get better at sex Why so many couples lose their spark and what to do about it How to date in the era of apps Why it’s so hard for straight couples to talk about sex Dan’s contention that the idea of a ‘couple’ is an illusion Related Episodes: Lori Brotto on mindful sex Devon and Craig Hase on how not to be a hot mess Myisha Battle on love, sex, dating, and relationship myths Sign up for Dan Harris’s weekly newsletter here Follow Dan Harris on social: Instagram, TikTok Ten Percent Happier online bookstore Subscribe to our YouTube Channel Our favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular Episodes For tickets to Dan Harris: Celebrating 10 Years of 10% Happier at Symphony Space: click here Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/dan-savage-723

29 Jan 20241h 14min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Sometimes perseverance is overrated. An argument for strategic quitting. Julia Keller is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, novelist, and playwright. She has a Ph.D. in English Literature from The Ohio State University and has taught at Princeton University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Notre Dame, and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. She was the chief book critic at The Chicago Tribune for many years before quitting the world of daily journalism to write books.  In this episode we talk about: The history behind why quitting gets such a bad rap  What happens in our brains when we quit  Why we don’t give enough credit to quitting The myth of perseverance  How to talk to our children about healthy quitting The power of having a community of quitters Related Episodes: The Myth of the Dream Job | Simone Stolzoff How To Find Meaningful Work in a Rapidly Changing World | Bruce Feiler Sign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Ten Percent Happier online bookstore Subscribe to our YouTube Channel Our favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular Episodes Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/julia-keller Additional Resources: Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

24 Jan 20241h 3min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- Our ability to focus is not lost, it’s just changing. Here’s what we can adapt. Here’s a horrifying fact: the average attention span has now declined to just 47 seconds on any particular screen. 47 seconds! How did this happen? How can we get anything done this way? Today we’re going to meet the scientist who’s done this research, find out what’s driving this, and what we can do about it. And the good news is we really can do things about this. We're experiencing a fundamental shift in how we think, work, and focus. It shows up in our blizzard of notifications, zoom fatigue, task switching, and burn out.  Dr. Gloria Mark is the Chancellor’s Professor of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine. She has been a visiting senior researcher at Microsoft Research since 2012. She’s written a book called Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity In this episode we talked about: Four myths about attention and technology The problem with frequent task-switching The surprising (to me) value of rote or mindless activities How to recognize when we are most distracted  How to design your day based on your attentional resources How practicing forethought can help boost our attention and focus  And Her thoughts on digital detoxes  This episode is part of the latest installment of an occasional series we do, called Sanely Ambitious. If you missed last week's episodes, go check them out. We talked about the science of optimal performance, and also the science of failure, meaning how to fail well. Coming up on Wednesday we’re gonna talk about what the research says about when to quit, not just your job, but any endeavor. We will put links in the show notes. Related Episodes: The Science of Optimal Performance—at Work and Beyond | Daniel Goleman The Science of Failing Well | Amy Edmondson Sign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Ten Percent Happier online bookstore Subscribe to our YouTube Channel Our favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular Episodes Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/gloria-mark

22 Jan 20241h 12min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. ---- A Harvard Business School professor discusses how to get good at “intelligent failure.” Amy C. Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. Her latest book is called the Right Kind of Wrong. Her research examines psychological safety and teaming within and between organizations. In this episode we talk about: The problems of shame, perfectionism, and social media How not to get caught up in analysis paralysis  The importance of self-compassion and a growth mindset The benefits of worrying with someone else Why redundancy is your friend How to discuss failure without assigning blame Why accepting your smallness can be freeing Taking the time to learn from failure The cognitive framework: stop, challenge, and choose How to have a healthier relationships with anxiety and failure Creating a culture of psychological safety Recognizing that not everybody in society has the same permission to take risks  Related Episodes: Self-Compassion Ain’t Always Soft | Kristin Neff Sign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Ten Percent Happier online bookstore Subscribe to our YouTube Channel Our favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular Episodes Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/amy-edmondson-2023 Additional Resources: Download the Ten Percent Happier app today: https://10percenthappier.app.link/install

17 Jan 20241h 8min

New episodes come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for free, with 1-week early access for Wondery+ subscribers. --- How to boost productivity, empathy, and focus, while reducing burnout. From the godfather of Emotional Intelligence.  If you have any degree of ambition, one of the things you probably think about is how to perform at your best, or somewhere close, every day. How to keep your energy up. How to get into flow. How to stay focused and productive. How to play well with others. Daniel Goleman— his friends call him Danny—-has been thinking and writing about optimal performance for decades. He’s perhaps best known for his book, Emotional Intelligence. He’s a Harvard trained psychologist who also wrote in the New York Times for a while. And in his youth, he spent many years studying meditation in Asia, alongside many of today’s most intellectual meditation teachers like Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg. He’s got a new book called Optimal: How to Sustain Personal and Organizational Excellence Every Day, co-written with Cary Cherniss. In this episode we talk about: How to train your mind for optimal states How to reduce burnout How to develop and deploy empathy in a work setting How to give feedback A productivity hack that involves only doing the easy stuff The 4 parts of emotional intelligence—and how to get better at each And the future of EI in a world of AI This episode kicks off the latest installment of our occasional series, Sanely Ambitious. Over the next two weeks, we will be posting episodes on: how to focus in the midst of a pandemic of distraction, how to fail well, and when to quit. It’s a great lineup.  Daniel Goleman’s online Emotional Intelligence Program Related Episodes: A Radical Approach to Productivity, Self-Compassion Series | Jocelyn K. Glei #494. How to Speak Clearly, Calmly, and Without Alienating People | Dan Clurman and Mudita Nisker The Science of Emotional Intelligence | Daniel Goleman #523. A Masterclass in Handling Yourself When Things Suck | Tsoknyi Rinpoche and Daniel Goleman #436. Brené Brown Says You're Doing Feelings Wrong Sign up for Dan’s weekly newsletter here Follow Dan on social: Instagram, TikTok Ten Percent Happier online bookstore Subscribe to our YouTube Channel Our favorite playlists on: Anxiety, Sleep, Relationships, Most Popular Episodes Full Shownotes: https://www.tenpercent.com/tph/podcast-episode/daniel-goleman-716

15 Jan 20241h 7min