Dr. Laurie Santos

Yeah, great, great question. And it's something that we don't have that much good data on yet. You know, everything we know suggests that microbiome affects all kinds of stuff. It would be surprising, I think, in some ways if it didn't affect our well-being and our happiness.

Yeah, great, great question. And it's something that we don't have that much good data on yet. You know, everything we know suggests that microbiome affects all kinds of stuff. It would be surprising, I think, in some ways if it didn't affect our well-being and our happiness.

Yeah, great, great question. And it's something that we don't have that much good data on yet. You know, everything we know suggests that microbiome affects all kinds of stuff. It would be surprising, I think, in some ways if it didn't affect our well-being and our happiness.

But, you know, this is just a new area of work where we're learning new things all the time and we don't really have a great verdict yet. But, you know, if you want to throw research money onto something that I think will be really telling in the next 10 years of happiness science, I think microbiome might be a spot to do that.

But, you know, this is just a new area of work where we're learning new things all the time and we don't really have a great verdict yet. But, you know, if you want to throw research money onto something that I think will be really telling in the next 10 years of happiness science, I think microbiome might be a spot to do that.

But, you know, this is just a new area of work where we're learning new things all the time and we don't really have a great verdict yet. But, you know, if you want to throw research money onto something that I think will be really telling in the next 10 years of happiness science, I think microbiome might be a spot to do that.

Let's ride this thing to the top. Poop samples from very happy people.

Let's ride this thing to the top. Poop samples from very happy people.

Let's ride this thing to the top. Poop samples from very happy people.

Yeah, I mean, there are actually some strong evidence that happiness seems to affect our longevity in super interesting ways. One of the most famous studies on this looked at a group of individuals that had really similar lifestyles. Because if you think about it, this is a hard study to do, right? We want to ask, like, are happier people living longer?

Yeah, I mean, there are actually some strong evidence that happiness seems to affect our longevity in super interesting ways. One of the most famous studies on this looked at a group of individuals that had really similar lifestyles. Because if you think about it, this is a hard study to do, right? We want to ask, like, are happier people living longer?

Yeah, I mean, there are actually some strong evidence that happiness seems to affect our longevity in super interesting ways. One of the most famous studies on this looked at a group of individuals that had really similar lifestyles. Because if you think about it, this is a hard study to do, right? We want to ask, like, are happier people living longer?

But of course, there's lots of things that affect whether you live longer. And so the researchers tried to find a population that had like reasonably low risk factors and a really similar lifestyle. And they hit upon studying nuns. The way they did this was that they went back to nuns journals that they had in their 20s.

But of course, there's lots of things that affect whether you live longer. And so the researchers tried to find a population that had like reasonably low risk factors and a really similar lifestyle. And they hit upon studying nuns. The way they did this was that they went back to nuns journals that they had in their 20s.

But of course, there's lots of things that affect whether you live longer. And so the researchers tried to find a population that had like reasonably low risk factors and a really similar lifestyle. And they hit upon studying nuns. The way they did this was that they went back to nuns journals that they had in their 20s.

I guess nuns, at least in one of these convents, kind of did some journaling when they first joined the nunnery.

I guess nuns, at least in one of these convents, kind of did some journaling when they first joined the nunnery.

I guess nuns, at least in one of these convents, kind of did some journaling when they first joined the nunnery.

So you go back when the nuns are in their 20s and you look at their journals and you do like a text analysis, like, you know, you run the text of their journals through something that pulls out all the happy words and pulls out all the kind of negative words or just like any emotion words whatsoever.

So you go back when the nuns are in their 20s and you look at their journals and you do like a text analysis, like, you know, you run the text of their journals through something that pulls out all the happy words and pulls out all the kind of negative words or just like any emotion words whatsoever.