Psychiatrist Explains: Does Money Actually Buy Happiness?

so people would give someone like a nice expensive chocolate and they'd ask them to eat the chocolate and what we sort of found is that if you eat the chocolate just by itself and you really sit down and you enjoy it it actually like brings you a lot of Happiness if you tell people how much the chocolate costs or especially if they have to pay for it it reduces the happiness so a lot of people wonder whether money buys happiness or not right there's kind of this age-old debate of does money buy happiness and there's even been some research on this stuff right where people are kind of like uh I think there was a very famous there's a very famous like happiness course at Yale that cites some of these studies that essentially what psychologists who look at happiness have discovered is that if you make like between 100 and 150k a year I think the number was 100K but I think there's been inflation that money does buy happiness but up to a certain point and that Beyond a certain point of money we it actually doesn't correlate with increased happiness at all and so we sort of know right now based on this like new scientific research that does to a certain degree money buys happiness but on the flip side we also know that there are these like spiritual Traditions with people like monks right and yogis and these are people that will sort of say like yeah you know these are like these are the people that their job is to try to become happy like that's what enlightenment is right it's this like mythical state of like permanent happiness Nirvana Bliss and they cultivate that state and apparently the way that you do that is not by acquiring money but actually by disacquiring money by actively getting rid of all of your stuff so we have these monks who are sitting there meditating all the time and they're apparently the ones that are like the closest to becoming perfectly happy and so then we're kind of stuck right because it's like okay so wait hold on a second but which one should I do like I want to be happy in life so what do I do do I grind for money do I try to make a hundred thousand dollars a year do I make 150 000 a year or do I become like a monk like should I learn how to settle right so should I learn to like be happy with what I have or should I try to get more and if you say I should be like a monk but whole hold on a second because there's all these researchers that say I need to make 100 to 150k a year they say that that's what's going to make me happy so we don't know right we don't know like should I chase money or should I not chase money I want to be happy but which one is it and then then we run into this other problem which is that okay if we decide that all right so let's say we're going to listen to the Yale researchers right because it's Yale and they're brilliant and they say 100K a year Okay cool so then the question is all right so if I need to make 100K a year to be happy should I major in something that makes me miserable so that I can get make money because that's what everyone tells me to do and then we enter into this other debate which is like passion or do I major in stem do you like become an artist and do I make like video games or board games or do I like get a job that provides like security and money like do I major in computer science or electrical engineering or chemical engineering so which is it right so okay hold on a second so if you're saying that I need 100K to be happy let me live let me major in something that's going to get me a good job and once I have lots of money I'll be happy right so then that you sort of go down that path but people don't seem happy doing that and now you're kind of confused because then you like kind of go back to the monk thing and it's like okay as I if I'm studying in engineering should I change Majors or should I push through it right and eventually happiness will come so we all get tangled up around this business of okay should I try to be a monk or should I grind to become happy should I make lots of money and then like that'll kind of buy me happiness like which one which one should I do and the interesting thing is that I don't think that these two paths are actually different at all in fact I think what I'd love to share with you all today is as we understand the nature of happiness stress we understand what money does for us and what it doesn't do for us and furthermore once we understand what monks actually do when they meditate what we'll actually discover is that this problem of okay should I major in something that I dislike should I pick a career because it makes me money or should I do what I love should I go the monk route and move away from material possessions or should I try to make a bunch of money because that'll make me happy what we'll actually discover is that it's neither or they're both they're all the same there's actually One path there's actually no discrepancy or disagreement between the Monk and the happiness researchers so let's start by understanding a little bit around about stress so the first thing that we've got to understand is that when we're stressed out it has all kinds of different effects on our body and our mind so we know that when we're stressed out our body will secrete different kinds of hormones or chemicals right so we'll release things like adrenaline we'll release things like cortisol and what cortisol does to our body and our brain is quite diverse so it'll do things like make us more sensitive to stimuli so this is a huge thing that cortisol does so for example cortisol travels to this part of our brain called the reticular activating formation which governs how we sleep and How Deeply we sleep and it basically activates some so that smaller noises will wake us up okay so like when we have cortisol in our system our sleep is light we don't get deep restful sleep but it's not just that kind of stimulus that it makes us sensitive to cortisol also increases the sensitivity of our pain receptors so things will hurt more when we're in a high stressful State emotions will hurt more physical injuries will hurt more we also know that for example autoimmune conditions like eczema asthma psoriasis arthritis all of these things will flare up and will become more active when we are stressed out we also know that cortisol for example makes a lot of our input so our eyes our ears things like that a lot of our sensory organs will become hypersensitive as well because the goal of cortisol is not to Keep Us Alive for the moment it's to help us stay alive over 24 or 48 hour period so the classic example of when cortisol is released is if I run into let's say a tiger in the woods and then I run away from the tiger that's usually governed by adrenaline but once I get away from the tiger for a long period of time I need to stay alert and that's essentially what cortisol does and what cortisol does is sacrifices long-term health for short-term survival so now we live in a society where cortisol can almost be like constantly flowing through our system because in the past when we were hunter-gatherers it wasn't that big of a deal because you know we'd run into a tiger every now and then but now what's happening is like when when the first of the month rolls around and I pay my rent I'm already worrying about how to pay my rent at the end of the month so I'm in this constant stress State as I increase this amount of stress I start to worry more I become sensitive to negative stimuli I have difficulty sleeping I kind of feel bad so this is what stress does to us it makes it very hard to be happy when we're in a stressful State because I'm not sleeping I'm sensing of the pain stimuli I'm worrying all the time the mind of someone who has a bunch of cortisol in their system is also looking into the future so I can't enjoy the present right I just paid my rent on the first of the month and I'm already worrying about the 30th of the month how am I going to make my rent next month so I can't even enjoy the 29 days that I have to pay rent so we start to see that from a physiologic and psychologic standpoint stress and a lack of Happiness are correlated so what does that have to do with our discussion aren't we talking about money and happiness well let's try to understand what a 100K buys us or what 150k buys us because we know that this seems to be the magic number and if you think about what 100 to 150k buys you that 200k 300K or 400k don't or that 50k 60k or 70k don't right why is this number magical the number is magical because that amount of money buys us security so I don't have to worry about paying my rent usually if I get sick I can afford to pay my bills I can afford food if my car breaks down I can probably probably get it fixed I may be able to travel some I may be able to do some amount of enjoyment I may be able to do some kind of recreation I'm allowed to have sort of recreational experiences at 100 to 150k so if we really look at what's magical about that number what it really provides for us is security what it really does is that's the amount of money that we need to lower our cortisol levels right because now I'm not stressed about making unless I'm overextended and stuff like that and you all may know people who make 150k who are stressed out of their minds because they're they're the you know they live like multi-millionaires when they only make 100K so you can absolutely get into that situation but it turns out that with the happiness researchers discovered essentially was that this amount of money provides security and so now let's think about the monks for a second right because I mean they're not like you know what's their deal like they don't have any money they certainly don't have 100K they don't have 150k but they seem to be pretty happy and pretty chill so now I'm going to ask you all the question do monks have security does a monk need to worry about whether they're sleeping at night does a monk need to worry about where their next meal is coming from does their monk need to worry about getting promoted does a monk need to worry about politics with their boss maybe right depending on where you're among but so this is what's really interesting is we we sort of say that monks are not materialistic but what we also actually see is that monks are actually very secure in their day-to-day life for the most part like people pay for their food through donations they're like housing is generally like accommodate most monks don't have to worry about paying rent at the end of the month there's usually some kind of charitable organization or something like that where like monks will have you know they'll get medical care and things like that like I I haven't seen you know I've never seen a GoFundMe from a monk trying to pay medical bills you'll see GoFundMe for from people all the time especially in the United States but it's not like monks are out there you know struggling to make ends meet now some of them will choose to be uh you know like poor and essentially we'll take vows of poverty and we'll then we'll also rely on the charity of others but if you kind of think about how can that develop as a tradition how can I choose being broke as a way of life because that's what the monks do they're like my way of life is I ain't gonna do [ __ ] and they're still alive after 10 years 20 years 30 years how is that it's because they actually have their security provided for them it's the first thing to understand is that the happiness research in the monks actually agree that the purpose of money is security when it comes to happiness the second thing to understand is that if we look at happiness there's a difference between gaining happiness and losing happiness and especially with what insecurity does is it takes happiness away it doesn't give you happiness but it makes it so that if you have some amount of Happiness let's say I have 50 units of happiness but then I can't pay my rent at the month at the end of the month I lose 30 units of Happiness that's what stress does to us it takes our happiness away it doesn't directly give it to us so this is the first thing right is now that we kind of look at this once we understand how stress Works once we understand what money actually does for happiness and even when we look at monks we start to discover that actually all of these things are aligned the purpose of money in in terms of how much it deals with happiness is essentially security now even if we know that it still doesn't really answer our original question right because our original question is like should I major and establish should I become a stem person like electrical engineering or like lawyer or whatever or should I do what I love it doesn't help us even this amount of information doesn't help us make the choice which one should I do because if you're saying they're actually consistent I still don't know how to pick and that's why thankfully there's like way more research on happiness this I'm going to share with you all a little bit more so the first thing it appears that a lot of happiness correlates with something called savoring so savoring is the ability to enhance or extend a positive emotional experience I take some issue with the word emotional there but a positive experience we know what it means to savor something right but essentially what happens is the more that you're able to savor things the more happy you are and we also know that for example money can negatively impact savoring so if I buy there's literally people that studies on this right so there's a causative this is a causative study by the way not correlation which is a huge difference so people would give someone like a nice expensive chocolate and they'd ask them to eat the chocolate and what we sort of found is that if you eat the chocolate just by itself and you really sit down and you enjoy it it actually like brings you a lot of Happiness if you tell people how much the chocolate costs or especially if they have to pay for it it reduces the happiness now this is a really important finding okay because what this means is that if I'm rich and I buy something nice and I think about how much I paid for it it will actually reduce the quality of savoring this is what in in scientific research is called kind of the Dual nature of money and happiness which is that money will allow you for certain possessions and things like that we'll get to that in a second but the more that you think about money the less you're actually able to savor things and so this is a really important thing to understand is when we're really talking about what is happiness we're sort of really zeroing on on this quality of savoring there are a couple of other really interesting things that we discovered from happiness research the first is that spending money on experiences is worth more than spending money on possessions okay so like if you have some amount of Happiness doing stuff with it as opposed to getting stuff with it will actually make you more happy so let's say taking trips or like going white water rafting or going to a museum like paying tickets for a museum is worth more happiness than let's say a micro transaction in a video game so getting more stuff and being able to do things doing stuff is actually worth more happiness than getting stuff second really interesting thing is that savoring experiences that are ordinary or extraordinary leads to about the same amount of Happiness so that sort of means is that it's not like a 15 cup of coffee is more enjoyable than a five dollar cup of coffee or a three dollar cup of coffee or a ten dollar cup of coffee the experiences that we go through you don't have to visit the best museum in the world you can just visit a decent Museum that sort of prioritizing experience is important but it's not like extraordinary experiences are worth more than ordinary experiences so I can go climb to the top of Mount Everest which maybe that's an experience but or I can hike for an hour and that's a certain degree that there's a lot of happiness in both of those so it's not like the fancier stuff that gets posted on social media with the really epic Vistas in the tallest mountain in the world is is better than the second tallest mountain in the world like if you climb to the top of any mountain and you look out it's going to be really enjoyable so it's not like the extraordinary is actually greater than the Ordinary second really and really interesting thing third thing that's also kind of novel from happiness research is that generally speaking spending money on other people brings more happiness than spending money on yourself so this is kind of interesting as well so we see it like a lot of the value of altruism whereas like if I work hard and I give something to another human being that actually makes me happier than having stuff myself and so if we look at some of these novel discoveries about the nature of money and happiness we discover a lot of things that are also actually very consistent with monks so the first is that a monk can Savor a simple cup of tea right like especially if you go to like with this monasteries and stuff they'll have like um you know barley tea or green tea or something like that and they'll sit there and they'll like enjoy like a simple cup of tea and it's in the enjoyment of the simple thing the ACT that's really where the happiness comes from and that's really what monks train to do right right because if you think about okay what is meditation if you look at like these Zen Masters being a monk is a formal training in savoring being a monk is a formal training and extracting as much happiness as we can out of any experience and so the cool thing about being a monk is the more you level up your savoring skill the more that you are able to actually extract positive enjoyment out of even seemingly neutral or negative experiences and that's really where the monk training is is really valuable but as we end up discovering you know now we get a little bit closer to the answer to our question which is a lot of people will say like okay so should I should I go down this career path even if it doesn't make me happy because I'll get money because money buys happiness right up to a certain point well no that's not really how it works money provides Security money also gives us the opportunity to create experiences money gives us to a certain degree the ability to help others which will make us happy so that's what money does but the basic problem is that we think that the Choi is what's going to make us happy right because that's what really screws us it was like should I pick a or should I pick B and the real lesson to take away from all this stuff is that the choice is not what brings the happiness it's the way that we experience the choice that brings happiness so it's not about picking the right major it's how do you live your life with a particular major right so even if I pick a major that I don't like and I work in a way that you know I don't find it doesn't really attract me but I can still enjoy lots of things about it right so I've had this experience myself where like you know you can still really enjoy a cup of coffee in the morning even if you hate your job and you can really enjoy the feeling of relief when you're done with your job that you hate and then the other really wild thing is that even parts of your job once you learn how to savor there are parts of your job that you used to dislike which you can start to like so what we actually discover is that like the monks and all the happiness we search are actually perfectly aligned and I think the best example of this that I'll leave y'all with actually comes from the world of dating so right now everyone is out there they're looking for the perfect partner and that was the promise of the dating apps right is that you tell us exactly what you want and we will find it for you we will look amongst all these billions of people on the planet you give us a checklist of everything that you're looking for and we'll match you with the perfect person because that's what's going to lead to happiness right it's getting everything that you want whereas I come from a culture that it traditionally has arranged marriages and if you kind of think about it having an arranged marriage you don't get to pick [ __ ] you don't get to pick any of it someone else picked it for you and so if picking what we want is the way that we get happiness then it should follow that everyone who does online dating should be perfectly happy and that no one who has an arranged marriage will ever be happy right because they have no choice because the choice is what determines the happiness but what we actually discover is that if you look at arranged marriages it's people who change their experience within the marriage it's not the choice itself it's how they live in the marriage it's how they learn to love someone it's how they learn to accept someone it's how the other person learns to love and accept them that you can have incredibly happy marriages so the pro problem that we face when we're trying to think okay should I do a or should I do B which one will make me happy first of all there's no there's no dispute between the happiness researchers and the monks we all actually agree that you need some amount of security and then the rest of it is determined by how you live your life that you prioritize experiences over possessions that you try to use your money to help other people as opposed to yourself but you need to be able to have the money to help other people and still pay your rent and the more that you you begin to realize that then you'll start to realize that it's not the choice that brings happiness it's what you do with it it's how you live after it's how you learn how to savor whatever comes after the choice that will ultimately bring you the happiness oh yes people are asking love can be learned 100 so if you want to understand why there's so little love in the world it's because we forgot that learn love is a skill that you can learn and we assumed that it was something that was pre-packaged perfectly formed and then you go find it so this is like we're like a society who thinks that chairs can be found on the street instead of being built and now we're wandering around the whole society is wandering around looking for chairs because in your household there were chairs so he stopped learning how to love and instead we started looking for it so Dr K confused about picking between Pro gaming and CS major what should I do so I can't tell if you're trolling or not but let's assume that's a serious question because that's a common concern for a lot of people trying to think about sincere interest in Pro gaming so I'm going to share something okay don't read too much into it I've worked with about seven or eight Esports teams let's say and sometimes what happens after a team has trouble is they think about should I switch this player out or not should we find a new new player they think which is the right choice should we stick with what we have or should we find a new player and that's where like my answer to them is there isn't a right choice or a wrong choice it's that whatever you pick is going to require work all that's different is the kind of work that it's going to take after your choice see we think that making the right choice creates the right result but it's not the choice that that creates the result it's what you do after the choice so I'll say this a lot also like in in medical school where people are like okay well I love surgery and I love Psychiatry which one should I pick which one will make me happier and that's where I think people are losing the point they're like thinking like if I pick something it'll make me happy and that's why those people wind up unhappy because they think that the happiness comes from the choice it's created afterward and as long as you think that a particular thing is going to make me you happy and you strive for that thing and then you get it and then what happens those people aren't happy you'll get that this is why people who look for happiness outside of themselves never find it and I don't mean that in like a here's my spiritual tweet for the day I mean like literally think about it right if I think that because they think that happiness is just like something that you acquire right it's like you open a treasure chest and Boop here's the happiness I found it now I'm good it doesn't work like that it's created this is why the research on savoring is so important what we discover is that prioritizing experiences and learning how to savor is actually what we leads to happiness and so you can go and this is what we end up with right like I want this thing this thing will make me happy and you get that thing makes you happy for like a day then you want something else you're so excited to play this video game this video game is so great so great oh my God it's so much fun and then you finish and then what how long does the happiness from the video game last if video games actually made people happy the industry would be dead we wouldn't need any more because we'd be done so this is what it means it's not like some profound like oh like happiness comes from women like literally it's not like some weird spiritual metaphor it's like you can eat as many [ __ ] cookies as you want to in life you can eat a cookie today you're gonna want one tomorrow you can eat one tomorrow you're gonna want one the next day you get tired for them for a little while then you'll want something else and then you're gonna eat that and you'll be happy for a little while and then a month later you're gonna want a cookie again this is not some profound spiritual realization this is just like just pay attention to yourself for like all of five minutes and you will discover this that the happiness doesn't come from the object itself it comes from your experience of the object so should you major in CS or should you become a pro gamer that depends on how you live your life after after making the decision there isn't a right decision or a wrong decision should I take job a or should I take job B well job a has these benefits and these weaknesses job B has these benefits and these weaknesses so whether you're happy or not is not which job you choose it's which way are you going to play the game after you pick a job am I going to take advantage of a b and c and am I going to supplement and deal with d e and f that are the weaknesses if the answer is yes you will be happy in your job so what we've done is a society of we have seeded control of our happiness to the outside world we've given up we've given up on our relationships because finding the right person I met the one it's the search for the one which implies that the happiness from the relationship comes from the other person and boy when we surrendered our happiness in a relationship to the other person that's when we get [ __ ] because they're responsible for it now and whether we become happy or not depends on their behavior we lose control of Our Lives same thing is happening in work this job will make me happy as soon as as I get to the end of the rainbow I will be happy and then you're not happy so what do you do you go find another rainbow and then you grind towards the end of it and then you're not happy for long enough so you look for another rainbow this promotion next promotion next promotion 50 Grand more 100 Grand more 200 Grand more that'll be happy right and all y'all are like if you don't make go 200 Grand a year 300 Grand a year like of course that'll make me happy think about all the crap I'll be able to do it there's research that says that after 150k it doesn't do anything we've seated control of our happiness to the outside world and boy has the outside world loved taking it from us right oh yeah yeah I'm gonna make you happy yeah you want happiness I can give you happiness 5.99 this DLC 2.99 this micro transaction you need more lives on this level of jelly whatever crunch 99 Cents I'll give you I'll make you happy just just give me a dollar give me two give me five give me ten give me a hundred give me a thousand I want to be happy I need I need a a diamond in order to be happy in this relationship I need a diamond that's worth fifty thousand dollars without the diamond I'm not gonna be happy this is what I need to be happy I I deserve it I deserve the best because I have self-esteem and in that moment what you're doing is surrendering your happiness to literally a chunk of carbon and we wonder why no one is happy today because we gave it up and there are people who are happy to profit off of it they're like great you go girl you want a 50k let me show you ads for 60k diamonds and we wonder it's not a knock against women by the way men are the same for men it can be I need my significant other we're assuming a heterosexual relationship to have tits that are this big same thing sports cars whatever so if you're wondering what should I do so here's what I'd say start by prioritizing your security learn how to savor and prioritize experiences over possessions and spend your money on other people at least some these are the four things that'll make you happy in life easy ah this is great so this is a wonderful question how does the experience of going to a museum differ from the experience of gaming beautiful so the main difference is one is easier to savor and one is harder to savor so remember the ability to savor is the ability to enhance and extend a positive emotional experience so gaming is only fun while you're gaming and then the second you're done with a match what do you have to do to continue having fun you don't save her at all you just jump right in so the difference between a museum is a museum is more conducive to savoring and then people may say but hold on a second Dr K I've savored some of my video game experiences as have I and those are the video game experiences that I love and don't regret for a moment that's what being a healthy gamer is about savoring your game I still remember ladder matches from Starcraft 1 on island maps when I was playing protoss like I still remember Dungeons and dragon sessions I still remember a couple of Epic comebacks in Dota I still remember playing Unreal Tournament those are the experiences that are worth saving but what I think is actually like worse about gaming is that gaming itself is not monolithic there's some games that could be savored like I think Eldon ring is moving in that direction right you can Savor Elder ring you don't have to micro transact your way to anything it's not about winning or losing it's like there isn't a best weapon and a worse weapon the best weapon is what people like what kind of armor do you want to wear it's like fashion Souls like forget about best I'm gonna create an experience and even if you're a video game designer and this is where like we've done Consulting for video game companies what we Advocate is this is that we think about video games is evil they're not evil parents think about them as evil whether they're evil or not depends on how we make them so like even if you're playing a video video games savor it I know it's kind of bizarre after you play for a little while go for a walk think about how much fun you had today because one of two things will happen either you'll savor it and it'll be just as fun to walk as it will to play or if you're like me at one point you'll make a shocking discovery which is that actually you didn't enjoy it and actually you feel like you're waking up from being passed out from drinking too much and you're hungover from playing way too much and that's when you know you're an unhealthy gamer if you can't savor it don't play it savoring is the ability to enhance and prolong or extend a positive experience foreign

Channel: HealthyGamerGG

Views: 84,341

Keywords: mental health, drk, dr kanojia, healthygamergg, healthy gamer gg, twitch, psychiatrist

Id: Li8OK7JZtUs

Length: 27min 24sec (1644 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 05 2022

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I always watch these expecting to disagree with something. I don't know a lot about happiness but I know a LOT about money. Without fail there's a point that I hadn't considered - or it goes in a completely different direction than I expected.

For example: I'm VERY much of the opinion that you should forego passion for money. I've done it and it's worked out really well for me; I'm around that $150k "security" figure. I never even considered that it was that very belief which allowed me to focus on my career and do what I needed to get there. That if I had the opposite opinion (to focus on passion) that would give me the drive to be successful at my passion instead. It doesn't matter what you choose, it's how hard you work at it.

Thanks for keeping me on my toes - gonna have to rewatch this one and savor it a bit.