0:15

Pushkin. We

0:21

have a saying here when you're nervous about something

0:23

that you have butterflies of the tummy, Can

0:25

you really honestly say that you did not have

0:28

any butterflies of the tummy before you started? Butterflies

0:31

in the tummy? The most British question

0:33

ever. I stumbled across this BBC

0:36

interview on YouTube and became a bit obsessed.

0:39

It's nineteen sixty one and famed

0:41

journalist Richard Dimbleby is asking

0:43

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the

0:45

first man ever to travel to space, if

0:48

he was nervous in the moments before blast on.

0:51

Yes, I can assure you there were no butterflies,

0:54

moths or anything else. Uri

0:58

was strapped into a tiny capsule on

1:00

top of a rocket filled with an explosive

1:02

mix of kerosene and liquid oxygen.

1:05

He was sitting there all alone, waiting to

1:07

venture where no other human had ever ventured

1:09

before

1:15

volution. The brief

1:17

period of time I did spend in the

1:19

spaceship before the actual takeoff,

1:22

I think I spent in a quite normal

1:24

condition. And I think these scientists

1:27

will confirm this by producing

1:29

the records of my false count

1:31

and so on to school

1:33

for Luke, and I don't think there were any grounds

1:36

for me to be seriously anxious,

1:38

either at that period or at any time throughout

1:40

the flight, so full

1:42

disclosure. One of the reasons I love listening

1:45

to this interview is because I've always found Uri

1:47

to be well, kind of soon worthy.

1:50

He has an absolutely amazing smile

1:53

and this sort of young Luke skywalker Jedi

1:55

sort of chill. But the thing I find

1:58

most attractive about Yuri is

2:00

the fact that he was pretty much the bravest

2:02

dude ever. I mean, he's sitting

2:04

there waiting to blast off into space

2:07

and he says he wasn't even aired,

2:10

which is pretty incredible because back

2:12

in nineteen sixty one, hopping onto a

2:14

space ship was basically like playing Russian

2:16

Roulette. The Soviets succeeded

2:19

in getting the first satellite into orbit only

2:21

a few years before the Volstok one launch.

2:24

Before Yuri, only a few other living

2:26

things had been sent outside of the Earth's atmosphere,

2:29

and the results were shaky. Laika,

2:33

the first dog in space. Scientists sent

2:35

her up there knowing she wouldn't return alive, and

2:37

a faulty heat shield finished her off. After

2:40

her came space pups Lusishka and

2:43

bars They were both killed by explosions

2:45

soon after blast off. Then it was

2:47

Sholka and Mushka. They were headed home safely

2:50

when it looked like they might land outside of Russia

2:52

by mistake, so mission control

2:55

blew them up. Smilea

2:57

and Milushka did a suborbital mission and

2:59

nearly made it back safely, except

3:01

their parachute didn't deploy. Yuri

3:04

must have known that, statistically speaking, he

3:06

had a decent chance of not making it back

3:09

to Earth, but despite these odds,

3:11

he was totally calm when he waited for blast

3:13

off, which is

3:16

pretty badass. These

3:20

days, the space program is much safer than

3:22

it was back in nineteen sixty one, but traveling

3:24

off of the only planet you've ever known must

3:27

still be terrifying. How

3:29

are astronauts able to control their anxiety

3:31

enough to do something so incredibly

3:33

scary and brave. Most

3:35

of us won't be shooting into deep space anytime

3:37

soon, but the challenge of regulating

3:40

our anxiety during tough moments isn't

3:42

just a problem for astronauts. We

3:44

blast into uncharted territories every

3:46

time we begin a new job or a a big project.

3:49

When we decide to start a family or have our first

3:51

child, or even when we sign on for something

3:53

that's fulfilling but a little lot of our comfort

3:55

zone. All of these changes

3:57

require taking one scary step in

4:00

order to make that giant leap into something better.

4:02

But boldly going where we've never gone before

4:05

requires controlling all our anxieties

4:07

and doubts, and being wave like That

4:09

can be hard. The good news

4:12

is that behavioral science has figured out an unexpected

4:14

trick we can use to overcome the fear

4:16

and uncertainty that come with big changes in

4:18

life events. It's a practice

4:21

so powerful that NASA and other space

4:23

programs around the world have employed

4:25

it for decades. It's also

4:27

a strategy that earthbound folks like us can

4:29

use to feel a little bit more in control when

4:31

the going gets tough. But be

4:33

forewarned, the strategy are

4:35

about to share might look a little bit more like hokey

4:37

superstitions than rocket science. Our

4:42

minds are constantly telling us what to do to be happy.

4:44

But what if our minds are wrong? What

4:46

if our minds are lying to us, leading

4:49

us away from what will really make us happy. The

4:52

good news is that understanding the science of the mind

4:54

can join us all back in the right direction. You're

4:57

listening to the Happiness Lab with doctor Laurie

4:59

Santos. You

5:05

know, my philosophy has always been

5:08

when doing things that are challenging

5:10

and difficult, especially technically difficult,

5:12

you just need to be the expert and understand

5:16

as much as you can. This

5:18

is retired astronauts Scott Kelly, and

5:20

then everything you don't understand, you need to know

5:23

where those rocket scientists are located

5:25

so you can find the right answers

5:28

from the right people. Scott

5:31

is a veteran of four space flights.

5:33

He's lived in orbit for nearly a year and a half

5:36

and maybe it's just a consequence of having done

5:38

way more terrifying things than the rest of us,

5:41

but he's got a no nonsense, totally matter

5:43

of fact attitude. He doesn't

5:45

seem like the kind of guy who's going to succumb to

5:47

any preflight jitters. My thing

5:49

has always just been trying to just be prepared

5:51

as possible. But

5:54

Scott, like many astronauts, has

5:56

used a psychological strategy to prepare

5:58

himself before heading off on his missions.

6:01

What is this time worn, space program

6:03

tested strategy. It's the act

6:05

of using a simple ritual. Now,

6:08

my regular listeners may remember that we've

6:10

talked about rituals before on the Happiness Lab.

6:13

In an episode called The Power Ever Made of ritual

6:16

we learn that you can use rituals to feel better

6:18

after a terrible event like a breakup

6:20

or a bereavement. But the power

6:22

of rituals goes way beyond reducing grief.

6:25

Astronauts in the Space Program use a ritual

6:28

that allows them to follow in the footsteps of giants,

6:31

the very people who've done the scary thing

6:33

that they're about to do and have lived to tell

6:35

the tale. And for Scott and other

6:37

modern day astronauts, that means going

6:39

back to the days of my Russian cosmonaut

6:41

crush. It means literally asking

6:44

what would Yuri Gagarin do, or

6:46

perhaps more accurately, what was it that

6:48

Yuri Gagarin did on the morning

6:50

of his pioneering launch, And

6:58

that means that Scott and his crewmates engage in

7:00

what might seem like a strange and possibly

7:03

not so sanitary preflight practice.

7:05

We get out of the bus taking us

7:07

to the launch bead zipper

7:10

space suit that has just been pressure checked,

7:12

and urinate on the tire in the

7:14

same spot that Uri Gagarin did because

7:18

I guess it helps. Yeah,

7:22

so fun. Fact, I forgot to mention earlier

7:24

about Urie's famous vollstock one trip.

7:26

As Urie was on his long bus ride out to the launch

7:29

pad, he really had to pee.

7:31

Legend has it that he asked the bus driver to

7:33

stop, hopped off the bus, unzipped

7:35

his space suit, and relieved himself on

7:37

the bus's back, right tire. I

7:40

mean, when you gotta go, you gotta go. But

7:43

now decades later, every

7:45

bus trip to that Russian bacon or launchpad

7:47

includes the very same bathroom

7:49

break. It's like kissing the barney stone.

7:52

I guess, I don't know. Nowadays,

7:54

it's not as easy to take the same bathroom

7:56

bake that Urie did. It's much more

7:58

of a production. I mean, you can't just end

8:01

zip a modern space suit like you do with a pair of

8:03

levies. Several suit techs

8:05

on board the bus are needed to help astronauts

8:07

unlock all the cumbersome fast and

8:10

I imagine the whole process must be kind of

8:12

annoying, since a bunch of scientists would

8:14

have just finished conducting a series of elaborate

8:16

suit safety checks before the spaceman

8:18

hopped on board, and then there are also women

8:21

cosmonauts. Now they can't just whip it

8:23

out and pee in the same way Yuri did, so

8:25

they've had to find creative ways to join in

8:27

on the tradition. Sometimes they use a bottle

8:29

of water or I've even heard a bottle

8:31

of urine dump it on the fire. But

8:34

the tire peeing stop isn't the only way

8:36

that Russian cosmonauts ritualistically

8:38

follow in the footsteps of the first man in space.

8:41

Two weeks before their launch, they visit

8:44

Urie's old office, sign a guest book,

8:46

and even plant a tree in the same spot

8:48

that the first spaceman did before his flight.

8:51

Forty eight hours before launch, cosmonauts

8:53

get a haircut because that's

8:55

what Yuri did, and the morning of

8:57

their trip, the crew signs their hotel room door

9:00

because you guessed it, my

9:02

space dream boy did the same thing. But

9:05

the strange cosmonaut customs don't end with Yuri.

9:08

The Russians also have other weird traditions

9:11

that copy the behavior of former spacemen.

9:13

Back in the nineties, Soya's mission commander

9:16

Alexander victor Enko asked to have a Russian

9:18

Orthodox priest bless him and his ship with

9:20

holy water before the launch. Decades

9:23

later, this blessing has also become a required

9:25

part of the buccan or cosmodrome preflight

9:27

traditions, even for American astronauts

9:30

like Scott who aren't members of that religion.

9:32

I think, especially in the case of the Russians, if you don't

9:34

want to offend anybody's culture. But

9:37

rituals aren't just a Russian thing. On

9:40

the morning before a big launch at the Kennedy Space

9:42

Center, American astronauts often

9:44

copy the culinary choice of one of their heroes,

9:47

Alan Shepherd, who allegedly

9:49

enjoyed a breakfast of steak and eggs before

9:51

his mission, and this traditional, though

9:53

slightly heavier than necessary breakfast

9:56

is followed by yet another time consuming

9:58

NASA custom at the Kennedy Space

10:00

Center, the crew has to play a few

10:03

hands of lowball poker.

10:06

Before you can walk out of the suit up

10:08

room, the command of the mission has to lose

10:10

a hand, the idea being then

10:12

he's gotten rid of all of his bad luck and

10:15

we'll have a successful launch. Now.

10:17

I don't know how much these rituals actually

10:19

help, but they're more I would say

10:22

superstitious why would

10:24

one of the most scientifically literate organizations

10:26

in human history, one that's filled with

10:28

literal rocket scientists authorize

10:31

what seemed lying dumb and possibly dangerous

10:33

superstitions that involve opening

10:35

your intricate spacesuit to pe on a bus tire

10:38

or eating a super heavy meal before subjecting

10:40

your bodies to the powerful g forces

10:42

of blast off. They do it because

10:45

the science shows that rituals like these actually

10:47

work, but not in the way

10:49

you might think. There's absolutely

10:51

no evidence, for example, that these rituals

10:54

work in a physical way. I mean, no

10:56

one a NASA really thinks that playing poker

10:58

will have a tangible causal effect on the

11:00

physics of a launch. I don't think if

11:02

you know, when I was the commander of the Space Shuttle,

11:04

had I not lost that hand and the rocket

11:06

would have blown up. Says

11:09

he still feels better after participating

11:12

in these strange practices. I was

11:14

given the choice of having the blessing

11:18

from the Russian

11:20

Orthodox priest before getting

11:22

on the Russian Soyus. I was like,

11:24

why would you not do that before

11:28

you're getting on a rocket. I mean, I'm

11:30

going to take every advantage I could possibly

11:32

get, regardless of that of whether I

11:35

believe it might work, because if it

11:37

does work, why would you not want to do it? And

11:40

therein lies the power of these strange rituals.

11:42

They take their effect not through physical

11:45

causes, but psychological ones.

11:50

One of the benefits that rituals

11:53

have is that they give us a sense

11:55

of control. This is David

11:57

Desteno, a professor of psychology at

11:59

Northeastern University, and that's really

12:01

important when you're facing something uncertain

12:04

like coming illness, loss of loved

12:06

one, or the potential of shooting yourself

12:08

into deep base. Dave's the

12:10

author of How God Works, The Science

12:12

behind Religions Benefits. His new

12:14

book explores how rituals like peeing on

12:16

a bus tire can affect our minds and

12:18

our bodies. He's found that many religions

12:21

use rituals during situations to activate

12:23

our anxieties and existential worries.

12:26

Those big life moments that feel scary

12:28

and out of control, like becoming an adult.

12:30

Is in the case of coming of age, rituals like Holy

12:33

confirmation or bo Mitzvahs, or

12:35

another big life transition, one that Dave

12:37

focuses on a lot in his book Having

12:39

a new baby, you come home from the

12:41

hospital, and you're carrying this thing that

12:44

you love and cherish, but that depends entirely

12:46

on you for its needs, and beyond

12:49

that, it can't really tell you what its needs are,

12:51

and so you're dealing with uncertainty no

12:53

matter what. Dave remembers feeling

12:55

this uncertainty firsthand when he became

12:58

a father in Western society,

13:00

it's like, you leave the hospital your home. Many

13:03

of us are far from family and friends, and

13:05

we've got this new little one, and it's like, oh

13:07

my gosh, what do I do. Dave

13:10

has found that many religions seem to deal with

13:12

this uncertainty through the use of a ritual.

13:14

In Islam, fathers recite the odd

13:16

Han or Muslem call to prayer into

13:18

a baby's ear just after it's born. Families

13:21

also place a small piece of softened date

13:23

into their infant's mouth, symbolizing

13:25

the fact that the child's life will be filled with

13:27

sweetness from that moment on. In

13:30

Shinto, the national religion of Japan,

13:33

the family of an expectant mother ties a sash

13:35

around her belly to symbolize all the

13:37

support and protection that will be available

13:39

for her new baby. And in

13:41

Catholicism, the religion I was born into.

13:44

Babies receive their first sacrament of baptism

13:46

soon after birth, which symbolizes

13:48

a sort of vaccination against sin. Each

13:52

of these religious practices comes with an accompanying

13:54

set of beliefs about why such rituals

13:56

are supposed to work in a spiritual sense.

14:00

But what's perhaps most surprising is that we

14:02

engage in very similar practices outside

14:04

of a religious context. Think

14:06

putting on your lucky shirt or crossing

14:09

your fingers, or telling your theater buddy

14:11

to break a leg on opening night. We call

14:13

them superstition, we call them

14:15

good luck charms. But they're all accomplishing

14:18

the same purpose. That is, they're

14:20

giving us a sense of control. When

14:23

we get back from the break, we'll learn about

14:26

the mind glitch that makes rituals like these so

14:28

powerful. We'll see that these

14:30

seemingly weird superstitions can have a

14:32

surprising confidence boosting benefit

14:34

just when we need it most. The

14:37

happiness lab will be right back. So

14:51

one of the biggest points in life

14:53

when all humans across cultures perform

14:55

rituals is when they're called on to perform.

14:58

So, for example, tennis star Serena

15:00

Williams bounces the ball exactly

15:03

five times before first to

15:05

serve and two times before a

15:07

second serve. This is

15:09

Mike Norton and Francesca Gino, a pair

15:11

of Harvard Business School psychologists. You

15:14

may remember from a past episode of The Happiness

15:16

Lab that Mike and Francesca study the

15:18

psychology of rituals, including all

15:20

the superstitious behaviors that people engage

15:22

in ahead of a stressful event, thank

15:24

interviewing for a job, going on a first

15:27

date, or stepping out at Fenway Park.

15:30

Former third baseman for the Boston Red

15:32

Sox, his name is Wade Boggs. You

15:34

used to eat chicken before each

15:37

game, and he also used to write

15:39

the Ebrew word chai, which means

15:41

life in the dirt every

15:43

time you went to bat. There

15:45

are a ton of sporting examples just like this.

15:48

My favorite one is used by British cyclist

15:50

Laura Kenny. Legend has it that

15:52

she was trailing at a big meat when she accidentally

15:55

stepped on a damp towel between races.

15:57

Even though her sock got all wet, she went

16:00

on to win the championship. Now

16:02

she ritualistically wets her sock

16:04

before every competition, and this

16:06

is not just about sports, so you can

16:08

find this type of rituals across other

16:10

type of performances. So,

16:13

for example, before every show Ballerina

16:16

Susanna Farrell pins a

16:18

small toy mouse inside her

16:20

leotard, crosses herself

16:22

exactly twice, and pinch herself

16:24

exactly twice. Before going on stage,

16:27

singer Beyond listen

16:30

to the same playlist of song, says

16:33

a prayer with every member of her band,

16:35

completes a specific set of stretches,

16:37

and spend exactly one hour meditating.

16:41

Why do so many successful people create

16:43

these odd rituals before high stress performances.

16:46

Mike and Francesca hypothesized that practices

16:49

like these may help performers calm

16:51

their pre event jitters. The worst

16:53

thing you can do is tell yourself to calm down,

16:56

because when you tell yourself to calm

16:58

down, you can't because that's not how

17:00

humans work. And then not only are you're anxious

17:02

about the performance, but now you're anxious that you

17:04

can't calm down, and then it's even worse. It's

17:07

one thing to hypothesize that Wade Bog eats

17:09

a chicken before a game because it calms his nerves.

17:11

And makes him play better. But it's also pretty

17:14

hard to test that empirically, so

17:16

Mike and Francesca decided to use an experiment

17:18

with ordinary folks. They figured out

17:20

a way to simulate a high stress performance

17:23

situation under laboratory conditions.

17:25

They recruited some test subjects and had

17:28

them sing Don't Stop Believing by Journey,

17:30

which is not only a terrible song but

17:33

an incredibly difficult song to sing, and

17:35

they had to sing in front of other people. Here's

17:38

how the study worked. Okay,

17:44

welcome to the study. So in

17:46

this experiment, you were going to sing Don't

17:48

Stop Believing, and we're going to track

17:51

how well you do. All the subjects

17:53

had to sing into a computer which marked exactly

17:55

how good they were at hitting the different notes. And

17:58

to make the situation even more nerve racking,

18:00

subjects were faced with an unforgiving audience.

18:03

A stern looking scientist watched them throughout

18:05

the entire performance. But

18:07

before this scary karaoke the experience,

18:10

half the subjects took part in a ritual. Okay,

18:13

I want you to do the following. Draw

18:15

a picture of how you're feeling right now. Now,

18:20

Sprinkle salt on your drawing. Count

18:23

up to five out loud, one,

18:26

two, three, four, five,

18:29

Crinkle up your paper, okay,

18:36

now throw the paper into the trash.

18:39

So what happened? It took the midnight

18:42

same goy where

18:46

the singers who didn't participate in a ritual scored

18:48

around sixty six out of one hundred for accuracy.

18:51

They sucked ay boy,

18:55

I'm boying and raising south to try.

18:58

But participants who drawn a picture put

19:00

salt on it, counted to five and bald it up

19:03

scored higher. They averaged

19:05

seventy eight percent accuracy. That's

19:07

like jumping from a D to a C plus.

19:11

Now our rituals magic and you're an amazing

19:13

singer. Not at all, but they do seem

19:15

to help people a little bit. They're kind of one tool

19:17

that we have to help in these situations. But

19:20

what really explains the performance gap

19:22

between the ritual and the no ritual subjects?

19:25

To figure out, Mike and Francesca monitored

19:27

the singer's heart rates and ask them to describe

19:30

their emotions and anxiety levels. And

19:32

what we also found is that the level

19:35

of anxiety was lower

19:37

when they engaged in the ritual, and

19:40

that's why they ended up performing better

19:42

on a seven point scale. The ritual participants

19:45

rated their anxiety around a four out of seven,

19:47

but those who had to sing without a fake ceremony

19:50

to calm their nerves were significantly more

19:52

scared. They reported anxiety levels

19:54

of six out of seven. That's a pretty

19:56

major shift. Mike and Francesca

19:59

had discovered that rituals allow us to feel

20:01

better and do better. It's

20:03

almost like getting a performance enhancing drug.

20:06

But the effective rituals isn't limited to quelling

20:08

state or pregame nerves. Rituals

20:11

can also help us when tackling challenges that

20:13

take place away from the public eye. One

20:16

interesting aspect of rituals

20:18

that we discovered in our research is

20:20

that rituals can also be

20:22

quite healthful. As we are trying

20:24

to have self control, there

20:26

are lots of things we want to do that take commitment and

20:29

effort. Think habits related to our health

20:31

and fitness, or a desire to learn a new

20:33

skill. To succeed, we need to show

20:35

discipline and persistence and that's

20:37

not always easy. So could a

20:39

ritual help us with these tough private habits

20:42

too. For one of our studies,

20:44

we recruited people who were interested in

20:46

losing some weight all subjects

20:48

were asked to cut their calories by ten percent

20:51

but half we're also asked to do a ritual

20:53

before every meal. They had to cut their food

20:55

into tiny pieces, arrange the

20:57

pieces so that they were perfectly symmetrical,

21:00

and press their utensils on top of the food

21:02

pieces. Three times what

21:04

happened on average, participants

21:06

in the ritual condition eight around two hundred

21:09

calories less than the people in the no ritual

21:11

condition. They will, in fact better

21:13

able to keep their

21:15

weight under control simply

21:18

because they add this

21:20

routine of engaging in a ritual on

21:22

a day to day basis. So

21:25

once again, ritual is shown to have a powerful

21:27

effect. But Mike and Francesca

21:30

are quick to point out that there are better and

21:32

worse ways to pick a ritual. It

21:34

seems like the key thing that makes rituals

21:37

work is that you have imbued

21:39

it with some sense of symbolic value

21:41

or meaning. This is one of the

21:44

reasons that religious rituals are so common.

21:47

Lots of people have faith backgrounds that give meaning

21:49

to ritualistic acts, like saying a prayer

21:51

before a challenging or scary event, but

21:54

scientists like David Desteno have found that

21:56

our personal rituals also work better

21:58

when we're really convinced they're going to work. Belief

22:01

really matters, especially when we're talking about

22:03

situations where there's uncertainty, and uncertainty

22:06

in life is one of the major causes

22:08

of stress that we have. Dave has found

22:10

that there are a few ways that people come to really

22:12

believe in the weird rituals they use. One

22:15

comes from a ritual's rich history, like cosmonauts

22:18

following in the footsteps of Yuri Gagarin. We

22:20

tend to believe rituals more when they've worked in

22:22

the past, especially when they've worked

22:25

for us personally in the past. Take

22:27

cyclist Laura Kenny's Wet Sock ritual. Her

22:29

own experience of wet socks before a major

22:31

victory convinced her that wetting her socks

22:34

was the way to go for every subsequent race.

22:36

Those accidental connections can have a big

22:38

effect on our beliefs. You know it

22:40

worked, let's keep doing it. But

22:43

Dave has also found that an authority figure

22:45

telling you what to do can boost a ritual's

22:47

believability. Mike and Francesca's

22:49

weight loss subjects probably bought the food

22:51

chopping practice in part because they had an

22:53

official looking scientist implying that

22:56

this pre eating ritual might help. You have to

22:58

believe that this works in a

23:00

person who's giving it to you, And it works better

23:02

if you feel comfortable and connected to the

23:04

person who's giving it to you. And once a

23:06

belief about a ritual and its effectiveness is

23:08

in place, our bodies have a clear

23:10

mechanism to start behaving differently.

23:13

One of the ways by which rituals can work

23:15

is the placebo effect. Dave argues

23:17

that ritualistically peeing on a bus tire

23:20

or wearing a wet sock works pretty much

23:22

like getting in a inert dummy pill and thinking

23:24

it's a real medicine. If we believe

23:26

peeing on a bus will make a launch go smoothly,

23:29

our bodies automatically react differently.

23:31

They show less of a stress response, which

23:33

can help us perform better. And much like

23:36

so called open label placebos, in

23:38

which a fake drug can still reduce our symptoms

23:40

even when we know it's fake, our bodies

23:42

still react to weird rituals. It

23:44

works just the same even though

23:46

you know it's a placebo, which

23:48

to me is just amazing. But

23:52

Dave also finds that you can't scrimp

23:54

on performing the ritual itself. The

23:56

person can't just say to you you're

23:59

healed. There has to be some

24:01

action. Without that, there's

24:03

nothing for the brain to latch onto. Dave's

24:07

work has shown that even you skeptics out

24:09

there can benefit from rituals as long

24:11

as your brains have something to latch onto, which

24:14

begs the question, which new rituals

24:16

are you going to dream up and which

24:18

ones are most likely to work best. After

24:21

the break, we'll meet someone who creates effective

24:23

rituals for a living and

24:25

whose own personal ritual for reducing anxiety

24:28

is a bit strange. In fact,

24:31

it involves Tom

24:33

Hanks. That was this one scene

24:35

when Meg Ryan's character is like riding

24:38

off to this kind of hotbreak moment, and

24:40

it felt like she was speaking to my soul.

24:43

The Happiness Lab will be right back, great,

24:52

Okay, I am recording at my end and

24:55

I am all ready to roll. This

24:57

is Casper Turkyle. Casper is

24:59

a Ministry Innovation Fellow at Harvard Divinity

25:01

School, author of the book The Power

25:04

of Ritual, and a founder of the Sacred

25:06

Design Lab. Casper has his

25:08

own ritual pract but the ceremony

25:10

doesn't involve any special candles or

25:12

incantations. When

25:15

most people think about a sacred ritual, they don't

25:17

necessarily think about watching some bad rom

25:19

com move bad rom com, Laurie,

25:23

I'm getting sorry. Is it not a rom com? No,

25:26

but it's good. I'm

25:29

sorry to interrupt. Casper's

25:32

ritual is to watch the nineteen

25:34

ninety eight Meg Ryan and Tom Hinks film

25:37

You've Got Mail. I was I

25:39

think thirteen, maybe fourteen. I grew

25:41

up in England, and I was a little gay boy

25:43

in a boy's boarding house with fifty testosterone

25:46

fueled teenagers and feeling very

25:48

much outside of my comfort zone. And I

25:50

remember this movie coming on, maybe

25:53

late on a Saturday evening or something, and

25:55

there was this one scene where Meg Ryan's

25:58

character is like riding after this kind

26:00

of heartbreak moment an email out

26:02

to this man who stood her up, who she thought

26:04

she was in love with, and she says, like,

26:06

very earnestly, like good night dead.

26:09

Even if these letters don't reach anyone,

26:11

I still want to say them. And it felt like she

26:13

was speaking to my soul As

26:16

an adult. Casper returns to You've Got Mail

26:18

whenever he's in a bad emotional place, but

26:21

Casper doesn't treat the film like other movies

26:23

he loves. For him, You've Got Mail

26:25

is special. Watching it includes

26:27

all the hallmarks of a sacred ritual.

26:30

This is a movie that I always watch on my own.

26:32

One of the things I really like to do is to watch it

26:35

on DVD. Like the physical item of

26:37

it is still kind of important to me. Just

26:39

the physicality of like putting in that DVD

26:41

into the DVD player, the music, of

26:44

the menu, and the options, like there's so much

26:46

that just takes me right back to that feeling

26:48

of being a young teenager who's

26:50

kind of lost in the world. And then

26:52

you know, I will say the lines with the movie

26:55

as it runs. You know, I'm going to

26:57

the nut shop where it's fun. It's just all

26:59

of these little these little quotes that

27:01

I will literally say out loud as the movie plays,

27:03

And so it's kind of like a conversation that I

27:05

feel like I'm in with the movie. Casper's

27:08

You've Got Mail practice also includes

27:10

another important element in so many rituals.

27:13

Food, In his case, a full

27:15

pint of hogandas with other tubs

27:17

of ice cream, I promise myself that I won't

27:19

eat the whole thing, even though I eventually do with

27:21

this one, I just fully accept that we're

27:24

going all the way in with the whole tub, and like,

27:26

don't pretend otherwise. So it's just a spoon

27:28

and the tub of Pralians and cream. Now,

27:32

to many of us, downing a tub of ice cream

27:34

over a chick flick might seem like a relatively

27:36

mundane event, the kind of thing many people

27:38

do when they're feeling blue. But as Casper

27:40

spoke more about You've Got Mail, it

27:43

was clear that his experience of watching the movie

27:45

and the benefits he received from the practice,

27:47

were something much more profound. It's

27:50

just one of those movies that I turned to kind

27:53

of speak to the feeling of

27:55

emptiness, and it takes me into

27:57

a place of joy, and I feel like that's one

27:59

of the beautiful things about rituals is that they

28:01

can help us change the state of being

28:03

that we're in, right from one state into another.

28:06

And so I'm very fious about like not

28:08

letting anyone watch it with me, because this

28:10

is a sacred space for just me in this movie.

28:13

When people think of a ritual that's particularly

28:15

sacred, they don't necessarily think of like a

28:17

cheesy nineties movie. But you've argued

28:19

that this is exactly the kind of thing we can

28:21

turn into a ritual. Yeah, that's right. So

28:24

often when we think about a ritual, we think of something

28:26

that's really complicated or maybe even

28:28

kind of exoticized, right, monks on some

28:30

distant mountain, or a very complex

28:32

religious ritual. And I'm really passionate about

28:35

finding ritual on the day to day habits and routines

28:37

that we have. The places that we already have a

28:39

glint of meaning can become the kind

28:41

of fountain from which a ritual develops.

28:44

And so this movie had such particular

28:46

meaning for me, and I started to realize,

28:48

like, huh, if I think about the way

28:50

in which we add a layer of meaning

28:52

onto a habitual practice, there's an opportunity

28:55

for me to really think about this in a ritual way and to

28:57

take more seriously the role that it plays

28:59

in my life. Casper thinks

29:01

that you should develop a similarly sacred

29:03

ritual, but he's not going to

29:05

insist that it involved Tom Hanks or Meg

29:08

Ryan. At the Sacred Design

29:10

Lab, the startup Casper co founded, Casper

29:13

and his colleagues have researched centuries of human

29:15

culture to figure out how to create

29:17

a meaningful ritual for today.

29:20

So the way I think about how to do that is

29:22

really this triptych of having an

29:24

intention before you stop paying

29:26

attention while you're practicing, and then repeating

29:28

it over time SOT, attention, repetition.

29:32

Let's break that down. First, intention,

29:36

Intention means that you have to mark out the practice

29:38

you're about to embark on as being

29:41

special or holding a particular meaning.

29:43

Think cyclist Laura Kenny preparing her socks.

29:46

When she places down that damp and towel, she

29:48

intentionally recalls her victory at the

29:51

Junior Championship years before. The

29:54

next part of the practice is attention. Attention

29:57

means focusing your mind on the ritual and

29:59

being present and mindful during it.

30:02

For Laura Kenny, that must mean noticing

30:04

and attending to the water soaking through her socks.

30:07

I mean, it's hard to think about anything else when

30:10

you have wet socks. Right. The

30:12

final part of the ritual triptych is repetition.

30:15

Casper says, you've got to perform the practice

30:17

over and over and over again so

30:19

that your brain recognizes that something significant

30:22

is taking place. I mean, one of the

30:24

beautiful things about ritual is that it really is like

30:26

time travel, because when you practice

30:28

something really intentionally as

30:31

it has been done before, it feels

30:33

like you're falling through time into each

30:35

of those previous experiences. So what

30:37

kind of rituals should you pick when you're feeling

30:39

the need to reduce your anxiety and perform

30:41

better? Do you just pluck something out

30:43

of thin air? Casper thinks the

30:45

most powerful rituals have meaning often

30:48

because they're deeply rooted in our personal

30:51

or family history. So many rituals

30:53

become meaningful because they're not created

30:55

out of nothing, but they come out of something

30:57

that we recognize. Maybe it's a story that

30:59

we were told as a kid, you know, maybe it's something

31:01

that we saw happen to our parents,

31:04

or we know that it's a tradition in our family. That's where

31:06

so much of the meaning comes from. Sometimes people

31:08

who want to create cool ritual will start from,

31:10

you know, a blank canvas, and it always feels a little

31:13

empty, honestly, like a little thin because

31:15

they're not engaging with tradition in some way.

31:17

For Casper, there's a truly spiritual

31:19

element to these mundane or even odd

31:22

rituals. He argues we shouldn't

31:24

be ashamed of our personal customs just

31:26

because they are endorsed by a particular church

31:28

or faith. When we can see the sacred

31:30

in our every day, that's really what

31:33

meaningmaking is all about. It shouldn't be reserved

31:35

just for professionals that retreat centers

31:37

or you know, two or three days a year when we feel like we're

31:39

making a real effort like that, the sacred

31:42

is within and between us all the time. And

31:44

of course, you know, on the face of it, these rituals look a

31:46

little silly, but when we really engage

31:48

with them with a sense of reverence, it's amazing

31:51

how powerful they can be. Whether they're placebos

31:53

or not, these are tools for our psychology that

31:55

can be incredibly powerful and helping us get

31:57

to a kind of mental state that we want to be in.

32:01

This is usually the point in the show where I give you some

32:03

specific ideas about how to adopt

32:06

a happiness tip into your daily life. But

32:08

picking a ritual to reduce your anxiety and

32:10

perform better, whether that's in school, in

32:12

the office, on the sports field, or the karaoke

32:15

stage, that's something you have to do

32:17

for yourself. The science

32:19

shows that a ritual can help a lot, but

32:22

the particular ritual you pick for you

32:24

requires the right personal combination of

32:26

meaning, history, and significance. The

32:29

good news is that you don't need to get too hung

32:31

up on the specifics. A wet sock,

32:34

a special breakfast, a favorite movie. Any

32:36

act that's meaningful to you can turn into

32:38

a ritual that makes you feel and perform

32:41

better. I began this episode

32:43

talking about how modern cosmonauts ritualistically

32:46

copy Uri Gagarin's urination practice.

32:49

But when I was working on this episode, I learned

32:51

that the Russian space program recently announced

32:54

they'd soon be unveiling a new lighter

32:56

space suit, one with a ton of new

32:58

scientific bells and whistles, which

33:00

might sound like a good idea, except

33:03

no one thought to tell the designers about

33:05

this all important preflight leak practice.

33:08

Tragic the new and improved Russian spacesuit

33:11

it has no zipper, which means

33:13

the days of Yuri Gagarin's bus stop ritual

33:16

might be numbered, which is

33:18

a real shame. Losing out on this

33:20

time honored ritual won't just erode an

33:22

important present day link to the pioneering

33:25

bravery of Yuri and other early spacemen

33:27

I also worry it could compromise future cosmonaut's

33:30

performance, because no matter

33:32

how dumb and slightly yucky, this and other

33:34

rituals may sound, the science

33:36

shows that they may be contributing more than we

33:39

think to all of our mission's

33:41

successes. The

33:46

Happiness Lab is co written and produced by Ryan

33:49

Dilley. Our original music was composed

33:51

by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring,

33:53

mixing and mastering by Evan Biola.

33:55

Joseph Friedman checked our facts. Sophie

33:58

Crane mckibbon edited our scripts. Marilyn

34:00

Rust offered additional production support. Special

34:03

thanks to Miela Belle, Carl mcgliori,

34:06

Heather Fame, Maggie Taylor, Daniella

34:08

Lucar, Maya Knigg, Nicole

34:10

Morano, Eric Sandler, Royston

34:13

Breserve, Jacob Weisberg, and my agent

34:15

Ben Davis. That Venus Lab was brought

34:17

to you by Pushkin Industries. And meet doctor

34:20

Laurie Sanchos