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Welcome back, everybody once again. In our last two episodes, we were talking about the strategy of find your why and why this is so crucial for anxiety management as a starting point, as a foundational strategy. Well today we have a special episode, which kind of tags onto the end of those two. We have an interview with Dr. Thomas W. Nielsen, who is an expert on the relationship between meaning in personal life and its relationship to wellbeing. Let me introduce him to you. He is an associate professor at the university of Canberra in Australia. A member of the 2009 and 2010 national values education project advisory committee, he has served in several of the Australian government's values and wellbeing education projects across Australia. He's the recipient of national teaching awards, including the 2008 Australian government office for learning and teaching citation for outstanding contributions to student learning. Dr. Neilson advocates a curriculum of giving, his research, showing that giving and service to others, increase wellbeing and academic outcomes in students. Something much needed in a Western world with high youth depression and suicide rates. So you can see why I wanted to invite Dr. Nielsen onto the podcast today . And this is going to be a two part series. In the first part he's really going to talk to us more about finding the keys to meaningful happiness, why it is that in our society we have difficulty finding these keys, where the keys are to be found and what it means to have meaning in your life. In the second part of this series in the next episode, he will go into more depth on what it means to give. And talk specifically to those of us who have some kind of anxiety around giving, those of us who tend to over-give who sent, who associate service and giving with burnout. He's going to talk to us about what healthy giving looks like, what it includes, what it encompasses. And he's going to further educate us on how to apply this, what it looks like in everyday life. So this, these episodes really piggyback onto our former episodes where we talked about the relationship between finding your why and being able to manage your anxiety. And Dr. Nielsen is going to help us understand better how in practice we find our why, and we apply this on the ground level. So without further ado, I give you Dr. Nielson.

Adriana: Okay, Dr. Nilelsen, it's really a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for accepting the invitation to talk to us. I was just talking to you before we started recording. I was asking you a little bit about the university where you teach. Do you want to tell us a little bit about your, your work?

Thomas: I teach and, uh, first of all, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. I teach at the University of Canberra. Postgraduate courses for teachers. Most of them are teachers who are teaching out in schools and who are doing a master's or some sort of postgraduate research. And I teach my, I teach in the areas that are also my research area, which is wellbeing and in relation, specifically in relation to education.
So how to have wellbeing in education, both for students and teachers, since it's a, it's an issue for both. both students and teachers, not just in Australia, of course, where I'm from, but many places in the world at the moment. We live in a complex world and I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit more.

Adriana: Yeah, well, I, you have many publications, but one that really caught my eye is a chapter in a book called Meaning in Positive and Existential Psychology and the chapter's called Finding the Keys to Meaningful Happiness: Beyond Being Happy or Sad is to Love. And I read this chapter a couple years ago and was so struck by the insights in it that I started sending it to, uh, to my friends. Friends and family. And I thought maybe even better than trying to share it with everybody via text was to have you on the podcast and have you walk us through some of the points that you make in this article. So I really appreciate you being willing to, to talk about this

Thomas: Absolutely.

Adriana: your, your chapter specifically, you know, it's called finding the keys to meaningful happiness. And of course this has relation to anxiety management, which is the focus of our podcast. I, you talk about how there's a disconnect between what most of us think will make us happier and what research actually indicates makes us happier. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Thomas: Yes, yes, yes, it's interesting because there's different types of research that's been conducted on that. But in in general. In general, if you ask people the question of what they think might make them happier or increase their happiness the most, a lot of people will say things like, uh, getting a new car, getting that job promotion that they always wanted, or the bigger house that they've dreamed of for a long time, and so, but the thing is, it's usually connected to circumstances or to material aspects of their lives, and whilst that is an important part of life, it is a surprisingly low, it’s a surprisingly low level of importance it has in the equation on of happiness.
And we might come back to that in a second, but most of the research we have now for the last 20, 30 years in particular in medical health research and positive psychology research shows quite clearly that circumstances only play a very small part in our happiness. And what most researchers now refer to as meaning plays a much bigger part.
So in other words, having meaning in your life is a much stronger contributor to our happiness than even the sports car or the new house or whatever that might momentarily boost our surface happiness for a while. But it's interesting also looking at the research where people have won lottery tickets and they are exceedingly happy to begin with. But 12 months later, they're back to the same levels of happiness they had before. They won a million dollars or whatever it is. So that's a bit of a disconnect, isn't it? If a majority of people, whether you are here in Canberra, Australia, or you're on the streets of Copenhagen in Denmark, where I happen to be from originally or you know, perhaps in Brazil, I'm sure a majority of people will still sort of think that what I'm, what I most want or what, what would most increase my happiness right here now would be something to do with the material. But the research actually shows that that might be the case momentarily. But if you want sustainable happiness, and most people do want sustainable, more stable happiness that are in the future as well, if that's what you want, Circumstances actually matter, not that much. It's more to do with the state of being and that state of being comes from having meaning in life.

Adriana: Yeah, that's, that's really interesting. And that's what really struck me about your chapter where you talk about this and you talk about, you referred to the fact that in the Western world, since world war two, we have basically doubled our spending power, but you talk about the effect that this has actually had on our happiness. So, so now we have the potential. We have this change in circumstances, right? We have more access to material things. What effect has that had?
Thomas: Well, to me it's, it's, it's almost another, this is another area of research, completely different area of research, but it points towards a similar thing. I think if we connect the dots, the fact that we are two times, in fact, most Western countries are three, four, five times, uh, Japan is eight times richer than they were at the end of the second world war.

Adriana: Wow.

Thomas: This, despite all of this increasing wealth. The happiness levels have actually, according to many researchers, stayed flat or, according to some, even gone down because of the complexity and some of the, the features of modern life that actually, uh, induces more anxiety, as you mentioned, and more higher stress levels, working longer hours.
Operating on more, on more levels than we were used to before, because now there's virtual realities and social media and phones and so forth. All of these, of course, fantastic things that can help us in our lives, but it's also created kind of a constant, constant triggering of our nervous system that we didn't have before.
Even if we had stress at work, often once we left it, we were not necessarily. Uh, reminded of it via emails or text or phone calls later on. So, it's interesting that according to some, we've actually gone down in our sort of average happiness levels. And many researchers, or the ones who are researching the field, would, are quite in agreement that, for example, suicide ideation has increased significantly also since the end of the Second World War. So in other words, we have all of these indicators that the circumstances of our world in many ways are so much better, at least when it comes to all the progress we've made with gadgets and clothing and housing and this and that.
And yet, and yet it doesn't seem to contribute to this issue that we need some sort of meaning in our lives to be, have this, this deep levels of happiness and engagement with life and hope and aspirations and, and dreams about waking up in the morning and getting on with life.

Adriana: Mm hmm. Well, can you talk to us a little bit more about what it means then to have meaning in our lives?

Thomas: Yes, because I, again, it was fascinating when I started really looking at the research from many, Uh, traditions and, and disciplines and around the world because as you can imagine, meaning is very culture specific. Uh, individual specific, religion specific. There's almost as many definitions as, as me of meanings as there are people, except for one thing.
There is one common denominator that all people all over the world seem to share. And when it comes to what is meaningful to them, and that is being something for someone or something other than just themselves. In other words, being able to contribute or give or be something for something or someone other than just oneself.
That seems to be the common denominator for what people say is meaningful. Even little children talking about how they're looking after a pot plant or a pit or whatever it might be. They might not use that terminology, but again, if you sort of analyze what they're saying, it's really the same side sense, same sense of, of meaning in life that, that the happiness is coming from.
And so that that's really, yeah, sorry, go on.

Adriana: Go ahead.

Thomas: I was, I was just going to say that, that suddenly It, it brings in this element of giving and contributing or whatever you might call it, or being something for others as the key component that seems to lie underneath all people's definitions or, or specific, um, wants and preferences in terms of what they say is meaningful to them. And it's not just, it's not just, it's not just being around people and being with people because that's sometimes conflated as being, oh, we just need people and we just need relationships. And that's true in one sense, but only if you are also able to contribute. For example, if you at the research of people in, in nursing homes, it's really interesting how People who study old age, they're a little bit baffled by the fact that you can, that I think I saw statistics in Denmark, this is a few years back, but unless something has changed, I'm sure it's the same, that 90 percent of people who are put into nursing homes in Denmark, within the first year of being placed in nursing homes. And yes, yes, it is a vulnerable, uh, part of the population. And yes, they had, they have afflictions often. And that's the reason why they're being put there, but still passing away one year after getting that is still a bit of a mystery to those who study old age and so forth.
I think about my old, my own mother who got into a nursing home, and died not so shortly after. This was in Denmark, in Denmark, where they have beautiful furniture and they had lovely people looking after her. They had, um, they had lovely food every evening and they even had little activities where they could get together and socialize and so on.
But here's the thing, my mom, even when she lived alone and she could hardly do that anymore, because she had Parkinson's disease and, and had screws all over her body because she had fallen so many times and broken every part of her body. Even then, she still washed her little plate every day and she watered her little pot plants and something in her house and someone around her Was still a kind of, she was still needed. She still contributed. Now, suddenly where yes, everybody cared for her. She needed, but suddenly the ability to contribute or to give to others were perhaps diminished.
And I think that has a lot to do with. With why people, the, the, the spark that makes us want to live and enjoy life, life can easily be extinguished if suddenly we feel that we no longer have an ability to contribute to, to our surroundings. I think that's the key that later on in the future will also be looked at a bit more with, in, in, in this case, um, people who study old age and nursing homes and so forth.
But the point being for now is just that, it's not just having people around you, it's not even just having people give to you, which is nice and needed, too. But it's this, this, this idea that we all, as humans, need to feel that we have a reason for being here. We are still contributing in some shape and form.
I think that's the key, and that's why we see that common denominator all over the world, that giving or contributing seems to be part of what people say is meaningful in their life. And then the research shows And then the research shows that we will have, be not only happier, we will have, uh, we will recuperate quicker from trauma, from stress, from anxiety, which of course we will all have coming in and out of our lives, that's part of being human.
But we seem, when we have higher levels of meaning in our life. Then, uh, we actually, um, we, we recuperate quicker from trauma, stress, and adversity than if we have primarily pleasurable happiness in our life. So suddenly we see an intimate link between meaning, giving, and well being, and even living longer, because we also now know in the research that if you have higher levels of meaning, you live longer.
If you have more giving in your life, you tend to live longer. And we can see the connections with all of this now. No,

Adriana: It's really important that this research being done because I think for some of us it's not intuitive that the answer to being able to have less anxiety, to deal with stress better, to have a better sense of well being would be linked to the you know, it's linking to connected to something outside of ourselves, something larger than ourselves. So, it's great that that research is being done. But I, I like how you really point out that meaning is linked to giving. I think some of us can feel like we don't really know what it means to have meaning. If you're going to sit down and ask yourself, well, what does my life mean? It's hard to answer that question, but I like how you point us toward giving as the source of meaning and you talk in your chapter about how giving is receiving.
And you have touched on that a bit already where you talked about how it gives us personal benefits. But can you talk a little bit more about this idea of that giving, um, actually gives us

Thomas: Yeah. It giving literally is receiving literally, literally because. When, if I, see that's interesting, if I give something to you and I hook you up with, uh, electrical, um, measurement, I take blood samples, I take saliva samples, I measure the, your, your brain impulses. I will be able to see that through that act of giving something to you, on average, in general, statistically speaking, I will have increased what some researchers call parasympathetic dominance, which is where heart, breathing, and blood pressure is synchronized, which is basically sort of in layman terms, what is happening when we feel this sense of health, when there is a synchronicity between our organs and in our body. And the opposite actually is what happens when we feel a sense of, of disconnection, a sense of ill health and so forth. And so But the really interesting, the even more interesting part of all of that research is that, yes, you as the receiver has this benefit, but me as the giver actually have, again, statistically speaking, have an even higher impact than, um, the receiver.
So giving literally is a community builder because both receiver and receiver. giver has a physiological, physiological benefit from it. And Stephen Post's research in particular, I can, I would recommend, uh, if you're interested in looking at the actual evidence based research on this, because he, he for some years now have collated all the Scientific studies on what, how giving seems to increase our physical, emotional, and mental health and longevity in all sorts of ways. And there's lots of interesting studies, yeah? Steven G. Yeah, Steven G. Post.

Adriana: We'll link him in the show notes so that people can look

Thomas: Yes, yes,

Adriana: Yeah, that's good. Um, now when we When we're talking about giving, though, specifically talking to this of the population that has a lot of anxiety, some, some people with high anxiety, when you talk about, you need to give more, that, that might make them feel actually more anxious in a way, because they're already the type of person who you might say over gives. Like, they don't ever say no. When someone at work, someone in the family asks them to do something, they feel like they always have to say yes. always have to accept every responsibility that is presented to them. And so they end up associating giving with this feeling of burnout and with this feeling of obligation. How, how could people like that

Thomas: Here, here's another inter Here's, uh, just Just to almost add to the complexity of your question. Um, I've just said and said all of what I've said. Here's another statistic. Australian teachers and indeed many teachers in many parts of the world have higher levels of anxiety, stress and burnout than average Australians.
But here's a profession that inherently gives and contributes. Why is that? How does that mesh with what I've just said? We know we I think we know why, because it's evident in the research as well in other areas of research, for example, and anecdotally often also give these talk. And unless I've spoken about what I'm about to say to you, there's often a mother, it can be a father, of course, but there's often a mother who puts her hand up and says, Thomas, I give all the time, I drive the kids to badminton and I run around and I do this.
I don't feel parasympathetic dominance in my bloodstream and the, and the potential of my skin having improved from it. Why is that? Then I usually ask gently and as politely as I can, do you sleep enough? Do you exercise enough? No. Since the pandemic, I used to go around. Lake with my friend, but we're not doing it anymore.
Do you do that creative, creative thing that makes you come alive and makes you feel as if you're expressing your true honest self? No, I used to dance or I used to do painting and so on, but I don't have time for this anymore. As we go down the evidence based areas that we know actually from research, you have to look after in order to have a surplus with which to give to others.
There are too many of those areas that are compromised. And that's why you are no longer enjoying the benefits of giving. You might be over giving to others, but you're doing it at the expense of not giving to yourself or receiving from others what you need to have. It can be a combination of those things, of course.
So now, now it doesn't actually matter. How much you're giving, you're not getting the benefits from anymore. We see that in research as well. There's a threshold. You can have the benefits of giving and the more you give you that, the more you have meaning, the more you have meaning, you more, you have all of these health benefits that we talked about, but there comes a threshold.
There comes a threshold where you can continue to give, but now you're not experiencing those health benefits. And that threshold for everyone, it can be at different points, but for everyone, it's because we are no longer getting a critical mass of the self care needs that we all need in order to function.
And if we have time, we can talk a little bit about what are those areas. And if not, we can make it, I can give you a link where people can talk about it more. But Just for now on the point as to why it is equally important to realize that this whole philosophy of giving does not exclude yourself. It's not a dichotomy.
It must actually include yourself. And then it becomes an ecology, of course, like all ecologies. Each layer depend on each other for healthy function. Inside of that ecology, you start with actually making sure that you're giving enough to yourself for what you need in order to have a surplus with which to give to the other layers of the ecology, which we might term your family, your friends around you, your community around you, the natural environment around you, the whole, whatever you take that to be, because that can either have a religious connotations or it can just be the being whole world conscious and include the trees and the stars.
It doesn't really matter as long as there's all of these layers, but that we think about meaning being possible to be had in our lives.

Adriana: That's it for today. Thanks again for joining me. On another note, for any music lovers out there who are also in the New England area, I want to invite you to a concert that I'll be performing on October 5th. That's a Saturday, in West Hartford, Connecticut, with my ensemble, the Avery Ensemble. It's a quartet, piano, violin, viola, and cello. I'm the pianist. Any of you in the new England area, I'd love to meet you in person. If you want to find out more about the concert, about our ensemble, about buying tickets go to Avery ensemble.com.