It's the International Day of Happiness! It's a chance to talk about happiness and what we can all do to be happier. March 20th also sees the release of the World Happiness Report. A big finding of 2025's report is that more of us are dining alone - and that's bad news. 

The report's editor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve talks us through the stark figures showing that shared meals are in decline - while Dr Anne Fishel of The Family Dinner Project gives us her tips on how to dine better with friends, families and colleagues. 

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Earth Day is coming on April 22, but the whole month is seen as an opportunity to think about environmental issues and what we as individuals can do to help out. 

It seemed like a good time to rerun an episode we made with Harvard professor Dan Gilbert about why we humans are great at tackling immediate threats, but find it harder to motivate ourselves to address problems that seem a longer way off. It's why we often don't save for our retirements, and why we're finding it difficult to take action on climate change. 

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Hell is other people. They can upset us, depress us and infuriate us. Their bad moods can bring us down. And their achievements can make us feel like failures. But it doesn't have to be this way.   

Psychologist Ethan Kross says there are simple things we can do to make our daily interactions a source of fulfilment and joy. 

Ethan's the author of Shift: Managing Your Emotions So They Don't Manage You and founder of the Emotion and Self Control Lab at the University of Michigan

Recorded before a live audience of teen students at Choate Rosemary Hall.

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What's your purpose? Jordan Grumet thought that becoming a doctor would give his life meaning and direction... but he was wrong. He spent his days doing things he didn't really enjoy and dreaded waking up in the morning. 

Finding a purpose that is authentic to you can be transformative - and it doesn't have to be some grand goal like curing a disease or founding a company. Jordan, author of The Purpose Code, explains how we can all find seemingly small and everyday activities which will fill our lives with joy and fulfillment. 

Jordan also hosts the Earn & Invest podcast.

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Leaders aren't just generals, presidents and CEOs. You're probably a leader too! Someone in your home, school or workplace might look to you for guidance - and that's leading. So how do you inspire the people around you and make yourself the best leader you can be?

Columbia Business School's Adam Galinsky (author of Inspire: The Universal Path for Leading Yourself and Others) reckons we can all learn simple lessons that will make us better and more encouraging colleagues, parents and friends.

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To improve your life you might decide to prioritize your own personal happiness, or find meaning in helping the people around you. Few of us consider pushing ourselves well beyond our comfort zones. It might take a lot of effort and risks pain or disappointment.   

University of Chicago professor Shige Oishi thinks to live fully we all need to push ourselves to find "psychological richness". He tells Dr Laurie that we should look for daily opportunities to explore, get lost, mess around and have random encounters that challenge our routines and expectations.   

Read more about Shige's work in Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life.

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Love Factually is a new podcast looking at what "rom com" movies get right and wrong about relationships. Dr Laurie Santos joined the hosts Eli Finkel of Northwestern University and Paul Eastwick from UC Davis to talk about her favorite 80s teen movie, Say Anything.

In this episode, they discuss what Cameron Crowe's 1989 film tells us about what constitutes stalking; and the transition when romantic partners supplant our parents as our closest relationships.   

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In the absence of better advice, we learn a lot about love and dating from rom com movies - but is the depiction of relationships in these films leading us in the wrong direction? Let's find out. 

Eli Finkel of Northwestern University and Paul Eastwick from UC Davis are both accomplished relationship experts - but for fun they’ve launched a podcast called Love Factually exploring what the makers of rom coms get right and wrong about how humans really find love. 

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Do you go on endless dates hoping to find the perfect partner only to be endlessly disappointed? Or have you stopped meeting people because you've decided that you're undateable? Maybe you need to start dating like a scientist. 

Behavioural scientist Logan Ury has studied the common mistakes we make when looking for love - and thinks science can shows us a better way.  

Logan is the director of relationship science at the dating app Hinge. She’s also the dating coach for the new Netflix showThe Later Daters and author of How to Not Die Alone.

Check out Logan's website at loganury.com

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Stress can suck, but it's part of life - it’s normal and even useful. Many of us drown in our stress - worrying about past events and fearing upcoming challenges. We even stress about feeling stressed. So how can we reset our relationship with stress - benefitting from its positives and avoiding those negatives? 

Dr Jenny Taitz has some effective tips to help you greet stress more healthily. A clinical psychologist and the author of Stress Resets: How to Soothe Your Body and Mind in Minutes, Dr Jenny explains that if we think differently about challenges and tough situations and take action, then stress can become a friend rather than a foe.

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Negative emotions like fear or anger are part of being human. These feelings tell us something - perhaps prompting us to take action or bring about change. However, they're powerful and disruptive - and if they hang around too long or are too intense, they can take a huge toll on our happiness and wellbeing. We need to shift them... but how?

Psychologist Ethan Kross knows.

He's the author of Shift: Managing Your Emotions So They Don't Manage You and founder of the Emotion and Self Control Lab at the University of Michigan - and shares his top science-backed tips to rein in feelings like sorrow, disappointment or rage. 

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