It's an age-old question. Can money buy happiness?

The sad, cynical answer is I think the older I'm getting, the more happiness money does buy with family, children, cost of living.

Absolutely not. It does not buy happiness because we see it all the time.

The richest people are sad, they're depressed. But it definitely can help. It'd be crazy to say that having the money to buy a nice dinner doesn't make you feel good or something like that.

No, I do not think money buys happiness.

Every day you get up, you can either choose to be happy or choose to be sad, whether you have money or not. I don't have a lot of money, but I'm happy 99% of the time.

The truth is our relationship to money can have a real impact on our happiness. As the cost of living rises, 4 in 10 Americans say personal finances are a major source of stress. That's according to a 2023 poll from the Associated Press and the University of Chicago. And yet, here's the thing. At the same time, just talking about money can be taboo. But should it be? Just ask Elizabeth Dunn. She's an expert in the science behind money and happiness and a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia. She co-wrote Happy Money, the science of happier spending. And she spends a lot of her time debunking money myths.

This notion that money cannot buy happiness is just patently false.

On today's show, I'm We're going to ask her for steps we can all take to spend smarter and be happier, no matter how much money you make. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's Chief Medical Correspondent, and this is Chasing Life.

How are you? What's going on today?

I'm just enjoying a beautiful Vancouver day.

How long have you lived in Vancouver?

Almost 20 years now. It's been a minute.

What took you there?

In my last year of grad school, I saw pictures of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. I saw the snowcap mountains, the sparkling sea, and I was like, this is the job that I want. I fixated on it, and I got super lucky and actually got it. So been here ever since.

It's funny. People, they see images and they say, This is the life I want, and a lot of people never do anything about it other than look at those pictures. You actually did it.

I did it, and I got super lucky that I got offered this job. But I remember When I landed in Vancouver and saw it in real life, I was like, I am going to get this job. This is mine.

Now, I've read about your interest it's something that if we could figure out how to completely combat hedonic adaptation, that would be the Holy Grail of happiness research.Let's talk a little I love that. If you don't mind me asking, what is your personal relationship with money like? I'm not asking you to tell me how much you make, but do you think about it a lot? Is it something that consumes a lot of your overall time?Yeah. My relationship with money, I think, really started with spending my early 20s in graduate school, basically living pretty close to the poverty line, not in a real poverty line way, because I knew that I was in school, but just spending $10 on a plate of pad-tie was a big deal. That was my baseline experience with adulthood. Then when I started earning an actual median adult income as a 27-year-old, it felt like being rich. So In a way, it was wanting to discover, when you have more money than you need to stay alive, what do you do with it? I just tend to approach questions like that from this science perspective of, I want to figure this out. I want to figure out the answer. I definitely do sometimes overthink money decisions because I immediately go to the research. But on the other hand, I think it's actually really helped me make decisions that have been super satisfying.Just keeping on this theme that we're talking about, hedonic adaptation. You go from, as you near the poverty line to suddenly having more money, more money than you would need just to stay alive. When you get used to that, having that much money, maybe that's the adaptation part that you're talking about. But was a particularly happy time then when you make that jump from a lower amount of money to this higher amount? Is that a peak happiness thing?Yeah, it was certainly very exciting. That is what we see is that when people get an increase in income or say a big windfall, Well, they definitely get happier. I think the problem- For a period of time. For a period of time, there's certainly some truth that we are almost on a permanent downward slide back to our baseline level of happiness when something good happens. But is that adaptation complete? Do you get all the way back to baseline? There's a famous study suggesting that, oh, winning the lottery doesn't make you happy. It turns out that that study wasn't very well done. When you look at better, bigger, newer studies, it's like, no, winning the lottery probably does make you happier. Those benefits don't seem to completely disappear even after a couple of decades. I would say, don't turn down raises. More money can make you happier.All right. Podcast is over. That's the best advice we can.Of course, we're joking here, but what Professor Dunn says is true. As humans, we can get used to what we have. It's a process known as hedonic adaptation. That means asking all along, and I just want to make sure I've fully understood I understood how you answer this. Can money buy happiness?Money can absolutely buy happiness. If you hear anyone say money can't buy happiness, I would say tell them to try giving some of it away.Wow. I love that. That was very clear. You want to have enough money to be able to give it away.That's right. Again, I think there's this maybe myth that we need to wait till we make a certain amount of money before we can start giving. And I think that that's a misunderstanding because we see in our research that even people struggling to meet their own basic needs who use a little bit of money to help others do get this benefit from it. In contrast, I was just chatting I was meeting with a friend who is very financially successful and has been able to give a lot of money to charity. And he was saying how he doesn't necessarily feel that his larger donations have made him happier. So I don't think that there's always a clear relationship between the exact amount that you give and how it makes you feel. Instead, I think it's about the way that you give. And when you're able to give in a manner that enables you to see how you're making a difference and to feel a real sense of connection with the people or cause that you're helping, that's where I think the good feelings naturally bubble up. And that's what we as humans evolved to experience. We didn't evolve in a situation where we were donating money to a charity on a website.We evolved to help others directly in our community where we could see the benefits that we were providing to those individuals.How much do you think this has to do with the fact that we live in a country that has great wealth disparity? I do look at a place like the United States and think we're one of the wealthier countries. I don't think we're the wealthiest, but we're one of the wealthiest countries, and rates of loneliness and isolation and dissatisfaction, reported dissatisfaction, are really high. I guess it gets at this point again that maybe for individuals, having more money, as a general rule, is going to make them happier, but not necessarily for large organizations, or in this case, a country.Well, I would say it's true that wealthy countries have a lot of problems and that living in a wealthy country isn't a guarantee of happiness. But that said, it is way better to be living in a wealthy country than a poor country on average in terms of happiness. What you want is a wealthy, low inequality country. If you get to pick where you're going to be flung down into a country, Choose that one.Coming up after the break, I'll ask Professor Dunn for her best tips for spending better to be happier. Stay with us.You have a philosophy, I think, for money and happiness. I think it comes down to three principles the way that I read it. One of them we've been talking a lot about, which is this idea of investing in others, I guess being charitable. What else? How do you spend your money to be happy?Yeah. So one of the principles that we recommend in our book, and that I certainly follow in my own life, is to buy experiences. So the idea here is that Life experiences like going on a special trip or even going out for dinner with friends actually seem to provide more happiness than more lasting things like couches, iPhone, shoes. These material things that tempt us don't actually seem to provide the lasting happiness that we might expect, whereas these experiences that are relatively transitory actually seem to provide a surprisingly lasting degree of joy.Another key principle, make spending feel like a treat. This goes back to something we were talking about earlier, hedonic adaptation.For example, I started buying these kale smoothies that I really like. At first, they were a treat. They're $12 or something. They're the most expensive way you could consume kale. At first, I would get them on a sunny day like today and really enjoy it. But before I knew it, I was just like, sucking them down without paying any attention. I was like, Okay, I got to take a break from these. But then that actually renewed my capacity to appreciate them. This is what we see in my research is that when you take a break from things that you enjoy, it can actually enhance your capacity to savor them. I think this is a strategy because it's actually a way to spend less money is whatever you normally get for pleasure, just take a break from it, a week, a month. Then when you come back to it, either you might discover you don't actually care about it anymore, which then is a nice way to cut something painlessly from your budget, or you might really truly love it again, and that's wonderful. I think this idea of trying to fight back against tedonic adaptation by introducing breaks from the things that we enjoy is a pretty powerful principle that we can apply in lots of different areas of our lives.It sounds like it rings a little bit of some of the tenets of stoicism, not all the time, but trying to be stoic or not to self-flagellate, but to at least withhold something that's maybe been a source of pleasure for a period of time so you don't adapt.It's like stoicism in the service of joy, I guess.I think that's your next book right there. Do you have kids, by the way?I have an 11-year-old who's a lot of kid.He's a lot of kid. Okay. I have three teenagers Three teenage girls, 19, 17, and 15. I'm in it, Liz. I'm in it, and it's good. Say this without a trace of irony. It makes me very happy whenever I think about them. It brings a smile to my face. I guess that's a good sign. We want our kids to be healthy. We want them to be happy. But I think, I don't know what your 11-year-old is like, probably pretty evolved kid having you as a mom. But kids are quick to assume that buying stuff, having things is the key to happiness. How do you think we should navigate that as parents?Yeah, this is so interesting. It's definitely something that I wrestle with. The big debate in my household right now is whether my 11-year-old can get an electric scooter. We're literally arguing over data right now about this.He's like, But mom, you're buying those expensive kale shakes. Why can I get a scooter?Exactly. I saw that kale smoothie in your office. So one thing that I think is really important is actually to get kids involved. Even if you're somebody who gives a lot of money, your kids may not see you doing it. And so you're actually not modeling that for them. And telling kids to be generous, isn't that helpful if you're not showing it? So we're actually doing this thing where a whole group of our friends and family, including my son and a lot of his friends, are volunteering at a restaurant downtown where folks who are struggling with food security come in and they have this nice restaurant meal. You can sit down and chat with them and have real conversations. It's this powerful feeling of connection. You also have to raise enough money as a group to pay for all of it. And so that's something that we're doing to get our kids involved. I think not just telling them, Hey, larger obligations. It's funny even how I think about spending money. When I think about spending money now, and part of this is probably being the son of immigrants as well, we have a interesting relationship, I think, immigrants do with money. When I was growing up, the idea that we maybe weren't going to make it in this country, that was always in the back of the mind. But I think when you grow up like that, you have a different relationship with money. When I spend money, there is a part of me thinking that I am also taking money from my kids, which I realize is not the healthiest thing. But I think, again, with the background that I have and how my parents raised me, that's, I think, weighing into how I answer your question as well.It's so fascinating because I do think as parents, we have this strong drive to provide for our children in a financial way. And yet, if anything, the research would suggest that probably our kids benefit more from our time than from our money. Now, obviously, again, it goes back to, are you meeting basic needs? Are the kids struggling to get enough to eat? Then, yeah, you probably should be prioritizing money. But once those basic needs are met, It's like being able to shift gears and say, I'm going to give my kid my time, might be more powerful.I got to tell you, I think this may be the part of my conversation with Professor Dunn that's going to stick with me the most. Simply how I think about parenting, how I spend time with my own teenage girls, what matters to me, and what matters to them, making sure those things really do align. There are some lessons in this episode I'm going to think about for a long time, and then I will pass those lessons on to my daughters and maybe my grandkids one day as well. I couldn't end today's episode without asking the professor our favorite question on this podcast.The name of the podcast is Chasing Life. How do you chase life?I would say I chase life through adrenaline sports. Oh, yeah. I'm a surfer and a skier and a mountain biker. Just that feeling, literally, sometimes it does feel like chasing life where you're just breathing hard, you're going fast, and everything feels perfect.What a pleasure to talk to you, Liz. Stay safe on the skiing and the mountain biking and the surfing, by the way.I'll do my best.That's it for today's episode. If you learned something today or if you want to share your tips for chasing life, give me a call, 470-396-0832, and leave a message. We might even include it on a future episode of the podcast. Coming up next week. We can imagine that I just have to do everything right, and then I'll be happy all the time. And that's not true for anybody. Scientific lessons on building a good life. That's coming up on Tuesday. Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio. Our podcast is produced by Erin Matheison, Jennifer Lye, Grace Walker, and Jesse Remedius. Our Senior Producer and Showrunner is Felicia Patinkin. Andrea Cain is our medical writer Our Medical Writer, Dan Dizula is our Technical Director, and the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Ligtai. With support from Jameis Andrest, John Dianora, Haley Thomas, Alex Manasari, Robert Mathers, Lanie Steinhart, Nicole Pessereau, and Lisa Namara. Special thanks to Ben Tinker, Amanda Sealy, and Nadia Konang of CNN Health, and Katie Hinman.

it's something that if we could figure out how to completely combat hedonic adaptation, that would be the Holy Grail of happiness research.

Let's talk a little I love that. If you don't mind me asking, what is your personal relationship with money like? I'm not asking you to tell me how much you make, but do you think about it a lot? Is it something that consumes a lot of your overall time?

Yeah. My relationship with money, I think, really started with spending my early 20s in graduate school, basically living pretty close to the poverty line, not in a real poverty line way, because I knew that I was in school, but just spending $10 on a plate of pad-tie was a big deal. That was my baseline experience with adulthood. Then when I started earning an actual median adult income as a 27-year-old, it felt like being rich. So In a way, it was wanting to discover, when you have more money than you need to stay alive, what do you do with it? I just tend to approach questions like that from this science perspective of, I want to figure this out. I want to figure out the answer. I definitely do sometimes overthink money decisions because I immediately go to the research. But on the other hand, I think it's actually really helped me make decisions that have been super satisfying.

Just keeping on this theme that we're talking about, hedonic adaptation. You go from, as you near the poverty line to suddenly having more money, more money than you would need just to stay alive. When you get used to that, having that much money, maybe that's the adaptation part that you're talking about. But was a particularly happy time then when you make that jump from a lower amount of money to this higher amount? Is that a peak happiness thing?

Yeah, it was certainly very exciting. That is what we see is that when people get an increase in income or say a big windfall, Well, they definitely get happier. I think the problem- For a period of time. For a period of time, there's certainly some truth that we are almost on a permanent downward slide back to our baseline level of happiness when something good happens. But is that adaptation complete? Do you get all the way back to baseline? There's a famous study suggesting that, oh, winning the lottery doesn't make you happy. It turns out that that study wasn't very well done. When you look at better, bigger, newer studies, it's like, no, winning the lottery probably does make you happier. Those benefits don't seem to completely disappear even after a couple of decades. I would say, don't turn down raises. More money can make you happier.

All right. Podcast is over. That's the best advice we can.

Of course, we're joking here, but what Professor Dunn says is true. As humans, we can get used to what we have. It's a process known as hedonic adaptation. That means asking all along, and I just want to make sure I've fully understood I understood how you answer this. Can money buy happiness?Money can absolutely buy happiness. If you hear anyone say money can't buy happiness, I would say tell them to try giving some of it away.Wow. I love that. That was very clear. You want to have enough money to be able to give it away.That's right. Again, I think there's this maybe myth that we need to wait till we make a certain amount of money before we can start giving. And I think that that's a misunderstanding because we see in our research that even people struggling to meet their own basic needs who use a little bit of money to help others do get this benefit from it. In contrast, I was just chatting I was meeting with a friend who is very financially successful and has been able to give a lot of money to charity. And he was saying how he doesn't necessarily feel that his larger donations have made him happier. So I don't think that there's always a clear relationship between the exact amount that you give and how it makes you feel. Instead, I think it's about the way that you give. And when you're able to give in a manner that enables you to see how you're making a difference and to feel a real sense of connection with the people or cause that you're helping, that's where I think the good feelings naturally bubble up. And that's what we as humans evolved to experience. We didn't evolve in a situation where we were donating money to a charity on a website.We evolved to help others directly in our community where we could see the benefits that we were providing to those individuals.How much do you think this has to do with the fact that we live in a country that has great wealth disparity? I do look at a place like the United States and think we're one of the wealthier countries. I don't think we're the wealthiest, but we're one of the wealthiest countries, and rates of loneliness and isolation and dissatisfaction, reported dissatisfaction, are really high. I guess it gets at this point again that maybe for individuals, having more money, as a general rule, is going to make them happier, but not necessarily for large organizations, or in this case, a country.Well, I would say it's true that wealthy countries have a lot of problems and that living in a wealthy country isn't a guarantee of happiness. But that said, it is way better to be living in a wealthy country than a poor country on average in terms of happiness. What you want is a wealthy, low inequality country. If you get to pick where you're going to be flung down into a country, Choose that one.Coming up after the break, I'll ask Professor Dunn for her best tips for spending better to be happier. Stay with us.You have a philosophy, I think, for money and happiness. I think it comes down to three principles the way that I read it. One of them we've been talking a lot about, which is this idea of investing in others, I guess being charitable. What else? How do you spend your money to be happy?Yeah. So one of the principles that we recommend in our book, and that I certainly follow in my own life, is to buy experiences. So the idea here is that Life experiences like going on a special trip or even going out for dinner with friends actually seem to provide more happiness than more lasting things like couches, iPhone, shoes. These material things that tempt us don't actually seem to provide the lasting happiness that we might expect, whereas these experiences that are relatively transitory actually seem to provide a surprisingly lasting degree of joy.Another key principle, make spending feel like a treat. This goes back to something we were talking about earlier, hedonic adaptation.For example, I started buying these kale smoothies that I really like. At first, they were a treat. They're $12 or something. They're the most expensive way you could consume kale. At first, I would get them on a sunny day like today and really enjoy it. But before I knew it, I was just like, sucking them down without paying any attention. I was like, Okay, I got to take a break from these. But then that actually renewed my capacity to appreciate them. This is what we see in my research is that when you take a break from things that you enjoy, it can actually enhance your capacity to savor them. I think this is a strategy because it's actually a way to spend less money is whatever you normally get for pleasure, just take a break from it, a week, a month. Then when you come back to it, either you might discover you don't actually care about it anymore, which then is a nice way to cut something painlessly from your budget, or you might really truly love it again, and that's wonderful. I think this idea of trying to fight back against tedonic adaptation by introducing breaks from the things that we enjoy is a pretty powerful principle that we can apply in lots of different areas of our lives.It sounds like it rings a little bit of some of the tenets of stoicism, not all the time, but trying to be stoic or not to self-flagellate, but to at least withhold something that's maybe been a source of pleasure for a period of time so you don't adapt.It's like stoicism in the service of joy, I guess.I think that's your next book right there. Do you have kids, by the way?I have an 11-year-old who's a lot of kid.He's a lot of kid. Okay. I have three teenagers Three teenage girls, 19, 17, and 15. I'm in it, Liz. I'm in it, and it's good. Say this without a trace of irony. It makes me very happy whenever I think about them. It brings a smile to my face. I guess that's a good sign. We want our kids to be healthy. We want them to be happy. But I think, I don't know what your 11-year-old is like, probably pretty evolved kid having you as a mom. But kids are quick to assume that buying stuff, having things is the key to happiness. How do you think we should navigate that as parents?Yeah, this is so interesting. It's definitely something that I wrestle with. The big debate in my household right now is whether my 11-year-old can get an electric scooter. We're literally arguing over data right now about this.He's like, But mom, you're buying those expensive kale shakes. Why can I get a scooter?Exactly. I saw that kale smoothie in your office. So one thing that I think is really important is actually to get kids involved. Even if you're somebody who gives a lot of money, your kids may not see you doing it. And so you're actually not modeling that for them. And telling kids to be generous, isn't that helpful if you're not showing it? So we're actually doing this thing where a whole group of our friends and family, including my son and a lot of his friends, are volunteering at a restaurant downtown where folks who are struggling with food security come in and they have this nice restaurant meal. You can sit down and chat with them and have real conversations. It's this powerful feeling of connection. You also have to raise enough money as a group to pay for all of it. And so that's something that we're doing to get our kids involved. I think not just telling them, Hey, larger obligations. It's funny even how I think about spending money. When I think about spending money now, and part of this is probably being the son of immigrants as well, we have a interesting relationship, I think, immigrants do with money. When I was growing up, the idea that we maybe weren't going to make it in this country, that was always in the back of the mind. But I think when you grow up like that, you have a different relationship with money. When I spend money, there is a part of me thinking that I am also taking money from my kids, which I realize is not the healthiest thing. But I think, again, with the background that I have and how my parents raised me, that's, I think, weighing into how I answer your question as well.It's so fascinating because I do think as parents, we have this strong drive to provide for our children in a financial way. And yet, if anything, the research would suggest that probably our kids benefit more from our time than from our money. Now, obviously, again, it goes back to, are you meeting basic needs? Are the kids struggling to get enough to eat? Then, yeah, you probably should be prioritizing money. But once those basic needs are met, It's like being able to shift gears and say, I'm going to give my kid my time, might be more powerful.I got to tell you, I think this may be the part of my conversation with Professor Dunn that's going to stick with me the most. Simply how I think about parenting, how I spend time with my own teenage girls, what matters to me, and what matters to them, making sure those things really do align. There are some lessons in this episode I'm going to think about for a long time, and then I will pass those lessons on to my daughters and maybe my grandkids one day as well. I couldn't end today's episode without asking the professor our favorite question on this podcast.The name of the podcast is Chasing Life. How do you chase life?I would say I chase life through adrenaline sports. Oh, yeah. I'm a surfer and a skier and a mountain biker. Just that feeling, literally, sometimes it does feel like chasing life where you're just breathing hard, you're going fast, and everything feels perfect.What a pleasure to talk to you, Liz. Stay safe on the skiing and the mountain biking and the surfing, by the way.I'll do my best.That's it for today's episode. If you learned something today or if you want to share your tips for chasing life, give me a call, 470-396-0832, and leave a message. We might even include it on a future episode of the podcast. Coming up next week. We can imagine that I just have to do everything right, and then I'll be happy all the time. And that's not true for anybody. Scientific lessons on building a good life. That's coming up on Tuesday. Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio. Our podcast is produced by Erin Matheison, Jennifer Lye, Grace Walker, and Jesse Remedius. Our Senior Producer and Showrunner is Felicia Patinkin. Andrea Cain is our medical writer Our Medical Writer, Dan Dizula is our Technical Director, and the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Ligtai. With support from Jameis Andrest, John Dianora, Haley Thomas, Alex Manasari, Robert Mathers, Lanie Steinhart, Nicole Pessereau, and Lisa Namara. Special thanks to Ben Tinker, Amanda Sealy, and Nadia Konang of CNN Health, and Katie Hinman.

asking all along, and I just want to make sure I've fully understood I understood how you answer this. Can money buy happiness?

Money can absolutely buy happiness. If you hear anyone say money can't buy happiness, I would say tell them to try giving some of it away.

Wow. I love that. That was very clear. You want to have enough money to be able to give it away.

That's right. Again, I think there's this maybe myth that we need to wait till we make a certain amount of money before we can start giving. And I think that that's a misunderstanding because we see in our research that even people struggling to meet their own basic needs who use a little bit of money to help others do get this benefit from it. In contrast, I was just chatting I was meeting with a friend who is very financially successful and has been able to give a lot of money to charity. And he was saying how he doesn't necessarily feel that his larger donations have made him happier. So I don't think that there's always a clear relationship between the exact amount that you give and how it makes you feel. Instead, I think it's about the way that you give. And when you're able to give in a manner that enables you to see how you're making a difference and to feel a real sense of connection with the people or cause that you're helping, that's where I think the good feelings naturally bubble up. And that's what we as humans evolved to experience. We didn't evolve in a situation where we were donating money to a charity on a website.

We evolved to help others directly in our community where we could see the benefits that we were providing to those individuals.

How much do you think this has to do with the fact that we live in a country that has great wealth disparity? I do look at a place like the United States and think we're one of the wealthier countries. I don't think we're the wealthiest, but we're one of the wealthiest countries, and rates of loneliness and isolation and dissatisfaction, reported dissatisfaction, are really high. I guess it gets at this point again that maybe for individuals, having more money, as a general rule, is going to make them happier, but not necessarily for large organizations, or in this case, a country.

Well, I would say it's true that wealthy countries have a lot of problems and that living in a wealthy country isn't a guarantee of happiness. But that said, it is way better to be living in a wealthy country than a poor country on average in terms of happiness. What you want is a wealthy, low inequality country. If you get to pick where you're going to be flung down into a country, Choose that one.

Coming up after the break, I'll ask Professor Dunn for her best tips for spending better to be happier. Stay with us.

You have a philosophy, I think, for money and happiness. I think it comes down to three principles the way that I read it. One of them we've been talking a lot about, which is this idea of investing in others, I guess being charitable. What else? How do you spend your money to be happy?

Yeah. So one of the principles that we recommend in our book, and that I certainly follow in my own life, is to buy experiences. So the idea here is that Life experiences like going on a special trip or even going out for dinner with friends actually seem to provide more happiness than more lasting things like couches, iPhone, shoes. These material things that tempt us don't actually seem to provide the lasting happiness that we might expect, whereas these experiences that are relatively transitory actually seem to provide a surprisingly lasting degree of joy.

Another key principle, make spending feel like a treat. This goes back to something we were talking about earlier, hedonic adaptation.

For example, I started buying these kale smoothies that I really like. At first, they were a treat. They're $12 or something. They're the most expensive way you could consume kale. At first, I would get them on a sunny day like today and really enjoy it. But before I knew it, I was just like, sucking them down without paying any attention. I was like, Okay, I got to take a break from these. But then that actually renewed my capacity to appreciate them. This is what we see in my research is that when you take a break from things that you enjoy, it can actually enhance your capacity to savor them. I think this is a strategy because it's actually a way to spend less money is whatever you normally get for pleasure, just take a break from it, a week, a month. Then when you come back to it, either you might discover you don't actually care about it anymore, which then is a nice way to cut something painlessly from your budget, or you might really truly love it again, and that's wonderful. I think this idea of trying to fight back against tedonic adaptation by introducing breaks from the things that we enjoy is a pretty powerful principle that we can apply in lots of different areas of our lives.

It sounds like it rings a little bit of some of the tenets of stoicism, not all the time, but trying to be stoic or not to self-flagellate, but to at least withhold something that's maybe been a source of pleasure for a period of time so you don't adapt.

It's like stoicism in the service of joy, I guess.

I think that's your next book right there. Do you have kids, by the way?

I have an 11-year-old who's a lot of kid.

He's a lot of kid. Okay. I have three teenagers Three teenage girls, 19, 17, and 15. I'm in it, Liz. I'm in it, and it's good. Say this without a trace of irony. It makes me very happy whenever I think about them. It brings a smile to my face. I guess that's a good sign. We want our kids to be healthy. We want them to be happy. But I think, I don't know what your 11-year-old is like, probably pretty evolved kid having you as a mom. But kids are quick to assume that buying stuff, having things is the key to happiness. How do you think we should navigate that as parents?

Yeah, this is so interesting. It's definitely something that I wrestle with. The big debate in my household right now is whether my 11-year-old can get an electric scooter. We're literally arguing over data right now about this.

He's like, But mom, you're buying those expensive kale shakes. Why can I get a scooter?

Exactly. I saw that kale smoothie in your office. So one thing that I think is really important is actually to get kids involved. Even if you're somebody who gives a lot of money, your kids may not see you doing it. And so you're actually not modeling that for them. And telling kids to be generous, isn't that helpful if you're not showing it? So we're actually doing this thing where a whole group of our friends and family, including my son and a lot of his friends, are volunteering at a restaurant downtown where folks who are struggling with food security come in and they have this nice restaurant meal. You can sit down and chat with them and have real conversations. It's this powerful feeling of connection. You also have to raise enough money as a group to pay for all of it. And so that's something that we're doing to get our kids involved. I think not just telling them, Hey, larger obligations. It's funny even how I think about spending money. When I think about spending money now, and part of this is probably being the son of immigrants as well, we have a interesting relationship, I think, immigrants do with money. When I was growing up, the idea that we maybe weren't going to make it in this country, that was always in the back of the mind. But I think when you grow up like that, you have a different relationship with money. When I spend money, there is a part of me thinking that I am also taking money from my kids, which I realize is not the healthiest thing. But I think, again, with the background that I have and how my parents raised me, that's, I think, weighing into how I answer your question as well.It's so fascinating because I do think as parents, we have this strong drive to provide for our children in a financial way. And yet, if anything, the research would suggest that probably our kids benefit more from our time than from our money. Now, obviously, again, it goes back to, are you meeting basic needs? Are the kids struggling to get enough to eat? Then, yeah, you probably should be prioritizing money. But once those basic needs are met, It's like being able to shift gears and say, I'm going to give my kid my time, might be more powerful.I got to tell you, I think this may be the part of my conversation with Professor Dunn that's going to stick with me the most. Simply how I think about parenting, how I spend time with my own teenage girls, what matters to me, and what matters to them, making sure those things really do align. There are some lessons in this episode I'm going to think about for a long time, and then I will pass those lessons on to my daughters and maybe my grandkids one day as well. I couldn't end today's episode without asking the professor our favorite question on this podcast.The name of the podcast is Chasing Life. How do you chase life?I would say I chase life through adrenaline sports. Oh, yeah. I'm a surfer and a skier and a mountain biker. Just that feeling, literally, sometimes it does feel like chasing life where you're just breathing hard, you're going fast, and everything feels perfect.What a pleasure to talk to you, Liz. Stay safe on the skiing and the mountain biking and the surfing, by the way.I'll do my best.That's it for today's episode. If you learned something today or if you want to share your tips for chasing life, give me a call, 470-396-0832, and leave a message. We might even include it on a future episode of the podcast. Coming up next week. We can imagine that I just have to do everything right, and then I'll be happy all the time. And that's not true for anybody. Scientific lessons on building a good life. That's coming up on Tuesday. Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio. Our podcast is produced by Erin Matheison, Jennifer Lye, Grace Walker, and Jesse Remedius. Our Senior Producer and Showrunner is Felicia Patinkin. Andrea Cain is our medical writer Our Medical Writer, Dan Dizula is our Technical Director, and the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Ligtai. With support from Jameis Andrest, John Dianora, Haley Thomas, Alex Manasari, Robert Mathers, Lanie Steinhart, Nicole Pessereau, and Lisa Namara. Special thanks to Ben Tinker, Amanda Sealy, and Nadia Konang of CNN Health, and Katie Hinman.

larger obligations. It's funny even how I think about spending money. When I think about spending money now, and part of this is probably being the son of immigrants as well, we have a interesting relationship, I think, immigrants do with money. When I was growing up, the idea that we maybe weren't going to make it in this country, that was always in the back of the mind. But I think when you grow up like that, you have a different relationship with money. When I spend money, there is a part of me thinking that I am also taking money from my kids, which I realize is not the healthiest thing. But I think, again, with the background that I have and how my parents raised me, that's, I think, weighing into how I answer your question as well.

It's so fascinating because I do think as parents, we have this strong drive to provide for our children in a financial way. And yet, if anything, the research would suggest that probably our kids benefit more from our time than from our money. Now, obviously, again, it goes back to, are you meeting basic needs? Are the kids struggling to get enough to eat? Then, yeah, you probably should be prioritizing money. But once those basic needs are met, It's like being able to shift gears and say, I'm going to give my kid my time, might be more powerful.

I got to tell you, I think this may be the part of my conversation with Professor Dunn that's going to stick with me the most. Simply how I think about parenting, how I spend time with my own teenage girls, what matters to me, and what matters to them, making sure those things really do align. There are some lessons in this episode I'm going to think about for a long time, and then I will pass those lessons on to my daughters and maybe my grandkids one day as well. I couldn't end today's episode without asking the professor our favorite question on this podcast.

The name of the podcast is Chasing Life. How do you chase life?

I would say I chase life through adrenaline sports. Oh, yeah. I'm a surfer and a skier and a mountain biker. Just that feeling, literally, sometimes it does feel like chasing life where you're just breathing hard, you're going fast, and everything feels perfect.

What a pleasure to talk to you, Liz. Stay safe on the skiing and the mountain biking and the surfing, by the way.

I'll do my best.

That's it for today's episode. If you learned something today or if you want to share your tips for chasing life, give me a call, 470-396-0832, and leave a message. We might even include it on a future episode of the podcast. Coming up next week. We can imagine that I just have to do everything right, and then I'll be happy all the time. And that's not true for anybody. Scientific lessons on building a good life. That's coming up on Tuesday. Chasing Life is a production of CNN Audio. Our podcast is produced by Erin Matheison, Jennifer Lye, Grace Walker, and Jesse Remedius. Our Senior Producer and Showrunner is Felicia Patinkin. Andrea Cain is our medical writer Our Medical Writer, Dan Dizula is our Technical Director, and the executive producer of CNN Audio is Steve Ligtai. With support from Jameis Andrest, John Dianora, Haley Thomas, Alex Manasari, Robert Mathers, Lanie Steinhart, Nicole Pessereau, and Lisa Namara. Special thanks to Ben Tinker, Amanda Sealy, and Nadia Konang of CNN Health, and Katie Hinman.