HealthandHappiness

In this episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, we talk about the negative effects of the news on your overall health and wellbeing. We also explore some surprisingly positive effects from other types of fun programming like Disney movies! Ahhh... don't you just love warm hugs? Negative impacts of the news: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03004169 During the pandemic: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7905079/ crime beleifs: https://news.gallup.com/poll/323996/perceptions-increased-crime-highest-1993.aspx Real crime statistics: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/crime-rate-statistics Watching Disney during chemotherapy: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7215261/ Watching Disney Helps Children Understand Death: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4997212/Scared-death-Watch-Disney-movies.html Improved pro social behavior: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17482798.2017.1409245 Nearly 7 times as much pro social behavior in Disney movies: https://www.academia.edu/15514418/Is_Disney_the_Nicest_Place_on_Earth_A_Content_Analysis_of_Prosocial_Behavior_in_Animated_Disney_Films

In this week's episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, Travis & Lauryn discuss internal vs external locus of control and the impact each can have on your overall wellbeing. We share our own personal experiences of having a high internal locus of control and some of the benefits and challenges we've faced, as well as strategies we've found useful. If you're participating in this week's challenge, don't forget to tag us @healthandhappinessinsititue on our socials! In this week's episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, Travis & Lauryn discuss internal vs external locus of control and the impact each can have on your overall wellbeing. We share our own personal experiences of having a high internal locus of control and some of the benefits and challenges we've faced, as well as strategies we've found useful. If you're participating in this week's challenge, don't forget to tag us @healthandhappinessinsititue on our socials! What is Locus of Control? https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-locus-of-control-2795434 Eastern Kentucky university Study: https://encompass.eku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=ugra Locus of Control and cellphone usage https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563215004616 Women's weight Loss Study: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Internal-external-control-and-weight-loss-in-the-Kincey/beee13137cb1c32eb18c88af3f71d685ca7f04e6

In this episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, we're debunking the myths and misconceptions of aging. Spoiler alert, they're all kind of BS. Join us as we dig into the research and as Travis gets fired up about this topic that is near and dear to his heart. Make sure to share this episode with someone it might help! Memory changes with age: https://www.apa.org/research/action/memory-changes Ways to stop memory loss: https://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/features/4-ways-stop-age-related-memory-loss#1 Muscle Strength and Aging: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/(SICI)1097-4598(199908)22:8%3C1094::AID-MUS14%3E3.0.CO;2-G https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2362.1984.tb01182.x How important is strength in the elderly? https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article-abstract/24/6/468/33577 https://ejurnal.poltekkes-manado.ac.id/index.php/PMHP2nd/article/view/931/765 Strength training on inflammation and cognition: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2017.00377/full Strength training effects in elderly people: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2017/2541090/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3874224/ Combat muscle loss https://now.tufts.edu/articles/muscle-loss-older-adults-and-what-do-about-it‘ Dementia is not normal: https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/memory-forgetfulness-and-aging-whats-normal-and-whats-not

In today's episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, Travis & Lauryn discuss the power of words -- both those you say to yourself, those you say to others, and surprisingly, even those you read. We delve into the research on positive affirmations to see if words can really have an effect on your life. Spoiler alert: they do! If you're participating in this week's challenge, don't forget to tag us @healthandhappinessinstitute on our socials!

In today's episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, Travis & Lauryn talk about placebos & nocebos. What the heck is a placebo or a nocebo, you ask? Basically, it's a positive or negative effect (respectively) from a treatment that has no therapeutic benefit. So, how can a treatment with no therapeutic benefit have a positive or negative effect? It's all in the power of the mind or the power of our expectations/conditioning! The research on this topic is fascinating and we explore a variety of studies and talk about some of our sillier experiences with placebos & nocebos.

In this episode of The Health and Happiness Podcast, Travis and Lauryn discuss all things meditation. For those of you who don't know anything about meditation, don't you worry! Lauryn didn't really know anything about it either before this episode. We delve into the research to discuss the benefits and Travis shares his personal experience. If you're joining Lauryn for this week's challenge, make sure to tag us @healthandhappinessinstitute on our socials!

In today's episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast we have our first ever guest! Chad McEwan joins us to share his incredible journey toward health from his wake up call at nearly 350lbs, to what simple strategies he used to help him not only lose weight, but feel better and more confident in his own body and mind. Thank you so much for joining us, Chad!

WRONG 😉 On this week's episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, we discuss naps & breaks and how beneficial they can be for your productivity and overall wellbeing. If you're participating in this week's challenge, make sure to tag us @healthandhappinessinstitute on our socials!

In this episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, Travis and Lauryn take a closer look at how having a pet can enhance your life. We discover what the research has to say regarding benefits these furry friends have on our health, personal relationships, mood, and chat about own own experiences as pet owners. If you are participating in this week's (or previous weeks') challenge, make sure to tag us at @healthandhappinessinstitute on socials.

In this episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, we try to tackle the infamous question -- is laughter really the best medicine? We dive into the research on benefits of laughter and how you can add more laughter into your life. Hint: one good way is to listen to this episode for Travis' awesome dad jokes.

In this episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, we want to PUMP YOU UP. We're talking all things resistance training! Bringing you the research on the benefits of resistance training as well as discussing how to start (including common questions of what weight do I use and how much do I do), and the pros and cons of training at the gym vs at home, accountability, and minimizing distractions.

Have you ever heard the saying "Comparison is the thief of joy?" Well, as a podcast on health and happiness, of course we had to investigate! In this week's episode we talk about comparison -- the positives, the negatives, and of course our own personal challenges when dealing with comparing ourselves to others as well as to past versions of ourselves. For those participating in this week's challenge, make sure to tag us @healthandhappinessinstitute on our socials!

Do you ever feel more connected when you're disconnected and out in nature? We do too. In this episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, we discuss the importance of trees, sunlight, and walking in nature on wellbeing, cognitive function, and mood. If you are participating in this week's health and happiness challenge, make sure to tag us on our socials @healthandhappinessinstitute!

In this episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, Travis & Lauryn discuss times when they made choices that were "against the grain" and how this affected their lives. We discuss strategies for making change when feeling stuck, and share some of our personal journeys as well. Stay tuned for the challenge for our listeners at the end of this episode and make sure to tag us @healthandhappinessinstitute on socials to let us know you're participating!

In this episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, Travis and Lauryn discuss negative self talk and turn to the research to learn more about how if affects you and your health as well as some strategies to improve your self talk. We also explore our own experiences with negative self talk and what we've found personally that has been helpful in managing these types of beliefs and thought patterns. References: Brene Brown's TED Talk on shame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN1DORYYV0 Articles: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811920304158 https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/tsp/23/4/article-p435.xml https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10413200.2020.1795951

In this weeks episode of The Health and Happiness Podcast, Travis and Lauryn discuss friendships. We take our research all the way back to Aristotle to help understand different types of friendships and fast forward to look into newer research and our own lives about why they're important, how they can impact your health, how to make and be a good friend. Resources: Loneliness negative impacts on health: https://www.cdc.gov/aging/publications/features/lonely-older-adults.html https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5754055/ Peer pressure in kids: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w18253/w18253.pdf Obesity effects of adult relationships: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/friends-family-may-play-role-obesity#:~:text=In%20same%2Dsex%20friendships%2C%20a,mutual%20friend%20had%20became%20obese.&text=There%20was%20no%20effect%20among%20neighbors%20unless%20they%20were%20also%20friends. 5 Love Languages book: https://amzn.to/37gk6zt In a tangent, Travis suggests that women are better at picking stocks because of being less emotional. There are several reasons suggested in the research about why women tend to outperform men when investing, but here is an source that refers to a study from Warwick business school confirming Travis' comment: https://www.wealthify.com/blog/invest-like-a-girl-what-women-could-teach-us-about-investing There is a caveat here though in that women are less likely to hold any investments at all than men, but consistently in the science, when women do invest they outperform their male counterparts. Travis also states that he doesn't think that happiness makes you more in the stock market, but then questions his assumption that they may not be related. Happy people earn more money according to several studies including this one: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/dsgroi/events/entrepreneur_12th_march_2019_-_happiness_and_productivity.pdf And happy people may earn more in the stock market, but there isn't a lot of evidence to support that. Here's what I found: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/27/the-link-between-wealth-happiness-and-investing-success.html

In this week's episode of The Health & Happiness Podcast, Travis and Lauryn talk all things health. We answer questions like what is health and look to the evidence on how much exercise you really need to start seeing health benefits. We also share snippets of our own personal journeys of getting started to help YOU realize that YOU can do it too! We have plenty of content ideas for new episodes, however we want to make sure we are bringing as much value to your lives as possible, so if you have specific questions please send them to us in the comments of any of our social media sites or at healthandhappinessinstitute@gmail.com Obesity facts: https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html Obesity and Mortality: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/overweight-obesity-mortality-risk/#:~:text=The%20risk%20of%20mortality%20increased,40.0%20kg%2Fm2%20was https://www.acsm.org/read-research/trending-topics-resource-pages/physical-activity-guidelines#:~:text=ACSM%20and%20CDC%20recommendations%20state,on%20three%20days%20per%20week.

In this episode of Health & Happiness Podcast, Travis & Lauryn discuss New Years Resolutions and goals. We talk about goal setting and delve into what makes a successful goal and how to keep them. Resources: Self Setting Goals Improves Student Performance https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1041608019301207 Sub and Superordinate Goals"https://iaap-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aphw.12172 Harvard Tips for Making Resolutions Stick: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/seven-steps-for-making-your-new-years-resolutions-stick