Finding ways to bend tasks toward your strengths and passions can make you happier, more productive and find more meaning in your life—no matter your job.

Summary: On this episode of The Science of Happiness, we explore a research-backed practice in Job Crafting, where you take stock of the tasks that fill your day, how much time and energy they require, what really lights you up, and what changes you can make to better align your efforts at work with your genuine strengths and passions. We learn how Job Crafting doesn’t just benefit your own well-being and help to guard against burnout, it can also boost your whole team’s productivity and morale.

How To Do This Practice:

1. Take a “Before” Snapshot: Write down everything you regularly do in a typical week, from major responsibilities to small recurring tasks.
2. Label Time and Energy: Next to each activity, mark whether it requires low, medium, or high time and energy so you can see where your resources are going.
3. Notice How It Feels: Pay attention to what drains, stresses, or creates guilt—and what energizes or uplifts you.
4. Reconnect with What Matters: Ask yourself what you most care about right now and what activities make you feel most alive.
5. Sketch an “After” Version: Imagine how you’d ideally spend your time and where you might reduce, release, or expand commitments.
6. Make One Small Change: Choose one realistic shift you can try this week to better align your days with what brings meaning and joy.

Scroll down for a transcription of this episode.

Today’s Guests:

SUSAN GLASS is a retired English professor and visually impaired, Bay Area-based poet. She’s the author of the poetry book “The Wild Language of Deer.”

Read Susan’s book here: https://tinyurl.com/2jn3jutt

MARIA TIMS is a professor of Management and Organization at the University of Amsterdam School of Business and Economics.

Learn more about her work here: https://tinyurl.com/mtp7tpy3

Related The Science of Happiness episodes:

How To Show Up For Yourself: https://tinyurl.com/56ktb9xc

How To Feel Better About Yourself: https://tinyurl.com/42fn62a2

How to Feel More Hopeful: https://tinyurl.com/4tfwhbpb

Related Happiness Breaks:

A Self-Compassion Meditation For Burnout: https://tinyurl.com/485y3b4y

5 Minutes of Gratitude: https://tinyurl.com/r6pkw2xx

A Meditation to Connect With Your Roots: https://tinyurl.com/ycy9xazc

Tell us about your experience with this practice. Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or follow on Instagram @HappinessPod.

Help us share The Science of Happiness! Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcription: https://tinyurl.com/568punx8

Research shows that reflecting on our shared humanity can increase self-compassion and life satisfaction while reducing feelings of isolation. In this practice, Dacher Keltner guides us to look beneath our differences and connect with the qualities that make us human together.

This guided exercise draws on a meditation by Sean Fargo, a mindfulness teacher and former Buddhist monk.

How To Do This Practice:

1. Settle your body: Sit comfortably and take a few slow, steady breaths. Let your shoulders drop, soften your jaw, and allow your body to feel supported by the ground or chair beneath you.
2. Notice what’s here: Briefly scan your body and emotions. Whatever you’re feeling—calm, tense, distracted, open—simply acknowledge it without trying to change it.
3. Bring someone to mind: Think of someone you don’t know well, feel distant from, or have mild tension with. Picture them as if they were in front of you.
4. Reflect on your similarities: Silently repeat phrases like: This person has a body and mind, just like me; this person has felt sadness, joy, and pain, just like me; this person wants to be safe, loved, and understood, just like me.
5. Gently extend kind intentions toward them: May you be well. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live with ease.
6. Return and reflect: Bring your attention back to your breath and body. Notice if anything has shifted—perhaps a softening, a little more space, or a sense of connection—and carry that awareness into your day.

This episode was supported by a grant from The John Templeton Foundation on Spreading Love Through the Media.

Related Happiness Break episodes:

A Meditation for When You Feel Uneasy: https://tinyurl.com/4x27ut3p

A Meditation to Connect With Your Roots: https://tinyurl.com/ycy9xazc

A Mindful Breath Meditation, With Dacher Keltner: https://tinyurl.com/mr9d22kr

Related The Science of Happiness episodes:

Why Compassion Requires Vulnerability: https://tinyurl.com/yxw4uhpf

How to Feel More Hopeful: https://tinyurl.com/4tfwhbpb

How Holding Yourself Can Reduce Stress: https://tinyurl.com/2hvhkwe6

Follow us on Instagram: @ScienceOfHappinessPod

We’d love to hear about your experience with this practice! Share your thoughts at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Find us on Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Help us share Happiness Break! Leave a 5-star review and share this link: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Transcription: https://tinyurl.com/4ju7rmtd

Guest host Geena Davis guides us through the research on love that stretches beyond romance and friendship, showing up in our bonds with objects, nature, grief, and the collective moments that connect us to something larger than ourselves.

Summary: In this final episode of our 3-part series on The Science of Love, researchers reveal how love expands our sense of self and strengthens our bond to humanity. We also explore why objects can feel meaningful, how love of nature can motivate care for the planet, he ways grief reshapes our capacity for connection, and our love of humanity.

Related The Science of Happiness episodes:

The Science of Love Series: https://bit.ly/TheScienceofLove

The Science of Love, with Geena Davis (Episode 1): https://tinyurl.com/bfave5wd

How 7 Days Can Transform Your Relationship: https://tinyurl.com/bdh2ezhr

Related Happiness Breaks:

Visualizing Your Best Self in Relationships: https://tinyurl.com/4797z2vf

A Guided Meditation on Embodied Love: https://tinyurl.com/3dmpfam6

A Meditation on Love and Interconnectedness: https://tinyurl.com/ye6baxv3

Today’s Guests:

AARON AHUVIA is the most widely published and cited academic expert on non-interpersonal love.

Learn more about Aaron Ahuvia here: https://thethingswelove.com/about-aaron/

JESSICA EISE is a social and environmental scientist and is an assistant professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health with Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington.

Learn more about Jessica Eise here: https://jessicaeise.com/

​​YURIA CELIDWEN is an indigenous scholar of contemplative studies, and author of the new book, Flourishing Kin: Indigenous Foundations For Collective Well-Being.

Learn more about Yuria Celidwen here: https://www.yuriacelidwen.com/

MARY-FRANCES O'CONNOR is a psychologist and professor at the University of Arizona, where she directs the Grief, Loss, and Social Stress Lab.

Learn more about Mary-Frances O’connor here: https://maryfrancesoconnor.org/

SHIRA GABRIEL is a Professor of Psychology at SUNY, University at Buffalo.

Learn more about Shira Gabriel here: https://tinyurl.com/2vvav8xj

Message us or leave a comment on Instagram @scienceofhappinesspod. E-mail us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.

Help us share The Science of Happiness! Leave us a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or share this link with someone who might like the show: https://tinyurl.com/2p9h5aap

Funding for this special was provided by the John Templeton Foundation, as part of the Greater Good Science Center's Spreading Love Through the Media initiative.

Transcription: https://tinyurl.com/22d5nuyr