Yale Professor on the Science of Happiness at the Whaling Museum

Laurie Santos knows a lot about happiness. She teaches a course about it at Yale University. In fact, Lori told us her course is the most popular course ever offered in Yale's 300-year history. Laurie teaches her students the science behind being happy. Her course is full of facts about what causes people to gain happiness, and tips on how to live a happy life. Needless to say, Yale students are loving it.

Listen to my interview with Laurie here.

Laurie will try to condense her course down to a 90-minute talk tonight at New Bedford's Whaling Museum. For Laurie, it is a return to her hometown. She graduated from New Bedford High School before going on to earn her A.B. in Psychology and Biology from Harvard University in 1997, then her Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard in 2003.

Laurie told us this morning that your cell phone could be one of the biggest obstacles to your happiness. She strongly suggests putting down the phone and having pure "social connection with the people that are alive and right there in front of you."

She also told us that your job and/or career choice isn't the most significant factor in whether or not you are a happy person. "Life circumstances don't seem to matter as much as we think." The answer to happiness does not lie with another job with a bigger salary.

What can help make a happy person? Laurie says that really happy people tend to take time to count their blessings, time to reflect on their gratitude for the things they DO have vs. the things they don't. She suggests people start their days by creating a daily list of 5 things for which they are grateful.