Why It Hurts to Hold a Grudge — and How to Let Go with Dr. Fred Luskin

Pushkin. Hey Happiness Lab listeners, it's finally spring, a season that's all about renewal and new beginnings. And of course, spring cleaning. As the weather gets a little warmer, we naturally get the itch to begin rejuvenating. This is the time of year when we say yes to clearing out our closets and refreshing our homes.

It does feel great to freshen up our physical spaces, but could we take a similar approach to refreshing our well-being? Could we turn that spring cleaning urge towards pruning our junky habits? Or sweeping out our negative thought patterns. We usually think of January 1st and the start of the new year as the time for goals like these, but studies have shown that the beginning of spring is also a great time for a happiness restart. Take one of my favorite studies by my friend, the psychologist Katie Milkman.

She recruited a group of people who said they had a personal goal that they'd been putting off. For a while. She then offered them the chance to receive a formal reminder that it was finally time to get started. Half the participants were offered this formal reminder on some random day of the year, but the other half was offered that reminder on a day that felt like a new beginning, the first day of spring. What did Katie find?

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