Celebrate the release of “The Alphabet of Happiness” with Klaudia Mitura’s 26-day challenge—one happiness-boosting habit for every letter from A to Z.  We have officially reached the halfway mark!

 Today's episode is a special interlude, as Klaudia is sharing something a little bit different with you. Recently she had the pleasure of joining Paula Felps on her Live Happy Now podcast where they dove deeper into the power of happiness habits, personal stories, and the science behind why these small changes can make a big difference. Enjoy!

Get involved:

⭐ Get a quick summary of each happiness principle—follow along as we reveal a new letter every day!

📨 Subscribe to the Substack newsletter for exclusive insights and updates: https://thehappinesschallenge.substack.com/

🎉 Register for the big book launch party at the Science Museum, London, on 31st October. https://thehappinesschallenge.co.uk/book

🏆 Join the competition: Share your thoughts on each principle, tag me (@Klaudia Mitura on LinkedIn / @thehappinesschallenge_klaudia on Instagram), and tag a friend for a chance to win one of three signed copies of The Alphabet of Happiness!

📚 Can’t wait? Grab your own copy now from Amazon, Guardian Bookshops, Blackwells, Waterstones, and more.https://thehappinesschallenge.co.uk/book

Hello happiness seekers. Welcome back. We have officially reached the halfway mark of our Alphabet of happiness 26 day boost. Yay. Congratulations.

I am so happy that you are here with me listening to this show and yeah, well done because we have so far covered letters A to M so concepts from acceptance to meaning and I really do hope you are making happiness a daily habit. Today's episode is a special interlude and I'm thrilled to share something a little bit different with you.

Recently I had the absolute pleasure of joining Paula Phelps on her Live Happy podcast where we dove deeper into the power of happiness habits, personal stories, the science behind why these small changes can make a big difference. Paula is an incredible journalist.

She has asked me so so many thought provoking, curious questions and it was such an amazing conversation that I thought, you know what, I'm going to share it with my listeners. So in a minute you are going to dive into that conversation.

But before you go, remember if you are enjoying this boost, I would love your help on spreading the joy even farther. Share your favorite happiness habit from this boost on social media. Tag me. Let's inspire other people to look after their happiness.

You can get a chance of winning one of the three signed copies of the Alphabet of Happiness. If you cannot wait, you can grab the copy of the book from key retailers.

But if you already have a book, thank you so much for all the pictures I'm receiving and you are enjoying it.

Please leave a review on Amazon Goodreads because, well, your words really help others to discover the book and most importantly, the power of happiness habits. And don't miss out on in Person book launch at Science Museum in London on Friday 31st of October. I would love to see you there.

Or if you cannot join me in person, sign up to my free online webinar on 8th of December on how to live a happier life. Anyway, back to the show. I hope you will enjoy this uplifting chat with Paula Phelps on Live Happy.

I absolutely loved chatting to Paula and I really hope you will learn a lot from the discussion and I see you tomorrow as normal for our next letter. Bye.

Thank you for joining us for episode 538 of Live Happy. Now. Could practicing happiness be as simple as learning your ABCs? Thanks to this week's guest. Now it is.

I'm your host Paula Phelps and this week I'm talking with Claudia Matura, a work psychologist, host of the Happiness Challenge podcast and a certified Chief Happiness Officer. In her quest for happiness, Claudia set out to personally test drive the best happiness hacks that science has to offer.

And that led to her new book, the Alphabet of Happiness. In this episode, she tells what launched this journey, how listeners can create their own happiness experiments and.

And what cold showers have to do with it. Let's have a listen.

Well, Claudia, thank you so much for joining us on Live Happy Now.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited.

From the moment I got an email about you, I was really excited to talk to you and then got more excited as I spent time on your website. So I love, like anybody who listens knows, I love a good origin story. So let's start by talking about how you decided to become a happiness expert.

How did you start studying it?

I think the beginning for me was really simple. That life hit me very hard and I actually found out really for myself that I actually don't know how to be happy and what happiness is.

So I was in this situation during pandemic, which of course was so difficult for everyone as a global experience. But during the time I lost my job, my wedding needed to be pushed back in time. I couldn't travel to my country.

So I live in London, uk, but I'm from Poland and my father got diagnosed with a lung cancer. It all happened in a space of a week.

And then of course, when you're dealing with those circumstances and then we have a global pandemic, when you're dealing with those different circumstances, you start wondering what life is about. And I very quickly realized that I'm only happy when life is good, but when life gets more trickier, I'm quite unhappy.

And I thought, wow, that's a bit of a yo yo situation.

And how can I find meaning and purpose and those bigger aspects in my life despite maybe what is happening or maybe even because of what's happening in my life? So I went on this like happiness experiment.

I would test out different type of scientific approaches to happiness because I'm a proper gig and a nerd when it comes to science. And then I would test it out for a week and then I would reflect with my friend, hey, what does this mean? How did it go for you?

How can we do it differently? So really that's how I really got hooked onto the subject of science, of happiness and everything I've discovered from my journey.

I was like, why we don't teach this at school, why this is not part of workplaces, why this is not part of national policy? Seriously, everyone should know about the science of happiness.

And you are doing such a great job of bringing it to us. I find it so interesting. I see two types of people. One are who go through a difficult time and it causes them to just implode and cocoon.

And it seems there's the other type that's like, all right, I'm going to go on an investigation and find out how to get out of this and stay out of the cocoon. So was that just your nature, always to explore the science behind what was going on in your life?

Yeah, I think it stems more from the fact that I find myself as a very curious individual. So often people say, claudio is so confident. No, I'm not confident. I'm just very curious about people, what's going to happen.

And people often say, oh, but you're so courageous. You've done this, you've done that. And I'm like, no, I'm just really curious. I just want to learn more.

And I think that approach was my defensive mechanism and me coping with a very difficult situation of. I just wanted to learn more through this. And that's how I started on this particular journey.

Of course, there were moments when I was cleaning and weeping in the same time that. And baking banana breads, as everyone was baking banana bread during the time it.

Was sourdough over here.

Oh, okay. I'm a banana bread girl. And of course, there were moments when I was just weeping. It was, this is so difficult. And I don't know how to navigate that.

But mostly, yes, the instinct was, okay, let's learn more. Let's explore why am I reacting in a certain way?

So at what point did you decide, I've learned this, I've gained this knowledge. I'm going to share it with others.

So on the basis of this happiness experiment, me and my friend who were sitting in our wardrobes for better acoustics, and we were recording a podcast. It was very much our conversation of, how did it go? And then the more people started writing to us saying, well, this is really interesting.

I never heard of this. This really helped me. We realized that, actually, yes, we want to talk more about the specific topic.

And because, of course, for this time I was also making lots of notes and lots of reflective journaling, I thought, hey, I think I actually have a book in me. People often say, everyone has a book in them.

I was like, okay, actually, I have the book in my journal, so why I don't start putting it in that book format and talking to people through that format as well. But it mainly was because of that excitement and encouragement we got from people.

Sometimes in life, I think we feel that everyone has it figured out?

And also I think when we growing up, you like, yeah, all the adults and all the grownups, they all know it figured out and I will one day wake up up and had to figure out and then surprise. No he don't we all faking it. So it's kind of okay. If that's the case, why not sharing that knowledge with other people?

I love that.

And that's so true because I remember during COVID and just being like, I need an adult in the room. I cannot be the adult in the room here. Come on. Yes. I'm glad it is a revelation when you realize that no, they didn't have it all figured out.

They just were like given the answer they knew and hoping for the best. So before we get into your book, I do want to talk about your podcast, the Happiness Challenge.

It is such a delightful journey and I love like each series or season is different and so a lot of your book, the Alphabet of Happiness really comes from that first season that you did. So explain what that was about because it's delightful.

So that was about taking a concept of course in alphabetical order. So from A to Z.

So from acceptance and which is all about emotional intelligence, to zest, which is very much about energy and test driving it with my friends and also really talking to an expert about this topic and almost creating like a toolbox of what matters when it comes to science of happiness. So you have 26 principles and my stories of my friend who was on this journey with me.

Lots of good science to really back up of what we saying and then an expert advice as well and over 150 different practical ideas.

So I'm highly practical person and nowadays in our world of course it would be wonderful if we can sit under an old tree and meditate for hours and we can remove lots of different stressors but that's not possible. So I'm very much okay, what can I do in under five minutes?

Because often in a very hectic busy life, that's what I need to reset my brain to reset my happiness to. So that's what Alphabet of Happiness is.

And then of course as you very kindly pointed out, the rest of the Happiness Challenge as a podcast is then me thinking I want to explore now science of happiness in the workplace. What's that about? Doing series about that or okay, holidays, summer break. How can we maximize it with happiness? Let me explore that.

So I'm now applying the overall concepts of Science of happiness to lots of different areas of our life.

Yeah, you're on your sixth season now, is that correct?

Yes. Yes, I am. Yes.

Congratulations. Because just that in itself is such an accomplishment to be able to reach six seasons. And I do love how each one has its own theme.

So if people are looking for happiness in a specific area, they can go and they can just tune into that and find it there. I think it's a wonderful approach and it's so welcoming, especially to our lives right now. Like we can find specifically what we're looking for.

So was it challenging to come up with something for every letter of the Alphabet?

Well, X was a bit.

You did good though. Tell them what you did.

Yeah, so X was a little bit tricky, but X is for X factor, which is very much about our strengths. So it's like how using our strengths in life brings us more happiness.

There is a really interesting research there that if we are having a specific quest purpose, maybe at work, maybe outside of work, when we applying our strengths automatically, we feel so much more happier because again, we're living in line with what are we good at. So expose a bit tricky. Everything else really fell in into a place naturally.

When you actually look at the research of science of happiness overall, you can really see the key themes. So obviously research is vast. What I try to do is really put specific letters and principles together since they correlate.

That's fantastic. Obviously, we talk a lot about the science of happiness on this show.

And in your opinion and in your findings, what are the main things that you see people getting wrong about happiness?

So I think the biggest aspect that we get wrong is that we follow the conventional wisdom around the fact that if I fill it, be successful, earn more money, have a partner, buy a house, have a dog, whatever it is, then I will be happy.

So happiness becomes this big destination in the future and we feel we have to fulfill lots of expectations from people around us, from the society, and only once we do them, then we will be happy. And the research from positive psychology around the science of happiness, it says opposite actually.

If we are happier, if we are happy in the moment, we are more productive, we have better relationships, we are more resilient and we can therefore do and achieve more and impact society in a more positive way.

We'll be right back with more of Live Happy now.

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And now let's hear more from Claudia Matura.

So actually investing in our happiness is very important and we shouldn't be delaying it for something in the future. And when we then look at that. Okay, okay, Claudia, this sounds great. I need to be happy in the moment. What on earth do I do?

It is then really thinking about those happiness boosting habits. So again, this research and Paula, you will know it. Sonja Lubomirsky, what a figure. I mean, you are. I'm so jealous.

If I were over that side of the ocean and she is the person who really talks about the idea that actually what matters when it comes to our happiness is those daily actions, things we often repeat on autopilot, that we may not even realize that contribute or undermine our happiness. So I would say that is the biggest misconception that we have delaying happiness and thinking that it really depends on external aspects around us.

Yeah, that's very well said. And I know that there's great research that does show that happiness doesn't follow success, but success follows happiness.

And I think that's especially here in the U.S. that's something we get very wrong because as you said, it's like, when I get to this position, I'll be happy. And then we are surprised that we're not.

But yes, I love that you're giving us new practices or taking existing practices and reminding us of how to integrate them into our lives. I wondered if there was anything that was surprising to you or that you found counterintuitive as you were working on this book.

Yes, definitely. So there were plenty of things where I thought, oh, I didn't really think about this when it comes to happiness.

Like what on earth research shows this because I think often already in the media we hear about gratitude, we hear about briefing techniques, but this one's a bit. Okay, that's interesting. And there are two things I think, first of all, thinking about our gut health.

So again, when I'm thinking about my happiness, I'm not thinking about my digestive system at all. But then the research shows actually we all should consider that.

So research shows that if you have a gut inflammation, you will be more likely to be more anxious or even more depressive. So, for example, and that comes from the research around that our gut microbiome is necessary for production of our feel good chemicals in our brain.

Let's just pause and for a moment just to really think about this. Our gut microbiome is responsible for something so important, like the production of our feel good chemicals in our brain.

So having diverse diet, looking after our gut health is absolutely essential for our happiness, which I, before doing this research, did not know about at all. And the second one, which I think is very interesting to understand, is why cold showers are so important to our happiness.

Oh, this is a new one for me. Tell me about this.

Yeah, so cold showers or maybe cold plunges, so important to our happiness because they are able to increase our dopamine level very quickly up to even 250%. So that's huge. Okay. So when we are in a cold shower, our brain recognizes this is not pleasant.

So what it's trying to do is compensate for that experience by basically producing as much dopamine, which is our joy hormone, as much as possible. So we stay in that situation for as long as we need to. So up to 250%.

So if you have a blood day and you just cannot be asked, have even 10 seconds, have it even 2 minutes cold shower at the end of your warm shower to boost your dopamine.

But also what's very exciting about cold showers is that dopamine boost stays up to two hours, whereas anything else, especially things like social media, using phones, they give us a quick dopamine boost, but that dopamine boost goes down instantly. And it's actually making our dopamine and our reward center, putting it on overdrive.

Because when you every single time you're looking on social media and every single time you get ahead, it's quite a lot of hits. And that's not how our brain has been evolved to deal with.

So what happens is that we really overstimulate our dopamine levels and they crash very quickly. So later on we cannot feel as much joy as we wanted to. Whereas the cold shower, 250% up and up to two hours in our brain feeling. Amazing.

That's so incredible because I remember the first time I did cryotherapy, which is you stand in the tube and they drop the temperature way down. And I was euphoric. I had not felt that high since college. And I mean, for all afternoon.

It was an amazing feeling and I truly never associated all of that. So now I know, and now I think I want to go back and do cryotherapy again.

Absolutely. Swimming in a cold sea, cold lunges. But the simplest thing that we have at home is the shower.

So I think if you cannot go and pay for those experiences, you have the tool at home. Have a lot more warm shower and then slowly start decreasing the temperature and have few minutes cold shower.

I love that. So you give us all these hacks, all these exercises that we can do. Do you have a favorite one? Oh, that's like asking your favorite child, isn't it?

I know, it's just like, oh no, that is so difficult. I don't have a favorite one. And the reason for that is that I don't really apply.

I don't think it's even possible to apply all of the hacks all at once. So what my favorite approach towards this is that I apply different things depending what is it that I need.

For example, not having a great day, woke up quite anxious, cold shower, having a bit of argument with my husband. God, okay. Engaging in a bit of gratitude. Okay. This is what I love my husband. This is why we are together. This is what matters to us.

Having a stressful presentation at work. Okay. Feeling a bit stressed. This is stressful. Stressful and kind of difficult. Stakeholders. Five minutes, a sound break.

So I'm listening just to some nature sounds. Closing my eyes to just stimulate my parasympathetic nervous system. So I'm feeling much calmer. So I don't have one.

The most favorite thing I think it's just very much for me is I feel lots of satisfaction. And also I feel very safe and in control of my happiness because I know I have a toolbox to reach out for when I need something.

And that gives me lots of comfort in life.

And that's really what the Alphabet of happiness is. You have given us a toolkit that we can use for all these different situations.

We can find what works for us because what one person likes, somebody else doesn't. And so I think that is the magic of this book. And of course, I have to ask, you started this journey because you realized you weren't happy.

Where are you at now after studying happiness and truly becoming a happiness expertise?

So I'm at the place when I really feel comfortable that my happiness is mine. And that is really a big freedom that I gained in life.

So it's not that my life is now rosy and it's so simple and everything is incredible all the time. It's more about that I approach it from A perspective of I know what I need, I know how to be happy and everything will be okay.

And I can manage those situations. So if you like, I really, for the first time in life after this journey, feel happy in my own skin.

And I think that's for me, that's the biggest thing. And for me, I made it in that kind of personal development and accomplishments.

Well, that's everything. Because if we're not happy in our own skin, what good do our outer trappings do, you know? So this is fantastic.

You are hosting a free webinar about happiness at work on September 29th. Can you tell us what people can expect from that?

Yeah, absolutely. So as I said, I love applying the science of happiness to different areas of our life. And one of them of course, is work.

We spend so much time at work in usa, you spend so much time at work in comparison to us, to Europeans. And in that webinar I talk about five drivers of happiness at work.

So what are the five things that we need to be influencing in our workplace to feel happier and more engaged and have more satisfaction and therefore impact at work, whatever projects we are working on. So this webinar is for individuals and I will be giving lots of practical advice, but it's also for managers and leaders.

If you want to have highly performing teams, you need to be thinking about their happiness. And so there'll be combination of different action points there.

Fantastic. We're going to include on our website on the landing page of your episode, we'll include a link so they can sign up for that and take part in that.

And we'll also we're going to tell them where to find you, of course, and where they can find your book. As I let you go, what is your one piece of advice for people who are listening today and who are interested in boosting their happiness?

Start with recording your habits. Do a bit of experiment.

Think about those tiny moments that matter to you, but also write down the tiny moments that undermine your happiness just as a kind of a reflection for couple of weeks. And once you have done that, then have a look at the trends. So what are you seeing? Are you happy around certain people?

Are you most happy at certain times? What fuels your energy? What drains your energy?

Start understanding your habits and then you can start thinking, okay, if those are my specific habits, if this is what helps or undermines my happiness, what other habits I could implement?

And don't expect changes from one day to the next because we are habitual creatures with doing something often on autopilot but give yourself a quest after that reflection.

Okay, one thing that I'm going to do differently, don't say to your brain, that's it, that's for the rest of the life because that's scary for our brain.

Say to your brain, don't worry for just next couple of weeks I'm going to have couple of cold showers and I'm just going to see and if I like it, I will stick to it. If I don't like it, we'll ditch it. Don't you worry. So then you don't have that fear and resistance and expectation.

And if you don't stick to it, you feel guilty. You just going on experiment. And I think that's the best way to approach our happiness.

I love it. And that is the best way to end this episode. It is a delight talking with you, Claudia. I cannot wait to do this again sometime.

And thank you so much for all the work you're doing, the way that you're bringing happiness to the masses and looking forward to seeing how your book does.

Thank you so much. And thank you so much for everyone listening. I really appreciate your time and attention.

That was Claudia Mattura talking about the Alphabet of Happiness.

If you'd like to learn more about Claudia, sign up for a free webinar on how to create lasting happiness at work, buy her book or listen to the Happiness Challenge podcast. Just Visit us@livehappy.com and click on this podcast episode.

That is all we have time for today.

We'll meet you back here again next week for an all new episode. And until then, this is Paula Phelps reminding you to make every day a happy one.