Every year, we come back to the same question: What actually helps people feel more connected, grounded, and human? On The Science of Happiness podcast, we continue to explore what research tells us about living meaningful, joyful, and connected, to communities, our environment, and ourselves. Since our launch in 2018, we have accumulated over 53.4 million downloads, with our community engaging deeply with our episodes, exercises, and social experiments.
In 2025, we welcomed guests like world-class athlete Abby Wambach, renowned psychologists and love experts Julie and John Gottman, and award-winning poet and author Yrsa Daley-Ward. Together, we dove into questions like: How can we strengthen empathy in polarized times? What role does gratitude play in sustaining mental health? How do we foster hope, creativity, and resilience in ourselves and our communities? Our guests helped us explore these questions, sharing stories and testing science-backed practices in their own lives.
In case you missed them, here are the top five The Science of Happiness podcast episodes of 2025, as determined by downloads:
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1. Why Dancing Is the Best Medicine: Lori Arnett, a NASA engineer, tries a month-long dance practice that brings her closer to her daughters and colleagues, offering unexpected moments of calm and joy. Bronwyn Tarr, an expert on the science of dance, explains how moving in sync boosts mood, eases stress, and even raises our pain threshold through the power of endorphins.
2. Our Brains on Poetry: We explore how poetry, one of the oldest art forms, powers our brains, calms our nervous systems, and reduces anxiety by opening doors into our psyche. Yrsa Daley-Ward, an award-winning poet and author, joins Susan Magsamen, a professor of neurology at John Hopkins, to discuss how—whether you’re reading or writing it—elements like rhythm, metaphor, and rhyme improve memory, cognition, and even self-esteem.
3. How Awe Helps You Navigate Life’s Challenges: Embracing awe can uplift caregivers, providing them with tools to nurture themselves while nurturing others. Our guests Noam Osband and Devora Keller share how they found ways to refresh themselves and foster connection with their two young children by incorporating awe through music, nature, and shared experiences.
4. How to Do Hard Things: What happens when the world sees you as a hero, but you feel lost inside? Abby Wambach, a trailblazer in women’s soccer, spent years chasing excellence as a world-class athlete, only to find that winning gold didn’t bring the inner fulfillment she craved. She reflects on addiction, shame, identity, and the hard-earned lessons of self-love.
5. How 7 Days Can Transform Your Relationship: We are joined by renowned psychologists Julie and John Gottman to explore a seven-day love challenge based on decades of their research. From meaningful check-ins and heartfelt compliments to the importance of touch, we uncover how small, intentional actions can create lasting bonds.
Bonus Episode: This year we were nominated for a Webby Award for our 2024 episode, Are You Remembering the Good Times? Our guest, Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye, tried a practice to discover the joy-bringing power of recalling her positive childhood memories.
