Midlife Crises

Midlife Crises

By Alvin Shultz and Jack EichlerSociety & Culture
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Midlife Crises episodes

  • E23 - Causes of Youth Unhappiness and What to Do About It? (And Our Top 5 Movies on Existential Happiness)

    In this episode we follow up our interview with Dr. Danny Blanchflower by discussing the possible causes of the observed decreased happiness among America's youth.
    After Alvin tells a brief story about an internet scam he encountered while selling his car, we have a research discussion on the possible causes of the unhappiness epidemic (12:53). We discuss Jonathan Haidt's hypothesis about how smart phones and social media use have led to the unhappiness epidemic among young people, Peter Gray's hypothesis about how these trends in unhappiness are actually linked to the lack of autonomous outdoor play available to our younger generation, and Alvin provides an epidemiological perspective on this issue.
    We then discuss some of the recommendations put forth by Jonathan Haidt about how we might reduce device and internet usage for children and adolescents, and we highlight the recent recommendation from the Surgeon General to put warning labels on social media sites and Governor Gavin Newsome's announcement about his goal of banning phones in all California Schools (54:45).
    Finally, we do our combined Are You Not Entertained segment and Midlife Crises Top 5 List, where Alvin and I choose our top 5 movies related to happiness/existential growth (74:35).

    (Spoiler alert: we discuss the major plot points of these movies in detail) 

    Twitter (X): @midlifepod2023


    Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation: https://jonathanhaidt.com/anxious-generation/


    Peter Gray's paper on autonomous/independent play and youth happiness: https://www.petergray.org/_files/ugd/b4b4f9_f2cb98d004af4ebf9644c8daa30b040e.pdf


    Surgeon General's warning on social media use: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/17/opinion/social-media-health-warning.html


    Gavin Newsome's call to ban cell phones in CA schools: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/us/california-newsom-smartphone-ban.html

    1 hr 53 min
  • E22 - Interview with Danny Blanchflower: Father of the Happiness Curve (Plus a Discussion of the Decline in Youth Happiness)

    In this episode we are pleased to bring you our interview with David, aka Danny Blanchflower, who is a professor of economics at Dartmouth College, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, adviser to the United Nations, and former external member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee.


    In our opening segment we review our previous discussions of the u-shaped life happiness curve, why we care about the happiness of our youth, and Professor Blanchflower's connection to the social science literature related to this topic (3:40-15:30).


    In our interview with Danny we discuss how he became interested in exploring trends in happiness as a labor economist, how happiness is measured in social science, the original observation of the u-shaped happiness curve in which well being dips in the midlife, data from his  new paper that reports on the observed increase in depression among young people across 34 different countries, and some of the ongoing debate about the possible link between this you epidemic in anxiety and depression and cell phone/internet usage (13:50-81:45).


    Finally, in our closing segment, Alvin and I briefly preview some of the discussion on the possible causes of the youth anxiety and depression that we will cover in more depth in our next episode (81:50-95:48).

    Twitter (X): @midlifepod2023


    Professor Blanchflower's latest paper on youth happiness: https://www.nber.org/papers/w32337

    Professor Blanchflower's blog: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/blanchflower/category/econwalkingabout/

    After Babel Substack article from Professor Blanchflower: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/youth-health-declines-82-countries


    Peter Gray paper on reduced independent activity and childhood happiness: https://www.petergray.org/_files/ugd/b4b4f9_f2cb98d004af4ebf9644c8daa30b040e.pdf


    1 hr 38 min
  • E21 - Optimism in the Face of Adversity: Alvin's Story of Midlife Crisis (and is Jack too optimistic?)

    This episode was inspired by a revelation that Alvin recently made to Jack in an offline discussion, and Alvin was convinced to share this story to help us do a more thorough evaluation of where we fall on the continuum of the classic midlife crisis.

    Given that the theme of this episode is "optimism in the face of adversity" we decided to open with a segment in which we evaluate whether or not Jack might be too optimistic at times, and then we briefly revisit the question of whether moral progress is real or an illusion.
    In our main segment (24:00) Alvin describes a series of events in his life that precipitated a midlife crisis, how he came out the other side of that difficult time, and how this inspired him to think about doing a podcast on this topic. We end the episode by comparing and contrasting our different life circumstances and how these have resulted in us experiencing different levels of midlife crisis.

    Twitter: @midlifepod2023

    Fungi Adventures (guided outdoor camping excursions in Asheville, NC): https://www.andresfungiadventures.com/



    1 hr 5 min
  • E20 - Divorce Stories: Attachment Theory & Relationship Compatibility (Plus the Gen Z Word of the Day)

    In this episode we follow up our recent conversation on personality and personality change with a discussion of attachment theory and how different attachment styles might impact relationship compatibility.

    In the opening segment we briefly revisit the issue of the reported youth mental health crisis, discuss Jonathan Haidt's new book "The Anxious Generation", and Jack quizzes Alvin on his knowledge of gen Z slang in a new segment called The Gen Z word of the day.

    In our main segment, we review the statistics for divorce in the United States, Alvin gives an overview of Attachment theory and the different attachment styles, and then Alvin and Jack use attachment theory to reflect on their divorces and hopefully view them in a more positive light.

    Email: ⁠[email protected]⁠ 

    Twitter (X): @midlifepod2023 

    1 hr 19 min
  • E19 - Interview with Brent Roberts (Destroyer of Myths) Part 2: Personality Impacts on Relationships, Divorce, and Parenting (and Dungeons & Dragons Personality Types?)

    In this episode we are excited to bring you part 2 of our interview with Dr. Brent Roberts, Professor of Psychology and renowned personality psychologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

    In our opening segment, Alvin shares some survey
    data about which Dungeons and Dragons personality types people associate with and we discuss which of these character traits we identify with most (4:49-24:10), and then Jack gives a brief summary of some new papers he found in which the economists and psychologists call each other out on their interpretations of the u-shaped life happiness curve (24:15-30:00).
    In part two of our interview with Dr. Roberts (30:00-1:13:17), we discuss the impact of personality and personality change on Relationships and divorce, personality disorders, the interplay between personality traits and psychopathology, personal identity and how it might change over time for individuals, and the resilience of our core personality traits to external life events. We end the interview discussing the books iGen by Jean Twenge and The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haidt, how the narratives of these books relate to parenting, and Dr. Roberts discusses issues he has with social scientists running with these types of ideas that
    might seem intuitive, but are not clearly backed up by the data.

    After the interview we briefly reflect on how our broader identities may have changed over the years but our “personality zones” have likely remained fairly stable, and we briefly discuss the point Dr. Roberts made about how what we do as parents likely has much less impact on our kids’ outcomes than we might intuitively think (1:13:21-1:33:48).

    David (Danny) Blanchflower papers:

    2021 Perspectives on Psychological Science paper: https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.dartmouth.edu/dist/5/2216/files/2021/07/u-shape-perspectives.pdf

    2023 International Journal of Psychiatry paper: https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.dartmouth.edu/dist/5/2216/files/2023/02/a-response-to-another-attempt-to-move-beyond-the-crosssectional-u-shape-of-happiness-a-reply-by-galambos-krahn-johnson-a-2.pdf

    Nancy Galambos paper:

    2021 International Journal of Psychiatry paper:

    https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916211008823

    Twitter (X): @midlifepod2023


    1 hr 36 min
  • E18 - Interview with Brent Roberts (Destroyer of Myths) Part 1: Personality Change Over the Lifespan & The Life Happiness Curve

    In this episode we bring you part one of our interview with Dr. Brent Roberts, a renowned personality psychologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.


    We open the epidsode by summarizing our online personality test results, discuss the different domains covered in the Myers-Briggs test, and then reflect on how our personality traits may have shifted over the past 25 years (4:10-27:00).

    In our interview with Professor Roberts, we discuss why he pursued a career in studying human personality and personality change,  how social scientists measure personality, the Big 5 personality traits and some other domains of personality beyond the Big 5, and the general trends in how personality changes over the life span. We conclude this part of the interview by discussing how personality traits may be connected to the proposed U-shaped life-happiness curve, and Dr. Roberts discusses the differences in how economists and psychologists interpret the data related to changes in happiness over the lifespan and whether the U-shaped life-happiness curve is just a myth

    (27:00-1:11:28).

    In our post-interview wrap up, we reflect on the (hopefully) positive take-home points from the interview and we briefly discuss a paper from a team of psychologists who critique the validity of the U-shaped life happiness curve (1:11:28-1:26:00).
    Email: [email protected] 

    Twitter: @midlifepod2023

    Paper about the U-shaped happiness curve (open access):

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7529452/

    1 hr 26 min
  • E17 - Progress By A Thousand Thoughts: The Philosophy of Nietzsche & The Lust for Life

    In this episode we are excited to have on Keegan Kjeldsen, a touring doom metal musician and host of The Nietzsche Podcast.

    We open the episode explaining why we sought out Keegan for an interview, and then Alvin gives a quick history of Nietzsche's life. If you're more familiar with Nietzsche and would like to skip straight to the interview, that starts around minute 22:00 in the audio feed.

    We discuss with Keegan how he ended up hosting a podcast devoted to Friedrich Nietzsche, how philosophy applies to the real world and why we should pay attention to philosophical writing, Nietzsche's idea of eternal recurrence and how that might lead one to celebrate and embrace life, the possible connection of the reevaluation of values and changes that occur in the midlife, how Nietzsche's quote: What does not kill me makes me stronger might inform our view of the potential fragility of gen z, and what books of Nietzsche's you might look at first if you're interested in exploring any of these topics further. Finally, we end with our Real or Fake segment, in which Keegan and Alvin have to guess whether a philosophy paper is real or an article from The Onion.  

    Twitter: @midlifepod2023


    The Nietzsche Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-nietzsche-podcast/id1573808070

    Keegan's Patreon site: https://www.patreon.com/untimelyreflections

    Keegan's book pre-order ("The Ritual Madness of Rock & Roll"): https://www.blackrosewriting.com/biographymemoir/theritualmadnessofrockandroll

     

    1 hr 52 min
  • E16 - Midlife Crisis on the Interwebs: What is a Midlife Crisis According to Wikipedia and Reddit? (and reminiscing about New Year's Y2K)

    Happy new year and welcome to season two of the Midlife Crises podcast. Since we just rang in the new year, we thought it would be fun to open up season two by reminiscing about the Y2K scare and New Year's 2000 in our Where Were You When segment.


    In our main segment we decided to begin by identifying what the definition of a midlife crisis is and whether midlife crises are just a myth, and then Alvin summarizes an analysis of posts he did from the past month in the midlife crisis sub-Reddit page.

    We highlight some of the common themes and issues identified by folks dealing with midlife crises, we reflect on how some of these issues resonate with our personal experience, and we conclude by discussing how folks can hopefully embrace these changes we experience in the midlife and use them as motivation to find new purpose in life.

    Twitter/X: @midlifepod2023


    1 hr 5 min
  • E15 - Season Finale...Top 5 Holiday Movies List & Goals/Resolutions for 2024

    In this episode, we come up with the Midlife Crises list of top 5 holiday/Christmas movies (and no, Die Hard is not a Christmas movie...), and we reflect on 2023 and the first season of the podcast. We discuss some of the topics we plan to cover in 2024, and identify a couple of personal New Year's resolutions we would like to accomplish in the coming year. We hope everyone has a great holiday season and a happy New Year. If you have strong opinions on the Die Hard Christmas movie debate, or have other holiday movies you would like to recommend to us, please email us or hit us up on Twitter/X.

    Twitter/X: @midlifepod2023

    1 hr 9 min
  • E14 - Interview with Women's Midlife Coach Clarissa Kristjansson (and Alvin rescues an injured owl?!)

    In this episode we are excited to have on as a guest

    Clarissa Kristjansson, a women’s midlife coach who is also the host of the podcast “Thriving Through Menopause.” Before getting to our interview with Clarissa, Alvin and I spend a few minutes discussing an idea for a Saturday Night Live sketch involving Spock from Star Trek, and then hear about a recent situation in which Alvin was called on to rescue an injured owl, and a story about how he was accosted by a llama during his travels in Peru. If you want to skip ahead to the interview you can jump to minute 30 in the audio feed. In our interview we discuss how Clarissa made the journey from a PhD in neuroscience to being a women’s midlife coach, the difference between peri-menopause and menopause, the typical physiological and psychological changes associated with menopause, ways in which Clarissa helps her clients adjust to these changes, how one can support their partner who is going through menopause, how women and men experience  anhedonia in the midlife, Clarissa’s perspective on how the typical journey through menopause maps onto the life happiness curve, and other topics. After the interview Alvin and I reflect on some of the take home points from Clarissa’s interview that we might put into practice, and discuss how Clarissa acts as a model of demonstrating wisdom.

    Clarissa's podcast: https://www.thrivethrumenopause.com/

    Clarissa's women's coaching website: https://clarissakristjansson.com/about

    Clarissa's blog and other media resources: https://linktr.ee/thrivethrumeno

    Clarissa's Twitter/X feed:

    @thrivethrumeno

    Clarissa's books:

    https://www.amazon.com/Mindful-Menopause-Balance-Vitality-Clarity/dp/916399416X

    https://www.amazon.com/Potent-Power-Menopause-Perspective-Transformation-ebook/dp/B09ZHCZZVT


    1 hr 21 min

About Midlife Crises

From the publisher's feed

This is a podcast where where two guys from Generation X try to navigate this trying stage of life. You might laugh and you might learn something, even if you have not yet had that midlife crisis. Your hosts are Alvin Shultz, an epidemiologist and public health professional, and Jack Eichler, a Professor of Chemistry and education researcher at the University of California-Riverside (and thanks to our friend Aaron, for helping come up with the name of the pod).