Happiness Lessons of The Ancients: The Day of Rest

for thousands of years. How literally should we take the words on the page, how should we apply the text to the modern world, and do we really understand its true meaning? But there's one instruction from the Torah that is crystal clear. Take a day off from the very very beginning. When the Torah first describes the making of the universe, it clearly explains that the creator took a whole day long break from his work. That idea of twenty four hours of rest is even included is one

of the ten commandments. Now, I'm not usually one to flo out the commandments, but taking a break from work isn't an instruction that I find all that easy to observe, and neither did Sarah Hurwitz. She and I both grew up sharing a college culture that seemed to almost frown upon enjoying downtime. Going to college at a school like Harvard, you know, there's almost this like cult of hard cornice where it's like how many all nighters do you pull

and how much work can you do? You know, there was a sense that, oh, good, Saturday's more time for work. It's so easy to fill every available hour with work. I remember like we would kind of look at classmates who were kind of laid back and who kind of just like enjoyed themselves and be like, oh, that person's just they're kind of a partier. Like they're not you know, they're not what a loser? Yeah, I mean it was

like so ridiculous. And by the way, I have to say, I think about the guys down the hall for me who were like partiers and who kind of you know, had a lot of fun and relax and they're all like millionaires, Like they found in some company and became so wealthy just on my Okay, clearly they were onto something. Then after college, I stayed in academia and took a job in the Ivy League, which isn't usually known for

its chill, slacker vibe. But Sarah moved on to an even more extreme workplace, one that's famously on twenty four to seven the White House. You really have no life, right like work. You were just constantly working. You're never off right, You're always available. That's kind of the definition of a really good political staffer is always available. You know, anytime you call email, I will pick up, I will answer within seconds. That's what kind of distinguishes a really

great staffer. And so, you know, there were just times when I got exhausted. I was working on Hillary Clinton's campaign for president in two thousand and eight, and I dropped a glass in my kitchen one night, just when I was making dinner, and I just thought like I was just like looking at all the shards on the floor and just thinking like, oh my gosh, the idea of cleaning this up is so exhausting, And so I

just didn't clean it up for weeks. I would just wear flipflops in my kitchen, which is like, that's really extreme, right, It's it's just exhausting, and it starts to feel a little bit to humanizing, right. You just start to feel like you are just kind of plowing for your days in this kind of state. Of work. It's not a

great way to live. You got so few breaks. You couldn't even take a break when you were like taking a shower, right right, there was There was one time when I took my phone into the shower in a plastic bag because I was afraid of missing a call. This was on a political campaign, and yeah, it was a bit much. Now, these sorts of behaviors might sound a bit extreme, but many of us struggle to keep work from invading our lives, from our meal times, to

our gym sessions, even to our date nights. The good news is that Sarah eventually found a solution to this happiness sapping of session with work, and she found that solution in Judaism. Welcome back to Happiness Lessons of the

Ancients with me, Doctor Laurie Santos. As we learned in the last episode, Sarah Hurwitz found herself struggling to feel happier in her mid thirties and was looking to make some changes, so she decided to learn more about Judaism, the religious faith she had not given much thought to since she was a kid. You can read about it in her book here. All along finding meaning, spirituality and a deeper connection to life in Judaism after finally choosing

to look there. One of the biggest revelations Sarah took from Judaism was about overfilling her life with work and striving. She learned that joy could be found once you start questioning that twenty four seven work culture. You know, it's funny, I look back to my childhood in the eighties, and there was like all this unstructured time. You know. I think about the weekends, you know, as a child, and like, you know, my dad would take us hiking or bowling

or fishing, and there was no rushing. We weren't rushing to get anywhere. We were just being were just sitting there fishing, or we were hiking and looking out, or my brother and I were playing outside or going biking. Like there was not this of franticness of rush of like I have to achieve all of these things. There was actually a real break and I think in our modern times and also as an adult, I really lost

that it's so relentless. It is so relentless, and it really is fueled by this very consumerist ethic, which is like you don't have enough, you are not enough, right, That is the core fundamental consumerist ethic is not enough. And so what you have to do to alleviate that is you have to get stuff, and to get stuff you have to work harder. And so you work harder so that you can get more stuff, which requires you to work harder so that you can get more stuff.

It's this kind of endless cycle of working and getting working and getting and ultimately getting all this stuff. It doesn't necessarily make us happier, you know, I'm sure you know, right, there is a limit to the minimum income, after which point you don't get happier. And it's much lower than you would think. Yeah, I mean the research shows, in some of the research, it shows it's around seventy five K, you know, which is much lower than many people think.

But we still feel like, you know, if we could get more money, get more stuff, just not cease doing whatever, we would be happier. But this seems to conflict with one of the like earliest passages in the Torah, maybe one of the most important, right, and so talk to me about you know where Judaism says that this sort of approach might not work very well. Yes, so it's actually in the Ten Commandments believe it or not, where one of the ten commandments is basically to celebrate Shabbat.

It's to rest on Shabbat, which is generally understood to be Friday evening to Saturday evening, about twenty five hours. And not only are you supposed to rest, but you are the touras says, to let your servants, your animals, and the stranger within your midst That's just like if someone outside the tribe, like a non Israelite is visiting, everyone has to rest. Which is kind of amazing to think that, like your animals even after rest, all right,

Like that's like like really like the cattle rest. But I think that, you know, like with much interpretation of the Torah, I really look at this much more metaphorically of you know, when we are just constantly endlessly working and striving and feeling like that not enough, you do begin to feel a little like an animal, right, Like you're like a workhorse with blinders on, just kind of plow in the field. You know, you can you feel

like a servant. You really feel like you're just serving whoever it is you're serving your boss, the almighty dollar or whatever, and you can start to feel like a stranger in your own life, kind of alienated from yourself, and so that wisdom that says, actually stop, like get off of this, not enough, need more train and just create an entirely different space for those twenty five hours.

And this is something that like God in the Tora actually embodied himself right in the beginning, yes, right, like after creating the world over a period of six days, God rests, right like God does the first shabat basically in the Torah. In the book you mentioned this idea. You know, we think of Sabbat as being about rest, but the translation isn't exactly rest when you think about it, right, You're exactly right. It's not rest. That's a different word.

Shabat really means stop, cease, pause. So it's kind of funny because you know, you could say, well, I think it's really RESTful to watch Netflix and you catch up on my email and go and spend a lot of money at local stores, and like that might actually be RESTful for you, but that's not what shabat is. Shabbat is actually it's a pause from your weekday life. So if you kind of observe shabat in a very very

traditional way, there are so many rules. I mean, it almost seems a little crazy, where it's like, you know, you don't use electricity, so you're not you know, you can't be on screens. You don't spend money, so you can't go out and buy things. So many rules, which before I really started understanding shabbat, I looked at it and just thought, like I got all these rules, like come on, you know what, you can't take the elevator, so it's what is it really more RESTful to walk

up seven flights of stairs? Like that's silly. But I now understand that what people who observe shabat in this rigorous way are doing is they are basically plugging up every nook and cranny through which the secular world, the workday world, can see, and they're creating an entirely different space. So when I've spent time with Jews who are observing shabat and this really rigorous way, it's like time has

a different texture. Like there are no phones. No one is looking at their phone, nothing is buzzing or beeping or grinding, Like there's none of that mechanical noise. No one is rushing to go anywhere. Right, They're not. They're not driving places, they're not rushing to go places. It feels different, like it actually like everyone is there, people are present, Like when you are you at a Shabat

meal with people who are really in it. People are like actually talking to each other in a super engaged way. Kids are just kind of running around playing outside, and time feels languid. It kind of just stretches out before you, and it's really beautiful. It feels so different from the

rest of the week. And I think in way, Shabbat helps us kind of recapture some of that nineteen eighties childhood sense of just this long day stretching ahead of you, where there's nothing to achieve, there's nowhere to be, there's nothing that has to be done on some schedule. There's just a sense of openness of just instead of doing, it's being And that is really powerful transition and one that I think so many of us just desperately need

now and it's so hard to do. Do you think folks who are really observing Shabbat in that way are happier in those moments? I do, I really do. I mean, so many Jews who I know who observed Shabat they're like, oh, Shabbat saves my life every week, right, Like it just gets you off that train of I'm not rich enough, thin enough, beautiful enough, this enough, that enough, and you

just say no, I'm enough, I'm just enough. And I think that during the week, you're so often listening to so many other people's voices, right your boss, all the ads that are barraging you from TV, Facebook and the internet whatever, and on Shabbat you actually you literally shut all of that off. So like, whose voices are you listening to on Shabbat? The voices of people you love

and your own voice? Like for me, you know, I actually tried in the White House for a period of months to have a pretty rigorous Shabbat practice, and my colleagues were super supportive. They were so wonderful. Like I explained to them, like, look, if you it's an emergency, you call me, but I'm not checking email. And they

were like great or so proud of you. And you know, when I had this practice, it was like the first time I actually had space to just hear my own voice and hear my own thoughts rather than constantly thinking like, okay, you know what would missus Obama want to say, or what do my colleagues need? And I actually think that that space was what allowed me to kind of germinate and generate this idea for this book on Judaism that

I want to write. You know, I think that it sort of allowed that idea to actually take root and grow. And I think so often we just aren't able to create space for those things within us, and so things don't take root, we don't flourish in a way that

we really could. So I'm picturing, like, you know, this White House staffer who has like decided now that she's going to, like, you know, take a few days off on the weekend in the middle of a campaign, and so talk about what that decision was like when you were thinking about it, and how people reacted and things.

I think it was twenty sixteen, and I was doing all this reading about Shabbat and I was like, I'm just going to try this out, Like this sounds amazing, and you know, I emailed my colleagues and said, Okay, I'm going to start doing this. Here's what it means. And they were just so supportive, you know, they just sent me back these notes saying like, we're not going to bother. You good for you, that's so great, and and you know what it was, Actually it actually was fine.

Like we managed, you know, I would just get back online Saturday night and do the work. Then it was actually okay. But I'll tell you, if I had been on a campaign, if I had been in a more kind of crazy time, that would have been very hard. And the truth is, after a couple months, a few months, I was like, it just felt like too much for me. But like I like, things were getting really busy and hectic. We were traveling a lot, and it actually became hard

for me to do. Now, if I had felt like, no, this is really important to me, like I am an observant, you, I would have done it. And this is why I actually really admire the way that my friends who are observant, who are who are quite religious. You know, for them, it's not optional, right, It's not something they can pick and choose as they see fit. For them, it is like it's mandatory, right, that is part like they feel a real sense of being commanded by God to do this.

So it's not a thing and that works really well, right, They just make it work. Whereas for me it was optional and when something like this is optional, turns out you end up taking the option of not doing it so rigorously. We're now going to take a quick break. But when we return, Sarah will explain the benefits she's seen in observing a day of rest. We'll see how all of us, even though it too busy to take a whole day off, can introduce some time of pause

into our lives. The happiness lab will be back in a moment. In her book, Sarah Hurwitz describes just how much she learned from ditching her round the clockworking habits and enjoying a day of rest as instructed in the Torah. One of her most interesting insights, one that matches with the science, is the fact that enjoying the Sabbath can help you reappraise your tendency to be a bit of

a control freak. You actually don't have control over when Shabbat starts, right, It's just like you gotta stop, Like if you're in the middle of some intense work project, you have to step away, which is kind of amazing, right, It's actually, you know, the whole point of Shabbat is that in this moment, you stop creating, you stop imposing, your will on the world and you actually just feel yourself as a creation. Right. I think that's Rabbi Jonathan

Sachs who of Blessed Memory. He this amazing British rabbi who talked about you go from relentless creating to actually feeling yourself as a creation. What an interesting thing like when you are a creation that's not something you control, Right, You're kind of just in a way stopping and just saying like, I'm not going to impose my will on the world. I'm not going to control everything and manage everything and create everything. I'm just going to take a

break from that for a second. And I think that shift in mindset is just so powerful at a moment when so many of us feel like we're so frantically trying to control everything, change everything, manage everything, because modern life is hard and we have very little support in this country to care for our families. So how many people are struggling right now, and it's it's really heartbreaking

to see. Another thing you mentioned is a benefit is that, like taking a Shabbat can actually help us to sort of fight consumerism and materialism, you know, all this stuff. On the podcast we talk about people being into but it doesn't really positively affect our happiness. Yes, you know, it's like to actually have a day we were forced to stop spending, Like we were forced to stop getting things and striving and trying to be something other than

you are. Like, it's such a shift in mindset, and it actually when you step back into that weekday consumerist mindset, you kind of realize it's almost jarring and it's kind of depressing, and you're like, wait a second, I don't like this feeling of never enough. I don't like this feeling of feeling inferior, and like I have to keep striving and like something is broken in me that I have to keep fixing. Because like, let's be very clear,

that is the message of every advertisement ever. It's like something is wrong with you, Our product or service will fix you. Right, That's what this attitude is. And to actually say like, no, I'm really grateful, I'm really I'm really all Like, in a way, the opposite of that consumerist never enough mindset is gratitude. Like that's actually the opposite of that mindset, And you're right, it makes us much happier. That consumerist mindset does not make us happy.

And this idea of kind of getting in touch with like, no, I'm actually enough as it is. It gets to another benefit of taking some time off, which is that shabat can I actually help you get to know yourself a

little bit better? Absolutely, Like It's funny like oftentimes people on shabat, they will go to like a Friday night service at a synagogue or Saturday and a Saturday morning service, and those are moments where you're you're just you're offline, right, You're actually in moments of prayer and reflection and quiet where like actually just have time with your own thoughts. You actually are listening to a voice other than that from your phone or your boss or your colleagues or whatever.

And I think it does put you in touch with something deeper, you know, it does. It really puts you in touch with something that's more true. It can help you, I think, I don't know, kind of re engage with yourself. It also it offers you kind of a critical perspective on the other six days a week, right, Like, if you're constantly in that workday consumers mindset, you never have the critical distance from which to examine it and question

it and kind of wonder about it. In those twenty five hours when you're out of that mindset, Suddenly you can think, like, wait a second, I really like this job, or like, is this relationship really a good relationship that I'm in? Like, you know, you can start to hear those voices that kind of exist on the edge of your consciousness during the week and there isn't space for them. Suddenly they're space for them, and that can be That can be hard because times their voices you don't want

to hear. You're like, uh, just stop, Like I'd rather stay in this relationship because it's easy. I'd rather stay in this job because it's easy. But you can hear those voices that say, hey, this isn't you, this is not you, Like what are you doing? And I think that can lead to a lot of growth. Another set of voices you can hear just the people around you, right,

like your family, your friends, right. I mean, another huge benefit of taking some time off is that we can actually connect with other people better if we have a bit more time exactly right. I mean, like think about how often, like I'll walk with Smims, I'll walk by you. I live in Washington, d C. And in the summer, everyone's eating outside and you'll walk by a table and see like four people on their phones and they're all

sitting with each other. I'm like, hey, guys, I want to like wave in front of their faces, be like, look, there are all these people around you. I mean, think about how often when you're spending time with other people, at least one person's on their phone and they're not there, so like you kind of have half their attention, or

you're kind of paying attention but not really. On Shabbat, if you're observing in a rigorous way, there are no phones, right, There's no TV, there's no screens, there is nothing to distract you from the people around you. And I think people listen to each other differently on Shabat. I think they are present with each other differently on Shabbat. And I mean, what a great way to strengthen relationships and

strengthened families. And you know, so much research shows that, you know, one of the biggest hits right now to our happiness is that many of us don't feel like we have these strong social relationships. Many of us aren't connecting, we're not listening, you know, and that's actually leading to an epidemic in some ways of loneliness and things like that. Yes, and that is and look, it's like we have all this freedom right, that is the secular ethic, freedom, no obligations,

do whatever you want. So everyone just kind of does their own thing, and it's kind of lonely and isolating. And what you see in Jewish communities where everyone's observing Shabbat is there's some constraint, right, there's an idea of like, no, we all have to take on this obligation to observe Shabbat. But with that constraint comes such beauty. You know, you have an entire community where everyone is like walking to the synagogue, seeing each other, celebrating this Shabbat together, eating

meals together, They're all over each other's houses. You know, it's almost it reminds me of what my dad used to talk about growing up in the nineteen fifties, where it's like they all the neighbors knew each other, they were in each other's out of each other's houses. You know, there was a sense of a really rich, thick community, and I think we've kind of lost that again in this consumers world where so many of us are working

so hard. You know, who has time? Like you know, you're working one or two jobs trying to support your family, and a lot of kids are just endlessly striving and working because they realize they've got to get into college in order to make enough money, so they're doing all these activities and it's like, oh my gosh, guys, we've just lost that sense of connection, and I think we've just lost this idea that we can take a break

at all. And that gets to kind of one of the final benefits I wanted to talk to, which fits with the science, which is this idea of gaining a little bit of time affluence. So time affluence is this concept that social scientists talk about where it's your objective sense that you have some free time. It's like the opposite of what many of us go through on most days, which is sort of time famine where we're starving for time.

And the research just shows that there's just the simple act of feeling like you have sometime can improve our well being. In fact, there's one study that shows that if you self report being time famished, that's as bad of a hit to your well being as if you

self report being unemployed. You know, we know unemployment is like super bad for well being, but time famine is this too, And I think basically what Shabbat is trying to do is to stop at the time famine at least for one day and give you back a little bit of like affluence. I love of that that you know, you're right, it actually is a sense of time affluence because you know, every single week, I've got these twenty five hours every single week. It's never it's never a question,

it's never in doubt. If you're someone who kind of really observes it rigorously, that's so interesting. You're right, it's time. It's time affluence. You're basically being granted this twenty five hours of time that's mandatory. And so now I want to get like slightly personal, because, as I've mentioned on this podcast before, you know, I follow lots of my happiness advice, but time affluence is one that I really

struggle with with my busy schedule. And so if you're like me and you're struggling with this, like how can you build in a little bit of Shabbat time, even if it's not the full observant version, you know, how did you go about actually like opening that time up

for yourself. Yeah, you know, I think like so many people I've talked to you about this, they're just like, I can't do the twenty five hours, right if if you're not Orthodox, if you don't have that sense of commandedness and it is optional, They're like, this just isn't realistic, you know, especially if you have kids and they have things going on that you need to care for them, or you have you've got to work these hours because you need to pay your bills, Like of course, right,

Like that's okay. It doesn't have to be an Orthodox observance to be a meaningful observance. I think the quality is really more important than the quantity, right, So I actually think just saying, okay, I can't do the whole twenty five hours, but starting on Friday night at seven pm to midnight on Friday, I'm doing a rigorous shabat. Everything shut down, like no electronics, no atricity, Like I am just going to be so present with people, not

going to answer any emails. I'm going to be just in it and just feeling that experience, right, just having that experience and if that's all you can do, great, and maybe you can try Friday night and maybe Saturday morning until noon. You know, you can kind of experiment and try different things. But I think the point is to actually get a taste of that really really different mindset, that like different kind of Shabbat time by Abraham Joshua Heschel called it, I think you believe he called it

a sanctuary in time. Like it's actually kind of carving out time, which is something that Jews do throughout the year. And I think that's so beautiful because we're so obsessed now with things and accumulations. But to actually say no, time can be something that we carve out and that we actually kind of gift ourselves, I think is very powerful.

And so when you've actually taken the time to do that, which I know is hard in your very brissy role, you know, what have been the benefits, I mean the personal benefits in terms of your own joy and happiness. Oh my gosh. I just you know, it's funny. When I was in the White House and doing it, I would start Shabat being so frazzled and just obsessively thinking about like, Okay, did I did I missed this edit

from missus Obama? Did I get this thing? Right was the ending of the speech, okay, And it would just be these thoughts like spinning around my mind. But as I went to a Shabat service or a Shabbat dinner with friends, I would kind of get in the rhythm of it, right, Like those thoughts would kind of get quieter and quieter, and buy you know, eight or nine at night, I just kind of calmed down, and I would come home and my apartment would be so quiet.

There'd be no phone to look at. Everything would just be really peaceful, and I would really feel myself starting to kind of settle in, you know, and I felt the I felt the effects on my own anxiety levels, Like I felt like it really calmed me down. I felt like I kind of transitioned into a much more reflective space where I was actually thinking deeper thoughts. You know. During the week, so many of my thoughts were these kind of you know, just there were work thoughts. It

was like, Okay, did I get this sentence right? Did I get this speech to the right people? Oh? This call like I had an edit, Okay, let me make sure I respond to the email. But it was a slower pace for me on the and it was me thinking like, Okay, what do I want to do with my life? And how is this friendship I have going? Do I want to kind of reconsider that, you know, how is my family? Like I really just transitioned into a different space. It was almost like transitioning from head

to heart. You know, it was just like a deeper, more spiritual space. I felt more spiritually connected on Shabbat, and you know, I really do think it helped me decide that I wanted to write this book on Judaism. You know, that was a pretty unusual post White House career move. I think most people were like, oh, you're going to write a book on speech writing or Missus Obama or politic or you're gonna help Missus Obama with

her memoir. And those were all great options, right I could have been like a you know, a speechwriter to the stars or what I mean. There's so many great options. And I was thinking, Okay, I should do those things. But Shabbata actually let me listen to these quieter voices which are hard to hear among all those clamoring voices telling me what I should do. And I was like, oh, wait a second, maybe I don't want to do those things. Maybe I want to write this book to share the

radical transformative wisdom that I found in Judaism. And I think it actually let me do that. It actually kind of gave it, let those thoughts take root and flourish enough so that I could actually feel comfortable doing that. I think if I hadn't had that space, I don't know if I would have ever developed that confidence to

do what I really wanted to do next. And another thing, when I think about doing this, like when I think about, like, you know, actually taking twenty five hours off, I'm ashamed to admit this, but my immediate emotion is like anxiety, right that it's just like what am I gonna miss? Oh my gosh, I'm even going to know what to do with myself. I mean, did you go through that a little bit when you started? Oh? Totally right. There

is this fear of it's the fomo. It's the sense of all I'm getting behind, right, everyone else will be working then or achieving then, and like what am I doing taking this time off? Oh my gosh? And that is so much the consumerist mindset, right, It's like it's the always having to be on, always having to be doing so I definitely. I had so much of that anxiety. But I think once you commit to it and actually do it in whatever form that you do, you see

the benefits. You know, you really do see the benefits in your life. And I actually think, I mean, look, the point of Shabbat is not to take a break so that you can work harder the other six days. You work hard the six days in order to get the break in Shabbat, right, It's not. It's not a rejuvenate so you can just crush even harder. That is not what Shabbat is. But you know, once you can kind of push through that anxiety, you'll be amazed at

how much you can find to enjoy on Shabbat. Right where people are like what will I do with you myself, you realize like, oh, I can just like curl up and read a book. I can take a walk with a friend. I can just you know, enjoy a meal with people I love. I can take a nap. Taking a nap is like a big Shabat thing. A lot of people nap on Shabbat. I can just like stare out my window and look at the scenery around me.

I mean, these are such simple things that people used to do back in the day and that we've lost sight of. And there's such simple joys and pleasures, but they really Shabat really does give you a lot to savor. And So if there's a listener who's hearing this, who's getting a little like shabat curious, you know, either because they're you know, like like not Jewish but kind of want to try it out, or you know, maybe like you were like Jewish but like really you know, weren't

observant and weren't fitting it in before. What would be your advice to them to get started? Yeah, I would say, like, welcome in, man, this is great. And I would say, like it doesn't have you know, people I think set themselves up for failure when they think it has to be perfect. I have to do it twenty five hours and I have to follow every single rule ever, and if I don't do that, then it's it's all or nothing.

And it's not all or nothing, right, Like, I think the general rule is like, look, the more you can do, the better, but do whatever you can, you know, just do whatever you can. And I think the really key idea is to make it feel different from the rest of the week. To make it a real pause from the rest of the week. So think carefully about Okay, what defines my week? You know? Is it this frantic work churn? Is it kind of driving kids to every

possible place on the planet. Okay, how can I carve out some amount of time where I'm not doing those things and I'm doing something different? I think that's really the key. Regular Happiness Lab listeners know that I really really struggle with this stuff. Taking a break and reducing my workload is a huge challenge for me. But I've learned a ton from talking with Sarah. I'm going to try to follow some of her advice, even if it means marking out just a tiny space in my week

that isn't it for work or edmund or chores. We'll be moving on from Judaism now, but our next episode will explore insights from another religious faith, one that's very much built on these foundations, Christianity. Specifically, we'll look more at what Christianity can teach us about coming to terms with upsetting events in our lives through the practice of forgiveness. So please come back next time for more Happiness Lessons of the Ancients with me Doctor Laurie Santos. The Happiness

Lab is co written and produced by Ryan Dilley. The show was mastered by Evan Viola and our original music was composed by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to the entire Pushkin crew, including Neila Belle, Carlie Migliori, Heather Faine, Sophie Crane, mckibbon, Eric Sandler, Jacob Weissberg, and my agent, Ben Davis. The Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries and Nat Doctor Laurie Santos,