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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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The Power of Negative Thinking

The Power of Negative Thinking: Death Can Make You Happy

Death Can Make You Happy

BBC Radio 4 - The Power of Negative Thinking, Death Can Make You Happy

Oliver Burkeman explores how thinking more about death can help make us happier.

Psychology writer Oliver Burkeman confronts what many of us see as the most negative of all life's experiences. Could we derive happiness from thinking more about death?

In the final episode of Oliver Burkeman’s series The Power of Negative Thinking, it is finally time to confront what many of us see as the most negative of all experiences: death.  Could there really be a path to happiness through thinking more about our own, and our loved ones’, mortality?  Oliver will speak to a death ‘doula’, and ask what lessons we can learn about living from those who are near-to-death.  He’ll also explore the modern-day rediscovery of “memento mori”, constant reminders of death in daily life.  In deliberately confronting death, can life take on a new and vivid sense of meaning? 

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Psychology writer and proud curmudgeon Oliver Burkeman explores the virtues of negativity.

Oliver Burkeman, psychology writer and proud curmudgeon, explores the virtues of negativity and shows how it can be a surprisingly powerful route to joy, success and satisfaction.

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The Power of Negative Thinking

Death Can Make You Happy

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