Ikigai and Wellness: Insights from Dr. Yasuhiro Kotera

Dr. Yasuhiro Kotera delves into the profound health benefits of embracing ikigai in episode 28 of the Ikigai Podcast.

Yasuhiro is the academic lead at the University of Derby. His teaching primarily focuses on mental health, with interests in self-compassion, intrinsic motivation, and cross-cultural psychology. 


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Ikigai is an Experiential Concept

What's the best way to explain the concept of ikigai? As for Yasuhiro, ikigai is an experiential concept -- it cannot be explained without experience.

Nick: So when you saw the westernized interpretation of Ikigai, the four circle Venn diagram that has Ikigai as the center sweet spot of doing something that you love that you're good at that the world needs and that you can be paid for? Do you remember when you saw it, and what was your first thought?

Yasuhiro: I thought that's very interesting, and also something that people in the West are often good at. Beautiful, beautiful presentations. Wow, these are really westernized kinds of things. It can help somewhat to cross the bridge of different cultures and the background.

So that's helpful. But at the same time, when I do research, I'm also mindful of the essence of Ikigai, because, for example, what science is: science is about dissecting, the word origin of Science is dissecting. 

And that's what science does, you categorize the whole into parts and identify key parts of symptoms. And then, if you improve that one part, that whole can improve significantly, that's kind of just science. But Ikigai is more for the Eastern, I mean, Ikigai is the Eastern concept where the whole is very important. 

And as Dr. Kamiya who is one of the pioneers of Ikigai said, Ikigai cannot be explained without experience -- it's experiential concepts. In science or in research, it's very helpful to dissect things, all experiences into parts. 

But when you discuss Ikigai, it's not just one psychological concept. It's more about the experiential sense that needs to be considered when you discuss Ikigai. So that's something that I'm very mindful of when I do research into Ikigai.

Ikigai Doesn’t Have to be Extravagant

How would you define ikigai? For Yasuhiro, ikigai doesn't have to be something lavish; it is more on the daily experiences that we have that provide joy into our lives.

Nick: So let's touch on your definition. I think it's funny because I've just said earlier, we need to let go of definitions, now I'm asking you for a definition. So how would you describe ikigai? 

Yasuhiro: Okay, so Ikigai is this experiential sense that you are living your life, you're living on your mission, that kind of congruent, and also a coherent sense of experience, I think I call that as Ikigai. Then when we define words, it often sounds very extravagant. But Ikigai doesn't have to be extravagant.

Ikigai can exist in your daily life, for example, as Dr. Mogi said ikigai is everywhere, and I think it's important to pay attention to your internal experience of daily life, what makes you spark or what makes you feel like oh, this is inherently joyful, inherently fun, so Ikigai is experienced in daily life. 

Nick: I think this is really the biggest point about ikigai is this approach where we can approach it casually, in these small things, as Ken Mogi mentions, we don't have to make it out to be something big and grand.

Almost unattainable, like some sort of one life purpose. I mean, just doing something like this talking to you is a source of Ikigai. I really enjoy my podcast interviews, and I get to learn so much and connect.

So it's these things that make a big difference to our well-being, I think, in that context of daily living.

Yasuhiro: Yes, indeed. And also, coming back to what you said earlier, about beginner's mind, I practiced my mind enough in the practice of Zen. And through Zen, I have become more able to notice these kinds of amazing things in my daily life and embrace it. 


I think that's very important for well-being – just experience, just don't take it for granted. Experience great joys in your life. That's pretty important. 

Ikigai and Physical Health

What are the benefits of having ikigai? Is ikigai really helpful for our well-being? Yasuhiro talks about the advantages of having ikigai to our physical and mental welfare.

Nick: So let's jump into what you wrote about Ikigai and physical health. What did the research you studied reveal about Ikigai and physical health?

Yasuhiro: For physical health, having ikigai really helps us to address the physiological burden that we experience and that kind of burden can accumulate. It's almost like tiredness or fatigue that can accumulate with a stressed mind or no ikigai mind.

That can lead to various poor health outcomes, such as cardiovascular disease, or other stress-related headaches, those kinds of things. So, having Ikigai can reduce this burden in your system, and then therefore, reduces the likelihood of those negative outcomes.

Nick: So is that burden you talk about is that allostatic load?

Yasuhiro: Yes. But I think this word doesn't mean anything much to many people, including myself before I learned this word.

Nick: Yes. All right. I had to look it up. And I found a good way to describe it: it is the wear and tear on the body. 

Yasuhiro: Pretty accurate. That's pretty much so. 

Nick: Okay, so lots of fatigue stress. If we have Ikigai, it seems to counter that and help us deal with those health problems. And I think another thing you discovered is that people who do have Ikigai they're more likely to engage in things like exercise and perhaps healthy habits?

Yasuhiro: Yes, healthy habits. Or it can be called self-care behaviors. Ikigai can lead to those healthy self-care behaviors. Makes sense that those who feel like they live their life feeling cohesion, congruence from their life, engage more.

They take care of themselves more and then interact with others. And then interestingly, those healthy behaviors also lead to better mental health.

Nick: So it's like a positive circle just going around and around if you engage in healthy behavior, or if you have Ikigai, you'll engage in healthy behavior. Then if you engage in healthy behavior, you have a better mindset; if you have a better mindset, you probably find more Ikigai, and then you probably do better, healthier things. 

Yasuhiro: Very true. 

Revisiting Ikigai Moments

What are the things that you focus on? Aside from focusing on our future, it's also important to look back on our past experiences, as these may be a source of ikigai -- going back to these meaningful experiences may help give us motivation especially during the trying times of our lives.

Yasuhiro discusses how our memories of past experiences can be helpful whenever we're faced with uncertainties and how they may be a source of ikigai.

Nick: A lot of coaches have a vision board, and it's really only focused on the future. I said, why don't we make an Ikigai board where you have things from your past, your present, and future on this board.

o it could be postcards, or letters or certificates, or photos of past things you're working on now and things that you want in the future. And it can be quite a powerful experience when you go back and you look through old photos or you look through old letters -- it really brings those things back to life.

Yasuhiro: Yeah, I can imagine that. That's a very helpful exercise. Then we need that, it's important to us to look at the vision. But at the same time remembering, revisiting those Ikigai moments or maybe resourceful moments in your life.

I'm feeling that because you need to feel confident, you need to feel doable, you need to feel that you are capable in order to achieve that vision. Sometimes, like, if your boss shows a vision of your team, and you feel so depressed or you feel so not confident, you want to take action toward it.

You need to feel you can do it, you need to feel that the vision is valuable. And to do that, visiting those Ikigai moments is very helpful.

Nick: I guess it's recognizing your capabilities and you realize I'm capable of more. I just don't recognize it because I'm so focused on the future or I'm so focused on negative things.

Yasuhiro: I'm a psychotherapist and I see clients regularly. Then sometimes it's hard for them to remember those times internally, like if I asked them questions and having a conversation really helps in their daily life, for example.

If I give them homework or they visit the Ikigai time of their life, sometimes it's hard because they're distracted in their daily life. And there are lots of external stimuli in their life. And with a depressed mind, they interpret it in a different way. So sometimes it's good to have external objects that can anchor you to that time.

For example, if you have someone who really is caring for you, or there is potential then you can put the picture of that person on your desk, something external that can trigger your experience. I know one example, if you know the baseball player, Ichiro Suzuki.

Nick: Oh, yeah, of course. 

Yasuhiro: One time Ichiro wasn't playing well. This was when he was in the States. He wasn't playing well that year; his wife saw that he was so distressed that his breathing is different at home. Normally, he doesn't talk about baseball at home. But he was only thinking about baseball, at dinner tables, and then his wife brought a picture of Mr. Ogi, the guy who recognized Ichiro's potential. 

And he started to use Ichiro very actively, then, Ichiro bloomed, like in the third year of his professional career. So Ichiro saw this picture, then remembered those ikigai times of his life. Then that day, he hit like four or three hits in the game that he recovered from. And achieved, like 10 straight years of 200 hits per year, something like that.

But that's a good example of ikigai moments, sometimes if your mind is not there, they're hard to remember. But putting objects is then useful to bring them back to the memory. 

Ikigai and Resilience

Sometimes it is also essential that we experience some difficulties in life because, through life challenges, we get to know ourselves better; we get to know what we are capable of; it helps in molding us to become the better versions of ourselves. Are there some challenges that you experienced that made you appreciate and embrace life more? Yasuhiro discusses how people can find meaning in life's challenges.

Nick: One aspect we touched on earlier, and it kind of relates to what we're talking about, I think is resilience. And you're right, the experiences of ikigai are experienced more vividly, when individuals are undergoing some form of crisis, or are facing complex challenges in their lives. 

As I mentioned before, I don't think our audience would know this, but I think, intuitively or from life experience, they probably would know this after overcoming some challenge, or some crisis, we understand something about ourselves.

So we learned something about ourselves. So can you share some knowledge about that?

Yasuhiro: I feel that Ikigai is fit with existential positive psychology. It's also regarded as the second wave of positive psychology that recognizes meaning in life suffering, and your resilience, it's also bouncing back from some difficulties.

And Ikigai is also about finding meaning. It's very good to talk about after we just talked about this intrinsic extrinsic type of motivation, that if you are obsessed with extrinsic presentations, extrinsic instruments, it makes it difficult to digest or appreciate life's difficulties because, to them, it has lost interest in going back. They're losing something. 

But if one sees the meaning, or intrinsic nature of experience, more like Ikigai, they can appreciate that change for what these people may not see as a problem, some learning experience or some different path.

That's where Ikigai, and resilience come across each other. That resilience is also this ability to bounce back from difficulties. And for those who live with ikigai, can appreciate and find meaning in life's difficulties. So that's what we talked about in that section there.

Nick: Do you think a part of it is, when we do overcome a challenge, that we discover our potential, or we discover who we are, because these, I guess challenges, they're not a daily thing.

They might only happen once a year, or some challenges might only happen once or twice or every hard challenge in your life. Sometimes you choose your challenges, right, I want to achieve this.

But you might learn that achieving the goal wasn't what made you happy or satisfied, it was the journey and overcoming challenges and what you learn from it. So it seems like we gain a sense of life satisfaction, but we also discover our potential and we learn something about ourselves that we didn't know existed.

Sense of Purpose in Life Struggles

Does ikigai change over time? We all have unique ikigai; it may depend on what point in our lives we are in. Some factors may influence our ikigai, and one of those is our life experiences. Yasuhiro explains how our life experiences may affect our ikigai.

Nick: This irony to ikigai is I think that when children are very young, they're very good at practicing ikigai because they're not worried about the future or the past.

Then, as we get older, even though we have more life experience, we seem to struggle to find ikigai, but part of struggling I guess, in life can give us this sense of purpose or meaning.

That was a really good interview, because it did remind me that it's experiential, and the more life experience we have, the more we can uncover ikigai sources and feel it. 

Yasuhiro: It's a very good point, Nick. As we grow, our societal adjustment, brain develops, and that may be a part of becoming an adult, but at the same time, we may lose access to our sense, feelings, or our intuitions, those kinds of things. 

And ikigai is based on experience, so I think we need to stay in touch with that part of our brain -- life, the emotions or life sense that we feel. 

I mean, in society, sometimes it's probably helpful or convenient to ignore those feelings, but I think feeling ikigai is more like feeling those sense. I think that's a really important point.

A Love of Learning

Ikigai is focusing on one's self. It is not about seeking approval from other people. It is about continuous growth through the experiences that we have in life. Yasuhiro discusses how ikigai concentrates on a person's whole being: the desire for growth, improvement, and understanding one's self.

Nick: What's become apparent to me is with almost all the people I come into contact with on the subject of ikigai, all of them have a love of learning -- they just love to learn.

I think that ties in with ikigai: this desire for growth, to improve yourself, and also to understand yourself. So I'd like to also quote from this chapter: 

"Both ikigai and transformative education follow a holistic approach, that is looking at individuals as a whole person with their needs, abilities, desires, and resources. Both consider the human being to be a being in development" I love that, "and being capable of learning that can be continuously developed, locate, realign, deconstruct, and reconstruct itself." 

Yes, I really think that highlights that hopefully, we're constantly developing and growing, and we are a whole person. We have needs, abilities, desires, and resources.

I think we try to satisfy that through feeling or uncovering our ikigai and also in pursuing knowledge or seeking to improve ourselves through education.

Yasuhiro: Yeah, very important point. I think ikigai ,in a way, gives us that rail or gives us a path that through living experience, I'm in touch with ikigai. I'm doing something right for me, rather than being compared or measured by other external rulers.

That's not always healthy. For example, comparing yourself to colleagues with a salary you get a hold of or in other things. But with ikigai, we feel that,  okay, now I'm getting this sense of ikigai. So this is probably right for me and for my life, kind of sense.

That's more a holistic view, not that skewed view towards violence, or rank or status, not that kind of thing. More about you, as a whole person, looking at how well you are, and that's, I think, what ikigai can do.

Should Work Be Your Ikigai?

Can we consider our work as our ikigai? People tend to focus on work that they believe is their ikigai. However, engaging with too much work might become a cause of stress itself. Hence, one must not simply rely on work as a source of his/her ikigai.
Yasuhiro talks about why people must find other sources of ikigai aside from work.

Nick: It actually reminded me of this book, Shigoto nanka ikigai ni suru na, and in the book, the author, Kanji Izumiya, talks about how Japan has this tendency to focus too much on work.

He encourages the readers to find other sources of ikigai including the appreciation of art -- appreciation of art, getting outdoors, and even sustainability where you could hunt and grow your own vegetables as a way to find a new ikigai source rather than working yourself to death, which unfortunately, the Japanese are famous for. They have a word for it.. 

Yasuhiro: Karoshi

Nick: I hope you're not doing that.

Yasuhiro: But that's a great book you picked. So the title, its translation is: don't make your work your ikigai; don't make your job your ikigai. I think it's brilliant.

But I think there is a cultural virtue in Japan that is beautiful. If you are a serious, responsible person, your work is your ikigai. I think it's not often healthy and karoshi is the product of it.

Nick: I was just gonna say, it's sort of becoming a problem here, this idea of hustle. In my sort of circle of online entrepreneurs, there is this word hustle going on about, that we hustle, and it's this badge of honour constantly working to start your business up and grow it and people almost pride themselves. 

And while that might be inspiring and beneficial for the initial phase but it will ultimately be going to impact your mental and physical health and impact your most important relationships and priding yourself on overworking is probably not a way to go. Certainly not the way to go for feeling or finding your ikigai.

Yasuhiro: Very true. I think another part of why ikigai is an experiential sense, it's not often shown, expressed in the same way, as other people do.

But for example, in the context of work, your work behaviours are expressed, and then people think that's the way to get ikigai.

But that's, I think, the other way around: people feel ikigai, then behaviours happen. So just coping with behaviours alone doesn't create ikigai for them, they first need to get in touch with a sense of ikigai, then behaviours will happen. 

So I think that the bad case of this karoshi in Japan may be that the founder of the company is full of ikigai, and he works 24/7, and his subordinates or staff see how he works.

That's what feeling passionate means or feeling ikigai means, and then they only copy superficial, visible aspects, without feeling the invisible part, then, of course, that's gonna create mental distress.

The Suffix “Gai”

Some people mistake their ikigai for their work. However, in Japan, they have another term for this: hatarakigai (the sense that one's work is worth doing). The suffix gai (value or worth) can be applied to other verbs to emphasize something of value to someone. Yasuhiro explains how the word gai indicates intrinsic satisfaction or contentment.

Nick: And of course, there's that word hatarakigai from hataraku. So I guess if you want to find meaning and purpose in your work, you really shouldn't relate it to ikigai. You should relate it to hatarakigai. Would that be fair to say?

Yasuhiro: I think so. Yeah. That kind of split or knowing that it is hatarakigai. Yeah. I think it is helpful. It's safer, you don't have to violate your mental health as much like knowing that this is in the work context. Yeah, I think that's a good distinction.

Nick: So do I. I'm sort of going off track but the gai from ikigai can be applied to all these different verbs. I think it makes sense.

We can say things like asobigai, the value of playing, and in Japan, the verb play is not restricted just to children -- adults play when they go out or do things. So I think sort of breaking it down by saying ikigai is what's important to your life, not just your work.

It can be your work, your work can be a part of it, but as Ken Mogi describes it, it's the spectrum of things. We can find value when you.. You touched on oshiegai on our last..

Yasuhiro: Yes.

Nick: This purpose you find in teaching or you have students who are worth teaching, are they what you would say as oshiegai

Yasuhiro: Oshiegai. Yeah, very true. I think psychologically, when you feel this gai, sense of gai, for example oshiegai, you feel that you are already paid off; internally you're satisfied or content.

So when I feel oshiegai, I'm more than happy, I don't need anything more, anything extra, I don't need a payment or anything. This experience satisfied me now -- teaching this person this. Yeah. So that kind of like intrinsic satisfaction or contentment, this word gai means. 

Nick: Well, I'm sure your students when they learn from you, Yasu, have this feeling of manabigai.

Yasuhiro: Thank you. Yeah. I hope so.

Nick: There's value in learning. Because I guess a teacher or a lecturer would make a difference in how they teach. I guess if you have someone inspiring and who has oshiegai that would inspire you to learn.

The Beauty of Cultural Differences

How can one define a complex concept such as ikigai? Ikigai is a term that originated from Japan, but this concept of having one's reason for being is something that is experienced by other cultures as well. For a researcher like Yasuhiro, he finds it more interesting to study ikigai in the context of different cultures. Applying this concept to other cultures made him learn and explore more about it.

Nick: I want to ask, is the complexity of ikigai, this complex concept hard to define, and then it is culturally based. But it is this universal concept.

It seems like it's quite hard to validate or research because it goes back to this problem of how do you define it? How do you identify it? So is that a challenge or frustration for you as a researcher?

Yasuhiro: I think that makes me more interested. I often explore this difference in culture, and I've been fascinated with it. I can see the potential in ikigai research as well, that kind of differences.

Exploring those differences, for me, helps to understand people's different thinking. Especially now, being Japanese living in the UK, for example, knowing this cultural difference helps.

It was the same when I was in the States, understanding Californian culture really helped me to have a good relationship with friends in California. 

I think finding that is very helpful because often, yes, there are similarities but also differences as well as how they have been told what's good, what's bad, and how it's been told, but in different contexts, it can be different, but we don't see other people's life.

We only meet people at one point in life. Of course, conversations don't form as one predicts. Recently, what interested me is that.. so my wife is Dutch and I enjoy our cultural differences as well.

Then talking to her and her mother "weed grows." So in the Dutch language that means, although I think that applies to some other Western contexts as well, that means bad people are always there or you know bad things really grow.

But in the Japanese context, weed is kind of a symbol of resilience, and weed never gets, attention as much as flowers do. But weed, one by one, they easily grow -- it's symbol is very positive.

So in Japanese context, if you say, zassou, it means that you're tough, you're resilient, you thrive without any external reward kind of thing. So that's a good example of culture differences, like in this context, I was so confused, because the weed is something positive.

Nick: That is the beauty of it, cultural differences. Obviously, for me, I lived in Japan for 10 years. So I think one of the most beneficial things you can do is to at least deeply understand one culture different to your own.

Probably one that's very different, and it's life-changing. Look, here I am. No, I'm not Japanese, and I've got this podcast and now I have a business related to ikigai. So Japan has given me so much it's given me some of my best friendships; it's given me a wonderful, beautiful wife. It's changed my life. 

So I think you're right, you learn so much. This idea of a weed has this positive angle of resilience and weeds don't need special attention. They don't need to look beautiful.

That's a great sort of metaphor of how we can approach our own life so that we can persist and be resilient. 

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