STOP Asking "How Are You?"—It’s Ruining Your Conversations!

Key takeaway

• Small, common “social script” questions like “How are you?” and “What do you do for a living?” can lead to low engagement and emotional distance, because they don’t meaningfully activate the other person’s positive internal state.

Conversation strategy (emotion-activating questions)

The video suggests shifting from generic, low-stimulation prompts to questions that help the other person recall positive experiences.

• Replace: “How are you?”
• Use instead prompts like:
  • “Have you worked on anything exciting lately?”

General idea: Ask questions designed to trigger positive emotion rather than neutral check-ins.

Why this works (brain + dopamine)

• Generic questions don’t reliably generate pleasure or engagement.
• Positive-oriented questions help the brain:
  • Search for “successes” and rewarding memories rather than stressors.
  • Activate dopamine verbally, creating a “mental sticky note.”
• Result:
  • The person feels more pleasure/engagement in the conversation.
  • You become more memorable to them.

Self-care / social wellness implication

• Better conversations can be framed as a wellness-friendly social practice: encouraging genuine positive emotion exchange rather than default autopilot small talk.

Presenters / Sources

• Dr. John Medina