What kind of conversations do the happiest people have? That’s the question researchers asked in a study published in Psychological Science. They found that the happiest people had twice as many meaningful conversations (discussing philosophy or current events) and engaged in one-third as much small talk (talking about the weather or traffic) as the unhappiest people. Get in the habit of talking about what’s meaningful to you—and you’ll feel better for it.

Everywhere you look these days, people have their heads down—“talking” with others by typing on their devices. This is the illusion of companionship, writes Sherry Turkle, psychologist and professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in The New York Times article “The Flight From Conversation.” She recommends that people “make room” for conversation. “…We need to remember—in between texts and e-mails and Facebook posts—to listen to one another, even to the boring bits, because it is often in unedited moments, moments in which we hesitate and stutter and go silent, that we reveal ourselves to one another.” Go start a conversation—a real one.

This is one of the rules in Harriet Lerner’s new book, Marriage Rules (Gotham), but we think it applies to difficult conversations of all kinds. Dr. Lerner says that people tend to talk too much when they are trying to make a point and want to feel understood. Instead, she suggests making a point in just three sentences. You might find that people listen better when you say less.