Last week I saw (from the first row, and in 3-D) Disney Pixar’s Up , an animated film about life, adventure, and friendship. The film certainly pulled on my heart strings in a very “other-people-matter” positive-psychology way. The film also speaks to this month’s theme of fun and play. [...]

Are you a victim of sleep debt? If changing just one of your daily habits was enough to make you more alert, efficient, energetic, productive and motivated, would you implement that change? Here’s what you can do about it….

Something happens to many people when they hit adulthood. Life becomes serious. It loses that lightness and freedom it had during childhood. It is a choice (conscious or unconscious) that adults make based on how they interpret what happens to them and the actions they take.

Laughter is a powerful way to bring that lightness of being back into one’s life.

Who was it that said that the family which eats together stays together?

Sharing a meal with family or friends is as much a social event as it is a nutritional one. In some reports, shared meals are recognized as a sign of a strong social unit.

If changing just one of your daily habits was enough to make you more alert, efficient, energetic, productive and motivated, would you implement that change? This month’s theme is about humor, play and fun – an appealing concept, but often far removed from our over-scheduled, chronically demanding, not-enough-hours-in-the-day lives. According to William Dement, illustrious discoverer of REM sleep, “Sleep deprivation is the most common brain impairment.” University of Pennsylvania fatigue expert David Dinges reinforces: chronic sleep loss degrades nearly every aspect of human performance, including the ability to receive, process and act on information, he warns.

Cruised any politics related web sites recently? Seen any angry, sarcastic, personal attacks wrapped in "humor"?

I suspect that, for many participants, both readers and bloggers, there are very real consequences.

What to do? I have two suggestions, one from my political experience and one from that great political philosopher, Walt Disney. [...]

Looking back on my sessions with clients, I notice that I find humor and laughter refreshing and it helps strengthen the bond I feel with my clients. Recently after an intake with a new client, my supervisor said, “I heard a lot of laughter in your office. Must have been a good session.” Sometimes my clients bring humor into the session, lightly poking fun at themselves. Other times, I use gentle humor to help bring awareness to issues with which they’ve been struggling. Humor can be useful in therapy in two ways – as an assessment tool and as a therapeutic tool. … There are many ways to use humor in counseling without needing to be a comedian. [...]

While walking to join a few friends yesterday evening at dusk, I passed through a lush green park in the center of Philadelphia. I was lost in my own head, contemplating the many interesting topics presented at the First World Congress on Positive Psychology of the International Positive Psychology Association (IPPA) this past weekend. As I stepped softly through the grass in the approaching darkness of the evening sky, a light suddenly caught my eye. Waist-level beside me, hovering in the summer air, was a firefly.