Usually, the difficulty resides not in understanding why we should exercise, but in finding and maintaining the motivation to get it done. If you need extra help committing to an exercise routine, here are my top 10 recommendations, based on positive psychology research, to help you overcome the challenge.

I urge all positive psychologists – especially the younger generation – to investigate this and to build greater communion and understanding between the traditions of thought in the East and the West. ~ Alex Linley. In Part 2 of the interview, we try to learn more from the experience of Alex Linley on how to promote, apply, and amplify positive psychology in a widened sense.

“Realizing strengths, in my view, is the smallest thing that you can do to make the biggest difference.”
~ Alex Linley
I first met Alex when he gave a speech in my positive psychology class in Aston Business School. Since he is the one who led me to the world of Positive Psychology, this interview has special meaning.

Maybe it’s because I live in Nashville (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it!), but I keep finding great expressions of positive psychology principles in country music. One recent example is Dierks Bentley’s What Was I Thinking?.

Perhaps you are a coach working with corporate or individual clients, perhaps you are a manager working with a team of employees, or perhaps you are a parent of a teenager. In every role, you will likely find the Strengths Cart Sort a practical tool to help others understand, own, and apply their strengths.

Last week, I had the extraordinary privilege of hearing J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter mega-series, deliver an electrifying commencement speech at Harvard University to a sold-out, standing room only audience of young and adult alike. Although I knew she’d be entertaining, I had no idea how profound Rowling’s talk would be, nor how tightly entwined her speech would be with the themes and message of Positive Psychology.

Richard Davidson is a neuroscientist who uses brain imaging to study behavior and emotion. He claims, “Social and emotional learning changes the brain,” and “We can change the brain by training the mind.” Social and emotional learning is a process by which people become better at understanding and managing emotions and learn how emotions impact the choices they make, the relationships they have, and their outlook in life.

In education there are a number of cookbooks. They serve the same purpose as kitchen cookbooks (attempting to guarantee a consistent outcome) and are bound by the same limitations. However, in an education system under fire, cookbook education can sometimes rightly be seen by administrators as the most easily defensible program a system can take.

Here at Positive Psychology News Daily (PPND), we have been thinking about how to make the incredible content from our various authors come together and be manageable for you to be able to go back to older articles.

We have created the first of many Image Maps.

Here is what will happen to you when you read George Vaillant’s book, Spiritual Evolution: During the chapter “Joy,” you may cry. During the chapter “Love,” you will want to call home to say Hi. You will be inside a colossal head fake – a situation in which you’re learning but it seems like you’re playing.