The holiday season and the New Year can be pretty stressful, but this time of year provides us with some ideal opportunities for savoring – noticing, appreciating, and enhancing the things which are already positive in our lives – and there is nothing easier to do. The rules of savoring are simple to follow, and you don’t need any special skills or equipment. In fact anyone, young or old, rich or poor, can learn how to savor and reap the benefits.

What should we expect when we lose someone who is important to us? Is there an evolutionary purpose for sadness? What does it mean that people also laugh at funerals? What distinguishes resilient mourning?

The 5th European Positive Psychology Conference took place this week in Copenhagen, Denmark on June 23-26 2010. This article covers addresses on June 25 by Professor Wilmar Schaufeli on employee engagement, by Professor Henrik Hans Knoop on well-being at society as well as individual levels, and Professor Willibald Ruch on humor and a related intervention.

My dear friend, even though I do not write for Cosmo magazine, my advice truly could reignite passion and connection in your relationship. In my five years of post-divorce dating, I have gathered valuable information …

For years, I have seen men roll their eyes and exclaim, “Women! I’ll never understand them!” I have always been at a loss for how to respond to this outburst, since I have always found …

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.

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.

Cruised any politics related web sites recently? Seen any angry, sarcastic, personal attacks wrapped in "humor"? I suspect that for many participants, 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.

In a study we conducted with high school freshmen and seniors from the Midwest, we found that humor and playfulness, along with curiosity and humility, were predictors of pleasure as a pathway to happiness. We also found that humor was highly endorsed by students. But humor can have a dark side. Several years ago, one of my students, Jason, was dismissed from an athletic team for showing disrespect to other players and the head coach with constant, sarcastic humor. [...]

If I wanted one indicator of the health of a workplace, it would be how much people laugh. In addition to smoke detectors, we need to invent laugh-o-meters so we can celebrate laughter and realize when we are starting to take ourselves too seriously. …