Health

In sports and other major league efforts, positive psychology can help all of us deal with an inescapable reality: Bad situations happen. Those that can rise above bad situations are able to perform not by getting rid of bad feelings, but by doing what they do in the presence of negative thoughts and feelings without letting them get in the way.

Interested in positive psychology? Join us for the 9th European Conference on Positive Psychology (ECPP) and preconference meetings. The conference will take place in Budapest, Hungary, from June 26 through June 30. Luminaries in the field will explore the conference theme, “Positive psychology for a flourishing Europe in times of transition.”

If you or someone you know is going through any kind of major challenge during this holiday season you might want to read these five easy actions to help reduce holiday stress. Better yet, share this post with your friends and family and then figure out something simple that you can do together to make the holidays meaningful.

A heartwarming, delightful, and profound new HBO documentary, If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast, highlights amazing people living and thriving into their 90s and 100s!

Including psychological well-being in a company’s health promotion effort can take you from basic wellness to greater overall well-being. It helps us do more, and do it better.

A few months ago I explored the relationship between health outcomes and explanatory style in 200 executives, including 119 men and 81 women from the main companies in Peru. I divided the executives into two groups based on the Seligman’s Attributional Style Questionnaire: those with predominately optimistic explanatory styles and those with predominately pessimistic explanatory styles. Then I looked at the way their explanatory styles related to two variables of health.

Positive Psychology News (PPND) published its first article, What is Positive Psychology? by Senia Maymin on January 1, 2007. In the 10 years since then, PPND has published more than 1350 articles by nearly 150 different authors. That is a lot of points of view on bringing positive psychology to work in many different life circumstances.

The lovely city of Angers, France hosted the eighth European Conference on Positive Psychology (ECPP). Angers has been voted the “happiest city in France.” It was certainly easy for conference attendees to be happy in Angers. Happy and stimulated, we learned about red-cape and green-cape interventions, about heroism and heroic leadership, and much much more.

I confess I have not always been a fan of saving the best for last. I certainly would have failed the famous marshmallow test. With time, I have come to recognize and value this conventional wisdom in practice. In sports, in business, or in our relationships, the winners are declared only at the end.

Barbara Fredrickson opened the first full day of the Canadian Positive Psychology Association conference with the question, “Why is it important to prioritize positivity?” Then she proceeded to answer her question, extending the messages she has conveyed in past conferences with some very pragmatic reflections on putting research findings into daily practice.

The United Nations has 17 sustainable development goals that create a broad vision of a positive future. In service of these goals, Kunal Sood intends to have a positive effect on the lives of a billion people by combining technology and entrepreneurship. Whether or not you think as big as Kunal does, there are things you can do on a daily basis to move us toward a positive future.

I’ve shared some takeaways from the first half of Caroline Webb’s new book. I hope you can see the value that she is imparting to her readers. She goes on to talk about how to be “your smartest, wisest, most creative self” and how to have impact and influence in what you say and do.

Dear reader, let’s think together: What would happen if you are disconnected from your job or studies right now? Who would you be then, and how would you spend your time? How would you see your roles in life beyond the context of work/study, and who are the important people to you?

Stress is subjectively experienced. Individual differences influence how each employee interacts within their workplace and perceive and manage stress. Each individual sees stress through a different lens.

Like all New Year’s resolutions, it’s going to be a journey where there’s no guarantee of success. But something tells me that it is in embracing every part of my experience that I can move freely through the yin and yang of life.

Happiness is a choice, but most importantly, happiness can be taught. Join best-selling author Shawn Achor as he teaches you how to choose happiness for yourself, then multiply it by spreading positivity and optimism to others in this transformational two-part online course.

Infatuation with speed is a characteristic of our times. We live in the fastest phase of human history. That can lead to what Larry Dossey in 1982 termed time-sickness, as we become fearful of missing out. The ability to stay with the discomfort of life’s paradoxes and our own ignorance and to remain patient and still while questions and answers grow in never-ending cycles, requires a certain mental toughness that seems to be on its way out in a world in a hurry.

On Sunday morning at the IPPA World Congress, I heard Barbara Fredrickson give a keynote address about a fundamental challenge of our time, helping people build healthy habits. She suggested that finding enjoyment in healthy behaviors can create an upward spiral. Liking leads to wanting. Wanting affects the spontaneous thoughts that pop up in peoples’ minds. Those thoughts lead to small choices that affect health. Imagine my amazement when I saw her positivity spiral in action in the airport food court just a few hours later.

The benefits of physical activity for mental health are well-known, but for some people the word exercise summons up images of sweaty discomfort. Walking is a gentle form of exercise that has the advantage of getting you out into the great outdoors.

Rosalind Turner and I are facilitating a walk for well-being on Sunday 17th May as part of Bristol Walk Fest. Come join us, or perhaps you can get something organized where you live.

If oxytocin helps inhibit fear, and fear keeps us from exercise, can higher levels of oxytocin lead to more physical activity?