Mindfulness

How do you want to feel in your life? In your work? Doug Newburg interviewed hundreds of world-class performers, including athletes, business leaders, artists, and surgeons, to find out what made them tick. A consistent pattern emerged from their stories.

For individuals going through divorce, a main concern is how to effectively deal with stress. Their transitional states of life often leave them feeling powerless, scared, and depressed. … Mindfulness is an important part of the work I do with clients. Specifically, I help train them to adopt a mindful approach to life circumstances that are largely outside of their control. Within this framework, I introduce changing one’s thoughts in order to change the resulting feeling or behavior. …

Meditation practice may still be viewed by some as a relic of 1960’s counter-culture or a sequestered religious practice to attain “enlightenment.” But scientists now seriously study mindfulness practices, and report a wide range of interesting findings. How does meditation work, and how best can coaches bring this research to our clients?

In 1845, Thoreau went to live for three months in the woods near Walden Pond. When asked why, he responded, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived… I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…”

Further evidence about health and illness is changing. Strengths and their dark side, mindfulness and pain, our bodies and our world. The old dichotomies are blurring. The line between the body and mind is increasingly shown to be of our making and not a reflection of how we function.

It is possible to achieve a great deal of contentment and peace with your spouse if you practice mindfulness in your relationship. What does this look like? In my last article, I stated that mindfulness is “attending nonjudgmentally to all stimuli in the internal and external environments,” and it turns out that this is arguably the greatest pathway to satisfaction in relationships.

Want ideas for what to do with your sweetie on Valentine’s Day?

“Loving, selective, enduring attachment… scientists find such love difficult to talk about,” says Dr. George Vaillant, renown psychiatrist and author. Love as noun is hard to measure. Love as a verb or an action is more tangible. Here are some actions you can take tomorrow, based on positive psychology. You can share these with your partner, friend, or family member: the strengths date, savoring, partner yoga, gratitude, and a strengths gift. […]

It seems like every time I turn around nowadays I hear another reference to mindfulness. The idea is catching on in psychotherapy, … and in increasing physical health. I’m not sure we all mean the same thing when we talk about mindfulness, though, and my intention with this article is to propose a straightforward definition so that we are all speaking the same language.

For researchers who want to collaborate on a broad study of wellbeing over time: the Wellbeing Study team is seeking collaborators who are willing to promote the study in their own countries or with specific populations in return for access to interesting data. Read further for the information about the study duration, planned measures, and how you can contribute.

You cultivate three things in the process of building a Gratitude Chain™: awareness of what and for whom you are grateful, curiosity about what makes something you value possible, and memory of what is good. And when you link together your Gratitude Chains™, you experience a powerful appreciation of the important people and things in your life.

Recently married, I have had cause to write numerous thank you notes lately. And with the holidays coming up, we will all have reasons to thank people for gifts. We know that Miss Manners insists that we write thank you notes, but aside from common courtesy, what are the benefits of thank you notes?

What separates people who achieve lofty goals from people who procrastinate with even simple things? Creating Your Best Life: The Ultimate Life List Guide is the best and most comprehensive resource I have come across on this topic.

What helps in times of adversity? First, we can build better personal strategies for dealing with trouble if we understand how to calm our bodies. Second, we can keep our minds from being totally filled with thoughts of the adversity. Third, we be aware of our ordinary assets.

I live in New York City. Perhaps because it is the financial capital of the world, anxiety about the economy is everywhere. In Starbucks people sit grimly reading the Wall Street Journal and the patois overheard is about Lehman Brothers, AIG and bailouts. With every lurching move of the Dow, you can feel the collective panic or collective sighs of relief. In this environment how can positive psychology help?

Movies can be an instrument of positive psychology. In a manner different from other art forms, they teach, guide, and inspire the awareness of and expression of character strengths and virtues. Walt Disney said that movies find a way to touch the “unspoiled spot” within us. Ingmar Bergman noted that movies can reach the dark inner recesses of our souls. Movies help us, the viewers, to connect with “the sacred” that is within us.

Dr. Richard J. Davidson said, “I am committed to putting compassion on the scientific map.”

This heightened interest in compassion is also occurring in organizations, where people are paying more attention to how compassion can build thriving workplaces […]

Your brain has a mind of its own – a cartographer. Every action, thought, memory, habit, talent, and trouble is recorded in the firing pattern of neural networks in your brain. Why is a bad habit so hard to break? Why is the electric slide effortless for some and befuddling to others, no matter how hot the disco? Dr. Norman Doidge’s book “The Brain that Changes Itself” chronicles the history of neuroplasticity (the brain changing itself).

Nearly all of us have had the sudden awareness that while we have been driving along, sometimes for many miles, we have not been paying attention. How did I get…