Positive Feelings

This issue of the MAPP Magazine introduces the new magazine staff for the magazine with articles about their passion areas: Abi Tschetter writes about the power of personal narratives, Pax Tandon about the directions she thinks positive psychology should take, Mark O’Brien about a deeply personal experience of post-traumatic growth, and Kimberly Dickman about the importance of touch.

While feeling stressed may be an appropriate reaction to the pandemic, fight for racial justice, and contentious election, the fact that we have powerful inner resources called character strengths can help us cope with these adversity. Here are three constructive actions your strengths can help us do in the face of today’s challenges. Strengths can be a source of hope.

Add positivity, healthy awareness, and joy to your life with a free online resource sponsored by the Penn Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) Alumni Association. Along with the goal of helping people find more joy in the moment, the team also wants to help people apply positivity in order to fight infection, thereby lessening the risk of disease and enhancing the ability to thrive.

In the face of the sadness and worry of the coronavirus pandemic, I encourage you to create a digital Positive Portfolio on your smartphone: This is a folder attached to your home screen where you consciously assemble artifacts, such as photos, videos, and music, that evoke memories of special positive valence.

Instead of trying to maintain a beautiful veneer and optimize our performance under the current circumstances, I would like to recommend to open-minded readers something entirely different: cultivate a stance of self-compassion. We don´t need to pretend we have everything under control. We don´t have to be perfect.

Studies have revealed that not only are physical, mental, and social well-being important components for total health, but they are tightly interrelated. The evidence also shows that a happy, engaged, and fulfilling psychological and social life is not just a consequence of good health. It leads people to live a healthy and long life. Medical providers, patients and their families need positive medicine.

How does positive psychology bring together ecopsychology and transpersonal psychology? What can we do to use this convergence to enhance well-being and connection?

Mud and Dreams is a book to be savored completely and often. In this day and age, it is a welcome reminder that not only are we “hybrid creatures, both mud and dreams,” but also that our dual nature is something to celebrate and rejoice in, as it is our very gift of humanity that lets us fall deeply in love with life and all it has to offer.

Watch on YouTube Hi, I’m Carin Rockind. Welcome to PPN Bites, where we give you 60-second helpings of the Positive Psychology News you need to know. Humans are great at…

Watch on YouTube Hi, I’m Carin Rockind. Welcome to PPN Bites where we give you 60-second helpings of the positive psychology news you need to know. Truth be told, I’ve…

Watch on YouTube Hi, I’m Carin Rockind, welcome to PPN Bites, where we give you 60-second helpings of the positive psychology news you need to know. So it’s long been…

We interviewed Carin Rockind on our most recent PPND Webinar on October 17th, 2018. Carin Rockind is the leading happiness expert and the founder of PurposeGirl, a movement to empower purpose-driven living.…

Watch on YouTube Hi, I’m Carin Rockind. Welcome to PPN Bites, where we give you 60-second helpings of the positive psychology news you need to know. Last year during the…

Tal Ben-Shahar, researcher, positive psychologist and Harvard professor, has proven and shown that perfectionism is a leading cause of unhappiness. A 2017 study shows that perfectionism has actually only increased over the last 30 years.

ANNOUNCEMENT:  On July 18, we will have a Positive Psychology News webinar featuring George E. Vaillant, M.D. discussing the REAL difference between happiness and joy.

Is there a connection between mothers working outside the home and adolescent depression? What emerged when I studied this question surprised me. It appeared that children of mothers with rewarding careers are actually doing quite well. However children with mothers who are depressed, working or not, are at a much greater risk for adolescent depression. In my quest to help working mothers find well-being, I have found numerous simple mechanisms that working mothers can use to improve their daily experience, thereby reducing the risk of depression in themselves and their children..

Researchers have long talked about the good of savoring. Recent research that came out in 2018 also shows that savoring the past can help with being optimistic about the future.

So my friends, it seems we are wired to feel good when we smile and when we share smiles and laughter with others. So laugh away on April Fool’s Day and every day because, after all, laughter is the best medicine for health and vitality.

As we grow wiser, we begin to understand that we are the only ones truly responsible for our own happiness. So today, on the 2018 International Day of Happiness, here are three simple actions to elevate your well-being.

Employing tools from aviation can allow people to take charge of their lives and pilot successful futures. Embracing your life with eyes wide open allows you to design your own life story, full of appreciation, gratitude, and awe.