" The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him. "


Posts tagged with 'positive psychology'

Three good books: “Positivity”, “The Compassionate Mind” & “The Spirit Level”

3rd May 2009

Here are three good, recently published books that are all highly relevant to the fields of stress, health & wellbeing. "Positivity" by Barbara Fredrickson (see below) is subtitled, a little breathlessly - "Groundbreaking research reveals how to embrace the hidden strength of positive emotions, overcome negativity, and thrive." Actually Professor …

Recent research: five papers on feeling good & improved functioning, on meaning & wellbeing, and on happy memories,

12th February 2009

I seem to be making a habit this month of focusing on a specific journal when posting the weekly report on interesting recent research. Last week it was the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology . This week it's the Journal of Positive Psychology . To quote the Journal's website: …

New Year’s resolution – would you like to be happier?

28th December 2008

So here's a blast from the past ... that could be fun and useful for a New Year's resolution. I first came across Michael Fordyce's research year's ago (Fordyce 1977; Fordyce 1983). It was probably the first serious scientific exploration of how to help people become happier that I'd ever …

Recent research: four happiness studies on traditional advice, health benefits, and the particular value of safety & contentment

16th October 2008

It seemed time to post on recent research involving happiness and wellbeing. Here are four studies from the current issues of the Journal of Happiness Studies (the September edition is open access with all full articles freely viewable) and the Journal of Positive Psychology. Ad Bergsma discusses advice on how …

Ways to happiness and life satisfaction

11th April 2008

On April 9 I wrote "On the fine Authentic Happiness website, Seligman and colleagues discuss three entwining roads to happiness and what they call "the full life". One of these three roads is maximising and appreciating positive emotions - very much the territory of savouring." Do visit the Authentic Happiness …

Savouring, mindfulness & flow

9th April 2008

In a post on 27 January I wrote about "savouring" - the appreciation of positive experiences. Savouring is, as it's name suggests, a sort of running the positive experience around in one's mouth, really tasting, valuing and enjoying it - a bit like slow, careful appreciation of a good wine. …

Keeping up with relevant research

7th February 2008

I spend about three hours weekly scanning medical and psychological journals on the internet. Typically I zoom through the article titles looking for anything relevant to stress, health & wellbeing. If something seems interesting, I read the article's abstract. I may well then download it to my bibliographic database - …

Some interesting articles from January ‘08

2nd February 2008

Here are details and links for a couple of dozen January articles that I found interesting. Most of these articles (and many others) are also listed on my searchable online Connotea database. Adam, J. G., R. Rick, et al. (2008). "A Randomized Controlled Trial of D-Cycloserine Enhancement of Exposure Therapy …

Savouring – initial thoughts

27th January 2008

Back in my post of January 5, I mentioned that I was looking at Sonja Lyubomirsky's book "The How of Happiness". On pages 73 to 77 of the book she describes a ‘person-fit' exercise to help readers decide which happiness-boosting activities to work with initially. I came up with a …

Sonja Lyubomirsky and "The How of Happiness"

5th January 2008

The postman delivered piles of post-holiday letters and parcels yesterday. In amongst the late Christmas presents and even a late Christmas card, was a book I had ordered called “The How of Happiness” by Sonja Lyubomirsky. I spent half an hour browsing through it in the evening. It looks good. …