positive thinking

Can You Really Be Happier In 30 Days?

How do you describe happiness? Is it being bubbly all the time or having a constant smile on your face? When researchers look at happiness they look at two different things: a person’s emotional state – do they feel like they are experiencing more positive emotions than negative emotions? – and how they look at [...]

5 Science-backed Strategies To Build Resilience

Flickr Images Even for the relatively self-aware and emotionally adept, struggles can take us by surprise. But learning healthy ways to move through adversity—a collection of skills that researchers call resilience—can help us cope better and recover more quickly, or at least start heading in that direction. 1. Change the narrative When something [...]

5 Proven Truths About Finding Happiness

Pixabay Images Happiness is a state we all want to achieve, but it often seems elusive. Have you ever felt happy one moment and then thought that it won’t last, which makes you feel less happy in the next moment? How frustrating is that? What is happiness? Is it a state of mind, a mood, or a way [...]

Personality Influences Lifespan As Much As Socio-economic Status

Giuseppe Lami/EPA On this day in 1930, the Mother Superior of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sent a letter asking every member of the sisterhood to write an autobiography. She offered few further instructions, and so left it up to each member of the order to decide how to [...]

The ‘Tyranny’ Of Positive Thinking Can Threaten Your Health And Happiness

Images: MichaelBlann/Getty Everyone has heard “Just look on the bright side!” or “Happiness is a choice—so choose to be happy!” Countless self-help books on choosing happiness line the shelves of bookstores; You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero has been on the New York Times best-seller list for 32 weeks; and The Power of [...]

Don’t Try To Be Happy. We’re Programmed To Be Dissatisfied.

Flickr Images In the 1990s, a psychologist named Martin Seligman led the positive psychology movement, which placed the study of human happiness squarely at the centre of psychology research and theory. It continued a trend that began in the 1960s with humanistic and existential psychology, which emphasized the importance of reaching one’s innate [...]

Tackling Negative Self-talk In Youth

Flikr Images The power of self-talk Every day we interpret what is happening around us, to us and within us. Our inner voice plays a huge part in how we understand our experiences and this inner voice is often described as ‘self-talk’. Our self-talk is often guided by our assumptions and beliefs and [...]

10 Tips To Tackle Unhelpful Thinking Patterns

Flikr Images Have you ever been puzzled by a young person’s reaction to a good exam result, feel that they were exaggerating, or were jumping to conclusions? Unhelpful thinking styles could be a factor. The way a young person unconsciously thinks and evaluates the world impacts how they feel at any given moment. [...]

Our Sinister, Soul-sapping Happiness Industry

Pixabay Images On a recent sodden weekend walk, I tried to cheer myself up by thinking: it’s not so bad. Not the slugs or the sky or the rain making its way down a gap between neck and waterproof. But I couldn’t do it. Losing heart, I turned back. Glump, glump, glump through the [...]

I Think A Bullet Might Hurt A Little Bit Less Than This Loneliness: The Instagram Fad Normalising Suicidal Yearnings As Fashionable

Instagram Suicide-themed captions crafted by girls are attracting hundreds of teen and tween girls. However there are almost no responses encouraging the distressed and possibly at-risk girl to call ‘000’, a kids’ help hotline or even asking ‘RUOK?’ Instead, adoring fans applaud with ‘likes’, approving comments and a shower of emoticon hearts before [...]

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