This week I attended the International Positive Psychology Association World Congress, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As you might imagine, it has been almost overwhelming with a variety of talks regarding the state of positive psychology today and workshops covering specific research that has been done or application of the science to a variety of domains. Here […]
“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.” — Blaise Pascal No longer the exclusive domain of Buddhist monks and new age hippies, meditation is going mainstream. The newfound popularity of meditation is driven by a slew of new research in both psychology and neuroscience supporting the practice […]
The playing field isn’t level. Research shows that, all things considered, negative emotions have an unfair advantage over us, grabbing and holding our attention more easily. We spend much of our time handling problems and figure that happiness will pop up on its own when the time is right. Our inherent putting-out-fires approach to life […]
I’ve been inspired recently by some news stories of people pursuing very athletic endeavors into their later years. For example, the cover of a recent Washington Post magazine featured Ernestine Shepherd (and her six pack of abs.) Ernestine is the oldest competitive bodybuilder in the world (at age 74.) The best quote from the article […]
Recently I wrote an article on the positive psychology of zombies, and I immediately realized that I was only telling half the story. I argued that the popularity and appeal of zombies was due to their perseverance. Unlike other mythical horror creatures, the zombies do not have super human powers or weapons to destroy their […]
