Questions about the economy have consumed the world media of the past few years. We ask, “what is wrong with the economy?” and “How can it be fixed?” But few people have asked the question we should be asking . .. “What’s the economy for, anyway?” This is the question that authors John De Graaf and David K. Batker ask in their new book (aptly titled,) “What’s the Economy For [...]
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Filling the Limbic Void: On the Evolution of Love
It’s Valentine’s Day and love is in the air! I thought today would be a good day to explain why there is a heart in the middle of The Psychology of Wellbeing logo. The atom symbol, of course, represents science, to convey the fact that this blog is generally based on a spirit of scientific inquiry towards wellbeing (i.e. not just about sharing personal beliefs and stories but rather considering [...]
Finding Wellbeing on Facebook
“If we only wanted to be happy it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.” –Montesquieu (from “The Anti-Social Network” on Slate.com) Recent research out of Stanford University’s psychology department has stimulated a lot of theories that Facebook could be making us all miserable. The reason? Facebook makes us victims of social [...]
You Could Lose It All
Three weeks ago, my wife and I welcomed our new son, Max, into the world. Now that mommy and baby are both home, healthy and happy, I can admit something that I didn’t tell my wife during the delivery . . . I was terrified. While I was excited to meet my new son, I couldn’t help but think of all the things that could go wrong. We had a [...]
The Yoga World Gets Judgmental
The yoga blogosphere (yogosphere?) has been abuzz the past week debating two recent controversies that boiled up on the internet. The first one stemmed from a New York Times article written by William J. Broad, entitled, “How Yoga can Wreck Your Body” (which was excerpted from his soon to be released book on “The Science of Yoga: The Risks and the Rewards.”) The article reads like an exposé on yoga’s [...]
Face, Butt, Wit: Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places
This article was also published today on Positive Psychology News Daily. I previously wrote an article about Sam Sommers’ new book, Situations Matter (see Why Men are better than Women at Math.) But I liked this book so much that I agreed to write a second article in order to participate in their online book tour traveling around the internet (cool idea.) The theme of the book is about the [...]
Sleep, Food, Mood, Exercise: Four Keys to Vibrant Health
When I subtitled my blog, “musings on the science of holistic wellness,” I did so because I believe that any strategy to improve human wellbeing has to look at things holistically. By this I mean nothing can be taken in isolation. Humans are complex and our wellbeing is affected by things that happen in many domains in our life. (Stanford Professor Richard Zare said it well: “real problems are rarely [...]
The Peaks of Parenting
Any day now, my wife Catherine and I are expecting the birth of our second son. It is a bit nerve wracking since the first pregnancy was somewhat difficult. But our son Dylan has been an absolute joy and we have loved inviting him into our lives. Our plan is to stop at two, so I was somewhat taken aback when I saw this new study showing that the secret to [...]
The Psychology of Wellbeing Best of 2011
These were some of my favorite articles of the year (in case you missed ‘em!) The First Rule of Happiness: You Do Not Talk About Happiness If you saw the movie Fight Club, you may remember Brad Pitt as the colorful Tyler Durden, sharing the rules of Fight Club: “The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.” (The second rule, by the way, is “you [...]
The Psychology of Wellbeing Blog Honor Roll
The Psychology of Wellbeing would not be what it is without the inspiration of other bloggers out there. These are the blogs that spark my creativity and make me want to become a part of the larger blogging community: “The Good Life” by Chris Peterson. Chris is just a great story teller. He talks about research from the field of positive psychology but he has a knack for making it [...]
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