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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Trend Alert: The Health Benefits of Forest Bathing
I used to live in Hawaii, on the island of Maui. At least once a month, I would drive a few hours on the winding road around the island and spend a day or two hiking and camping in the rain forest. I would follow a trail, or make my own, weaving through bamboo forests littered with guava fruit and fragrant awapuhi flowers. Eventually, I would find a hidden waterfall [...]
Americans Come Together for a Healthier Future
Every ten years, the U.S. Department of Health and Human services takes a collaborative approach to aligning health institutions from across the country on massive health goals. The initiative is called “Healthy People” and every decade they invite people from a broad variety of health institutions to collaborate on identifying the most important health goals for the U.S. and to set measurable targets that we can work towards to make [...]
The Evidence for Spa
The Global Spa Summit has just launched a new website, http://www.spaevidence.com, which serves as a portal into databases of medical research on spa and wellness therapies. From my years in the spa industry, I can tell you that the people behind this industry passionately believe in the services they offer and their potential impact on human wellbeing. I can also tell you, that the spa industry has not been taken [...]
Dissecting the Spirit in Body, Mind, Spirit
In a previous article, I wrote about “Science and Spirituality in the Spa.” I recognized the trend in the spa industry to become more scientific and evidence-based, but I cautioned that spas should perhaps move towards spirituality and not towards science. After all, we already have a massive health care industry that is looking at health care scientifically, but we have very few entities in our society that look at [...]
Personal Biological Monitoring: The Future of Health Diagnostics
Two weeks ago, I attended the Global Spa Summit in Bali, Indonesia, where spa and wellness leaders from around the world gathered together to discuss trends for the future of wellness. One surprising trend that came up again and again in multiple sessions during the summit was the concept of personal biological monitoring—people using technology to keep track of their own health metrics. Traditionally, we have left all health diagnosis [...]
10 Questions with Jeremy McCarthy
I was recently interviewed for a blog article by my friends at Spa Developments , a global spa consulting and design firm. Since I’m traveling in Asia and haven’t had time to write an article for this week, I thought I would publish this interview and give TPOW readers a chance to get to know me a bit more. Next week we will return to our regularly scheduled programming! Jeremy [...]
Spas Could Lead the Way in the Art and Science of Healing
I am proud to welcome Sara Firman, BSc. MPhil. LMT, to The Psychology of Wellbeing. She is an independent spa therapist, consultant and writer who shares a her wonderful perspective on spa culture on her Vision Spa Retreat blog. Her unique perspective comes from working in clinical, spa and private settings as both a therapist and a manager in the U.K., Israel and the U.S. When I was writing my blog post on “The Science [...]
Choose Loving Kindness
I am so excited to welcome Marcello Spinella, Ph.D. as a guest blogger on The Psychology of Wellbeing. He is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. I have come to know, admire and respect him for his incredibly knowledgeable and insightful postings on the “Friends of Positive Psychology” listserv. He has become my “go to” person for any questions in the areas of [...]
Haptics: The New Science of Touch
Good news for the spa industry: The science of touch is exploding. Through my own work in the spa world, I’ve always been an advocate of getting more science to support the work of healing through touch. Previously on this blog, I’ve had articles about the effects of massage on health (see “Get Thee to a Spa: Important New Research on the Benefits of Massage,”) the healing effect of “kangaroo [...]
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