I fell in love with my wife while I was studying Applied Positive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. It may be that these two events occurring simultaneously were a coincidence, but I actually think they are related in a deep way. I was studying things like the importance of positive relationships to health and […]
“This is your day,” people would tell us when we got married (last week) “forget about everybody else.” This is a common piece of wisdom that friends and family members will tell the bride and groom, who often find themselves spending more time and energy worrying about their guests’ enjoyment than they do enjoying their […]
“First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.” From the time we are ten years old, we learn that this is the way things are supposed to go. But it doesn’t always work out that way. For some people, the baby comes first. At the end of February, I’ll […]
It was the first week of the Master of Applied Positive Psychology graduate school program at University of Pennsylvania when I met George Vaillant, who would be one of our guest lecturers. I was excited to meet him because, working in the spa industry, I was a big fan of his book “Aging Well,” a […]
SkyNews(think CNN for the UK) just reported a miraculous story of a deceased infant being brought back to life by the touch of her mother (See “Mum’s Miracle Cuddle Brings Baby Back to Life”.) The mother had given birth to premature twins (at just 27 weeks) in Sydney, Australia. The babies, a boy and a […]
Comprehensive Soldier Fitness is the Army’s new training program that uses positive psychology to teach soldiers mental resilience strategies to maintain their psychological wellbeing while confronting the challenges of being separated from families, regularly facing conflict, and losing friends and colleagues. The program, which calls for an army of “balanced, healthy, self-confident soldiers” and “improved […]
Note: this article was originally published on Positive Psychology News Daily on July 27, 2010. As a new parent, I can tell you that there seems to be a surprising lack of guidance from science about how to have (and raise) a child. Since Catherine and I first learned we were expecting, the biggest piece of […]
I recently spoke at the New York Spa Alliance (NYSPA) annual symposium (see the SpaTrade blog here, and my blog on another session from the conference here). The theme of the symposium was “Pampering versus Wellness,” a debate which has been raging in the spa industry for the past few years. Actually, it hasn’t been […]
