The Science of a Meaningful Life: Top 10 Insights from 2022 , by Kira M. Newman, Jeremy Adam Smith, Jill Suttie, Allira Bellawala, Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas
hard to talk about individual well-being these days without talking about what’s going on in the world, whether that’s the mental health fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, political polarization, or global crises like climate change. All of us are affected by these problems, and that’s reflected in Greater Good’s 2022 selection of top scientific insights. But this research doesn’t just suggest how we might cope with bad situations. These studies also show us the power of connecting, working together, and being open to other perspectives—and the hope for a less gloomy future. The top insights also give us practical ideas of ways to grow, b... posted on Feb 4 2023 (7,851 reads)

How to Overcome Stress by Seeing Other People's Joy, by Kelly McGonigal
you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed, don’t cut yourself off from other people, says Kelly McGonigal. Instead, double down on your capacity for connection. One evening when I walked into a classroom to teach my Science of Stress course, I found a newspaper waiting for me on the lectern. A student had brought in an article called “Stress: It’s Contagious.” The report claimed that stress is “as contagious as any airborne pathogen” and compared its toxicity to secondhand smoke. As an example, the news story described a study showing that participants had an empathic physiological stress response when they observed another person strugglin... posted on Nov 21 2017 (24,705 reads)

The Science of How Your Mind-Wandering Is Robbing You of Happiness, by Maria Popova
main thing is to get what little happiness there is out of life in this wartorn world,” Clare Boothe Luce advised her young daughter, “because ‘these are the good old days’ now.” And yet most of us are conditioned to escape into the past, into the future, into our to-do lists — to wander off away from the present, even as we chronicle the moment in real-time on various lifestreaming platforms. If you’ve read any of these seven essential books on happiness or taken the sage advice of Jackson Pollock’s dad, the research findings from his Track Your Happiness project Matt Killingsworth... posted on Apr 4 2013 (27,721 reads)

The Top 10 Happiest Countries and What Makes Them Happy, by Cat Johnson
care of human life and happiness…is the only legitimate object of good government,” —Thomas Jefferson, 1809. Everyone wants to be happy, and increasingly, countries around the world are looking at happiness as an indicator of national well-being and considering happiness in policy making. As this year’s World Happiness Report states, “Happiness is increasingly considered a proper measure of social progress and a goal of public policy.” But what makes people happy, and which countries have the highest levels of happiness? For the World Happiness Report, researchers ranked countries based on factors including healthy life e... posted on Jul 8 2015 (70,248 reads)

How to Awaken Joy in Kids, by James Baraz, Michele Lilyanna
joy be cultivated? And, if so, can we teach our kids how to be more joyful in their lives? In our experience, the answer to both of these questions is yes. But it takes knowing what kinds of practices bring true happiness—and not just momentary pleasure—to your life. Once you’ve mastered that, it’s not too hard to introduce those practices to kids in a way that they can understand and appreciate. This essay is dapted from Awakening Joy for Kids by James Baraz and Michele Lilyanna ©2016. Reprinted with permission of Parallax Press. Our new book, Awakening Joy for Kids, is a resource for parents, teachers, and caregivers who want to give... posted on Oct 22 2016 (21,023 reads)

Wim Hof: The Cold as a Noble Force, by Tami Simon
Simon: Welcome to Insights at the Edge, produced by Sounds True. My name is Tami Simon. I’m the founder of Sounds True, and I’d love to take a moment to introduce you to the new Sounds True Foundation. The Sounds True Foundation is dedicated to creating a wiser and kinder world by making transformational education widely available. We want everyone to have access to transformational tools such as mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-compassion regardless of financial, social or physical challenges. The Sounds True Foundation is a nonprofit dedicated to providing these transformational tools to communities in need, including at-risk youth, prisoners, veterans,... posted on Nov 2 2021 (3,232 reads)

Learned Optimism: On Happiness,Depression & the Meaning of Life, by Maria Popova
25 years of research reveal about the cognitive skills of happiness and finding life’s greater purpose. “The illiterate of the 21st century,” Alvin Toffler famously said, “will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Our outlook on the world and our daily choices of disposition and behavior are in many ways learned patterns to which Toffler’s insight applies with all the greater urgency — the capacity to “learn, unlearn, and relearn” emotional behaviors and psychological patterns is, indeed, a form of existential literacy. Last week, Oliver Burkeman’s ... posted on Jul 9 2012 (18,072 reads)

Google's Chade-Meng Tan Wants You to Search Inside Yourself for Inner (and World) Peace, by Knowledge@Wharton
Tan (widely known as Meng) was among the earliest engineers to be hired at Google. He and his team worked on ways to improve the quality of the site's search results and also played a key role in the launch of mobile search. When Google allowed engineers to spend 20% of their time pursuing their passion, Meng decided to spend his time on a cause dear to his heart: Launching a conspiracy to bring about world peace. The conspirators could well be called the compassionati.  Meng believes that world peace can be achieved -- but only if people cultivate the conditions for inner peace within themselves. Inner peace, in turn, comes from nurturing emotional int... posted on Jul 11 2012 (21,410 reads)

20 Social Change Books to Read in the New Year, by Shareable
been reading some excellent books on social change. Last year, we published "Sharing Cities: Activating the Urban Commons," and turned to many of these books — some written by former Shareable contributors — for inspiration. From tackling economic injustice to environmental inequities, these books are filled with hope for a better future, one that's based on shared, community-based solutions as opposed to top-down fixes that don't work for everyone. Below are summaries, excerpted from each book's website, that give a taste of what's inside. If you're looking for thought-provoking reads in the New Year, look no further. Do you have a... posted on Mar 1 2019 (9,747 reads)

7 Essential Books on Optimism, by Maria Popova
the love of honey has to do with ancient wisdom, our capacity for hope, and the future of technology. Every once in a while, we all get burned out. Sometimes, charred. And while a healthy dose of cynicism and skepticism may help us get by, it’s in those times that we need nothing more than to embrace life’s promise of positivity with open arms. Here are seven wonderful books that help do just that with an arsenal ranging from the light visceral stimulation of optimistic design to the serious neuroscience findings about our proclivity for the positive. THE LITTLE PRINCE Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, one of our must-read&nb... posted on Jun 5 2012 (40,081 reads)

Clear Skies And A Chance Of Joy, by Audrey Lin
Laura Lavigne, life holds the magic of a treasure hunt. A keeper of small moments, a spreader of joy, a mother, a dreamer, a doer, not to mention a French baker, Laura is a bright splash of color on any canvas. And she’s walked down quite a multifaceted road along the way. In this Awakin Call conversation with Afreen, she shares stories and lessons from her experiences working as a make-up artist to turning down corporate sponsorship, tossing out her well-rehearsed TEDx speech for spontaneity’s sake, and, time and time again, meeting strangers from the heart. Afreen: What drives you? Laura: I think it started when I was really little. I remember telling my parent... posted on Jan 11 2014 (28,419 reads)

The Contentment Habit, by Leo Babauta
admit I do it as much as anyone else: see the cool things that others are doing and wish I were doing something cool like that too. You see great travel photos on Instagram and other social media — people living amazing lives, creating cool things, going on adventures. And instantly, there’s the thought that you should be living a better life. But this is the wrong habit. It leads to a feeling that your life isn’t good enough, that you aren’t good enough. And the habit doesn’t end: if you pursue a better life, you will always feel that you should be doing more, partying more, creating more, learning more, reading more, traveling more. You can&rs... posted on Mar 9 2015 (40,395 reads)

10 Ways to Love Where You Live, by Ross Chapin
Avenue Cottages, Shoreline, Wash. Photo by Ross Chapin. Community is not just for extroverts. For thousands of years, our ancestors lived in barrios, hamlets, neighborhoods, and villages. Yet in the time since our parents and grandparents were young, privacy has become so valued that many neighborhoods are not much more than houses in proximity. Now, many activities take place behind locked doors and backyard privacy fences. The street out front is not always safe for pedestrians, and is often out of bounds for children. With families spread across the country and friends living across town, a person who doesn’t kn... posted on Jun 21 2012 (34,520 reads)

Resilience After Unimaginable Loss, by On Being
Sandberg + Adam Grant, Image by Christophe Morin / Getty Images The following is the audio and transcript of an onbeing.org interview between Krista Tippett and Sheryl Sandberg. Krista Tippett, host: Sheryl Sandberg’s name is synonymous with Facebook and Silicon Valley success, and she’s the voice of Lean In. Today, she joins us with vulnerability and frankness, together with the psychologist Adam Grant. He was there for her after the shocking death of her young husband, David Goldberg, while they were on vacation in 2015. Adam’s friendship — and his data — helped Sheryl find her way to what deep resilience might mean for herself and he... posted on Jun 17 2017 (17,456 reads)

4 Ways Sadness Can Be Good For You, by Joseph P. Forgas
are finding out how sadness works in the brain—and they're discovering that it can confer important advantages. Sadness is not usually valued in our current culture. Self-help books promote the benefits of positive thinking, positive attitude, and positive behaviors, labeling sadness as a “problem emotion” that needs to be kept at bay or eliminated. Evolution must have had something else in mind, though, or sadness wouldn’t still be with us. Being sad from time to time serves some kind of purpose in helping our species to survive. Yet, while other so-called “negative emotions,” like fear, anger, and disgust, seem clearly ad... posted on Aug 29 2014 (28,797 reads)

Three Ways to Bring More Kindness to Your Life, by Juliana Breines
of the best ways to increase our own happiness is to do things that make other people happy. In countless studies, kindness and generosity have been linked to greater life satisfaction, strongerrelationships, and better mental and physical health—generous people even live longer. What’s more, the happiness people derive from giving to others creates a positive feedback loop: The positive feelings inspire further generosity—which, in turn, fuels greater happiness. And research suggests that kindness is truly contagious: Those who witness and benefit from others’ acts of kindness are more likely to be kind themselves; a single act of kindness spreads through ... posted on Dec 12 2015 (21,118 reads)

Embrace Authenticity: How to Break Free from the Tyranny of Positivity, by Heleo Editors
David is the author of Emotional Agility, a leading psychologist at Harvard Medical School, and the co-founder and co-director of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital. She recently joined Maria Shriver—award-winning journalist, bestselling author of six books, and former First Lady of California—for a conversation on why relentless positivity doesn’t lead to happiness, and how being emotionally honest can help us connect with our values and gain resilience. This conversation has been edited and condensed.  Maria: You are a counter voice to so many people telling us, “Be positive, be happy, have a great mood, and everything will be fine.&r... posted on Dec 11 2021 (30,709 reads)

The Business 9 Women Kept A Secret For Three Decades, by Lori Weiss
in West Tennessee, not far from Graceland, nine women -- or "The 9 Nanas," as they prefer to be called -- gather in the darkness of night. At 4am they begin their daily routine -- a ritual that no one, not even their husbands, knew about for 30 years. They have one mission and one mission only: to create happiness. And it all begins with baked goods. “One of us starts sifting the flour and another washing the eggs,” explained Nana Mary Ellen, the appointed spokesperson for their secret society. “And someone else makes sure the pans are all ready. We switch off, depending on what we feel like doing that day. “But you make sure to say Nana... posted on Jun 29 2012 (1,769,696 reads)

Linda Cruse: Marmalade and Machine Guns, by Awakin Call Editors
visited 40 countries in 15 years, with just one suitcase. Inspired by the "power of one," Linda Cruse's all-encompassing friendliness, explorer's spirit, and desire to serve has brought her to every continent amid its catastrophic moments of crisis-- from the earthquake in Nepal to the tsunami in Thailand, two super-typhoons in the Philippines, and the Pakistani earthquake. She's been described as a cross between Florence Nightingale and Indiana Jones. Yet her life didn't always hold such high sights and intentions. In 1996, while driving on a motorway in the middle of the night, Linda suddenly went blind. &... posted on Aug 3 2018 (4,483 reads)

7 Practices to Cultivate Compassion, by Leo Babauta
you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” - Dalai Lama I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives. I’m not talking about the short-term gratification of pleasures like sex, drugs or gambling (though I’m not knocking them), but something that will bring true and lasting happiness. The kind that sticks. The key to developing compassion in your life is to make it a daily practice. Meditate upon it in the morning (you can do it while checking email), think about it when you interact with others, and reflect on it at night.... posted on Aug 2 2011 (49,114 reads)