Good‘s latest video features our executive editor, Dacher Keltner, on the science of touch. Here, he elaborates on cutting-edge research into the ways everyday forms of touch can bring us emotional balance and better health. A pat on the back, a caress of the arm—these are everyday, incidental gestures that we usually take for granted, thanks to our amazingly dexterous hands. Brian Jackson But after years spent immersed in the science of touch, I can tell you that they are far more profound than we usually realize: They are our primary language of compassion, and a primary means for spreading compassion. In recent years, a wave of studies has documented some... posted on Feb 24 2011 (44,002 reads)

to live a longer, healthier life? Stephen G. Post explains how to reap the benefits of practicing altruism.   In 2008, I lost my job of 20 years and uprooted my family to pursue a new position. The move strained my marriage, my relationship with my son, my sense of well-being. Like many Americans in their 50s who thought they were more or less past any financial worries, I found myself anxious for the first time in years.  I know my story is not unusual. These are hard times. Much of our nation, and our planet, is confronted with environmental and economic upheaval. It can be difficult to believe that things are going to get any better anytime soon. mangostock ... posted on Sep 26 2011 (12,658 reads)

lawyers? It's no joke. Charles Halpern has been leading a movement to promote empathy and mindfulness in the practice of law. When I tell people that I teach a class in law and meditation at UC Berkeley’s law school, I often hear snorts of disbelief. “It’s easier to imagine a kindergarten class sitting in silence for half an hour,” a friend said to me, “than two lawyers sitting together in silence for five minutes.” Charles Halpern (left, foreground) leads a Qigong exercise at a retreat for 75 lawyers at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in California.  But the class is no joke. In fact, it’s part of a ground-breakin... posted on Mar 31 2011 (13,120 reads)

parent wants to raise a kind, helpful child. But how? A recent study suggests it might be easier than we think. In fact, according to the study’s authors, humans have a strong predisposition toward altruism, evident from the time they’re infants. All adults need to do is give kids some subtle, gentle encouragement, and they’ll be on their way. In the study, conducted by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, an experimenter showed 60 18-month-old infants one of four different sets of photos (see below). In the foreground of all the photos was a familiar household object, like a red tea kettle. But the background ... posted on Aug 4 2011 (13,146 reads)

all know gift giving is an essential, ritualized part of the holidays. But what about the rest of the year? There’s good reason to practice generosity even after you’ve greeted the New Year. As we’ve reported in the past, giving activates parts of the brain associated with pleasure and social connection; releases endorphins in the brain, producing a “helper’s high”; and provides many long-term health benefits. But we aren’t always as giving as we could be. Fortunately, Greater Good has published dozens of articles on how to foster generosity in children, institutions, society—and within ourselves. Here are seven top tips, culled from ... posted on Dec 25 2011 (12,581 reads)

Gandhi were alive today, would he use social media?  He was never anti-technology, or even anti-changing with the times.  Quite the opposite, actually.  If Internet technologies and social networks were around, he would certainly have embraced them -- but with a conscious mindfulness of their strengths and weaknesses. Any social-change hero succeeds in doing three fundamental things -- raising awareness, creating impact, and transforming the heart. For awareness, the Internet has been absolutely remarkable.  We have trillions of online new friendships; FaceBook releases daily numbers of how people create those friendships across conflicting religions and r... posted on Feb 21 2012 (55,762 reads)

Naomi Remen, MD, is co-founder and medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program and founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Health and Illness (ISHI) at Commonweal. ISHI is a training institute for health professionals who wish to serve people with life threatening illness and take a more relationship-centered approach to the practice and teaching of medicine. The institute's approach is based upon experience with over 600 people with cancer who have participated in Commonweal's programs and on Dr. Remen's 20-year experience counselling people with cancer and those who love them. In addition to being a physician for 30 years, Dr Remen h... posted on Mar 23 2012 (52,108 reads)

limit, and within a tiny digital graph.  So, what happens to our imagination? It seems to fade.   Being Asian (as I am) doesn’t help.  The assumption that you’re more apt for engineering or medicine is like a nagging tail.   We have a so-called fondness for numbers apparently.  If you’re Asian, you must be good at math – of course.   Well, then I turned out to be an oddball.  I developed an affinity for words and images instead.  At the age of 12, my dream was to be a professional doodler, which could turn into a career as a cartoonist, if it went well.  And my parents indulged me in that dream. &nbs... posted on Mar 29 2012 (85,724 reads)

group of Nepali women leaving the hospital. I realized quickly, after just having traveled to various villages in rural India, that distance is relative. Hailing from a city like San Francisco, going even a few hours outside of town is far – but twelve hours outside of a major city? I half expected to run into another country. This remote place in mention is Achham, a tiny hillside region in Far West Nepal. Sitting like a giant amongst the lush green terraced mountains of Achham, is a hospital named Bayalpata. Once an abandoned building, it has been revived by the committed NGO Nyaya Health. I had the opportun... posted on Apr 15 2012 (11,094 reads)

only way to get to the island village of Sothikuppam is by boat. The current in these parts is treacherously strong and the sun beats down in sheets of heat. About 2000 people live in this village. 125 died in the recent tsunami. Twenty-six of them were children. There is no bridge connecting the village to the mainland, only a jetty that wanders partway into the water and stops. When some of the children saw the water rushing in they'd run to the far end of the island towards the backwaters and onto the wooden jetty in terror, hoping perhaps to make it to the safety of the other shore. When the second wave struck it took them all with it. Almost all. Most homes in Sothik... posted on Jun 6 2012 (12,907 reads)

the life of each and every one of us, there is a defining moment, one after which we know that our lives will never be the same.  For me, 9/11 was that moment.  I had by that time embarked in earnest on a search for self, leaving behind a lucrative marketing career, and committed to creating a life with meaning, one that went beyond material and professional success. Longing to trust my intuition over my logic, I followed what I believed were omens to Egypt. I meditated in many mosques and, one night, atop the Great Pyramid of Giza. I sat in the desert, and tried to listen to its whispers. I sensed a familiarity there that went beyond words, as if I had come home, and tha... posted on Jul 22 2012 (12,375 reads)

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 (18,263 reads)

be human is to be aware of the passage of time; no concept lies closer to the core of our consciousness.” For millennia, humans have sought to make sense of time, to visualize it, to ride its arrow, to hack it, to understand biological connection to it. “Time is the very foundation of conscious experience,” writes Dan Falk in In Search of Time: The History, Physics, and Philosophy of Time (public library). “To be human is to be aware of the passage of time; no concept lies closer to the core of our consciousness.” And yet that awareness has a long history of friction — to mark... posted on Aug 6 2012 (10,697 reads)

Peck at 92 is full of a radiant loveliness that brings to mind fairy godmothers and enchanted gardens. Visiting her is a little like falling down Alice's rabbit hole. A train track with a real train runs around her Saratoga home. There are ivy-covered walls, crazy winding paths, tree houses, even a Rapunzel tower, and an amphitheater under the trees complete with a Romeo and Juliet balcony. Hundreds of children have played in the sun-dappled creek here, thrilled to the feel of soil under bare feet and rejoiced in a world brimming with creativity, beauty and wonder. This is the world that Betty Peck gifted to multiple generations of children. And now this amazing teacher... posted on Dec 3 2013 (25,366 reads)

driver Tamara Raab is bringing Christmas in July to thousands of animals in Romania. In a 2,000 mile round trip journey, Tamara will drive a massive load of donated dog and cat food, veterinary supplies and pet beds to animal shelters in Romania. She’s undertaken this mission a couple times before, but this time is different. This time she didn’t have the 3,500 Euros required to pay the fuel. And that’s when fate stepped in. On the recommendation of fellow animal advocate Peter Collins, Tamara sent an email to the Harmony Fund, a nonprofit that sponsors major animal protection efforts around the world, to ask for help. She was not optimistic. It simply felt li... posted on Jun 20 2013 (29,740 reads)

from "A Call to Fearlessness for Gentle Leaders" address at the Shambhala Institute Core Program, Halifax, June 2006 I think these questions are worth holding for a while. How do you call yourself? How do you identify yourself? And have you chosen a name for yourself that is big enough to hold your life's work? I have a colleague who first suggested this to me. And he said, "So many of us choose names that are too small for a whole life." So, we call ourselves, 'cancer survivors;' that seems to be a very bold name, but is it big enough to hold a life? Or, 'children of abuse.' Or, we call ourselves 'orphans,' or 'widows,'... posted on Jul 8 2013 (43,663 reads)

Barrios Unidos Working  for Unity Barrios Unidos works to curtail gang violence on the city streets of California by sponsoring cultural and spiritual programs in the state’s prisons. “A lot of these folks are our relatives,” says founder Daniel “Nane” Alejándrez, a veteran activist  who has worked to forge truces among youth and prison gangs. “We are not the enemy against each other. We need to get these guys to think in a different way.” The organization is based in Santa Cruz County but runs economic development programs in several other areas. At a time when many prison programs have been cut, Barrios Unidos offers cl... posted on Jul 19 2013 (12,119 reads)

spite of current ads and slogans, the world doesn't change one person at a time.  It changes as networks of relationships form among people who discover they share a common cause and vision of what's possible.  This is good news for those of us intent on changing the world and creating a positive future.  Rather than worry about critical mass, our work is to foster critical connections.  We don't need to convince large numbers of people to change; instead, we need to connect with kindred spirits.  Through these relationships, we will develop the new knowledge, practices, courage, and commitment that lead to broad-based change.  But networks are... posted on Sep 2 2013 (35,509 reads)

1996, the poet and essayist John Perry Barlow published A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace. It was the height of the cyberutopian thinking in fashion at the time. It declared, “We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth.” It foresaw a world of unfettered free speech, self-organized governance, and compassionate peer relations that needed to be kept separate from the laws of “meatspace.” Barlow didn’t anticipate how the Internet would eventually empower individuals even more offline than online. Seventeen years later, freedoms online and off ha... posted on Sep 4 2013 (18,317 reads)

following is adapted from Ecoliterate: How Educators Are Cultivating Emotional, Social, and Ecological Intelligence. Ecoliterate shows how educators can extend the principles of social and emotional intelligence to include knowledge of and empathy for all living systems. For students in a first-grade class at Park Day School in Oakland, California, the most in-depth project of their young academic careers involved several months spent transforming their classroom into an ocean habitat, ripe with coral, jellyfish, leopard sharks, octopi, and deep-sea divers (or, at least, paper facsimiles of them). Their work culminated in one special night when, suited with goggles and homemade air ta... posted on Sep 26 2013 (31,597 reads)