Life Lessons from 56 Up, by Jeremy Adam Smith
"Up" documentaries have followed 14 people from ages seven to 56—and in the process illustrated recent discoveries about the science of a meaningful life. The film critic Roger Ebert famously called the “Up” series “an inspired, even noble, use of the film medium.” It started, accidentally, in 1964, when the British TV program World in Action profiled 14 seven year olds with the aim of discovering how social class shaped their worldviews. There was no intention of going beyond that one episode, called Seven Up! Symon has faced the death of his mother, the births of his children, unemployment, divorce, and re-marriage (to Vienetta, at righ... posted on Nov 4 2013 (36,328 reads)

Tiny House Living: How Two Families Made It Work - Teenagers, Sleepovers, Alone Time, and All, by Liz Pleasant
do you fit a full-sized family into a tiny house? The Morrisons and Kasls found that the benefits of life in 200 square feet outweigh the difficulties. The Kasls, of Minnesota, simplified family life by going tiny. Photo by Nichole Freiberger. Andrew and Gabriella Morrison live in Oregon and have two teenage kids, 18-year-old Paiute and 14-year-old Terra. They made the decision to downsize their home four years ago. They now live in a 207-square-foot house with an additional 110 square feet of sleeping lofts. Although their son, Paiute, no longer lives at home, Terra lives in the tiny house full time with her parents. The Morrisons both work in straw bale construct... posted on Feb 12 2015 (25,854 reads)

How Gratitude Beats Materialism, by Jason Marsh, Dacher Keltner
studies reveal how to deliberately cultivate gratitude in ways that counter materialism and its negative effects. Now that we’re a week into 2015, most of us have come down from the buzz of the holidays and returned to life as normal. And after spending weeks, if not months, obsessing over the gifts and goodies that awaited us in December, some of us may feel a post-holiday hangover, where we realize that we’re probably no happier than we were before we got that new flat screen TV or cappuccino maker. This won’t come as a surprise to anyone tracking the science of happiness, which suggests that material things are unlikely to boost our happiness in a sustained o... posted on Apr 9 2015 (34,753 reads)

3 Ways You Can Find More Happiness at Work, by Jill Suttie
trick to being happy with your job doesn’t necessarily lie in earning more money. We all spend a large part of our lives at our jobs. Yet how many of us are bored or frustrated at work, whether unhappy with our company’s goals, stressed from overwork, or dealing with toxic coworkers? Don’t we deserve better than that? The new book How to Be Happy at Work makes the case that, yes, we do, and happiness at work should be our ultimate goal. Written by Annie McKee—an international business advisor and senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education—the book provides ideas for how to turn your job into a source ... posted on Apr 28 2018 (59,727 reads)

Happiness is Practice, Not Pleasure, by On Being
Tippett, host: I’ve had hundreds of big conversations, and my conversation partners share wisdom I carry with me wherever I go. I’ve never thought about happiness the same way since I spoke with the French-born Tibetan Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard. I like his language of human flourishing as the real aspiration — that happiness is not a sensation or a feeling; it’s a state of being that can encompass all of the things that happen in life. This is Becoming Wise. I’m Krista Tippett. Ms. Tippett: You’re worldly, wise, and rational. And we also live in this culture where the word happiness gets completely watered down. So I want ... posted on Jun 19 2019 (8,985 reads)

The Secret to Happiness Around the World, by hometogo
there a secret to happiness? Is happiness spending time with loved ones, or spending time alone in nature? Is it losing yourself as you dance to music, or finding yourself while quietly meditating? The secret to happiness is actually all of these things and more, and it varies from country to country and culture to culture. According to the annual World Happiness Report, Norway is the happiest country, scoring highly in its approach to caring, freedom, generosity, honesty, health, income and good governance. Meanwhile, the Happy Planet Index ranks Costa Rica as the happiest country on Earth. While opposites when it comes to climate, the two ... posted on Feb 21 2018 (21,136 reads)

9 Scientists Share Their Favorite Happiness Practices, by Kira M. Newman
can we create a happier world? That question is on many people’s minds today, as we celebrate the sixth annual International Day of Happiness. This event grew out of a United Nations resolution - affirming happiness as a fundamental human goal - and suggesting that we should approach economic growth in a way that promotes well-being for everyone. Social systems and institutions have a role to play in our happiness, and that’s evident in this year’s World Happiness Report. Researchers ranked countries by their average happiness levels and found, for example, that GDP, life expectancy, freedom, and corruption make a difference. In the rankin... posted on Aug 8 2018 (23,663 reads)

A Life of One's Own, by Maria Popova
Life of One’s Own: A Penetrating 1930s Field Guide to Self-Possession, Mindful Perception, and the Art of Knowing What You Really Want “I did not know that I could only get the most out of life by giving myself up to it.” “One must know what one wants to be,” the eighteenth-century French mathematician Émilie du Châtelet wrote in weighing the nature of genius. “In the latter endeavors irresolution produces false steps, and in the life of the mind confused ideas.” And yet that inner knowing is the work of a lifetime, for our confusions are ample and our missteps constant amid a world that is constantly telling us who we are an... posted on Jan 1 2018 (13,929 reads)

A Guide To Practical Contentment, by Leo Babauta
lot of people search for ways to find happiness, but I’ve found the idea of contentment to be more important than happiness. Why contentment over happiness? A couple of important reasons: Happiness can go up or down each day (or moment), but contentment is something more stable. We tend to seek to increase happiness by adding things (food, excitement, a warm bath, time with a loved one) but contentment is a skill that allows you to subtract things and still be content. Contentment can actually be a good place to start as you make changes (changes and contentment might seem paradoxical to some, but hear me out). What is contentment? For me, it’s really about being... posted on Jun 22 2013 (37,032 reads)

Four Great Gratitude Strategies, by Juliana Breines
are the key research-based principles for turning gratitude into a lasting habit, drawing from the GGSC’s new website, Greater Good in Action. Over the past two decades, much of the research on happiness can be boiled down to one main prescription: give thanks. Across hundreds of studies, practicing gratitude has been found to increasepositive emotions, reduce the risk of depression, heighten relationship satisfaction, and increase resilience in the face of stressful life events, among other benefits. The problem is, gratitude doesn’t always come naturally. The negatives in our lives—the disappointments, resentments, and fears—sometimes ... posted on Jul 27 2015 (49,668 reads)

My Manifesto For A Happier World, by Mark Williamson
all want to lead a happy life. But in our quest for 'progress' we've been pursuing priorities that put our happiness at risk - not just for us as individuals, but for society as a whole. Our collective aim should be a society with the greatest possible human happiness and wellbeing - with policies, institutions and social attitudes that help people to lead flourishing lives. This is the spirit behind a resolutionwhich was adopted last year by all 193 United Nations member states, calling for "a more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth", and one which promotes "happiness and the well-being of all peoples". To support... posted on Mar 20 2013 (24,102 reads)

How Exercise Benefits the Brain, by Leo Widrich
has been touted to be a cure for nearly everything in life, from depression, to memory loss, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s and more. At the same time, similar to the topic of sleep, I found myself having very little specific and scientific knowledge about what exercise really does to our bodies and our brains. “Yes, yes, I know all about it, that’s the thing with the endorphins, that makes you feel good and why we should exercise and stuff, right?” is what I can hear myself say to someone bringing this up. I would pick up things here and there, yet really digging into the connection of exercise and how it effects us has never been something I... posted on Aug 27 2013 (59,117 reads)

You Are What You See: Inspiring Kindness Through Images, by Awakin Call Editors
live in a world where news stories are riddled with negativity; wars, crashes, political and social strife fill our living rooms and enter our most personal of space, our homes.  What are the implications for our neurological and physical health to be exposed to such negative news, and what are the effects when this is turned around and people are exposed to positive news, see acts of kindness and learn of human goodness?  This was the question that Dr. David Fryburg asked himself after experiencing what he calls a “sort of news-induced depression”. He learned of studies suggesting the negative physiological effects that negative news could cause, and he began wonder... posted on Feb 27 2018 (14,966 reads)

The Top 10 Insights from the “Science of a Meaningful Life” in 2020, by Kira M. Newaman, Jill Suttie, Jeremy Adam Smith, Emiliana R. Simon-Thomas, Elizabneth Svoboda
team names the most provocative and influential findings published during this past year. In 2020, the study of well-being took on new meaning. The COVID-19 pandemic created a mental health crisis that is affecting people in all corners of the globe. In the United States, Americans have faced intense political polarization and a reckoning around racial justice. Many of us are left wondering how we can move forward toward a better future. As the year rolled on, some well-being researchers were quick to turn their lens on the pandemic itself, tracking how people were doing and testing ways to help us cope better. Others continued to study ... posted on Dec 24 2020 (9,067 reads)

Our 5-yr-old: Alone But Not Lonely, by Ragunath Padmanabhan
in 2012 Our 5-yr-old son Aum had been playing on his own at the farm for two hours. About an hour into it, my wife Nisha admonished me: "You really enjoyed your childhood with your two siblings, kids in the neighborhood and at school. Now look at him, being alone, no one to play with and nowhere to go. Do something!" 4 years ago, we'd made a conscious leap into a rural India, leaving high-tech careers in the Silicon Valley to do natural farming. Nisha has just as much conviction about our decision as I do, and yet, on occasion, she and many other loved ones have genuinely felt bad because Aum does not have company. He is our only child and he doesn't ... posted on Apr 26 2020 (47,857 reads)

A Seizure of Happiness: Mary Oliver on Finding Magic in Life's Unremarkable Moments, by Maria Popova
to revel in the “sudden awareness of the citizenry of all things within one world.” Nearly a century before  modern neuroscience presented the uncomfortable finding that mind-wandering is making us unhappy, Bertrand Russell contemplated the conquest of happiness and pointed to the immense value of “fruitful monotony” — a certain quality of presence with the ordinary rhythms of life. The diaries and letters of humanity’s greatest minds are strewn with such instances of finding happiness in simple everyday moments, but no one captures the humble grace of presence better than Mary Oliver in one particularly bewitching passage from ... posted on Apr 30 2015 (19,813 reads)

How to Kick Your Digital Addiction and Learn to Live Again, by Kira M. Newman
6 percent of U.S. workers checked their work email when they or their spouse were in labor.   Technology can bring happiness. Anyone who’s found the perfect meditation app or downloaded a grandchild’s photo won’t doubt that. But technology can also bring anxiety, stress, and frustration. And that seems to be a given, too, making us throw our hands in the air. We accept that technology will always be a mixed bag and we have to take the bad with the good. "I worry that maybe our happiness is getting left behind." According to Amy Blankson, author of the new book The Future of Happiness: 5 Modern Strategies for Balancing Productivity a... posted on Jun 25 2017 (12,573 reads)

Finding Joy: The Science of Happiness, by Patty de Llosa, by Patty de Llosa
by Frank McKenna We long to find more joy in our daily pursuits even though life has taught us it’s not so easy. New discoveries in neuroscience offer insight into how we can develop a brighter state of heart and mind. The First Step on the path to finding happiness is to open the mind to alternative ways of thinking about life. While much of our focus in the West has been toward comfort and the acquisition of worldly goods, in Eastern countries your status as a human being traditionally comes first. So instead of being greeted by “What are you up to these days?” or “How’s it going with your to-do list?” you may be asked in Muslim cou... posted on Aug 29 2017 (20,213 reads)

Why Shadows Were Invented, by Bayo Akomolafe
These Wilds Beyond Our Fences by Bayo Akomolafe, published by North Atlantic Books, copyright © 2017 by Bayo Akomolafe. Reprinted by permission of publisher. Since we are on about darkness, can I briefly revisit the playfulness of light, dear? I know I tend to sound like a broken record, what with all this talk about double slits and particles and complementarity and all that. But I keep returning here because the material world really does show that just because a thing is commonsensical doesn’t mean it is “true.” Well, I also keep returning here because—according to your jealous mum, who is now side- eyeing me—I also want you to see me as smart! ... posted on Mar 21 2019 (7,185 reads)

10 Keys to Happier Living, by ActionforHappiness.org
for Happiness has developed the 10 Keys to Happier Living based on a review of the latest scientific research relating to happiness. Everyone’s path to happiness is different, but the research suggests these Ten Keys consistently tend to have a positive impact on people’s overall happiness and well-being. The first five (GREAT) relate to how we interact with the outside world in our daily activities*. The second five (DREAM) come more from inside us and depend on our attitude to life.   1. GIVING: Do things for others   Caring about others is fundamental to our happiness. Helping other people is not only good for them and a g... posted on Apr 14 2012 (91,915 reads)