Friday, January 15, 2016

Positive Psychology News

Forbes
The powerful idea behind positive psychology is that we can accomplish our aims most effectively by exercising and building on our strengths, not just by shoring up our vulnerabilities. Reducing boredom on the job won't create a fulfilling career ...
 
Irish Times
Tal Ben-Shahar is a best-selling author, academic and entrepreneur in the field of positive psychology. In 2006, his course on positive psychology became the most popular class at Harvard University. Since then he has cofounded Potentialife, a year ...
 
Newswire
(Newswire.net -- January 4, 2016) -- Recent research in positive psychology shows happiness is more than a mood or a feeling—it's a skill. A new app called Feed Your Happy, launching today, helps people practice techniques to reprogram negative ...
 
Santa Maria Sun
Delta High School's Free Holiday Store, stocked with clothing, opened for two


Self Improvement

Victorville Daily Press
The Today's Woman Foundation is hosting a transformational workshop from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday at Sun View Plaza, 13010 Hesperia Road in Victorville. The event will be facilitated by Cindy M. Bostick, a certified transformative coach and “Best Year ...
Harvard Business Review
We examined roughly 7,000 self-assessments, and focused on a group of questions that measured a “proving” versus “improving” orientation. For instance, we asked people what happened the last time they were given negative feedback – did they challenge ...
Idaho State Journal
Specifically, Idaho State is focused on improving an offense that's sixth in the conference in scoring at 73.5 points per game and 11th in field goal percentage (41.5). Sac State doesn't have any glaring weaknesses like North Dakota did, and the ...
The Globe and Mail
Don't tell me about self-improvement. I've been improving myself for decades. I have dieted, exercised, made to-do lists and then lost them. I have striven to be more efficient and productive, waste less time, watch more TED talks, tidy my desk, write ...
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Living with a sense of purpose in life




Conclusion:

A sense of purpose in life also gives you this considerable advantage:
"People with a sense of purpose in life have a lower risk of death and cardiovascular disease."

The conclusions come from over 136,000 people who took part in 10 different studies.

Participants in the studies were mostly from the US and Japan.


The US studies asked people:
  • how useful they felt to others,
  • about their sense of purpose, and
  • the meaning they got out of life.


The Japanese studies asked people about ‘ikigai’ or whether their life was worth living.

The participants, whose average age was 67, were tracked for around 7 years.

During that time almost 20,000 died.
 
But, amongst those with a strong sense of purpose or high ‘ikigai’, the risk of death was one-fifth lower.

Despite the link between sense of purpose and health being so intuitive, scientists are not sure of the mechanism.

Sense of purpose is likely to improve health by strengthening the body against stress.

It is also likely to be linked to healthier behaviours.

Dr. Alan Rozanski, one of the study’s authors, said:
“Of note, having a strong sense of life purpose has long been postulated to be an important dimension of life, providing people with a sense of vitality motivation and resilience.
Nevertheless, the medical implications of living with a high or low sense of life purpose have only recently caught the attention of investigators.
The current findings are important because they may open up new potential interventions for helping people to promote their health and sense of well-being.”

This research on links between sense of purpose in life and longevity is getting stronger all the time:
  • “A 2009 study of 1,238 elderly people found that those with a sense of purpose lived longer.
  • A 2010 study of 900 older adults found that those with a greater sense of purpose were much less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Survey data often links a sense of purpose in life with increased happiness.
No matter what your age, then, it’s worth thinking about what gives your life meaning.”



Read More:

Find out what kinds of things people say give their lives meaning.
Here’s an exercise for increasing meaningfulness
And a study finding that feeling you belong increases the sense of meaning.

The study was published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine (Cohen et al., 2015).




A sense of purpose in life
Link: http://www.spring.org.uk/2015/12/here-is-why-a-sense-of-purpose-in-life-is-important-for-health