We are More Lonely than Ever. Find out Why and How to Counter It.

We are more connected and more lonely than ever. And this seems to be true across sex, age, race, and income. The COVID-19 pandemic has played a significant role in fostering disconnection among individuals, leading many of us to be less inclined to re-engage socially at the same level as before. Loneliness doesn’t typically travel…

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Spotlight on Self-Care

Self-care is the process of reducing stress and ill-being and improving health and well-being. It is about countering the forces that deplete us and building the forces that nourish or strengthen us. Self-care is important to healthy psychological functioning and has become especially vital in the age of COVID-19. Like all animals, human beings are preprogrammed…

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Brief History of Positive Psychology (Part 2)

Continued From Part 1… But Wait, There is Good News Remember, Csikszentmihalyi found that teenagers can be unhappy and can see life through their suffering, but he also found an interesting exception. When teenagers focus their energies on tasks that are challenging, their mood is more upbeat. In other words, he found evidence of when…

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Sleep and Resilience Can Form a Virtuous Cycle for Teens

Resilience, or being able to bounce back from adverse events, is a useful skill to have – if we didn’t already know that, 2020 has certainly driven the point home! Psychologists know that resilient people tend to share certain traits, such as finding meaning in events and trusting their ability to navigate challenging situations. And…

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Meaning in Life and Drinking

Finding sources of meaning in life sounds like neither an easy task nor one that looks the same from one person to the next. But it is one that seems to be key to mental health. From increased resilience to sharper memory, a sense of purpose in life goes hand-in-hand with a range of cognitive…

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A Gallery of Psychologically Soothing Images

Some pictures have the power to evoke a sense of peace and relaxation in us. Seeking out that feeling is what’s behind Project Soothe, in which psychology researchers at University of Edinburgh are compiling a database of soothing pictures. The researchers have been accepting soothing images from the general public, then adding those images to…

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Resilience Links Emotional Intelligence and Stress Management

Emotional intelligence has been increasingly recognized as important over the last several decades, the EQ to go with IQ. The idea being, of course, that all the smarts in the world won’t do you good if you can’t navigate your own emotions, and those of others. Emotional intelligence has been linked to everything from mindfulness…

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4 Steps to Prevent Burnout

Burnout at work is a common phenomenon, but it’s still one that mental health professionals don’t completely understand. Why do some people eventually become emotionally exhausted by their jobs? And is this a workplace problem or a mental health problem? Psychologists don’t even agree on whether burnout is the same as depression, or whether it’s…

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