In October, US consumer confidence hit the highest point since February 2008, and private sector businesses added more jobs than at any time in the last eight months. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the US economy added 171,000 jobs last month, 50,000 more than economists had expected.
Robert Emmons was shocked. The University of California psychologist found that after just ten weeks, people who kept a gratitude journal were 25 percent happier than people who didn't. People who were reminded to say thank you at least once a day were healthier and spent more time exercising. As he writes in an essay for the Greater Good Science Center, This is a massive difference. The gratitude group participants also experienced fewer symptoms of physical illness than those in either of the other two groups." This month the Center launched a web-based digital gratitude journal at Thnx4.org designed to track and promote the practice of gratitude worldwide while serving as an invaluable source of scientific data on gratitude.
Which comes first, happiness or money? A new study suggests that happier teenagers grow up to be richer adults.
My personal mantra is "no mistakes, only lessons." I repeat this phrase to myself frequently as I tend to make a lot of lessons. It's easy for me to get down on myself when I make mistakes. My mind wants to endlessly review the event, which results in dark feelings enveloping me. There's no escape from the torment because I can't change what's happened in the past. Lessons, however, are a thing of the future.
Tony Tolbert, a Harvard-educated lawyer in Los Angeles, decided to move into his mother's home so he could offer his own fully-furnished house to a homeless family of five, and give it to them rent-free for a year.
With so much darkness in the news lately, it's amazing how one simple idea could bring so much light to so many lives. That's what happened last weekend, when over 100 people came together to make a dream reality for their blind friend. For the legally-blind teen, her dream was to drive a car just once.Read More
As the world's fastest animals, the big cats can run up to 65 mph and need to get up to speed to burn off metabolic compounds. But the two who live at the Houston Zoo don't have much opportunity to do that. Until now. In early November, an entourage of 10 people took a pair of 5-year-old cheetah brothers to the Sam Houston Race Park.
A suicide-prevention group is generating smiles to the faces of commuters and pedestrians in Boston with their Happier Boston Campaign, which involves social interventions such as singing in elevators and asking everyone in the baseball stadium to give high-fives to everyone nearby.
A flashmob brought Smiles returning to the faces of crowds in an employment office in Madrid, Spain. Musicians planted themselves among the jobless, hiding their instruments, until one lone oboe began to play the opening notes to Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles. Little darling, it's been a long, cold, lonely winter.
In the past five years, the financial industry has taken a drubbing with plunging profits, allegations of improper behavior, and customer backlash against rising fees. But various sources list one bank as a best place to work, and its practices may provide a blueprint to other companies on how to keep workers engaged even during tough times. Umpqua Bank is known as the world's best bank.
Ellen was excited to surprise two of her favorite teachers with a huge gift from Skype. They teach in a Title 1 school, which means more than 50% of students qualify for free lunches. The kids and their classrooms don't have enough money for supplies and other basic needs, so teachers often end up paying out of their own pocket.
An on-air personality at the news desk for the Fox-54 station in Huntsville, Alabama, was tricked into reading a breaking news story that included a wedding proposal from her own boyfriend, after he planted the breaking news script on the reporter's teleprompter,
How great is it that our small acts of kindness can make someone else's entire day? Here are 42 good deeds and small acts of kindness that can help you feel amazing.
A man has made it his mission to make Washington, D.C. smile -- especially on Monday mornings. This 5-minute video won the 2013 Pendragwn Youth Film Festival's Grand Prize Award.
The story began on Martha's Vineyard where an 81-year-old mystery writer received a coded message in the mail. Cynthia wondered if it wasn't from the same man who sixty years earlier passed coded notes to her in a biology lab.
Award winning fashion photographer, Rick Guidotti, worked in Milan, Paris and New York shooting pictures of the world's most beautiful people, until a chance encounter on a Manhattan street changed everything. Rick saw a stunning albino girl at the bus stop. He realized that he could help redefine beauty for these kids and adults with genetic differences everywhere.
13-year-old Nick LeGrande has always dreamed of throwing out the first pitch at an Oakland Athletics baseball game. Now with a life-threatening illness and too sick to take the mound, Nick was granted his wish Wednesday night though the use of amazing Android technology.
Have you read the book Lean In by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg yet? In professional women's circles, it's all the rage. It has sparked conversations about whether women can truly 'have it all', and whether they even want to. But it misses a key point related to positive psychology - it's focused on success rather than happiness. What about our innate simple desire to be happy? Carin Rockind explores this in her essay, Lean In to Happiness Instead.
Right after World War II, Ruth Crawford recalls, big weddings were a rarity for Americans. That's when she married the love of her life, but never got to wear a gorgeous dress. The 70-year-old widow still wished she had gotten to try on wedding dresses, when an organization called Second Wind Dreams came to her rescue.
An employee at McMaster University coffee shop displays exuberant happiness for every customer. Her dancing paid off when students bought her a surprise vacation.
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A Friend Who Spreads Gossip is Not a True Friend at All
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One Day, Your Mom Won’t Call You Anymore
I’ve reached a point in my life...
Happiness is a mindset, a conscious choice we make every day