Monthly Archives: October 2013

Art makes us happier

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Soul Pancake explores how art inspires hapiness

This is based on a study

The Greater Good Society profiles seven artist’s perspectivse on why we make art. 

Strengths Mined: Creativity, Appreciation of Beauty, Capacity to love and be loved, Authenticity,

  • I make art for a few reasons. In life, we experience so much fragmentation of thought and feeling. For me, creating art brings things back together.
  • I like expressing emotions—to have others feel what it is I’m feeling when I’m photographing people.
  • I make art primarily because I enjoy the process. It’s fun making things.

While most of us are not artists, not in the sense of making a living in things, I suspect most of us can relate to the sentiments described. Indeed art is important. A London School of Economic researcher found it to be among the MOST important things in making us happy:  Of the top six most happiness-inducing activities, again after sex and exercise, the other four are all arts-related.  They are, in descending order:

 

1)      Intimacy/making love
2)      Sports/running/exercise
3)      Theatre/dance/concert
4)      Singing/performing
5)      Exhibition/museum/library
6)      Hobbies/arts/crafts

 

Want to join the research? Download Mappiness app and follow the directions.

 

Be Sure to Check out Julian’s efforts and funnyy story

Mindfulness: The most relaxing sound ever recorded

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At least, according to science sponsored by a soap company. 

The research, conducted by Dr David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International tested various songs on 40 adult women. This one. The following presents a great playlist to sleep meditate by:

1. Marconi Union – Weightless 
2. Airstream – Electra 
3. DJ Shah – Mellomaniac (Chill Out Mix) 
4. Enya – Watermark
5. Coldplay – Strawberry Swing
6. Barcelona – Please Don’t Go 
7. All Saints – Pure Shores 
8. Adelev Someone Like You 
9. Mozart – Canzonetta Sull’aria 
10. Cafe Del Mar – We Can Fly



Check out your emotional reading skills.

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The New York Times if offering up a face reading emotions test. “Curious to see how you do on a test of emotional perception?”

You can take the test here. Readers comments note that all the women are young and several have “sexy” type eyes–Flirtaticous, Fantasizing or interested, whereas none such eyes exist in the men. Moreover, the men include ones that are old.

1 day training opportunity

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I will be giving a pre-conference 1 day training in Bangkok for teachers, counselors and administrators in March 2014:

Title: Flourishing in Schools: Utilizing groundbreaking research and tools from positive psychology to improve student’s wellbeing. 

There has been a quiet transformation happening in some schools around the world as they focus on the conditions under which students, parents and faculty flourish? How do we improve student engagement? How can we better address our communities well-being? What is positive education and how does it impact student learning? Deep questions, but with some very compelling and surprisingly simple ideas to address them. In this workshop, we will look into the current research from positive psychology and its implications for teachers, counselors and administrators. The day will have lots of interactive activities and demonstration giving participants tools that they can use in their own communities.

1 day training opportunity

Posted on by

I will be giving a pre-conference 1 day training in Bangkok for teachers, counselors and administrators in March 2014:

Title: Flourishing in Schools: Utilizing groundbreaking research and tools from positive psychology to improve student’s wellbeing. 

There has been a quiet transformation happening in some schools around the world as they focus on the conditions under which students, parents and faculty flourish? How do we improve student engagement? How can we better address our communities well-being? What is positive education and how does it impact student learning? Deep questions, but with some very compelling and surprisingly simple ideas to address them. In this workshop, we will look into the current research from positive psychology and its implications for teachers, counselors and administrators. The day will have lots of interactive activities and demonstration giving participants tools that they can use in their own communities.

Loye typs and character strengths.

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Dr. Helen Fisher has been researching and writing about love for years. Such is her wisdom and understanding, she is the Chief Scientific Advisor for Match.com, one of the internet’s leading online dating service. She gives a fascinating  and fun interview with The Greater Good contrasting poetry and song lyrics with the scientific lyrics. 

She identified four basic personality types identified in her research:

You can take the test here to see which are your dominant types. I hypothesize the strengths that possibly exist in each personality type:

  • Explorers (creative and dominated by dopamine). Known for being Highly curious, creative, energetic, spontaneous.  ‘Adventure’ is the word most often used by Explorers as they describe themselves and what they are looking for in a mate.  The other nine of their top ten most-used words (in descending order) are: venture, spontaneity/ spontaneous, energy, new, fun, travelling, outgoing, passion and active.  
  • Director (reasoning and ruled by testosterone). Known for Analytical and logical, straightforward, decisive, tough minded, and focused.  Intelligent and intelligence together top the list of words used by Directors.  Also intellectual, debate, geek, nerd/nerdy, ambition/ ambitious, driven, politics, challenge/challenging and real.