An article in Prevention magazine cited research conducted at Yale University which found that being optimistic in middle age increases your life span by 7.5 years. The reason is that optimistic people are able to minimize the destructive effects of stress. “Of course, optimistic people get stressed,” says David Snowden, a professor neurology at the University of Kentucky…
The way you treat others is how you showcase the real you for the whole world to see–and people will be watching and making judgements about you. They will be entertaining thoughts like: “Is this the kind of person I want to get to know better, stick my neck out for or go the extra…
This time of year, people are thinking about making New Year’s resolutions. Many of these resolutions are concerned with things like losing weight, eating healthier, saving more money, or starting and maintaining a regular exercise program. These are all very difficult things to accomplish, so by the end of January most of them will have…
A friend of mine posted the following on Facebook recently. For those of us who are searching for meaning and purpose in life, it makes a very compelling point. “What is my purpose in life?” I asked the void. “What if I told you that you fulfilled it when you took an extra hour to…
Many people choose to follow the crowd by taking the well-worn path through life. They find this choice appealing because it seems relatively risk free and it keeps them well inside their comfort zone. In reality, there are huge risks associated with following the crowd. First, you give up a great deal of your uniqueness…
In 1921, Lewis Terman, a psychologist at Stanford University began a long-term study of 1,528 twelve-year-old American children. The goal of this project was to study their lives and habits until they died. Ninety years later, Howard Friedman, a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California Riverside and Leslie Martin, Professor of Psychology…
An article by Brad Stulberg, which appeared in The Wall Street Journal, points out that being alone and isolated is not good for us—as human beings we need friendships to thrive. He then points out that our great religious traditions have known this all along. For example, St. Augustine said in a fourth century sermon, “In…
Recently, I received an email with a list of effortless ways to extend kindness to people and make your corner of the planet a better place. I’d like to share some of them with you: Send someone a card. Smile at someone who looks like they need a little cheering up. Let someone go ahead…
An article written by Ashley Macha, which appeared in The Arizona Republic, said if you surround yourself with healthy, strong friendships, you’ll live longer, have less stress and potentially fewer health issues. The article went on to say that people with more relationships are more resilient and better able to bounce back from what life throws…
We’ve all been there. We’re feeling down, having a bad day or worried about something and we try to tell a friend how we’re feeling. We’re looking for a listening ear, but instead we get cheery advice in the form of, “Don’t worry, everything will be okay,” or “You know, it could be a lot…