2010
Gratitude is a key to happiness
On the first weekend of October most German religious communities again will celebrate Thanksgiving. (In the USA it is not celebrated until the end of November although the basic idea is quite similar.) Here in the rural area where we live as well as in the cities people are doing their very best to decorate church sanctuaries with fruit, vegetables and flowers. In my opinion it represents a wonderful tradition because at least once a year it breaks with this matter of course habit of our, usually thoughtless daily excursions to super markets and stores. We are rarely aware that compared to the rest of the world, we are magnificently provided for. Continue reading ...
How problems can make you feel happy
Yes, you read correctly: Problems will make you happy! In psychological research something that looks like a contradiction at first glance, turns out to be a simple but important truth. Because, whoever is never confronted with obstacles or difficulties also never gets a chance at a very important happiness component: The sense of having faced and mastered a challenge.
Continue reading ...
Salutogenesis: Why it is healthy to give your life meaning
24/08/10 by Felicitas Heyne | Filed in: Psychology
The word salutogenesis is composed of the Latin word salus (= inviolacy, happiness) and the Greek word genesis (= origin). Thus it stands for the origin of health and was coined in the 70s by the Israeli-American medical sociologist Aaron Antonovsky. Antonovsky was looking for an explanation for his observation that, while many Holocaust survivors were suffering from severe after effects (physical and emotional illnesses), others did not show any such symptoms, at all. He intended to find out, which factors determined whether a person would cope with the same traumatic experiences more easily or with more difficulty than another. Therefore he was interested in the origin (or retention) of health – even under difficult and stressful conditions. Continue reading ...
How to start living your personal, happiness-supporting lifestyle
In recent years hardly any other psychological field of research has grown as intensively and has received as much attention as the so-called positive psychology. In the early 90s of the last century, a group of psychologists asked themselves why so much attention had been focused on the origin of psychiatric disorders and their elimination by way of therapies, and very little attention had been dedicated to the origin of mental health and the circumstances supporting it. These psychologists wanted to change this, and to that end, began to increasingly dedicate themselves to researching the prerequisites of happiness, contentment, and mental health. Continue reading ...