Ten insights on human well-being and potential from two giants we sadly lost in 2021: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Ed Diener

Many of us suf­fered ter­ri­ble loss­es in 2021. In the field of pos­i­tive psy­chol­o­gy, we lost two of our most influ­en­tial schol­ars: Mihaly Csik­szent­mi­ha­lyi and Ed Diener. In their hon­or, I’d like to remem­ber and appre­ci­ate the con­tri­bu­tions they made to the under­stand­ing of human flourishing.

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Rationality doesn’t equal efficiency: Cellphone data shows how we navigate cities

Think of your morn­ing walk to work, school or your favorite cof­fee shop. Are you tak­ing the short­est pos­si­ble route to your des­ti­na­tion? Accord­ing to big data research that my col­leagues and I con­duct­ed, the answer is no: People’s brains are not wired for opti­mal nav­i­ga­tion. Instead of cal­cu­lat­ing the short­est path, peo­ple try to…

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What should come first to treat ADHD in children, behavior therapy or stimulant medication?

Stim­u­lant med­ica­tion treat­ment and behav­ior ther­a­py are cur­rent­ly the two child ADHD treat­ments with the strongest research sup­port. How­ev­er, when par­ents begin treat­ment for their child, or when pro­fes­sion­als are ini­ti­at­ing treat­ment with a new client, there is no research to guide the deci­sion of which approach to begin with. Is it bet­ter to start with…

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Three Ss to reduce the stress of “homeschooling” our kids: Simplify, Structure, Support

With nation­wide school clo­sures in effect, many par­ents are now mon­i­tor­ing home­school­ing while at the same time try­ing to make a liv­ing in the midst of an eco­nom­ic cri­sis. In this envi­ron­ment of bro­ken rou­tine and uncer­tain­ty, chances are your child is show­ing big feel­ings and chal­leng­ing behav­iors. In my work as a school psychologist,…

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UCSF to open innovative neurology clinic to address “diagnostic odyssey”

_____ UCSF to Launch Unique Neu­rol­o­gy Clin­ic Spe­cial­iz­ing in Dif­­fi­cult-to-Diag­nose Cas­es (press release): “A pro­posed neu­rol­o­gy clin­ic at UCSF Med­ical Cen­ter at Mis­sion Bay aims to short­cut the “diag­nos­tic odyssey” faced by many patients with baf­fling brain symp­toms that do not meet the stan­dard cri­te­ria for any spe­cif­ic con­di­tion. Patients with ambigu­ous neu­ro­log­i­cal symp­toms, but…

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Lack of sleep seen to cause sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) in adolescents with attention deficits

___ It is esti­mat­ed that up to 75% of youth with ADHD have sleep prob­lems. And, exper­i­men­tal stud­ies that manip­u­late sleep quan­ti­ty have demon­strat­ed a causal link between sleep and ADHD behav­ior in chil­dren. How­ev­er, there has been no pri­or work in which sleep dura­tion has been manip­u­lat­ed in ado­les­cents diag­nosed with ADHD. 

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