Joy

Five profound ways physical exercise shapes your brain and mind

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We’ve all heard that exer­cise is good for us—how it strength­ens our hearts and lungs, and helps us pre­vent dis­eases like dia­betes. That’s why so many of us like to make New Year’s res­o­lu­tions to move more, know­ing it will make us health­i­er and live longer.

But many peo­ple don’t know about the oth­er impor­tant ben­e­fits of exercise—how it can help us find hap­pi­ness, hope, con­nec­tion, and courage.

Around the world, peo­ple who are phys­i­cal­ly active are hap­pi­er and more sat­is­fied with their lives. They have a stronger sense of pur­pose and expe­ri­ence more grat­i­tude, love, and hope. They feel more con­nect­ed to their com­mu­ni­ties, and are less like­ly to suf­fer from lone­li­ness or become depressed.

These ben­e­fits are seen through­out the lifes­pan, includ­ing [Read more…] about Five pro­found ways phys­i­cal exer­cise shapes your brain and mind

New book on how to practice mindfulness meditation with humor and playfulness

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JoyonDemandFrom the out­side, med­i­ta­tion appears to be a thor­ough­ly seri­ous endeav­or. You have to sit down, duti­ful­ly count your breaths and rein in your wan­der­ing mind, and prac­tice this every day whether it’s fun or not.

But that isn’t Chade-Meng Tan’s approach to mind­ful­ness. The found­ing chair of the Search Inside Your­self Lead­er­ship Insti­tute, which start­ed as a mind­ful­ness class at Google and now trains employ­ees around the world, Tan lives by the mot­to that “life is too impor­tant to be tak­en seri­ous­ly.” And he adopts the same atti­tude toward cul­ti­vat­ing mindfulness—outlined in his new book, Joy on Demand: The Art of Dis­cov­er­ing the Hap­pi­ness With­in.

While Tan acknowl­edges that there are oth­er routes to mas­ter­ing med­i­ta­tion (includ­ing sheer dis­ci­pline and will), his focus is on joy. The book [Read more…] about New book on how to prac­tice mind­ful­ness med­i­ta­tion with humor and playfulness

Four “Inside Out” insights to discuss and improve our kids’ emotional lives (and our own)

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Inside-Out.

Since its release in June, Inside Out has been applaud­ed by crit­ics, adored by audi­ences, and has become the like­ly front-run­ner for the Acad­e­my Award for Best Ani­mat­ed Feature.

But per­haps its great­est achieve­ment has been this: It has moved view­ers young and old to take a look inside their own minds. [Read more…] about Four “Inside Out” insights to dis­cuss and improve our kids’ emo­tion­al lives (and our own)