Study: A combined teaching + app gratitude program helps adolescents address anxiety and improve mental health

By Greater Good Science Center | October 16, 2020

Stu­dents and edu­ca­tors have start­ed a new school year in the midst of a pan­dem­ic, an eco­nom­ic cri­sis, a reck­on­ing with racial injus­tice, and a divi­sive polit­i­cal cli­mate. Everyone’s men­tal health is at risk, and schools are search­ing for ways to sup­port young people’s well-being in addi­tion to their aca­d­e­m­ic learning.

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Why stress regulation and working memory are core building blocks of lifelong resilience

By SharpBrains | June 23, 2020

How anx­i­ety affects your focus (BBC Work­life): Feel like you can’t con­cen­trate on any­thing at the moment? You’re not alone. The extra anx­i­ety caused by the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic has impaired our work­ing mem­o­ry, experts say … What’s hap­pen­ing is a mal­func­tion of work­ing mem­o­ry: the abil­i­ty to grasp incom­ing infor­ma­tion, form it into a cohe­sive thought,…

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Reading science fiction can help children build critical thinking and resilience

By The Conversation | June 9, 2020

Young peo­ple who are hooked on watch­ing fan­ta­sy or read­ing sci­ence fic­tion may be on to some­thing. Con­trary to a com­mon mis­per­cep­tion that read­ing this genre is an unwor­thy prac­tice, read­ing sci­ence fic­tion and fan­ta­sy may help young peo­ple cope, espe­cial­ly with the stress and anx­i­ety of liv­ing through the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. I am a…

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Q&A with Rick Hanson on Neurodharma, brain science, personal practice and well-being

By Greater Good Science Center | May 8, 2020

Psy­chol­o­gist and neu­ro­science expert Rick Han­son stud­ies the men­tal resources that pro­mote resilience, from calm and grat­i­tude to con­fi­dence and courage. Accord­ing to Han­son, the coro­n­avirus cri­sis is expos­ing some of our psy­cho­log­i­cal vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, and remind­ing us how impor­tant it is to nur­ture our social and emo­tion­al strengths. In his new book, Neu­rod­har­ma, Han­son writes about how we can…

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Four guidelines for smart use of smartphones

By Greater Good Science Center | November 14, 2019

These days, you can’t go any­where with­out hear­ing about how tech­nol­o­gy is ruin­ing every­thing, includ­ing our hap­pi­ness. There is some truth to this, but it’s not the whole sto­ry. Tech­nol­o­gy can be bad for us—for exam­ple, when social media gives us FOMO (fear of miss­ing out) or traps us in fil­ter bub­bles that pre­vent us from…

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Forget the Oscars — the Greater Goodies honor Ten Films that Highlight the Growth Mindset, Resilience, Purpose and more

By Greater Good Science Center | March 5, 2018

___ Every­one’s talk­ing about yes­ter­day’s Acad­e­my Awards—and so we thought we’d give out our own ver­sion of the Oscars, the Greater Good­ies. Where­as the Acad­e­my of Motion Pic­ture Arts and Sci­ences rec­og­nizes achieve­ments in act­ing, direct­ing, edit­ing, and so on, the Greater Good staff picked our win­ners for their abil­i­ty to illus­trate spe­cif­ic keys to human well-being, such…

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