Today’s positive psychology exercise is designed to help you build a skill that will strengthen your relationships: responding positively when good things happen to others.
Well-Being Interventions for Psychology Students
The events of the past few weeks, and the ways in which they have changed our daily lives, have been a source of great stress for many of us. This stress can have a range of effects on our well-being and mental health; many people respond to stress with increased anxiety, sadness, or irritability. You might notice this physically, as well – feeling more tense, or noticing changes in your sleeping or eating patterns.
The field of psychology has a lot to offer us at this time. In particular, over the past twenty years, the field of positive psychology has generated great insights into strategies and behaviors that we can use to cultivate well-being and manage stress – even in the face of challenging circumstances.
I will be writing to share information about positive psychology exercises that are supported by strong research evidence as activities that can promote various elements of well-being. Along with information about the exercises, I’ll share information about the research behind them.
I hope you find these resources useful as we navigate the challenges of these very unusual circumstances. I encourage you all to prioritize your well-being – both physical and emotional – and wish you and your loved ones the best of health.
Write a Gratitude Letter
Today’s exercise is one of the oldest and most well-studied positive interventions: the gratitude letter. This exercise was included in one of the earliest empirical investigations of the efficacy of positive interventions.
Take a TikTok #DanceChallenge
For the last exercise of our week of playful, research-supported viral internet trends, I invoke the wise words of Lady Gaga: Just Dance.
Take The #MuseumChallenge
Today’s positive psychology exercise continues two themes from earlier in the week:
- Promoting playfulness.
- Providing research evidence for the benefits of current viral trends.
Wash Your Lyrics
I’m going to take a slightly different approach with the activities that I share with you this week. None of this week’s positive psychology exercises are positive interventions in a traditional sense – they were not designed by psychologists, and haven’t been evaluated in peer-reviewed studies. Instead, I’ll be sharing some recent viral internet trends that align with research on well-being.
Self-Compassion: Take a Self-Compassion Break
Today’s exercise is the last in a series of interventions designed to enhance self-compassion. The first exercise addressed self-compassion using a writing-based exercise, in which you wrote a self-compassionate letter to yourself. Next, I encouraged you to approach self-compassion visually by creating your “ultimate self-compassionate image.” In this final exercise, we’ll try one more way […]
Self-Compassion: Compassionate Imagery
Today’s exercise continues our theme for the week, self-compassion. This exercise is often studied as a component of Compassionate Mind Training, or CMT, which was developed to help people improve their ability to engage in self-soothing and self-reassuring. In our last exercise, you practiced self-compassion using a writing exercise. Today’s exercise takes a different approach: […]
Self-Compassion: Write Yourself a Letter
The theme of this week’s positive psychology exercises is self-compassion. Davidson students are great at expressing empathy and compassion for others who are going through a stressful time – you step up and support one another in ways big and small. It is equally important to have compassion for yourself. Dr. Kristen Neff defines self-compassion […]
Three Funny Things
This week’s final positive psychology exercise is meant to be fun – or, more specifically, to be funny! If you took the Values in Action inventory, you might have seen “humor” show up as one of your strengths. The VIA Institute on Character defines humor as: Humor means to recognize what is amusing in […]
Take a Virtual Nature Break
A wide range of research shows that experiencing the natural world is associated with well-being; for example, activities in natural environments are associated with more favorable emotional and attentional outcomes than similar activities in synthetic environments. A meta-analysis of 32 studies found that even brief exposure to natural environments is associated with moderate increases in […]
