Educational Resources of Happiness Studies

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008) (Available on Amazon Prime and iTunes.) Sally Hawkins shines as the irritatingly sunny school teacher at the heart of Mike Leigh’s raucous comedy, which tracks her escapades around London. Faced with personal and professional crises, she mellows but never stops spreading joy—and those who surround her are all the better for it.

How to Cultivate Hope (By Dan J. Tomasulo, Ph.D.) The secret is focusing on what you can control.

The Science and Power of Hope | Chan Hellman | TEDxOklahomaCity A lot of people want to change their lives, but they are not quite sure how. They think of hope as a magic wish, or an ideal that is out of reach. In this talk, Dr. Chan Hellman shares there is both science and power in hope to help people create the change they want in life. Chan M. Hellman is a professor of social work at the University of Oklahoma and Director of The Hope Research Center. He has written more than 150 scientific publications and has presented at numerous national and international conferences worldwide. Chan’s research is focused on hope as a psychological strength helping children and adults overcome trauma and adversity. Chan is the co-author of the award-winning book “Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life” with his co-author Casey Gwinn published by Morgan James.

Faith, Hope & Love (Netflix)

Sustaining Hope in Uncertain Times It’s easy in these difficult, uncertain times to lose hope. But allowing yourself to sink into a funk can affect your professional and personal lives. What’s more, there’s an alternative: a process that involves imagining a plausible positive future, identifying steps to achieve it, and viewing inevitable setbacks as inflection points when you can reset your course.

How Hope Can Change Your Life | Amy Downs | TEDxOklahomaCity Can a person overcome the most difficult moments of their life? Amy Downs shows how people can not only survive, but how they can thrive if they have a hopeful mindset. The pathway of hope leads to all people creating a better future. Amy Downs was one of the last survivors to be pulled from the rubble of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing in which a total of 168 people were killed including 18 of her 33 co-workers. While buried alive and waiting to die, she realized she had never really lived. She began her career as a teller 32 years ago working for Federal Employees Credit Union located in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. At the time of the bombing, Downs was a credit card loan officer who flunked out of college and weighed more than 350 pounds. In the coming years, she’d not only lose 200 pounds, but become a triathlete—and even compete in an Ironman Triathlon. She’d not only go back to school, but she’d graduate with a Masters of Business Administration. She’d not only get promoted by Federal Employees Credit Union (who would soon change their name to Allegiance Credit Union) but she eventually became its CEO—an award winning CEO, no less.

National Institute of Health/Hope and Optimism as an Opportunity to Improve the “Positive Mental Health” Demand This opinion paper aims to examine some differences between optimism and hope, and integrate these constructs in the context of positive mental health. We also intend to point out some interventions that promote hope and optimism, where mental and psychiatric health nursing play an important role.

The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams Looking at the headlines—the worsening climate crisis, a global pandemic, loss of biodiversity, political upheaval—it can be hard to feel optimistic. And yet hope has never been more desperately needed. In this urgent book, Jane Goodall, the world's most famous living naturalist, and Douglas Abrams, the internationally bestselling co-author of The Book of Joy, explore through intimate and thought-provoking dialogue one of the most sought after and least understood elements of human nature: hope. In The Book of Hope, Jane focuses on her "Four Reasons for Hope": The Amazing Human Intellect, The Resilience of Nature, The Power of Young People, and The Indomitable Human Spirit. Drawing on decades of work that has helped expand our understanding of what it means to be human and what we all need to do to help build a better world, The Book of Hope touches on vital questions, including: How do we stay hopeful when everything seems hopeless? How do we cultivate hope in our children? What is the relationship between hope and action? Filled with moving and inspirational stories and photographs from Jane’s remarkable career, The Book of Hope is a deeply personal conversation with one of the most beloved figures in the world today.

How Hope Can Keep You Healthier and Happier Hope is more than just positive thinking.

Benjamin W Corn, David B Feldman, Isaiah Wexler - The Science of Hope We analyse the concept of hope with respect to its applicability for oncology. We review studies that present hope as a direct or secondary mediator of outcome. We posit that an individual’s level of hope is often determined by innate personality characteristics and environmental factors, but can also be physiologically influenced by immune modulators, neurotransmitters, affective states, and even the underlying disease process of cancer. We argue that hope can be a therapeutic target and review evidence showing the effects of hope-enhancing therapies. Given the potential for hope to alter oncological outcomes in patients with cancer and the opportunity for improvement in quality of life, we suggest further research directions in this area.

Hope Rising: How the Science of Hope Can Change Your Life by Casey Gwinn & Chan Hellman Hope is much more than wishful thinking. Science tells us that it is the most predictive indicator of well-being in a person’s life. Hope is measurable. It is malleable. And it changes lives. In Hope Rising, Casey Gwinn and Chan Hellman reveal the latest science of hope using nearly 2,000 published studies, including their own research. Based on their findings, they make an impassioned call for hope to be the focus not only of our personal lives, but of public policy for education, business, social services, and every part of society. Hope Rising provides a roadmap to measure hope in your life. It teaches you to assess what may have robbed you of hope, and then provides strategies to let your hope flourish once again. The authors challenge every reader to be honest about their own struggles and end the cycle of shame and blame related to trauma, illness, and abuse. These are important first steps toward increasing your Hope score—and thriving because of it.

FutureMe.Org The website lets you send a letter to your future self, days, weeks, months or even years in the future. You can use it to remind yourself of a where/when plan you’ve made (“Hi, Today is the day you’re signing up for swimming lessons”) or check in on your progress. More than two and half million future letters have been written through the website.

Upworthy This website shares stories that are designed to inspire and uplift people.

Hope: Why It Matters We find ways to oppose the dread of life's dangers with hope: an aspirational feeling that circumstances can improve, that we can persist, that there is at least as much good in the world as bad.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020) (Available on Amazon Prime.) The tale of Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), a teenager who travels to New York for an abortion, is one of quiet heroism in Eliza Hittman’s deft character study. She overcomes adversity—ambivalence at home, bullying at school, predatory men in the city—and perseveres, even when it feels hopeless.

When Hope Is Your Only Option: One Man's Brave Journey Through Life's Adversity - Triple Organ Transplant by Jim Stavis Diagnosed with juvenile type 1 diabetes at age 17, Jim Stavis was told to expect a shortened lifespan filled with medical difficulties along the way. While some would choose to spend their time asking, "Why me?" and focusing on the very real possibility that their life would end before it even began, Stavis chose to tackle his medical issues head on-using positivity and hope as warriors in his fight against adversity.

Hope: A novel by Andrew Ridker The year is 2013 and the Greenspans are the envy of Brookline, Massachusetts, an idyllic (and idealistic) suburb west of Boston. Scott Greenspan is a successful physician with his own cardiology practice. His wife, Deb, is a pillar of the community who spends her free time helping resettle refugees. Their daughter, Maya, works at a distinguished New York publishing house and their son, Gideon, is preparing to follow in his father’s footsteps.They are an exceptional family from an exceptional place, living in exceptional times. But when Scott is caught falsifying blood samples at work, he sets in motion a series of scandals that threatens to shatter his family. Deb leaves him for a female power broker; Maya rekindles a hazardous affair from her youth; and Gideon drops out of college to go on a dangerous journey that will put his principles to the test. From Brookline to Berlin to the battlefields of Syria, Hope follows the Greenspans over the course of one tumultuous year as they question, and compromise, the values that have shaped their lives. But in the midst of their disillusionment, they’ll discover their own capacity for resilience, connection, and, ultimately, hope.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) (Available on Amazon Prime and iTunes.) Social commentary and magical realism collide in Benh Zeitlin’s tender fable about a wide-eyed girl (Quvenzhané Wallis) living in a Louisiana bayou community with her father (Dwight Henry). As floodwaters rise, they band together and look to the future, determined to survive and rebuild.

From Burned Out to Fully Charged At Work and in Life | Tal Ben Shahar & Neha Sangwan

Writing club with Henry DeVries

ob Crafting for Happiness at work with Sandy Pellerano

Forrest Gump “Mama always said Life was like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” Forrest Gump - The movie itself is a ‘box of chocolates’, you never know what you are going to get out of it. It is full of surprises and life lessons. Forrest Gump is a low IQ character in the movie who does all the work which is being given to him. Without complaining about anything, he still feels grateful that he got to do the work.

Gratitude and Well Being The word “gratitude” has a number of different meanings, depending on the context. However, a practical clinical definition is as follows—gratitude is the appreciation of what is valuable and meaningful to oneself; it is a general state of thankfulness and/or appreciation. The majority of empirical studies indicate that there is an association between gratitude and a sense of overall well being. However, there are several studies that indicate potential nuances in the relationship between gratitude and well being as well as studies with negative findings. In terms of assessing gratitude, numerous assessment measures are available. From a clinical perspective, there are suggested therapeutic exercises and techniques to enhance gratitude, and they appear relatively simple and easy to integrate into psychotherapy practice. However, the therapeutic efficacy of these techniques remains largely unknown. Only future research will clarify the many questions around assessment, potential benefits, and enhancement of gratitude.

How gratitude retires your brain ted talk by Cristina Costa

http://gratefulness.me/ This website is a community for people to share their gratitude and learn about the benefits of gratitude. It also offers a variety of resources, such as gratitude prompts, articles, and videos.

Gratitude: A Day and Night Reflection Journal (90 Days) By Insight Editions Celebrate each moment, big or small, and preserve important memories with everyday mindfulness. This 90-day reflection journal gives you a path to developing a habit of daily gratitude that you can carry throughout your life. Cultivating thankfulness is a potent exercise, proven to have a positive effect on a person's mental health and general well-being. Each spread of this positivity journal includes space to record expressions of gratitude, personal affirmations, memories of positive interactions, and commentary on the significance of it all. The perfect self-care or mindfulness gift for women and men, this happiness log creates a personal diary of positive experiences and wonderful reflections that can be a source of inspiration for years to come.

Thanks!: How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier by Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D. A proponent of the field of positive psychology offers a close-up study of the positive influence on people's lives of the systematic cultivation of gratitude, explaining how the practice of grateful thinking can increase one's chances for happiness and help one cope more effectively with stress, recover more quickly from illness, enjoy better physical health, improve relationships, and other benefits.

Gratitude - A Mental Health Game Changer Gratitude can be a game changer. It helps train your brain to notice and appreciate the little things in life and, in doing so, shifts your life experience tremendously. Gratitude can increase your happiness and wellbeing, life satisfaction, even overall health while decreasing the stuff we all want less of like anxiety, depression, and anger. It can be a powerful practice to cultivate, especially if you struggle with anxiety or depression.

It's a Wonderful Life “You see George, you’ve really had a wonderful life. Don’t you see what a mistake it would be to just throw it away?” An angel sent from heaven to help a frustrated businessman to see how wonderful life is and how he impacted and inspired people around him.

35 Scientific Benefits of Gratitude: Mental Health Research Findings Contrary to common knowledge, gratitude is more than just an individual’s emotional response that results in making other people feel appreciated. Actual scientific studies prove the benefits of gratitude that contribute to an individual’s character development and overall well-being. And in this article, we will look into these benefits and how we can achieve them.