Category: Health & Wellness

Shawn Achor On The REAL Reason Success Can’t Make You Happy

Work hard, achieve your goals, become happy — that’s the happiness formula many believe to be universally true. But happiness researcher Shawn Achor says that this success-leads-to-happiness model is fundamentally flawed. In a sit-down with Oprah for “Super Soul Sunday,” Achor explains why. “It’s scientifically broken

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Oprah & Shawn Achor on the Secret of Happy People

“Super Soul Sunday – Oprah & Shawn Achor: The Secret of Happy People”  Super Soul Sunday Episode Summaries Part 1: Aired Sunday, May 25 at 11 a.m. ET/PT on OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network Oprah sits down with Shawn Achor, a Harvard-trained researcher and the New

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When a Vacation Reduces Stress–And When it Doesn’t

I thought it was simple: Vacations are fun, Americans are stressed, and happiness raises productivity and sales. Therefore, people should take more vacations, right? But research doesn’t hold that line of thinking up. Not every vacation is equal. According to a 2013

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6 Ways to Press Mute on Brain Noise

In today’s world of smartphones and 24-hour news channels, we’ve become addicted to information. I found myself filling all my micro-moments each day with stuff that blocked me from forward progress. Brain “noise” is any information that is irrelevant, useless,

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Shawn Achor: The Key to Great Teams – The “glue guys or gals”

Who is the most important person on a team? If you follow sports, you know commentators will often talk about the “glue guys” or “glue gals” who hold their teams together in the midst of challenge and are largely responsible

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Raise Your Spirits and Boost Your Success

  Until I began researching happiness at Harvard, I thought that if you just worked harder, you’d be more successful, which of course would make you happier. But my research showed that formula doesn’t work. Every time our brain records

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Achieving Happiness Despite Everyday Challenges

Learning that you or a loved one has a chronic illness is news you never want to hear. The knowledge of such information is often accompanied by feelings of fear, anger, and depression, which can cause debilitating, unnecessary stress. By

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Is Happiness Impossible?

In difficult times is happiness out of reach? On a cold, wet morning in Boston, I was peering out the subway windows over the recently thawed Charles River, dreaming longingly of the sailboats that dot the water in summer, when

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The Happiness Dividend

Nearly every company in the world gives lip service to the idea that “our people are our greatest asset.” Yet when the Conference Board Survey came out earlier this year, employees were the unhappiest they have been in their 22

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3 Ways to Train Your Brain to be Happy

“I will be happy when…” This innocent comment is the very reason that happiness is so elusive for us in the modern world. We think: I will be happy when I have a successful relationship. I will be happy when

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