Being attentive and appreciative of a particular experience. Often involves the use of the senses.

Proof it works

Research shows:

• A recent study in Sonja Lyubormirsky’s lab showed that the practice of remembering happy life events and attempting to replay them in one’s mind prolongs and reinforces positive emotions.

Why it works

• Elicits conscious memories of positive past

• Builds past, present, and future minded positive emotions, which builds resilience and buffers against depression

• Relieves any current stress and refocuses brain

Quick Applications

1. Think of sights, sounds, smells and other sensations that you enjoy on a daily or weekly basis: a hot shower, the smell of coffee, a beautiful scene on your commute or on a hike. Now, really focus on how enjoyable that is and prolong the positive sensation 10-20 seconds.

2. Think of a past success. Close your eyes and really feel what it felt like in that moment. Extend that feeling as long as you can in your mind.

Proactively enhancing the quality of your relationships. Deepening existing relationships.

Proof it works

Research shows nurturing relationships:

• Promote a charitable perception of other people and community

• Create favorable social comparisons

• Relieve distress or guilt over other’s misfortunes

• Foster heightened sense of interdependence and cooperation

Why it works

• Leads people to view themselves as generous and to feel confident, efficacious, in

control, and optimistic about their abilities to help

• Inspires liking and friendship by others, as well as their appreciation and gratitude

• Produces prosocial reciprocity

How to use it

1. Connect – Contact someone from your family or a friend with whom you haven’t been in touch with for a while – someone with whom you want to strengthen your relationship. Think of a person who can benefit from your skills, time, or support. Make time to listen and to express your appreciation and affection.

2. Set up a 30 min coffee with a work mate, mentor/mentee, or someone who you were going to email/call. – Set aside this time to make good eye contact, note how they look, what emotions are they expressing? Focus on feeling connected with them and finding common ground.

Something you feel when you feel you have been the recipient of someone or something else’s positive actions.

Proof it works

Research shows grateful people have:

• More satisfaction with life

• More pro-social behavior

• More other-centered approach

• Less negative “self-preoccupation”

• Better sleep and vitality

• More optimism

Why it works

• Increases positivity

• Enhances the experience

• Enables savoring

• Counters hedonic treadmill

• Counters materialism & adaptation

• Decreases stress

How to use it

1. Gratitude journal – Write down the 3 to 5 things for which you are currently grateful –from the mundane (your flowers are finally in bloom) to the magnificent (your child’s first steps). Do this once a week. Keep the strategy fresh by varying your entries and making them specific to the last week.

2. Dinner Thanks – have each person share three things they are grateful for that day. This give an added boost to hear other’s joys and also gives opportunity to be grateful for a family member who is present.

Picking one, two, or three significant goals that are meaningful to you and devoting time and effort to pursuing them.

Proof it works

Research shows:

• Seeing and meeting goals increases a sense of satisfaction and productivity

• People who set high goals tend to be more satisfied with their work

Why it works

• Achievement builds a sense of self-efficacy

• Setting specific and challenging goals that give you immediate feedback fuels your desire to achieve more

How to use it

1. Increase pathways – brainstorm as many pathways to achieving your goal as possible

2. Increase agency – recall previous goals where you have been successful and note which strategy could be applied now to your present goal.

3. Break your goal into steps – break your new goal into as many steps and sub-steps as possible and realize that this will be a process to be enjoyed, not just something to mark as done.

4. Strengthen positive self-talk – find supportive phrases, such as, “I can handle this” that you frequently use around your new goal.

Coping is what people do to alleviate the hurt, stress, or suffering caused by a negative event or situation.

Proof it works

Research shows:

• Developing coping strategies builds resilience

• Resilient people build more supportive social networks that help facilitate positive coping with negative events

• Resilient individuals show faster cardiovascular recovery after negative events

Why it works

• Coping allows one to recover from the harmful effects of negative emotional appraisal and experience a more positive emotional appraisal of events

• Coping allows one to engage in more proactive behaviors in the face of a stressor

How to use it

1. Regulate yourself first – Make sure you are out of the “flight or fight” stage. This can be done by breathing (5 seconds in, 5 seconds out for 1-2 min). Meditate if you have 5-10 minutes.

2. Examine inaccurate beliefs and replace – examine your beliefs related to your problem. Are they accurate? If they have an “always/never/should of” then it probably leans toward inaccurate (I never succeed in my goals). Replace with a more logical and accurate thought (I have failed in some goals, but succeeded in many others. What did I do in the past to succeed?)

A spontaneous gesture of goodwill toward someone or something.

Proof it works

Research shows:

• Altruistic people tend to be happier

• Altruism and volunteering tend to benefit the giver even more than the receiver

• Performing acts of kindness increases people’s happiness level, and the more acts that are performed in one day, the higher the happiness

Why it works

• Creates upward spirals

• Helps people shift into a self-perception of “I do good in the world”

• Produces prosocial reciprocity

• Strengthens social ties

How to use it

1. Reframe task – Think of a task that you aren’t too fond of, such as email or paperwork. Now, imagine this task as an opportunity to express kindness to someone by helping, being encourage or keeping in mind the ultimate goal of your work (usually to help someone else).

2. Look for moments of connection – When you go through the day, be aware of the people around you and think of what you can offer them: a smile, a hello, holding the door, picking up something they dropped, giving directions, or helping in some way. A simple smile and eye contact can boost your own mood and may be the one bright spot in someone else’s day.

State of intense absorption: “In the zone.” Feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity in the moment. Finding the right balance between your skill and a new challenge.

Proof it works

Research shows frequent flow correlates with:

• Life satisfaction

• Achievement

• Better health

• Creativity

Why it works

• Focuses energy and attention

• Creates more self-regulation

• Engages a person in the creation process

• Gets them stepping out of their “stuff” into an altered state, even if for just a short period of time

How to use it

1. Strength Use – find out what your character strengths are at www.via.characterstrengths.org. These are skills you have that naturally bring energy, engagement and a sense of flow. Examine your work day to find more ways you can utilize your strengths.

2. Flow in conversation – During your next 1-on-1 with someone (a friend, a colleague), focus your attention as intensely as possible on what the other person is saying. Don’t be too quick to respond. Be curious and ask questions for clarity.

A sense of hopefulness about the future. Optimism is both a style of thinking and a hopeful outlook in the world.

Proof it works

Research shows optimism:

• Improves self-regulation

• Provides opportunity to gain insight about one’s priorities, motives, and emotions

• Reduces conflicts among one’s life goals

• Integrates life experiences in a meaningful way

• Fuels a feeling of control

• Improves performance

• Fosters positive thinking

Why it works

• Gets you feeling pulled by your future

• Creates hopefulness

• Creates pathways for achievement

How to use it

1. Best future self – Sit in a quiet place and take 15 to 30 minutes to think about and write down what you expect your life to be a few years from now. Imagine that everything has gone as well as it possibly could. You have worked hard and succeeded at accomplishing all of your life goals. Think of this as the realization of all of your life dreams. Then write about what you imagined. Start with, “In 5 years, I am...” This exercise will help you identify your most important and meaningful life aspirations and to practice thinking positively and optimistically about them. Not only has this exercise been shown to make people happier, but it also increases the chances that those goals will actually come to pass! If you can, do this exercise for four days in a row for at least 15 minutes each day.

2. Attribute successes successfully – reflect on past successes and note what internal characteristics you possess that helped you achieve those goals. Then reflect on how those characteristics will help you succeed in the future. You can use your character strengths (http://www.via.characterstrengths.org/) or come up with your own.

Feeling a strong, intimate, and personally valuable connection to something greater than yourself, and living life from that space of faith.

Proof it works

Research shows:

• Acts of faith are beneficial when the activity increases a state of calm and positivity, focuses your attention, and you believe in it

• People who consider themselves to be of “faith” are happier than those who do not

Why it works

• Participating in religion or spirituality can often be tied to being a part of a group and cultivating a sense of shared meaning and belonging

• Helps people make meaning in their life

How to use it

1. Seek meaning and purpose – Creating meaning comes from having a coherent “life scheme.” Sit back and write down your own life story. Who are you now, and who were you before? What future do you imagine for yourself? What are the obstacles in your path? What assumptions do you hold about the world and why things are the way they are? What is your life for? How do you live a virtuous life and improve the world around you?

2. Pray – A universal way to practice spirituality is through prayer. Dedicate a period of time each day, from five minutes to an hour, to prayer or choose to pray spontaneously throughout the day – when you feel stressed, when you witness a beautiful object or kind act, or when something particularly good (or bad) has happened.

3. Find the sacred in the ordinary – Develop an ability to see holiness in everyday things, both beautiful and plain – a meal, a child’s laugh, an autumn leaf. Sanctifying day-to-day objects, experiences, and struggles takes great practice, but it’s at the heart of spirituality and its rewards.

Both meditation and exercise have powerful positive effects on the mind-body. This activity has to do with self-care practices to keep you healthy and clear. Self-awareness enables self-compassion, which enables self-care

Proof it works

Research shows:

• Both meditation and exercise can be stress relievers

• Decreases anxiety and stress

• Increases heart-rate variability

• Increases immune response

• Activates pre-frontal cortex

Why it works

• Releases endorphins

• Resets brain chemicals

• Communicates to the body that you are alive

• Eats up stress hormones

How to use it

1. Mindfulness Meditation – set aside 5-10 minutes everyday. A good place for official instruction is Shambhala.org. There are centers with free instruction in most major cities. You can also use several different apps (Insight Timer).

• Be nonjudgmental (observe the present moment impartially, with detachment, without evaluation)

• Be nonstriving (it’s all about progression)

• Focus on coming back to your breath

2. Loving Kindness Meditation – this type of meditation builds compassion. Check this website for more instruction: https://www.positivityresonance.com/meditations.html

3. Movement is for everyone – incorporate small increases in activity.

• 10 minute morning/evening walk

• Longer weekend walk

• 5 minute walk for every hour of sitting at the office

• Public transportation/biking instead of driving

• Join an enjoyable class (dancing, beginner yoga, group jogging)

Forgiving those who have done wrong; giving people a second chance; not being vengeful. Forgiving is not the same thing as forgetting. Forgiving is a gift you give yourself of not letting

the situation continue to plague you.

Proof it works

Research shows:

• Holding on to grudges takes away from our health

• Forgiving people are less likely to be “hateful, depressed, hostile, anxious, angry, and neurotic” and are more likely to be “happier, healthier, more agreeable, and more serene”

Why it works

• Helps the person let go of trying to change the past

• Decreases negative rumination about the event

• Helps the person let go of feelings of resentment, regret, and revenge

• Moves people out of a narrow and focused state into a broaden and build state

How to use it

1. Appreciate being forgiven – Before you are able to forgive another, a good first exercise is to appreciate an instance of when you yourself have been forgiven. Recall a time you harmed another and were forgiven. What insights do you have? This exercise will help you see the benefits of forgiveness and perhaps provide a model for your own forgiving. Another way to appreciate being forgiven is to seek forgiveness of yourself.

2. Imagine forgiveness – First, identify a particular person whom you blame for mistreating or offending you. Second, engage in an imagination exercise, during which you imagine empathizing with the offender and granting him or her forgiveness. Trying to feel empathy involves viewing the situation through the offender’s eyes and ears and seeing them as a whole person rather than defining them solely by the offending behavior.

3. Write a letter of forgiveness – Describe in detail the injury or offense that was done to you. Illustrate how you were affected by it at the time and how you continue to be hurt by it. State what you wish the other person had done instead. End with an explicit statement of forgiveness and understanding (e.g. “I realize now that what you did was the best you could at the time, and I forgive you”). You can either send it or not.

Shifting away from ruminating thoughts and avoiding continuously comparing oneself to others.

Proof it works

Research shows:

• Social comparison in either direction negatively influences wellbeing

• Ruminative thoughts are associated with depression

• Social comparison mitigates experiences of gratitude

Why it works

• Escaping the cycle of rumination reduces the negative affect

• Enables gratitude by shifting focus away from what one doesn’t have compared to others to what one does have

How to use it

1. Distract – The first step is simple but powerful: distract, distract, distract. The distracting activity you choose must be engaging enough so that you don’t have the opportunity to lapse back into ruminations. Good bets are activities that make you feel happy, curious, peaceful, amused, or proud. When you catch yourself thinking those ruminating thoughts, read or watch something that’s funny or suspenseful, listen to a song that’s transporting, meet a friend for tea, do a physical activity that gets your heart rate up. This will activate Fredrickson’s theory of positive emotions: that they allow us to see things more panoramically and to build resources and skills that will be useful in the future.

2. Write – Writing out your ruminations can help you organize them, make sense of them, and observe patterns that you haven’t perceived before. Writing can also help you unburden yourself of your negative thoughts – to spill them on the page – allowing you to move past them.

3. Practice Gratitude – you cannot feel blessed and stressed at the same time. Focusing on what you are grateful for, even in a bad situation, can redirect your emotions from negative to positive.