"The best way to make children good is to make them happy," said Oscar Wilde. But, we're not only talking about the joyful moments and experiences here. It's much more than this. We're talking about developing healthy positive habits so children can go on to live their best possible lives. So, what tools can parents use to create happy youth and set them up for the future? USA's Happiness Ambassador and mother, Maura Sweeney shares her insights. 1. What happiness habits can p

Fuel a more fulfilling vision for your career that's filled with more joy and less drudgery. In hustle and bustle of your busy day, it's easy to lose sight of what makes your truly happy. What do you when you wake up one day and realize you wish your career we're more fulfilling? First, don't panic. Finding meaning in your work isn't something that happens overnight. It's a messy, iterative undertaking that requires time, patience and a healthy dose of self-reflection. You'll

The exact origin of that quote has been lost through the years, although it is often attributed to Chinese philosopher Confucius.

Today, most of us have heard of the 5 main ingredients for happiness: 1. Enough sleep 2. Balanced diet 3. Regular exercise 4. Time for hobbies 5. Time for relationships They're plastered everywhere (not that this means we're doing them all enough). But here's 5 more things, a little more left-field, that you can do to improve your happiness.... 1. Spend 100 hours a year helping others Martin Seligman (well-known American Positive Psychologist - if you don't know him, look him

Are you looking for inspiring quotes to help you decide what to do next on your path? Here are the top 105 quotes every graduate needs to hear this year, including a compendium of quotes on passion, decisions, fear, failure, success, money and happiness from a dazzling array of those who have walked before us. PASSION The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. — Mark Twain Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplish

As 2019 ticked around I knew something had to change. Enough was enough. Social media had become too entwined in my life. Too frequent in my thoughts and too consuming in my daily behaviour. How did we get to a point where checking Instagram, Facebook, Twitter (or whatever your medium of choice), as regularly – or more regularly for some, than drinking water? Sounds crazy doesn’t it? But, how often do you pick up your phone and check your accounts per day? Now, how many times

A call to prioritise youth happiness over exam results... Something has to shift as Anne Diamond reports for The Mirror. This week’s shocking report saying a quarter of 14-year-old girls are thought to have self-harmed has left me unbearably sad and angry. It is such an alarming figure that my first reaction was to hope it wasn’t true because it depicts a sleepwalk into despair. If our kids are buckling under the weight of modern life and deliberately hurting themselves to tr

Research explains how they don’t just feel good but are good for us. Until recently, empirical psychology focused predominantly on the role that emotions like fear, sadness, and disgust play in our lives. Since these emotions are reactions to negative aspects of our environment they are often referred to as “negative emotions.” These emotions are incredibly important, and each plays a protective role in our lives. For example, fear alerts us to danger and causes us to flee; s

Teens in Netherlands regularly top life satisfaction tables, with schooling playing a big role. In a biology class at a secondary school near Rotterdam, Gerrit the skeleton is not the only one with a permanent grin. The Groen van Prinstererlyceum, which first trialled happiness lessons a decade ago, teaches some of the least troubled teens in the world. In report after report, the Netherlands tops OECD countries for high life satisfaction among its young people. Researchers c

How would you describe happiness? You may have trouble putting it into words, but you know you want it for yourself and your loved ones. One thing that's harder than describing it for many people is knowing how to achieve it. Researchers studying social emotional well-being define happiness as a balance: the combination of how frequent and robust your positive emotional experiences are, how gracefully you recover from difficult experiences, and how meaningful and worthwhile y

Danish Kurani is using architecture to help rebuild education. Riverbend, a boarding school in Chennai, India, is part of a larger movement being by lead architect Danish Kurani, who believes schools need to be rethought and designed for the modern age. Kurani wants to discard the past where every classroom looks the same and everything is connected by hallways. When people talk about education reform, often times it's discussed in terms of curriculum development, professiona

Looking for a new podcast to find your path to happiness? Berkeley has your answer. If our bodies came with an instant happiness button, would we push it? That’s the question UC Berkeley psychologist Dacher Keltner has put to generations of students. Usually, they say they’d rather find true joy themselves, even if they have to work for it. That’s part of the inspiration behind a new Science of Happiness podcast series co-produced by UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center

Can you find happiness in the palm of your hands? This article suggests the opposite. If you have teenagers in your life and they seem to not be the happiest campers in the world, the problem is probably clutched in their hands. In a study co-authored by psychologists from San Diego University and the University of Georgia (talk about two schools with differing views of the world) it was found that teenagers had been increasing their happiness every year, by small doses, thro

Worried you won't get into your dream course? Junkee.com explore the 5 things that are more important than getting into your dream course... The moment you log into your course authority and don’t see your dream course sending you an offer can seem like the end of the world. While you definitely have the right to be upset, it’s also important not to let it be the be all and end all because it isn’t. In fact, there’s a plethora of things that matter way more than what course y

As a parent, you are your child's first and most important teacher. When parents and families are involved in their children's schools, the children do better and have better feelings about going to school. In fact, many studies show that what the family does is more important to a child's school success than how much money the family makes or how much education the parents have. There are many ways that parents can support their children's learning at home and throughout the

The stereotype around elementary school teachers is that they are always "peppy" and "happy" and full of life. While this may hold true for some elementary school teachers, it sure does not for all teachers. As you know, having a job in the teaching profession can be quite challenging. Teachers have a lot of pressure on them. Not only do they have to learn and teach the common core standards to students, but they also have the challenging job of making sure that their student

Even those who appear to have it all. We're all working towards the same goal - 'to be happy'. With so much hype today around quick fixes to be happy, I much prefer the definition of happiness recently put forward by Drew Barrymore. She explains - "Happiness is not this yellow, blithe, floating thing. It’s something that takes a tremendous amount of work. There’s a warrior aspect to being happy. You’ve got to fight for it," she continued. "And only when you’ve got that kind o

The climb always makes the view better. Think of climbing to the top of a small mountain of dirt - average view right? Now think about climbing to the top of a mountain a few meters high. It still seems what average? Then imagine the climb to the top of one of the biggest mountains you can think of... Now we're talking! But then there's the downside. The climb itself and the time we have to spend in the deep, dark valleys along the way. We grow and learn from our time in the