Wholistic Health and Wellness Practicer

  What makes a 'good' life? And how do we measure it? These are questions as old as humanity itself - with many potential answers - but a new study places the emphasis on living in a way that's 'psychologically rich'. That richness is defined by experiences that are out of the ordinary, varied, complex and – perhaps most importantly – cause a shift in perspective for the person going through them, according to social psychologists from the University of Virginia, and the University of Florida. Their new study finds that to some people, a psychologically rich life is more important than being happy or finding a sense of meaning – the two main areas that current psychological research tends to be concerned with when it comes to evaluating a 'good' life. "Unlike happy or meaningful lives, psychologically rich lives are best characterized by a variety of interesting and perspective-changing experiences," write the researchers in their published paper. ...

If you look around you, there are some people who generally seem happier than others. If you’re not as happy as you’d like to be on a daily basis, is there anything you can do about it? That is a big question, because there has been a lot of discussion among scientists about how much of the difference between people in their overall level of happiness is a result of a genetic lottery that leads to a “set point” that people tend to return to. If you look across studies, there is definitely evidence that some people just are happier than others. Like a thermostat that helps keep the temperature in a room relatively constant, there are mechanisms that people have that lead them to return to a baseline level of well-being. At the same time, there are also habits that will affect how happy people are—and there are some things you can do about it. THEY SET THE RIGHT TYPE OF GOALS The goals people pursue affect their long-term happiness. In particular, people are happiest when they pursue goa...