Positive Psychology Spring 2020

Activity #1 Respond to the following prompts: I’m grateful for three things I hear: I’m grateful for three things I see: I’m grateful for three things I smell: I’m grateful for three things I touch/feel: I’m grateful for these three things I taste: I’m grateful for these three blue things: I’m grateful for these three animals/birds: I’m grateful for these three friends: I’m grateful for these three teachers: I’m grateful for these three family members: I’m grateful for these three things in my home: I’m grateful for these three things at Thames: Activity #2 Video (7 minutes) -- An Empowerment of Gratitude https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHv6vTKD6lg Activity #3 Gratitude Letter --  This might be the most powerful gratitude exercise. Write a hand-written letter to a person you are particularly grateful to have in your life. Be detailed. Express all the wonderful qualities about this person, and how they personally have affected your life for the better. ...

Activity #1 Journal -- what does gratitude mean to you? How do you express your gratitude? Activity #2 Show students' Powerpoints for happiness photos. Activity #3 Gratitude Jar Starting a Gratitude Jar is one of the most powerful things you can do to create huge positive changes within your life…  Focusing on what you have to be grateful for forces you to not only become a more positive person - but to attract more positive situations into your life because they become self-fulfilling prophecies of the thoughts you're putting out into the world. And when more and more amazing situations begin coming to you to feel grateful for - that's the point you realize your life changed into something incredible.  HOW TO USE A GRATITUDE JAR:   Josie Robinson created a formula called GIVE THANKS based on her own life-changing experience using a Gratitude Jar  so you can gain the maximum benefits from this practice. All you need to...

Activity #1 -- Journal If happiness is a skill, how can you improve your happiness? What can you do to make yourself happier? How Much Money Do You Need to Be Happy? Money is important to happiness, but only to a certain point; money buys freedom from worry about the basics in life—shelter, food, and clothing. However, research from the journal  Nature Human Behavior  shows that the sweet spot for yearly income is between $60,000 and $95,000 a year,  not  a million-dollar salary. Earnings above the $95,000 breaking point do not equate to increased well-being; a person earning $150,000 a year will not be necessarily as happy as a person earning a lot less. Happiness also levels off, just as the  hedonic treadmill  shows us—people return to their set point of well-being no matter how high moods rise or how low they dip. Activity #2 -- 15 Prescriptions for Happiness "We don’t have unlimited time, yet we live as though we do. How can we use the trut...