Positive Psychology - Discover the Science of a Happier Life

In this lecture we will understand how positive emotions affect our mind and body and how we can cultivate more positive emotions.

In this lecture we will learn about the mechanisms in our brain that enable us to transform ourselves over time.

In this lecture we will understand how habits are crucial for our long-term success and how we can build healthy habits and sustain them.

In this section we will explore how our beliefs and thoughts shape our reality and what we can do about it.

We’ll talk about how science shows us that focusing more on what works and what is going well helps to counter our inherent negativity bias. We’ll see how placing more focus on the positive is NOT to be detached from reality but to see reality from a more useful angle. And we will finish this first class by looking at the power of being more grateful for what we have.

In this class we will deal with self-fulfilling prophecies and the optimistic mindset and try to get a better understanding of why the way we see ourselves determines who we are and who we become.

In this lecture we discuss how we can benefit from a change in mindset and how leaving our comfort zone is a key to changing our mindsets.

In this lecture we learn about difference between growth mindset and fixed mindset and how we can change them.

In this lecture we will learn to understand what mindfulness is and how research has shown its powerful effects.

In this lecture we go over various ways to bring more mindfulness to our lives. We will also discuss common challenges that people face when they want to establish a mindfulness practice.

This video class will be about self-esteem. Self-esteem is the judgment we place upon ourselves and it affects almost every aspect of our lives. We discuss the benefits of higher self-esteem and then we learn about the six pillars – or practices – of high self-esteem.

Having an understanding of what makes us stand out, of what we are best at can transform our lives. In this lecture we look at character strengths and how we can find out more about ours.

In this lecture, we see why relationships are so important to us and then go ahead to explore how we can make our relationships to our partners and also our friends and family more fulfilled. We look at what not to do: four behaviours that can predict divorce up to 94% accuracy.

In this lecture we turn to how we can nurture happy and fulfilled relationships by looking at what the happiest couples do differently. Taking the Minding Model of Relationships we explore the five practices that the most fulfilled couples bring to their relationships.

In this lecture, we establish an understanding that we also need negative emotions and that they are a normal part of our lives.

In this lecture, we discuss what is called ‘problem-focused coping’. It involves dealing with the problem and using social support, and we’ll see how we can use physical exercise and expressive writing to overcome tough times.

In this lecture, we turn to ‘emotion-focused coping’. After hearing the story of Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychologist who survived the concentration camps, we’ll revisit optimism and optimistic beliefs that we discussed in the fourth section about 'Thoughts and Beliefs'. We will use the so-called ABC-method to understand how we can rewire our brain and gradually replace old, negative thought patterns with more productive and positive ones.

To round up this course, we repeat 5 main points that we learned in this course.

This is a list of references to some of the research papers that this course is based on. Every lecture also comes with a book recommendation for those who want to dig deeper.