Bookshelf, page 2 A few books you might want to check out.
Pursuing the Good Life: 100 Reflections on Positive Psychology by the late Chris Peterson (University. of Michigan). This is a delightful book consisting of 100 short essays. They were originally from his “The Good Life” column in Psychology Today. Each essay includes a relevant research reference. (If you are the kind of teacher who has to go to long faculty meetings where you only need to pay attention part of the time, this is a wonderful book to take along. The short (3-5 page) chapters make good use of your time).
Love 2.0 by Barbara Fredrickson (University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill). She is looking at the science behind love, not just in a romantic sense but loving ourselves as well as others. She spends a lot of the book on “loving kindness (metta) meditation and the research and benefits connected to it.
The Emotional Life of your Brain by Richard Davidson (University of Wisconsin- Madison) and Sharon Begley. Richardson is a neuroscientist who was one of the first people to investigate meditation. He’s probably best known for putting Tibetan monks in fMRI machines to student their brains while meditating. In this book, he explores six emotional styles based on: resilience, outlook, context, social intuition, self-awareness and attention.
The Myths of Happiness by Sonja Lyubomirsky (University of California – Riverside). This is very much based on positive psychology research but, unlike her earlier book, The How of Happiness, she isn’t trying to provide a complete overview of the field. Rather, he looks at common assumptions many of us have about issues like love and relationships, money, success, etc. She points out that very often we are worrying about – and doing – the wrong things.