When the Stanford Center on Longevity launched in 2007, founding director Laura Carstensen spent a lot of time correcting misperceptions. “The initial response people had was, ‘Like the Methuselah Foundation? You are going to extend life?’” Carstensen was clear that the center’s aim was not to increase lifespans—which had nearly doubled during the 20th century—but rather to build societies that a…
Parenting a teen can sometimes make you nostalgic for the early years, when you could still scoop up a frustrated toddler and redirect her with bubbles. In the teen years, sweet hugs can provoke eye rolls; a well-intentioned “How was your day?” may be misconstrued as meddling.
That’s just your teens becoming independent. Decades of research finds that portraying adolescence as a period of “stor…
Buddhist meditation teacher, Anushka Fernandopulle, guides us through a practice of Mudita, or appreciative joy, to help us share in the happiness of others.
Finding love is big business (a multi-billion–dollar industry), and artificial intelligence is transforming that business. Dating apps are increasingly outsourcing user matching to AI. Recent examples range from Overtone, an AI-powered matchmaking service started by the former chief executive officer of Hinge, to SciMatch, a dating app that aims to use AI to detect compatibility from a single sel…
Our monthly Happiness Calendar is a day-by-day guide to well-being. This month, we’re offering a special Happiness & Connection Calendar in partnership with the US Chamber of Connection—and we hope it inspires you to invite someone to belong.
To open the clickable calendar, click on the image below. (Please note: If you are having trouble clicking on calendar links with the Chrome browser, …
Over the past two decades, my doctoral students and I have focused on studying love, care, kindness, and compassion in urban settings. Why? Because social science research on life in America’s cities is desperately incomplete. Much like the vision of urban life that permeates most of American popular culture, social science research imagines urban areas as sites of overwhelmedness, disengagement,…
Polarization is a fact of political life in the U.S. today. Gen Z, however, is less inclined than older generations to view it as a permanent fixture in American politics, according to research by students in the Stanford political science course Democracy in the Balance: Polarization and the Road Ahead. Students found that Gen Z is more optimistic than any other age group about the possibility o…
We often underestimate how much small talk can impact our wellbeing. Research shows that even brief conversations with strangers can boost our happiness and sense of connection, but fear and anxiety often keep us from reaching out.
Liz Cahill was born and raised in Philadelphia. Her whole family is from Philadelphia, going back generations. One day, she was offered an internship in the Bay Area and decided to make the leap, despite not knowing anything about it or anyone there.
“I said goodbye to everything I knew and loved in Philadelphia and came to the Bay. Not knowing a soul.”
When she arrived, it hit her. “I was like…
Imagine you’re on a plane and suddenly hear an explosion. The whole plane rattles, and you see the left engine is on fire. After another loud noise, you realize there’s a hole in the side of the aircraft. As air rushes out, the plane is rapidly descending—over 20,000 feet in less than five minutes.
If you faced what passengers of Southwest Airlines 1380 experienced, you would probably do what t…
Movie date nights have long been a ritual of romance, from first dates to married couples’ standing nights out. You can probably name movies that leave you feeling warm, hopeful, excited, stimulated, and sometimes a little more in love with your partner.
But sometimes, the movies we watch become more than that—they become conversation starters, litmus tests, or unexpected mirrors of our own rela…
Join yoga and meditation teacher Jonathan Relucio for a trauma-informed practice combining mindful movement and breathing to reduce tension and build resilience to stress.
I have a pretty vivid imagination, sometimes for the good, sometimes not. I love it when it helps me to create new stories or songs, or when I can daydream about fun times ahead. But it can also lead to fear or worry, like when I imagine something terrible befalling the people or places I love.
Is there some way to nurture the positive aspects of imagination while minimizing the problematic? Ac…
After venturing through the wasteland of modern dating, it would be natural to harbor disdain for social comparison. Dating apps require you to stand out, which means you can’t just be yourself; you need to sell yourself as more appealing than the 50,000 sexy singles in your area. Putting yourself on display and knowing you’re being compared to others can feel exhausting. But once you’ve swiped r…
When the first cases of COVID-19 were discovered in a hospital in Wuhan, I had already studied the U.S. public health response to seven epidemics and pandemics. I am no stranger to the role of politics in pandemic response. Still, the recent Senate hearings grilling Dr. Anthony Fauci alarmed me.
Fauci is a physician and immunologist who served as the director of the National Institute of Allerg…
Backpack-and-pencil time is just about here, but it’s not too late to treat yourself to a healthy dose of summer joy.
There’s no need to feel bad about stretching that vacation feeling out as long as you can. These eight mini-vacations for the mind and spirit require no suitcases to pack (and unpack), no expensive gas tanks to fill, and no big credit card bills to pay. Not only are many of our…
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