Marie-Josée Shaar and Kathryn Britton demonstrate that health, happiness, and productivity are mutually reinforcing. Smarts and Stamina is a highly practical workbook that will help you leverage your strengths to have lasting impact on your quality of life at work and play. The 50 sets of health-building activities are grounded on scientific research. By following the powerful, customizable step-by-step process, you can: - Feel in the prime of your life - Learn how to change and change how you learn - Choose good health habits, and make them stick Discover your own personal pathway to physical energy, mental focus, and emotional resilience. This book is not just an enjoyable process helping you become healthier; it is a true lifestyle game changer.

This positive psychology textbook focuses on the importance of the body within optimal functioning and highlights new research in this area.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The New York Times bestselling author of Being Mortal and Complications examines, in riveting accounts of medical failure and triumph, how success is achieved in a complex and risk-filled profession The struggle to perform well is universal: each one of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives are on the line with every decision. In this book, Atul Gawande explores how doctors strive to close the gap between best intentions and best performance in the face of obstacles that sometimes seem insurmountable. Gawande's gripping stories of diligence, ingenuity, and what it means to do right by people take us to battlefield surgical tents in Iraq, to labor and delivery rooms in Boston, to a polio outbreak in India, and to malpractice courtrooms around the country. He discusses the ethical dilemmas of doctors' participation in lethal injections, examines the influence of money on modern medicine, and recounts the astoundingly contentious history of hand washing. And as in all his writing, Gawande gives us an inside look at his own life as a practicing surgeon, offering a searingly honest firsthand account of work in a field where mistakes are both unavoidable and unthinkable. At once unflinching and compassionate, Better is an exhilarating journey narrated by "arguably the best nonfiction doctor-writer around" (Salon). Gawande's investigation into medical professionals and how they progress from merely good to great provides rare insight into the elements of success, illuminating every area of human endeavor.

What are the elements of good character? The Values in Action (VIA) project identified 24 qualities such as creative, authentic, loving, forgiving, kind, persistent, prudent, and brave, calling them character strengths. Character strengths are elements of good character valued across time and around the world. If you are curious about your own strengths, join the 3 million people that have taken the free online survey at www.viacharacter.org. Character Strengths Matter: How to Live a Full Life brings the 24 character strengths to life with stories involving children, teenagers, adults, and elders and occurring in family life and business settings, in the present and in the distant past, in locations from China to the United States to the Middle East. Research shows that using character strengths in new ways for a week makes people happier up to six months later. This book includes many ideas for using your character strengths in new ways. Based on the unusual premise that a key way to build strength is to act 'as if' you have that strength already, this book includes short passages to read aloud to try on particular character strengths. This concept is well known to actors and elite athletes, but less well known to the rest of the world. Look inside the book to see whose words are used to embody hope, gratitude, leadership, creativity, kindness, love and all the rest. More than 30 authors contributed stories to this book, including George Vaillant, the 35-year director of Harvard's Study of Adult Development. Many leaders in the positive psychology field endorse the book, including the 'father of positive psychology' Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman. He writes: "My friend, Chris Peterson, would have loved this book. It brings to life with personal stories, practical recommendations, wisdom, and humor the dry scholarship that he (with an assist from me) did in Character Strengths and Virtues. Chris was very down-to-earth and I am sure he would have concurred in my enthusiastically recommending this book to everyone who works with character strengths in the real world." Martin E. P. Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness and Flourish Proceeds from the sale of this book will be donated to a scholarship at the University of Pennsylvania in honor of the lead researcher of character strengths, the late Christopher Peterson. This scholarship supports the education of future practitioners of positive psychology. This is the third book in the Positive Psychology News series, joining Resilience: How to Navigate Life's Curves and Gratitude: How to Appreciate Life's Gifts. Bottom line, this book is bound to make you learn something new, be inspired about humanity and have a chance to play with character strengths. This book will make you happier.

“A fascinating book that connects the research on goal-setting with the new science of positive psychology”—redesigned and reissued with a new introduction (Publishers Weekly, starred review). Comprehensive and evidence-based, Creating Your Best Life breaks new ground in revealing how happiness and success are interconnected. With dozens of interactive exercises and quizzes, it helps readers identify their most cherished needs, ambitions, and wishes so they can take control of their environment and maximize their chances of success. The authors’ unique “life list coaching” explains, step by step, how to set goals in 16 key areas—including love relationships, family, health, work, self-esteem, friendship, money, problem-solving, and creativity—that inspire people to live their lives more consciously, productively, and joyfully. “Caroline Miller brings together positive psychology research and hands-on exercises into a unique mix, a manual for defining one’s life goals and making strides toward achieving them.” —Deepak Chopra “A+ for the authors’ ability to integrate science with a practical application for the general public. One of the best of its kind.” —Library Journal “This powerful book brings together the latest scientific research on goal setting and well-being and presents it in an engaging way anyone can follow to create a better life.” —James Pawelski, PhD, Director of Education and Senior Scholar, Positive Psychology Center, University of Pennsylvania

Shawn Phillips is an internationally respected strength and fitness expert who has helped athletes, celebrities, and tens of thousands of others over the past twenty years. Now he’s sharing his fresh approach to fitness with everyone. Strength for Life is an easy-to-implement program to help you get in fantastic shape, enjoy abundant energy, and maintain a lean, strong physique–not just for 12 weeks but for the rest of your life. Let’s face it, with the demands of family, work, and life, many of us simply don’t have the time to stick to a rigorous workout schedule. Through his own life experience, Shawn Phillips has recognized this challenge and risen to it, literally reinventing fitness with a results-oriented program that you can embrace even with your hectic schedule and do either at home or at the gym. Homing in on the idea of building mental and physical strength rather than just sculpting your body, Shawn has pioneered a technique called Focus Intensity Training ™ (FIT), which uses the mind-body connection to yield incredible results. The program features • a workout plan that can take as little as 35 minutes a day, 3 times a week • illustrated exercises with clear step-by-step instructions • 3 workout phases–a 12-day Base Camp pre-training period, a 12-week Transformation Camp, and a year-round continuation plan geared to keep you going strong and vibrant for the rest of your life • a simple eating plan to fuel your body for optimum energy and performance–one that will free you from dieting forever • goal-setting exercises to help you achieve lasting motivation and reach your loftiest visions It’s never too late to get in shape. If you’re in your twenties or thirties, Strength for Life will show you how to achieve peak levels of fitness year after year. For those forty and beyond, you can look forward to recapturing the energy and vitality you thought you had lost. By following Strength for Life, you will make yourself stronger, leaner, sharper, and more confident. As Shawn writes: “Strength is about being more, doing more, giving more. It’s not just surviving; it’s thriving. And most important, strength is about having a reserve, a deeper, fuller capacity of body, mind, heart, and soul.”

A smart and funny book by a prominent Harvard psychologist, which uses groundbreaking research and (often hilarious) anecdotes to show us why we’re so lousy at predicting what will make us happy – and what we can do about it. Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures, only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had expected. Why? As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains, when people try to imagine what the future will hold, they make some basic and consistent mistakes. Just as memory plays tricks on us when we try to look backward in time, so does imagination play tricks when we try to look forward. Using cutting-edge research, much of it original, Gilbert shakes, cajoles, persuades, tricks and jokes us into accepting the fact that happiness is not really what or where we thought it was. Among the unexpected questions he poses: Why are conjoined twins no less happy than the general population? When you go out to eat, is it better to order your favourite dish every time, or to try something new? If Ingrid Bergman hadn’t gotten on the plane at the end of Casablanca, would she and Bogey have been better off? Smart, witty, accessible and laugh-out-loud funny, Stumbling on Happiness brilliantly describes all that science has to tell us about the uniquely human ability to envision the future, and how likely we are to enjoy it when we get there.