Thursday 7 July 2011

Personal Wellbeing

Last night on Newsnight on BBC 2 I found this Paxman interview with Professor Seligman fascinating. He talks about how to achieve personal wellbeing viz

1. help another person
2. every night write down 3 things that went well for you during the day. This is addictive and influences your continuing wellbeing
3. if you have grandchildren write your own obituary through their eyes - this will add meaning and purpose to your own life.

Public policy for wellbeing can be influenced. He gives an example of training teachers to learn/manage their own wellbeing with these tools and others. The teachers so trained in dealing with kids aged 10-12 years pass on this "learning" with the result over time that the kids' lives have more meaning; they suffer less from depression and their wellbeing is improved.

Anyway, see what you think about Prof Seligman yourself. The interview is the last item of this edition of Newsnight so you'll have to surf right to the end to find it. I guess there might be a quicker link to the actual interview but I lack the current "computer skill" to do it.

Here's the link - hope it works:

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