Flourishing includes positive emotions, mental and physical health, meaning and purpose in life, close relationships, and often virtues like wisdom, courage, and kindness. Flourishing is similar to the idea of having optimal well-being. Try these strategies to help yourself flourish and thrive.

Gratitude has two key components. First, it’s an affirmation that there are good things in the world. Second, it's a recognition that this goodness comes from outside of ourselves. Gratitude leads us to appreciate things and connect to others, both of which are good for our well-being. So how might we increase our gratitude? Here are some practices to try.

Positive feelings toward the self are thought to be a crucial aspect of well-being. For example, self-esteem contributes to positive feelings and more initiative. Luckily, there are a number of ways to boost self-love. By using these strategies, hopefully, we can feel better about our personality, skills, and appearance. Here are some self-love tips.

Holding onto things and people that we can no longer have isn't good for us. It keeps us stuck in memories of our past and prevents us from noticing and appreciating what we have now. So let’s talk about how to let go of all the things that we tend to cling to—the past, anger, love, fear, and more.​

Emotional intelligence is an important set of skills that improve the quality of your life. And good news! These skills can be built, even as an adult. So go ahead and start boosting your emotional intelligence with these four tips.

In psychology, acceptance means “taking a stance of non-judgmental awareness and actively embracing the experience of thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations as they occur.” Acceptance refers to acknowledging and allowing your present experience—not necessarily your life situation. Through awareness and practice, you have the ability to increase acceptance in your own life and enjoy the benefits that it may bring.

Positive emotions are one of the most enjoyable parts of being alive. But what exactly are positive emotions? What effect do they have on our lives? And how can we experience more of them? In this article, we'll dive into positive emotions to learn more about them.

Emotions are also a key ingredient in well-being. It's hard to imagine well-being without happiness. And emotions like sadness and anxiety can make well-being more difficult to achieve. So let's learn more about emotions and how they work.

Although we can sometimes get caught in our sad feelings, we don't have to. We can undo sadness and start growing our happiness and well-being. Here are some ways to deal with sad feelings.

Effective emotion regulation can make you feel better in the short term and in the longer term. When we do not have emotion regulation skills, we often rely on unhealthy emotion regulation strategies. These may make us feel good in the short term but worse in the longer term. By building our emotion regulation skills, we can more effectively manage our emotions with healthier strategies and avoid using these unhealthy strategies.

If you find that you struggle with negativity, you're not alone. In fact, humans actually have a negativity bias. A negativity bias just means that we notice and feel negative things more intensely than positive things—and negative things have a bigger impact on our mental health. Discover how to shift your mindset from less negative to more positive with these helpful tips.

Another way to understand happiness is with the concept of eudaimonia, which combines eu (good) and daimon (spirit). Eudaimonia has been defined as a life well-lived, or human flourishing. It is related to happiness and fulfillment. Discover modern perspectives and tips to help you achieve a happier and a more fulfilling life.

Boosting emotional well-being is not about stopping or avoiding emotions. Emotions are a normal and necessary part of life. Emotional well-being comes from enhancing emotional awareness, emotion regulation, and emotional recovery. That means increasing emotional well-being is entirely possible—we just have to build some key skills.

You may already be familiar with the fight-or-flight response—a simplified term for how humans and many other animals respond to threat. However, you may be less familiar with how this natural response becomes less helpful when activated too regularly. Here you will learn how the fight-or-flight response works in the body and how to calm your fight-or-flight response.

Life is not always easy. Sometimes bad things happen that put us in a bad mood. Other times we make decisions that get us down. And still other times we feel bad for no obvious reason. All we know is that we want to feel better...but we're just not sure how. Luckily, psychological research has shown us some ways we can boost our mood.

Self-soothing is defined as an individual's efforts or capacity to calm oneself while in a state of emotional distress. Improving our self-soothing skills as adults requires self-insight, the development of self-soothing skills, and the ability to effectively use these skills to return to an emotional baseline.

Peace of mind is a mental state of calmness or tranquility. It may also include freedom from worry and anxiety. When our minds are buzzing with thoughts, it can be intense and overwhelming. We just want a calm, relaxed, and content mind. A lot of research has pointed to ways we can decrease stress and calm down an overactive mind.

Calming anxiety usually means we want our body to return to homeostasis (or its normal resting state). Generally, it involves feelings of relief, a reduction in negative emotions, and a general sense that we're okay. Given how unpleasant we might be feeling at times, learning strategies to calm down can be a great boon to our well-being.

Gratitude is an emotion that goes beyond simply feeling thankful; it captures a deep sense of appreciation. It also reflects an awareness of the opportunities available to us and how much we have to be thankful for. Research shows that cultivating gratitude has mental and physiological benefits, leading to improved mental health and overall well-being.

Self-love is an essential part of living a healthy and successful life. It requires moving away from self-rejection and instead embracing oneself with kindness. Self-love is about making the conscious decision to put your well-being first, taking care of yourself, and advocating for your needs.