I’ve noticed a pattern to my attitude about starting a new year. The harder the year prior, the more I look forward to January 1. It’s like turning in a really bad English paper and getting to start over on a new assignment. A blank page and a new year give us the one ingredient...

George Burns once said: “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family… in another city.” That would explain why the holidays are so stressful. Those dear relatives who live in San Francisco suddenly are lingering in front of your refrigerator in Cincinnati and you have to figure out a socially acceptable way of setting...

I had the opportunity to be interviewed by Terry Gilberg, host of Think! America national radio show last week about strategies to combat holiday depression. I mostly focused on the first point of my seven strategies below, to allow yourself to feel all the emotions of the holidays, not excluding sadness. For highly-sensitive folks and...

I am big on gratitude. Let me say that upfront. Study after study on gratitude shows how simple exercises of appreciation build emotional resilience, improve our relationships, and promote our well-being. Gratitude researchers like Martin Seligman, PhD, director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; Robert Emmons, PhD, director of the Emmons Lab on gratitude research at the University of California in Davis;...

Every December, I send poinsettias to a number of business acquaintances whom I respect. It’s a networking gesture I learned from my dad. Last night I compiled my list of colleagues for this year’s batch. However, this morning I had a change of heart. I decided instead to send flowers to a handful of people...