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Specifically Yale/Coursera's "The Science of Well-Being".

Over the last year with COVID, I've developed a huge interest in self-care and well-being. It's so important for people to take the time and effort to care for themselves mentally and work towards their own happiness, but not only is it usually the last thing on people's minds, it's something society seems to look down on. I remember reading in Gretchen Rubin's "The Happiness Project" that when she would tell people she was in a year-long project to improve her happiness the response was often to act like she was selfish, such as to point out how great her life is or how much worse other people have it. 

And yet we need well-being so badly. Prescriptions for anti-depressants have increased by 400% since 1994, yet according to the Global Social Survey in 2018 nearly twice the number of Americans rated themselves as unhappy as they did in 1990, a number that doubled again in 2020 thanks to COVID. In 2019, the World Happiness Report dedicated 2 of its 7 chapters to unhappiness in America. Modern society is pushing people off the rails, and people don't know how to adjust, adapt, or fight back against it.

I would like to become more knowledgeable in this area not only for my own well-being, but to share what I've learned with others in the hopes that they can improve their own. One project I'd like to take on in the future is a forum here in Wintreath that focuses on self-care and well-being...ideas and tips on how to go about it, a peer group to follow ideas and projects together, a place to share stories of our successes and to seek support and help from our friends when needed. I think it not only fits perfectly in a personable and open community of friends like Wintreath, but it would be a great thing to have for each other.

So I'm putting this topic out there to kinda chronicle my experience with the course and what I'm getting out of it, which means posting at least weekly.

Week One - Post 1
Most of week one wasn't too different from other courses...an introduction to what the course is, why it exists, and what the professor hopes you'll get out of the course. The professor is Laurie Santos, who I'd read previously pulled together virtually all the material for the course herself and seems to have a passion for the topic to match. That passion made her videos, including one specific to well-being during COVID that was originally a Facebook Live session, much easier to keep focused on.

I had planned on barreling through the course like I usually do, but you're urged to try to sticking to the weekly schedule. The "homework" in this course is to actually practice methods of improving your well-being (called rewirements) throughout the week between lectures so you won't get the most out of the course by going though it quickly. 

For the first week, the homework was to take three surveys: the PERMA profiler and the Authentic Happiness Inventory to measure your baseline happiness at the start of the course as well as the character strengths survey by the VIA Institute to get our 4 signature strengths (mine were fairness, forgiveness, love of learning, and appreciation of beauty and excellence). Now for the next week I'm supposed to do one new thing a day utilizing one of those signature strengths. Love of learning and appreciation of beauty seem pretty straightforward, but I'm not sure what I'll do for for fairness or forgiveness. I'll check the course discussion forums tomorrow and look for ideas.