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.

Stressing out over an extended period may undermine your well-being. For example, stressing about the deadlines for your work or school calendar, the pile of bills on your coffee table, or relationships can take a toll. Stressing out can drain your energy and leave you even more frustrated. Hence, recognizing when stress arises and taking action may help you manage it more effectively.

Even though negative emotions feel bad, they have important functions that help us have experiences that make us feel better and even thrive in the longer term. So instead of running from our negative emotions, we’re better off learning to deal with and process our negative emotions in healthy ways.

In life, we all face stressful experiences. But, each of us is very different in how we cope with these experiences. Some of us cope well and may even grow and improve as a result of stress. Others struggle and may even develop mental health issues in the face of stress.

Emotional health is defined as a lack of mental disorders, but it also includes positive emotional characteristics, like resilience, self-efficacy, and vitality. Given how many different aspects of mental and emotional health there are, there are actually lots of different things we can do to improve our emotional health. Here are a few things you can do.

Do you tend to feel a lot of negative emotions? Do you feel bad about yourself or feel unhappy about your place in the world? Well, science has shown us that we actually have a lot of control over our feelings and well-being. Here are six science-based tips to help you feel better.

Did you know that some teas can contribute to anxiety (i.e., caffeinated teas like black tea and green tea) while other teas relieve anxiety? If you’re feeling stressed, an easy way to feel a bit more calm can be through tea. Here are the teas that science says can help promote a sense of calm.

Oftentimes, we spend too much time thinking—thinking about what is to come in the future, what has happened in the past, or even what is going on right now. These are the times when we may crave a peaceful mind. There is actually a pretty good amount of research on how we can decrease our distressing thoughts and calm the body.

Mindfulness meditation is a mindfulness-based meditation technique that systematically guides your attention. This systemic guidance allows you to be aware of your breath, bodily sensations, and thoughts you have at that moment without judging them. Mindfulness meditation can improve your well-being in many ways when practiced regularly.

Do you ever find yourself at work having difficulty focusing on the assignment you’re working on? Trying to stay focused can be a challenge for many of us. This is where centering comes in to help us.

Do you sometimes feel like life is more complex than it needs to be? Do you feel like society expects you to buy more than is necessary, own more things than you need, or do more work than you want? Then you may want to find ways to live more simply.