What are your favorite holiday memories? Does a certain Christmas carol send you back to your parents’ living room, eyeing presents under the tree? Does a dreidel in your hand take you back to the childhood pleasure of games with family and friends? Is it the taste of homemade pumpkin pie? Or is it the pastiche of warm feelings from years of family gatherings?
Nostalgia gets a bad rap. It’s often dismissed as an escape into the past or a species of infirmity (the term dates to 1688, when a Swiss physician coined it for what he saw as a physical disease). Modern science tells a very different story, however: We now know that nostalgia is a restorative and even motivational resource.
In fact, the best gift you can give yourself this holiday season may be sowing the seeds of future nostalgia.
Continue reading at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Clay Routledge, PhD, is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) at the Archbridge Institute, where he also leads the institute’s Human Flourishing Lab. As a thought leader in existential psychology and human motivation, Clay translates research into practical insights that help people reach their full potential, build meaningful lives, and advance human progress and flourishing. Dr. Routledge received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is co-editor of Profectus Magazine, an online publication dedicated to human progress and flourishing. He writes the weekly newsletter "Flourishing Friday."
Will Johnson is the CEO of The Harris Poll.
Psychology of Flourishing
What are your favorite holiday memories? Does a certain Christmas carol send you back to your parents’ living room, eyeing presents under the tree? Does a dreidel in your hand take you back to the childhood pleasure of games with family and friends? Is it the taste of homemade pumpkin pie? Or is it the pastiche of warm feelings from years of family gatherings?
Nostalgia gets a bad rap. It’s often dismissed as an escape into the past or a species of infirmity (the term dates to 1688, when a Swiss physician coined it for what he saw as a physical disease). Modern science tells a very different story, however: We now know that nostalgia is a restorative and even motivational resource.
In fact, the best gift you can give yourself this holiday season may be sowing the seeds of future nostalgia.
Continue reading at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Clay Routledge
Clay Routledge, PhD, is Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer (COO) at the Archbridge Institute, where he also leads the institute’s Human Flourishing Lab. As a thought leader in existential psychology and human motivation, Clay translates research into practical insights that help people reach their full potential, build meaningful lives, and advance human progress and flourishing. Dr. Routledge received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is co-editor of Profectus Magazine, an online publication dedicated to human progress and flourishing. He writes the weekly newsletter "Flourishing Friday."
Will Johnson
Will Johnson is the CEO of The Harris Poll.
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