How to be sad : everything I've learned about getting happier, by being sad, better

We live in an age when reality TV shows climax in a tearful finale. But feeling sad – genuinely sad – is still taboo. Yet, sadness happens to us all, sometimes in heartbreakingly awful ways. If we don’t know how to be sad, it can be isolating for those experiencing it and baffling for those trying to help others through dark times. Today, most of us know intellectually that ‘sad’ is normal. But we’re not always brilliant at allowing for it, in practice. Sadness is going to happen, so we might as well know how to ‘do it’ right. And it’s time to start facing our problems and talking about them. Positive psychology may have become more accepted in mainstream culture, but rates of depression have continued to rise. We’re trying so hard to be happy. But studies show that we could all benefit from learning the art of sadness and how to handle it, well. We cannot avoid sadness so we might as well learn to handle it. Helen Russell, while researching two previous books on happiness, found that today most of us are terrified of sadness. Many of us are so phobic to averse to negative emotions that we don’t recognise them. We live in an age when most reality TV shows climax in a tearful finale. But feeling sad – genuinely sad – is still taboo. Yet, sadness happens to us all, sometimes in heartbreakingly awful ways. If we don’t know how to be sad, it can be isolating for those experiencing it and baffling for those trying to help loved ones through dark times. Today, most of us know intellectually that ‘sad’ is normal. But we’re not always brilliant at allowing for it, in practice. Sadness is going to happen, so we might as well know how to ‘do it’ right. And it’s time to start facing our problems and talking about them. Positive psychology may have become more accepted in mainstream culture, but rates of depression have continued to rise. We’re trying so hard to be happy. But studies show that we could all benefit from learning the art of sadness and how to handle it, well. ** Self-Help,Emotions,Psychology,Biography & Autobiography,Personal Memoirs,Family & Relationships,General,Mental Health 'In any human life there are going to be periods of unhappiness. Learning how to be sad is a natural first step in how to be happier' Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute Helen Russell is an expert on the pursuit of happiness. In How to Be Sad she combines her powerful personal story with surprising research and warm advice to reveal the secret of finding joy: allowing sadness to enrich your life and relationships. Timely and essential, this book is about how we can better look after ourselves and each other, simply by getting smarter about sadness.