Reading that changes you, and the quiet power of writing things down.
Start free This art, and all eight — join the SalonWords are the most portable art. This module pairs reading practices — including poems in your own language, whichever language that is — with the best-evidenced writing exercises in all of positive psychology.
Four short sessions writing the life where everything has gone as well as it possibly could.
The strongest-evidenced writing practice we know: meta-analysis of 29 studies shows reliable gains in wellbeing and optimism (Carrillo et al., PLOS ONE, 2019).
A short, positively-focused journal — fifteen minutes, three times a week.
An online trial of positive-affect journaling reduced anxiety and lifted wellbeing (JMIR Mental Health, 2018).
A daily poem — in English, Afrikaans, or the language your heart speaks — and three lines of your own in reply.
Research shows emotional language lands deepest in your mother tongue; we take that seriously.
A reading log with one unusual question: whose eyes did you live behind today?
Lifelong fiction readers score higher on understanding others — a small, consistent association across studies.
We are honest about the famous claims too: no, one short story will not instantly boost your empathy — that finding failed its replications. What survives is better: the slow work of a reading life.