Psychology of Active, Healthy Living

The PAHL team studies the psychological factors that make us happy, healthy, and productive—things like our responses to stress, what it is that makes exercise enjoyable (versus tedious), the ways exercise and stress influence our wellbeing and diet, how our habits develop and how they help or hinder us, how people view stress, why we make the food and drink choices we make, the best ways to communicate with and motivate each other, what it is that makes groups and leaders succeed (or fail), and the things that make us resilient in the face of challenges.

We also work on identifying the health challenges that exist in the home, workplace, school, and community at large, and we look for solutions. We put those solutions into practice by designing and delivering programs that help people lose weight, make healthier dietary choices, feel better about themselves, increase their own and others physical activity levels, reduce their risk of disease, be more resilient, receive better health treatment, deal better with stress at home, school, and work, and lead a healthier lifestyle in general.

Our approach is to put “health issues first, research second”. In doing so, we focus first on addressing or understanding health issues and psychological processes that really matter to our communities. We work with community members to ensure that we are tackling the health disparities that people care about and that need to be addressed. In everything that we do, we draw from our expertise in health psychology to ensure that the programs and solutions we co-design are enriched with what we know about motivation, teams, communication, adherence, behaviour change, resilience, and social support.

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