Two decades of research by the team and others shows that helping people learn about their neural traps and finding ways to transcend them can undo most of our brain's vulnerabilities. The Resilient Option program helps overcome these traps in four modules:
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Online, video-based curriculum
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Skills build in small incremental steps
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Games, breathing exercises, quizzes, interactive activities
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In over 30 clinical trials, our core program (SMART for adults) has shown high effectiveness for improving stress, anxiety, resilience, mindfulness, happiness, quality of life, and health behaviors.
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Provides resilience skills (focus, uplifting emotions, reframing, relationship building, problem solving, learning, patience, handling disappointments)
"Dr. Sood’s teachings changed my life. He helped me start a journey of kindness, gratitude and compassion towards myself and others. I had struggled with forgiveness before taking his course and I now have been able to forgive a few people who hurt me in the past, and now I can let go."
"A few years ago I went through the most difficult time in my life when we lost our baby. This is “ugly” stress as Amit describes it. At the right time I started Amit’s course and through the daily practices and exercises I solidified my resilience and continue to do so."
“Dr. Sood’s resilient option program is the antidote to the increasing stress in our world.
The program is elegant, practical and the practices taught require only 5-7 minutes a day”
Dr. Sood’s program has been like an anchor in these challenging times. I feel calmer, more focused and able to handle the stressors of life. The awareness of these simple concepts and principles has changed my life forever.
"Dr. Sood’s program has been life-changing for me. While I already knew that I have little to no control over what happens to me in life, after this program I am more in control of how I react to what happens to me than ever before in my life."
“This may sound like a cliche but taking Dr. Sood’s course was life altering for me. It also had a profound positive effect on my family and the staff of my dental practice as they could well attest.”
"As a result of participating in Dr. Sood’s course, I live each day focused on striving to make a positive impact on others, especially during times when others are in distress or feeling overwhelmed. In my effort to live life more for others and less for myself, I discover my life to be more enriched."
"Resilient mindset practices essentially enable us to adapt to life challenges alone and together. What a gift optimism is to believe we can handle whatever comes our way, even in this era of Covid-19. For that we are deeply, deeply grateful."
"As an HR leader, I come across a lot of learning programs and offerings. Dr. Amit Sood and his team offer something different: an ongoing exploration that combines practical knowledge and unique experience."
“I am so grateful to have had my team trained in the SMART program. We are using Dr. Sood’s principles within the structure of our wellness programs we offer to healthcare workers. Our programs are extremely well received by our organization’s employees.”
"I have found Dr. Sood’s programs tremendously informative. Every time I meet or listen to Dr. Sood, I learn new skills to help me deal with life's novel challenges, manage stress, and improve my resilience. I am grateful of Dr. Sood’s precious knowledge and his passion to share it."
“Taking the Transform Class with Dr. Sood and his staff changed my life. They helped give me the tools that I never had in my toolbox for anxiety and stress.”
"Dr. Amit Sood is a masterful teacher in the field of resilience and well-being. Witnessing the way he carries out his teaching in all aspects of his life is transformative."
"I give this course my highest recommendation, and not only will you transform, but others around you will as well."
"This program not only gave me practical ways to grow by creating a wellspring of insight to draw from, but it put me on a new path by giving me the ability to turn my suffering into transformation. For that I will always be deeply grateful."
"Amit is an innovator and visionary leader in the field, integrating spirituality and human values into healthcare; providing practical tools for building individual and workforce resilience and wellbeing."
"Amit taught me not to chase happiness, but rather to chase meaning; to live a life of purpose and exist for humanity."
"I have high praise for Dr. Sood’s evidence based, easy to adopt program to improve resilience and build a positive work culture. To find a program that is adaptable to both a work force and to client care is very powerful."
“Amit Sood MD was a keynote speaker at our network wide symposium on clinical integration. He was inspirational and reassuring in face of many of our physicians facing burnout. He later was invited to train a group of 35+ physician in our organization in resilience."
“I have been using the work of Dr. Sood for many years and have been transformed by it. I will forever be grateful for his teaching and mentorship.”
“Doing this program alongside my son made for a meaningful experience plus it was fun learning with him. I discovered so much, proving you can always learn and change. I would love to see every child and family experience and learn with Happi Genius. ”
“It teaches you things about the brain with fun activities and games. Even if you get things wrong, you will learn more. I learned you can get yourself happy and how to calm yourself down using star breathing.”
“As a grandmother who is separated from her grandkids by the pandemic, I was interested in participating in HappiGenius to get some ideas for my twice weekly Story Time Zoom sessions with my young grandkids. They have loved many of the videos and activities, so it has been a boon to me. "
“The Happi Genius program provided helpful tools for improving calming skills and increasing attention spans. And Dr. Sood and Gauri were great with the kids! We're happy we found a program to help our 6-year-old with these skills.”
“This program is really phenomenal. The proven mindfulness techniques that I worked to learn as an adult have been adapted in this program to teach them to children. I wish I had learned any of this when I was a child! What a blessing to be planting these seeds in our young.”
“I love this class, it is so awesome, I hope everyone can have a chance to do this. I wish this class continued indefinitely.”
Each lesson in the HappiGenius program is an integration of skills in breathing, focusing, and feelings.
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A 12-week immersive program
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Formal live instruction: 45-minutes a week
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Videos, books, and other materials
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Available for both schools and parents
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Adapted from Dr. Sood's SMART curriculum to integrate into SEL and the PBIS framework, Tiers 1 and 2.
A customized one-on-one or group training to prepare you to teach HappiGenius.
Please contact us if you are interested in becoming a HappiGenius trainer.
Hundreds of rigorous studies show SEL matters. SEL interventions improve academic outcomes, and are useful for:
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Managing emotions
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Cultivating empathy
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Problem solving
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Decision making
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Positive relationships
SEL skills can help children with better attitude and behaviors, closer friends, and superior academic performance (by up to 11 percentile points).
SEL can have positive impact up to 18-years later on several important outcomes: academics, emotional distress, conduct problems, drug use.
SEL skills in kindergarten are associated with lower law and order problems, lesser need for public assistance, and spending time in a detention facility.
A wide variety of groups support SEL: Teachers, Scientists, Parents, Employers, Educators, Principals, and Students.
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Millions of children struggle with attention (focus) problems
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Attention strongly influences emotions, behavior, relationships, problem solving, and learning
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Weak attention interferes with improving most other skills
Research shows teacher wellbeing and engagement is essential to program success.
For over a decade, we have been offering stress management and resilience training to teachers and staff.
In a clinical trial, our resilience training significantly improved stress, anxiety, happiness, gratitude, life satisfaction, and quality of life among public school teachers and staff.
Please contact us if you are interested in bringing our resilience program to the staff and teachers at your school.
“Participating in this program sparked my passion for wellness… I was able to apply mindfulness to my classroom and incorporate a morning stretch routine to get students focused and ready to start their day.”
- Study Participant
"As a grandmother who is separated from her grandkids by the pandemic, I was interested in participating in HappiGenius to get some ideas for my twice weekly Story Time Zoom sessions with my young grandkids. They have loved many of the videos and activities, so it has been a boon to me. And Gauri and Amit are wonderful in the way they interact with the participants, the majority of whom are young kids, drawing them out and getting them involved. Amit is a physician colleague of mine, both of us being involved in the world of mindfulness and stress reduction. His translation of these concepts into age-appropriate calming, prosocial, and attention-focusing activities for kids is evident, and high schooler Gauri is great at moderating and keeping the dialogue active and fun. I highly recommend this course for kids, parents, and grandparents alike!”
“Doing this program alongside my son made for a meaningful experience plus it was fun learning with him. I discovered so much, proving you can always learn and change. I would love to see every child and family experience and learn with Happi Genius. The skills we learned and practiced together will be helpful in so many life situations. These are the exact skills we can use in today’s everchanging and sometimes stressful world. I believe this program should be part of every child’s education.”
“This program is really phenomenal. The proven mindfulness techniques that I worked to learn as an adult have been adapted in this program to teach them to children. I wish I had learned any of this when I was a child! What a blessing to be planting these seeds in our young. As a third grader, my daughter has learned deep breathing exercises, and to practice mindfulness, and gratefulness, and patience, and learning to reframe disappointment… and honestly I’m learning right along with her!
Perhaps most importantly, from my parental perspective, this is like teaching the brain muscle good exercises for the common childhood challenges of ADHD and anxiety.
This class taught focus during each session with very fun videos and questions that my daughter LOVES – the graphics and animations are really beautiful and the questions really require that you pay attention and give such a feeling of joy and accomplishment! This class also taught very important skills for managing anxiety. I think a lot of kids have trouble expressing anxiety or even realizing when it is happening. We have pulled skills from this class to help – star breathing, taking a quiet moment, and reframing the situation differently. I also really liked when we all looked for circles in the room – I had never thought of that before and it’s a great exercise to refocus your mind.
As a family we all really enjoyed the gratefulness exercise, and we did this together at the dinner table. One of our favorite things to do now is to say around the dinner table “what was your favorite part of today?”. Hearing what our kids are grateful for (and they hear from us too), and making this a mostly daily habit, teaches our kids to look for the good in each day and also lets us as parents get a broader glimpse into their lives and thoughts. I liked that we had simple homework each week, one task to learn or practice between classes. One that was particularly special was making it a point to tell a family member or friend that they are special to us – quite simply something we all need to remember to do and it was a good reminder for me as well.
Unexpectedly, this class seems to have also led to increased independence. At first, my daughter wanted me to join each time and she was a little nervous before each class. By the end, she was asking me why it was over and how we could get the class extended AND she was participating on her own without needing me there. She booted me out of the room last week because I was distracting her! The virtual format was also really great because it allowed us to participate from Florida – a totally different state and time zone – without travel.
Gauri’s personality is absolutely perfect for this. She is approachable, kind, gentle, supportive, and so positive. The kids gravitate to her – I’m pretty sure my daughter, Sabrina, thinks Gauri hung the moon and the stars! She makes this very relatable for the kids, and goes out of her way to be inclusive of everyone. She’s like the big sister the kids participating have all adopted! One of my favorite things she said was if you burn your pizza crust, just cut it off and eat the middle J. This is a brilliant and very understandable metaphor for so many things in life!
Amit and Gauri – I want to sincerely thank you for putting this together and allowing us to participate and be a part of this. Amit – you have a great daughter!”
