Life Balance: Multidisciplinary Theories and Research

Life Balance: Multidisciplinary Theories and Research is a unique volume that offers empirical research and theories for a concept not yet widely recognized in the scientific community. Kathleen Matuska and Charles Christiansen, joined by Helene Polatajko and Jane Davis, have assembled scholars who address various ways to think about balanced lifestyles and how this timely concept compares to other ideas about human well-being.

Some sample chapter topics include:

• Multiple Roles and Life Balance
• Defining and Validating Measures of Life Balance: Suggestions, A New Measure, and Some Preliminary Results
• Optimal Life Style-Mix: An Inductive Approach
• Life Balance: The Meaning and the Menace in a Metaphor
• The “Hurried” Child: Myth vs. Reality
• Emotional Regulation, Processing, and Recovery after Acquired Brain Injury: Contributors to Life Balance

This rich collection of ideas results from a conference involving international scientists who gathered for a discussion on theory and research related to lifestyles that promote health and longevity. The book identifies conceptual commonalities, relationships, and differences associated with life balance research going on in various disciplines but often described using different terminology.

Who will be interested in Life Balance: Multidisciplinary Theories and Research?

• Scientists in the occupational therapy and occupational science communities
• Professionals in public health, community health, and wellness
• Scientists from family and leisure studies, as well as time use scientists
• Specialists in human resource development, including life coaches and executive coaches
• Those specializing in psychology and sociology, social gerontology, social anthropology, social geography and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences

This groundbreaking and forward-thinking text, co-published with AOTA Press, provides a multidisciplinary approach to learning about patterns and characteristics of everyday living that may contribute to reduced stress, lower levels of chronic illness, and happier, longer lives.

In this time of multiple global challenges, the timeliness, relevance and importance of stimulating research that cuts across multiple disciplines to shed insight on lifestyles that may lead to improved coping is easily apparent. Life Balance: Multidisciplinary Theories and Research was assembled with that end in mind.