About
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Hi! I'm Dr. Tchiki Davis. I'm a wellness writer, business consultant, and expert at the intersection of happiness and technology.
After earning my Ph.D. from The University of California in Berkeley in psychology, I created The Berkeley Well-Being Institute to translate the science of happiness into products, programs, and content that promote well-being—these products that have reached more than a million people worldwide. I now focus mostly on writing content that helps people develop health & happiness. This content can be found in my book, Outsmart Your Smartphone, and all across the web including at Psychology Today, ShineText, Greater Good Magazine, The Good Men Project, and many other places. |
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Why well-being?
Growing up, so many people I knew struggled with emotions, stress, and building healthy habits. Over time I became obsessed with well-being—I wanted to know how we could cope in healthier ways and create lives filled with health and happiness.
I started volunteering and working in mental health nearly 20 years ago. I got my BA in psychology from CU Boulder, my MA in emotion science from The University of Denver, and my PhD in social psychology from UC Berkeley. I also received training in clinical psychology from The National Institute of Health and training from the Summer Institute of Social and Personality Psychology in Neuroendocrinology (hormones and mental health) at The University of California, Davis.
Since graduating, I've working with many businesses—including silicon valley tech companies like Facebook all the way to small wellness app start-ups. I've provided these companies with advice on everything from strategy, to science, to content all in an effort to ensure their wellness products and tools were the highest quality possible. And I've written hundreds of science-based articles on how to boost well-being.
Across the years, the skills I've learned have vastly improved my life and the lives of those who have been reached with my content. Here at The Berkeley Well-Being Institute you too can learn these skills from our articles, programs, and tools.
What makes The Berkeley Well-Being Institute different?
I'm an expert in well-being, but I'm just trying to figure out what really works in real life in response to real challenges.
As a result, the content I write is an honest, authentic, relatable approach to well-being. You wont get advice from someone who was born with the skills, support, and resources that make well-being easy. No, I know that it's hard. And I get that maintaining well-being in our high-stress world can be crazy challenging. But I'm devoted to doing the research to figure it out... for me and for you.
If you want to join me on this adventure, I'd love to share what I learn with you. Just subscribe to get my monthly well-being message.
Growing up, so many people I knew struggled with emotions, stress, and building healthy habits. Over time I became obsessed with well-being—I wanted to know how we could cope in healthier ways and create lives filled with health and happiness.
I started volunteering and working in mental health nearly 20 years ago. I got my BA in psychology from CU Boulder, my MA in emotion science from The University of Denver, and my PhD in social psychology from UC Berkeley. I also received training in clinical psychology from The National Institute of Health and training from the Summer Institute of Social and Personality Psychology in Neuroendocrinology (hormones and mental health) at The University of California, Davis.
Since graduating, I've working with many businesses—including silicon valley tech companies like Facebook all the way to small wellness app start-ups. I've provided these companies with advice on everything from strategy, to science, to content all in an effort to ensure their wellness products and tools were the highest quality possible. And I've written hundreds of science-based articles on how to boost well-being.
Across the years, the skills I've learned have vastly improved my life and the lives of those who have been reached with my content. Here at The Berkeley Well-Being Institute you too can learn these skills from our articles, programs, and tools.
What makes The Berkeley Well-Being Institute different?
I'm an expert in well-being, but I'm just trying to figure out what really works in real life in response to real challenges.
As a result, the content I write is an honest, authentic, relatable approach to well-being. You wont get advice from someone who was born with the skills, support, and resources that make well-being easy. No, I know that it's hard. And I get that maintaining well-being in our high-stress world can be crazy challenging. But I'm devoted to doing the research to figure it out... for me and for you.
If you want to join me on this adventure, I'd love to share what I learn with you. Just subscribe to get my monthly well-being message.
The longer story...
I was fifteen. It was a Halloween night, and my friend’s parents were out of town. So don’t tell my mom, but I went to a party.
Late in the night, the house was still filled with the sounds of teenagers, laughing inanely about whatever we thought was funny back then. At some point, I wandered into the kitchen to get a drink of water. There, standing alone, was a friend of mine. Her head was cast downward, her bangs were in front of her eyes, and she was squeezing her hand into a tight fist. As I walked up to her, I saw something red on her hand. It was blood!
I rushed over to her, grabbing her hand, demanding that she let me help her. But she jerked away from me, hiding her hand. Tears started flooding her eyes.
Finally, after much prodding, she opened her hand. Lying in her palm was a piece of glass, glass that she had been squeezing as hard as she possibly could. She was so upset about something—I still don’t know what it was to this day—that she pushed that piece of glass against her skin until blood was literally dripping on the floor.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that moment was the first in a series of moments that would change my life.
In the years that followed, I saw the scars from self-harm, I saw the glazed-over eyes that come with drug abuse, and I saw the skin that hangs off a body that is being intentionally starved. I witnessed the depths of depression and the heights of mania, suicide attempts and near overdoses. And I personally struggled with my emotions and self-destructive behavior.
It turns out that a person can only be exposed to so much of this before becoming determined to stop it—or at least that’s what happened to me. Somewhere along the way, my life’s mission became to help people manage negative emotions, engage in healthier behaviors, and build the skills that would help them live a happier, more fulfilling life.
Being an entrepreneurial, creative type, I decide to take action while still a fifteen-year-old kid. My best friend and I started organizing drug-free social events for teens in my town.
In college I started mentoring and working with at-risk youth and got a few jobs after college: one in a school for at-risk youth, one as a drug-addiction counselor, and even one at a vegan restaurant. All the while I applied to graduate schools in the hopes that I could get ever better at helping people improve their lives.
When I got into grad school—I started studying how emotions contribute to self-harmful behavior and soon discovered positive psychology. And I learned just how beneficial it can be for those who struggle with negative emotions.
Late in the night, the house was still filled with the sounds of teenagers, laughing inanely about whatever we thought was funny back then. At some point, I wandered into the kitchen to get a drink of water. There, standing alone, was a friend of mine. Her head was cast downward, her bangs were in front of her eyes, and she was squeezing her hand into a tight fist. As I walked up to her, I saw something red on her hand. It was blood!
I rushed over to her, grabbing her hand, demanding that she let me help her. But she jerked away from me, hiding her hand. Tears started flooding her eyes.
Finally, after much prodding, she opened her hand. Lying in her palm was a piece of glass, glass that she had been squeezing as hard as she possibly could. She was so upset about something—I still don’t know what it was to this day—that she pushed that piece of glass against her skin until blood was literally dripping on the floor.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that moment was the first in a series of moments that would change my life.
In the years that followed, I saw the scars from self-harm, I saw the glazed-over eyes that come with drug abuse, and I saw the skin that hangs off a body that is being intentionally starved. I witnessed the depths of depression and the heights of mania, suicide attempts and near overdoses. And I personally struggled with my emotions and self-destructive behavior.
It turns out that a person can only be exposed to so much of this before becoming determined to stop it—or at least that’s what happened to me. Somewhere along the way, my life’s mission became to help people manage negative emotions, engage in healthier behaviors, and build the skills that would help them live a happier, more fulfilling life.
Being an entrepreneurial, creative type, I decide to take action while still a fifteen-year-old kid. My best friend and I started organizing drug-free social events for teens in my town.
In college I started mentoring and working with at-risk youth and got a few jobs after college: one in a school for at-risk youth, one as a drug-addiction counselor, and even one at a vegan restaurant. All the while I applied to graduate schools in the hopes that I could get ever better at helping people improve their lives.
When I got into grad school—I started studying how emotions contribute to self-harmful behavior and soon discovered positive psychology. And I learned just how beneficial it can be for those who struggle with negative emotions.
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After finishing my master’s degree, I got into The University of California, Berkeley, which housed one of the best psychology programs in the world. While completing my PhD, I continued pursuing my mission, learning everything I could about emotions, happiness, and well-being.
At the same time, I was highly active in the entrepreneurship community and co-founded my first business, Lifenik (games to to help kids improve their emotional skills). We won a few awards for Lifenik but ultimately dissolved the business after a couple of years. After that, I kept working with other wellness-tech entrepreneurs—helping them build happiness programs, products, and courses—and that's what led me to create The Berkeley Well-Being Institute. |
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I knew that positive psychology strategies really work—I had seen how they helped me, people in the research lab, and others in real life. So I created The Berkeley Happiness Program to share these strategies. And I was so enjoying helping other purpose-driven entrepreneurs that I also created The Berkeley Purpose-Driven Business Program.
But the more I became a well-being expert, the more I started to see all the giant problems preventing people from increasing their well-being, no matter what they did, no matter how hard they tried.
One of these problems was “smartphone syndrome”, or having an unhealthy relationship with our smartphones. So I spent the next few years writing my book, Outsmart Your Smartphone. I am so proud of this book and how it takes a realistic look at how we can mange our relationships with technology.
But the more I became a well-being expert, the more I started to see all the giant problems preventing people from increasing their well-being, no matter what they did, no matter how hard they tried.
One of these problems was “smartphone syndrome”, or having an unhealthy relationship with our smartphones. So I spent the next few years writing my book, Outsmart Your Smartphone. I am so proud of this book and how it takes a realistic look at how we can mange our relationships with technology.
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Right around the time I was finishing the book, I encountered a new threat to well-being, this time in my personal life. In the blink of an eye, I started getting nauseous, bloated, and belchy anytime I ate anything. I lost almost 20lbs in 2 months, became exhausted, and developed intense anxiety unlike anything I'd ever experienced.
I eventually learned that mold was the underlying cause. Mold in my apartment completely destroyed my immune system resulting in whole cascade of mental and physical health issues that kept me bed-ridden for nearly a year. And worse, none of the strategies I'd learned in graduate school helped me improve my health or my happiness during this time. This experience led me to explore a whole new approach to well-being—an approach that was just as much about the body as the mind. It is this approach that gave me life back and led me to develop my Stress-Detox Program. |
In Sum
What I've learned from my 20 years in wellness is that there are so many aspects of health and well-being that it is difficult to understand and manage them all. I've certainly benefited immensely from the well-being strategies I share here. But I know there is so much more to learn. I'm still not quite where I want to be in terms of my own health and happiness. So I just keep doing the research, and hopefully we can both keep improving our lives.
What I've learned from my 20 years in wellness is that there are so many aspects of health and well-being that it is difficult to understand and manage them all. I've certainly benefited immensely from the well-being strategies I share here. But I know there is so much more to learn. I'm still not quite where I want to be in terms of my own health and happiness. So I just keep doing the research, and hopefully we can both keep improving our lives.