Election season is now officially underway and that means that many of us are already feeling election stress. That’s why Live Happy has partnered with licensed clinical psychologist and author Dr. Lauren Cook to offer a free four-week email course, Overcoming Election Stress . In this episode, host Paula Felps sits down with Lauren to talk about some of the symptoms of election stress and explain how this email course can help get you through the next couple of months. 

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• What we mean by “election stress” and what’s causing it.
• Practices to help you manage anxiety throughout the election season.
• How Live Happy’s free email series, Overcoming Election Stress with Dr. Lauren Cook, can help.

If you’ve never thought of cows as intuitive healers, this episode just might change your mind. Ellie Laks is the founder of The Gentle Barn Foundation, a national organization that rescues and rehabilitates abused and discarded farm animals. She is the creator of cow hug therapy and, as she explains in her book by the same name, she has learned amazing lessons from these animals about life, death, and everything in between. She’s here today to share some of those lessons with us.  In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The origins of Cow Hug Therapy.
• How farm animals can aid in emotional healing.
• What we can learn from barnyard animals and why they’re such great teachers.

If you feel like your workday never ends, you aren’t alone! This week, host Paula Felps is joined by Janelle Wells and Doreen MacAulay, partners in the consultancy WellsQuest and authors of Our (In)Visible Work: How Everyone Everywhere Experiences It Every Day. Their work focuses on the effect of the unpaid work we do both on the job and at home, and they’re here to talk about how taking on these essential tasks can tax our time and lead to burnout, anxiety, and exhaustion — and how we can manage it better.  

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How to define invisible work and determine where it lives.
• Why identifying your priorities can change the way you approach your to-do list.
• How to get help at work and home to share some of your invisible workload.

Students and teachers are heading back to school, but just because summer is ending doesn’t mean our fun has to end, too. This summer, Live Happy teamed up with organizational psychologist Mike Rucker, PhD, to offer the Summer of Fun email series, filled with ideas about how to bring more fun to your summer. As we head into fall and winter, host Paula Felps sits down with Mike to talk about how we can carry this commitment to fun with us as the days get shorter.  

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How (and why) to commit to fun when time seems to be in short supply.
• Why it’s important to plan to have fun during the fall and winter.
• How scheduling fun adds joy to other areas of your life.

As we head toward the end of summer, many of us are talking about the contentious election environment. In this episode, host Paula Felps is by Rob Volpe, an empathy activist, consultant, and author of Tell Me More About That: Solving the empathy crisis one conversation at a time, who talks about how we can avoid some of the hazards that come with discussing differing opinions. He’ll also explain how learning to approach these conversations differently can change the way we interact with one another in the long run.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why the discourse has become so heated and how social media has contributed to the problem.
• How it changes to stop viewing someone as being on “the other side.”
• The power of the Curious Breath — and how to use it.