Thank you for joining us for episode 518 of Live Happy Now.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, which makes it a great time to talk about some of the ways we can improve our well-being.

I'm your host, Paula Phelps, and this week I'm joined by Deborah Hyes, co-founder and CEO of Live Happy, to talk about

some of her favorite practices for maintaining mental health, the dangers of toxic positivity,

and how to manage mental health in times of turmoil. Let's have a listen. Deb, welcome back to

Live Happy Now. I'm so happy to be here. Sounds a little redundant, but I really am.

It is always great to sit down with you and talk.

And I knew as we were approaching Mental Health Awareness Month that this was a topic that's,

first of all, very near and dear to your heart.

And it's something that was really important for us to address.

So who better to talk about it than you? And, you know, these are... and dear to your heart, and it's something that was really important for us to address, so who

better to talk about it than you? And, you know, these are really tumultuous times, and there's a lot

of research, including findings from the World Happiness Report, that shows our happiness is

declining. And in the last decade, depression has gone up by 60%. So, as you know, it's particularly prevalent among young people.

And with this being Mental Health Awareness Month, this is a great time for us to look at it.

So can you talk a little bit about what might be driving our lack of happiness in today's world?

I think it's the same things we all know that exist. First of all, whenever

everybody says it's gone up in the last decade, I think back to smack in the middle of the last

decade would be 2020 and the pandemic. And it really created a social isolation crisis for people of

ages that you don't think of having that issue. You know,

young people, we picture them running around with their friends at the mall, going to parties,

wanting to hang out, and suddenly it created this, that's not what they're doing anymore.

...