As folks get ready to watch the Super Bowl on television this Sunday in the U.S., many of us will be joining or attending Super Bowl viewing parties. If you’re like most Americans, you’ll probably drive to get to that party.

But unlike most Sundays, when you drive this Sunday coming home from your Super Bowl Party, be especially careful. Why?

Because unlike other Sundays when a football game is televised, researchers found that both non-fatal and fatal car accidents increase 41 percent on average. The risk is highest within an hour of the game’s end, when most people are driving home.

What causes this rise in automobile accidents? Not surprising, alcohol was involved in most fatal injury accidents, as well as a majority of non-fatal accidents. Inattention and fatigue are two additional factors implicated.

I went on a trip to Las Vegas recently. Being surrounded by lights, the sound of money gobbled up by slot machines, and the smell of greed temporarily seduced me into the land where money = happiness. Have you fallen for it before? It’s the hope that money can solve all your problems. It’s the belief that lack can be equated with unhappiness or low self-worth. It’s the same erroneous thought that the perfect body or diet can bring us a better life. We buy into the images sold to us by magazines, TV and movie screens. How can we not? We’re immersed in them.

These posts this week remind me of something my friends and I discovered after countless conversations on wealth and happiness. We realized that our happiest memories were not free of financial worries. In fact, we all had fond memories of our (financially) poor moments. For me, it was renting an apartment with cracked windows, a monstrous heater, a blanket as a couch and an air bed to lay on at night. Maybe it’s only in retrospect that we can fully appreciate these moments. Or maybe like our posts below, it’s a good reminder that we don’t need a lot to be happy.

If you’re going through a challenging time right now, take heart. This week you’ll learn how to use the power of positivity to help you get through your most difficult moments and be happy even when you think there’s nothing in your life to be happy about. 

This guest article from YourTango was written by Dr. Megan Fleming.

First, let me congratulate you for having your priorities in order with your concern about the kids. You are facing one of the greatest parent challenges. Realize this is a big moment. Take a deep breathe. Another. Now do what you always do when you tackle anything important: have an action plan and rehearse it. If you do this well, there are a lot of positive benefits for all.

Kids are smart, and chances are yours won’t be surprised. They have been living with the tension of your relationship, whether it felt hot (anger) or cold (ice). It hasn’t felt good. Kids hear and notice everything you do, all of the time.

All kids today know other kids whose parents have been divorced. Most kids have known kids and their parents pre-split. News travels about what it looked like before their decision to separate was announced.

Why does the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC) misrepresent psychological research?

For instance, in its post on its website titled, “STUDY: Manic Symptoms Linked to Specific Criminal Acts,” the unattributed and undated article suggests that a new study was released that demonstrated a causal link between manic symptoms, and well, specific criminal acts.

But when I read the study, and compared it with what was in the article on the TAC website, I saw a complete misunderstanding (or misrepresentation, whether intentional or not) of the new study.

It now makes me question the validity of any information published by the Treatment Advocacy Center on their website, because it appears their bias — to drive home the mistaken idea that mental illness = increased risk of violence — affects their ability to even deliver research news objectively.

I live in a college town.

In fact, I live in the college town in which I used to attend college.

I moved back here a few months ago and I pass my (er, the college’s) library daily. It brings back plenty of academic memories — and, surprisingly, they’re not the stressful ones. In the six years that have passed since my graduation, the memories of stress and panic and due dates and overwhelming projects has faded.

But the positive stuff remains: the nights spent in a library study nook with my Intro to Communication textbook and a highlighter. (I loved that class.)

The satisfaction of applying a concept I learned in my 9 a.m. Intro to Logic class to my 2 p.m. Composition class. (I could point out all the major logical fallacies in our assigned reading.)

The scent of the pages of a brand-new textbook. (Am I the only one who thinks that new books sort of smell like cucumbers on the inside?)

I hit the peak of wistful sentimentality last week and found a way to re-create a portion of the academic college experience (without the stress!): watching actual college lectures on Academic Earth.

You may not be as familiar with Karl Kahlbaum as you are with Emil Kraepelin, one of the most pivotal psychiatrists of his time who developed the modern classification of mental disorders.

But Kahlbaum paved the way for Kraepelin’s renowned work and also made some remarkable contributions of his own. In fact, Kahlbaum’s ideas — along with his assistant Ewald Hecker — influenced Kraepelin’s two major concepts: manic depression and dementia praecox (what we today call schizophrenia).

According to Richard Noll, associate professor of psychology at DeSales University, in his book American Madness: The Rise and Fall of Dementia Praecox, “What he produced would eventually revolutionize psychiatry once Kraepelin applied Kahlbaum’s concepts in Heidelberg [where Kraepelin lived and worked].”

Like Kraepelin, Kahlbaum was a German psychiatrist. Born in 1828 in Eastern Germany, Kahlbaum studied medicine at several universities: Königsberg, Würzburg and Leipzig. (He passed away in 1899.) After receiving his medical degree, working at a psychiatric clinic and teaching classes at Königsberg University, Kahlbaum began working at a private psychiatric hospital. He bought the hospital in 1867 and renamed the facility after himself (it was named for the previous owner).

This guest article from YourTango was written by Paldrom Collins. 

In the land of the strange but true, as a former Tibetan Buddhist nun I fell in love with and married a man who counsels sex addicts and who is a recovering sex addict himself. Joining him in his counseling practice has allowed me a look into the lives of many people who have struggled with sex and relationship addictions.

These relationships have also impelled me to contemplate how the grace and teaching that I received from my Tibetan teachers can supply guidance in how to work with the compulsions or addictions that manifest in our world today. A young woman called tonight, crying.

Her husband had promised he would stop accessing Internet porn. She had recently given birth to their first child, and on their home computer she discovered that in the previous few days her husband had visited dozens of porn sites.

What should she do?

This may be a difficult time of year for some. You may be getting over the holiday hangover, grappling with the guilt from unmet resolutions, dealing with Seasonal Affective Disorder and feeling anxious about the upcoming February holiday.

There’s that and all the other things you’re dealing with — managing your emotions, getting unstuck, deciding whether to stick through your relationship or end it and learning how to accept yourself and your body. That’s a lot of stuff to deal with.

The good news is that you don’t have to solve every single problem today. The good news is that everyone is a work-in-progress and we have time to work through it. A therapist once said, “If the only thing you ever do in your life is to learn how to cope with all the things you’ve been through that will be enough.”

I hope to pass that same message on to you. Each one of the posts below will help ease you into a different issue of your life. It may not miraculously change things, but if you read it and lean into it slightly, that will be enough.

Cheating in relationships. It’s a problem that some studies have suggested as many as 1 in 5 relationships in the U.S. will face.

But what do you do when you face cheating in your relationship?

I’m pleased to introduce the first of a series of interviews and conversations with two of our resident therapists about a wealth of mental health topics. In this installment, Marie Hartwell-Walker, Ed.D. and Daniel J. Tomasulo, Ph.D., TEP, MFA answer the question about cheating and explore the various aspects of cheating — including how different people define cheating differently — in this latest video from Psych Central.

It may help to read this article about cheating from Dr. Marie as well.

Are you a moderator or an abstainer?

In honor of many people’s New Year’s resolutions — “Eat more healthfully,” “Cut out sweets,” “Lose weight,” and the like — I’m re-posting this quiz, to help you determine whether you’re a moderator or an abstainer. When I figured out that I’m an “abstainer,” it helped me tremendously in terms of eating better.

Often, we know we’d have more long-term happiness if we gave up something that gives us a rush of satisfaction in the short-term. That morning doughnut, that late-night ice cream.

A piece of advice I often see is, “Be moderate. Don’t have dessert every night, but if you try to deny yourself altogether, you’ll fall off the wagon. Allow yourself to have the occasional treat, it will help you stick to your plan.”

I’ve come to believe that this is good advice for some people: the moderators. They do better when they try to make moderate changes, when they avoid absolutes and bright lines.

I used to beat myself up for everything, even when I’d do a good job. Because, you know, I could always do better.

I also used to say “I’m sorry” when a) I wasn’t sorry and b) at the weirdest times, like when someone would bump into me or when I’d want to express a difference of opinion. (Blogger and author Therese Borchard can relate. She gave exposure therapy a try for eliminating her apologizing addiction.)

And any time I’d make a mistake, big or small, I’d feel like I just committed a mortal sin. All mistakes were magnified and the guilt and shame made me want to crawl under a rock. Making mistakes became a gnawing cycle that also chipped away at my already unstable self-esteem.

Saying no to someone was painful, and there were many times that I just wanted to be alone.

Being in a close, loving relationship is many things. It’s comforting, satisfying, challenging, enlightening, and fun. The one thing that a close relationship is not, however, is simple.

In the beginning of a new relationship, the time I think of as the Golden Days, your partner can do no wrong. Snoring is cute. Picking up the socks that end up all over the house is an act of love. The thought of a serious fight seems impossible — until it happens.

The person you love the most, to whom you are closest, becomes irritating, stupid, or irrational. Suddenly the Golden Days are replaced with reality. You and your partner are shedding your pretenses. Neither you nor your loved one feels the need to impress the other. You are committed to each other. You’re comfortable together.

But the snoring starts to drive you crazy, and you resent the socks you have to pick up. Conflict arrives.