It has been described as one of the most contentious, tawdry and angry presidential elections in history. And it’s taking a toll on our mental health.

“I’ve been in private practice for 30 years, and I have never seen patients have such strong reactions to an election,” said Sue Elias, a licensed clinical social worker in Manhattan.

The American Psychological Association says that 52 percent of American adults are coping with high levels of stress brought on by the election, according to national Harris Poll survey data released last week. Therapists around the country said in interviews that patients are coming to appointments citing their fears, anger and anxiety about the election. To read more from LESLEY ALDERMAN, click here.

Thank you for giving me a second chance at happiness.

Sara Woodard-Ortiz began writing her blog The HeartFull Journey after going through a painful divorce two years ago. Below, Woodard-Ortiz, who lives in Illinois with her three-year-old daughter, writes a letter of unexpected gratitude to the ex-husband who left her.

Dear ex-husband,

I used to call you names behind your back after our divorce. The pain I felt after I found out you betrayed me was like no other pain I had experienced before. It ruined not only our marriage, but my self-confidence and my hopes and dreams for the future. To read more from Brittany Wong, click here.

Word to the wise (or couples who want to stay married): Just because certain relationship advice is popular doesn’t mean it’s worth applying to your own marriage.

Below, marriage therapists share seven pieces of advice you’d be better off ignoring.

1. Never go to bed angry.

Go ahead and go to bed angry. If you or your spouse are exhausted, it’s better to save that heavy conversation for the morning, when you have the emotional bandwidth to handle it. If you’re sleep deprived, you’re more likely to get emotional and less likely to respond in calm, grownup way. Indeed, studies have shown that the brain’s emotional centers are more reactive when we’re sleep deprived. To read more from Brittany Wong, click here.

It was early 2008, and I had a Samsung flip phone – not the kind you would ever use as an instrument of distraction, but one that certainly could register the 10-plus calls my husband had made during the few minutes I was in the store late one night.

I knew when I got back to the car that I had left my Gmail open on the computer we shared. To read more from The Guardian, click here.

Having a happy spouse may be good for your health.

Previous studies have found that mental well-being — feeling happy and satisfied — is closely linked to good physical health. But a new study, published in Health Psychology, suggests that physical health may also be linked to the happiness of one’s husband or wife.

Researchers used data from a survey of 1,981 heterosexual couples, a nationwide sample of Americans over 50 whose happiness had been assessed periodically since 1992 using well-validated scales. They also completed regular questionnaires on physical health. To read more from NICHOLAS BAKALAR, click here.

Harvard research reveals how going on vacation, especially if you meditate while you’re on vacation, restores your body and mind on a genetic level. If a true vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it, then not many of us can say that we’ve actually gone on vacation recently. But, according to the latest Harvard research, going on vacation, and adding some regular meditation into the mix, might help you live longer and heal faster. To read more from Crystal Goh, click here.

How to Pick the Fastest Line at the Supermarket, Get behind a shopper who has a full cart.

Think of it this way: One person with 100 items to be rung up will take an average of almost six minutes to process. If you get in a line with four people who each have 20 items, it will take an average of nearly seven minutes. To read more from CHRISTOPHER MELE, click here.

Every year, psychologists publish a staggering amount of research—it’s impossible to read it all. Still, I gave it a shot—and here are the six papers I found most fascinating. To read more from Maria Konnikova, click here.

My husband was no longer the man I had married. He had become grumpy and short-tempered, acting as if life had dealt him a bad hand.

He works in publishing, an industry that has its own share of problems. A self-made man, he worries that our sons have been handed too much. Our marriage was facing the familiar strains of midlife. All of this was getting him down.

Until he installed the bird feeder.

“But that’s so messy,” I said. In Mumbai, India, where we live, apartments are tiny. And while we have a little veranda with a few green plants, we do not have birds, and I did not see the point of putting up a bird feeder on our small open space to feed nonexistent creatures.

To try to feed birds in a city that’s rife with starvation and poverty also seemed too privileged and romantic a notion, something only rich people did in the Western world. Not here. Not in Mumbai. To read more from TISTA SEN, click here.

I’ve spent the better part of my life as a people-pleaser, trying to meet other people’s expectations, trying to keep everyone happy and liking me. But when we are trying to please others, we are usually out of sync with our own wants and needs. It’s not that it’s bad to be thinking of others. It’s that pleasing others is not the same as helping others. To read more from Christine Carter, click here.