First Responders can suffer a variety of on-the-job hazards, but some of the most dangerous effects may not be visible to the naked eye. Dr. I. David Daniels is a life member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs and served over 30 years in Fire Rescue Emergency medical and emergency management organizations in three states. He also served two terms as a member of the National Safety Council Board of Directors and was the founding chair of the National Safety Council's Government and Public Sector Division, where he received the organization's highest honor, the Distinguished Service to Safety Award. Today, he's joining Rick Hoaglund to talk about the value of mental health services for First Responders around the globe, so that ones who are first on the scene are also the most well-equipped to handle what comes after.

Whether it's delivering a high-value employee assistance program, student support, or responding to a crisis in your organization or community, OnTopic with Empathia brings competence, compassion, and commitment to those who need it most. Find out more at https://www.empathia.com.

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Millions of Americans suffer the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder every year, but what can be done? LMFT Therapist Therese Sorrentino returns to OnTopic to talk about home remedies, self-diagnosis, and the therapies she's used in her own practice to encourage healthier habits and more wholesome mindsets during the coldest season of the year.

Whether it's delivering a high-value employee assistance program, student support, or responding to a crisis in your organization or community, OnTopic with Empathia brings competence, compassion, and commitment to those who need it most. Find out more at https://www.empathia.com.

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Have you ever found yourself feeling down in the winter? The days are shorter, the temperatures lower, and without some sunshine, things may start to look a little bleak. Seasonal Affective Disorder, or S.A.D. as it's more commonly known is a real condition, and millions of Americans are affected by it every single year. Rick invites LMFT Therapist Therese Sorrentino onto the show to talk about Seasonal Affective Disorder - where it comes from, why it happens, and most importantly, how we can start to see it in ourselves and curb the effects before the cold gets in.

Whether it's delivering a high-value employee assistance program, student support, or responding to a crisis in your organization or community, OnTopic with Empathia brings competence, compassion, and commitment to those who need it most. Find out more at https://www.empathia.com.

Find More Resources from Empathia at:

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For a lot of us, Forgiveness can often feel impossible. Some trespasses may feel too great; some decisions too large to ignore when it comes to truly letting go. For Dr. Buck Blodgett, it's not so much an obligation, but a choice - you either choose to forgive, or you choose not to, and then you continue down the path that choice created. It's a core tenet of his book, 'A Message from Jessie', and a founding principal behind his organization, The Love > hate Project, an organization dedicated to ending interpersonal violence by promoting forgiveness and presenting love. In this follow-up from last week's Part One, Kelly Parbs sits down with Buck to talk about the decisions he makes every day to choose forgiveness, and why the impossible may not be so daunting when we decide for ourselves what's truly best.

Whether it's delivering a high-value employee assistance program, student support, or responding to a crisis in your organization or community, OnTopic with Empathia brings competence, compassion, and commitment to those who need it most. Find out more at https://www.empathia.com.

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Content/Trigger Warnings: This episode contains content including the death, violence, and sexual crimes from 2min30sec to 7min30sec and from 20min30sec to 22min. Listener Discretion is advised.

It's easy to forgive the smaller trespasses in life - the occasional slip-up or minor accident often pale in comparison to some of life's greater challenges. Some of us may not even embrace forgiveness in the traditional sense, opting instead to simply 'move on' or 'let it go'. But sometimes, things happen that we can't control, and disaster strikes in the most unexpected of ways, prompting a deeper, more meaningful response that may not be so easy to forgive. In Part One of their conversation on Forgiveness, Kelly Parbs sits down with longtime collaborator and founder of The LOVE > hate Project Founder Buck Blodgett to talk about just what forgiveness means to him, what the four key distinctions to true forgiveness are, and why he chose to forgive when an overwhelming tragedy befell his family on July 15th, 2013.

Whether it's delivering a high-value employee assistance program, student support, or responding to a crisis in your organization or community, OnTopic with Empathia brings competence, compassion, and commitment to those who need it most. Find out more at https://www.empathia.com.

Find More Resources from Empathia at:

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• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/empathia-inc

How much of our brains are dedicated to remembering old jingles and theme songs? Why do certain songs make us so emotional? And most importantly - can Music Therapy work for just about anybody? Following up from Episode 22, Rick Hoaglund returns to the studio with Nancy Dexter-Schabow to talk about just how valuable Music Therapy can be as a tool for communication with nonverbal clients, by activating the various parts of the brain that illicit physical, emotional, and even inherent neurological responses.

Whether it's delivering a high-value employee assistance program, student support, or responding to a crisis in your organization or community, OnTopic with Empathia brings competence, compassion, and commitment to those who need it most. Find out more at https://www.empathia.com.

Find More Resources from Empathia at:

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• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/empathia-inc

Have you ever heard the expression, "Music is good for the soul? "Turns out, it's good for your mental health too! Whether you can carry a tune or not, Music Therapist Nancy Dexter-Schabow says that every one of us has a song in their heart and that everybody, even the hard of hearing, can learn and grow through the benefits of music therapy. That's why she's sitting down with host Rick Hoaglund for a two-part conversation on the nature of music in physical and emotional healing, how music therapy is actually a practice dating all the way back to biblical times, and the secret to getting into an industry that's only growing as people continue to seek out new healing methods.

Whether it's delivering a high-value employee assistance program, student support, or responding to a crisis in your organization or community, OnTopic with Empathia brings competence, compassion, and commitment to those who need it most. Find out more at https://www.empathia.com.


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Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise - or at least it would, if so many of us weren't suffering from sleeping disorders. In their follow-up from last week's conversation on the effects of sleep on mental health, host Rick Hoaglund and Dr. Rajesh Balagani dig into sleeping disorders - why they happen, how they affect us, and what we can do to curb the trend - before diving into REM cycles, therapeutic remedies, and how you can optimize your resting hours to get the maximum benefit from a good night's rest.

Whether it's delivering a high-value employee assistance program, student support, or responding to a crisis in your organization or community, OnTopic with Empathia brings competence, compassion, and commitment to those who need it most. Find out more at https://www.empathia.com.

Find More Resources from Empathia at:

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• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/empathia-inc

When you go to bed, are you one of the lucky people can simply turn off the lights and drift into dreamland? Or are you, like millions of other Americans, struggling to fall asleep? In Part One of this Two-Part exploration into Sleep and it's effects on Mental Health, Dr. Rajesh Balagani explains why sleep is so important on a biological level to our larger wellbeing, and how a few simple steps can start to curb poor resting habits in practically everybody's life.

Whether it's delivering a high-value employee assistance program, student support, or responding to a crisis in your organization or community, OnTopic with Empathia brings competence, compassion, and commitment to those who need it most. Find out more at https://www.empathia.com.

Find More Resources from Empathia at:

• Website: https://www.empathia.com
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• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/empathia-inc

Is it better to run, hide, or fight? When it comes to responding to an active shooter, there's drills, strategies, and even testimonials that you can train on, but Dr. Schoenfeldt says that teaching's the real secret. Following up from last week, Kelly dives back into active shooter response management with Dr. Mary Schoenfeldt, an emergency management professional with experience going back to responding to Sandy Hook in December of 2012, to talk about how various communities have responded to their own tragedies since, and what we can do to be more aware in case it happens again.

Whether it's delivering a high-value employee assistance program, student support, or responding to a crisis in your organization or community, OnTopic with Empathia brings competence, compassion, and commitment to those who need it most. Find out more at https://www.empathia.com.

Find More Resources from Empathia at:

• Website: https://www.empathia.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/empathiainc
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/EmpathiaVlog
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/empathia-inc