STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

Psychology professor Laurie Santos will discuss “The Science of Happiness: How to Live a Happier and More Fulfilling Life” as part of St. Luke’s Wood River Foundation Health and Well-Being Speaker Series in August.

Santos, a professor dealing in the science and practice of happiness, will speak at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 5, at the Church of the Big Wood in Ketchum.

She will discuss what the latest results in psychological science teach us about how to be happier, feel less stressed and flourish more. And she will suggest how to build the sorts of habits that will put these findings into practice.

Santos was the guest speaker for the 2019 Health and Well-Being Speaker Series—right before the COVID pandemic swept the nation.

She told how she designed a course on happiness at Yale University when she realized that college students were more overwhelmed, anxious and depressed than ever. It quickly became the most popular class in the 300-plus year history of Yale University with 3,000-plus students showing up for the first day of class.

She also is the host of the podcast “The Happiness Life,” in which she contends that humans are drastically wrong about what makes us happy and often do the exact opposite of what will make our lives better.

She told the Sun Valley audience six years ago that becoming happy takes rewiring the brain. And she said that we can control more of our happiness than we think.

She has been featured as one of Popular Science’s “Brilliant 10” and TIME’s Leading Campus Celebrity.

Admission is free, but reservations are required at https://www.slwrf.org/.