16 November 2016

Impact of Mental Health on the Canadian Economy

There was a report released in early September that said that the Canadian Economy loses $50 Billion annaully due to mental health.

The losses are from employees missing work due to mental health or showing up but are still suffering from mental health impacting their productivity. They even separated out the mental health concerns and their costs
The Conference Board of Canada said in the report that depression costs the economy at least $32.3 billion annually, while anxiety costs another $17.3 billion a year.
The Mental Health Commission of Canada which oversees the delivery of Mental Health First Aid shares these numbers:

  • 23% of workers experience physical health problems caused by stress, anxiety, and major depression
  • 1 in 5 workers experience fatigue, sleeping problems, headaches and anxiety
  • 20% of all sick leaves are related to mental health

09 November 2016

Sex Before Kissing?

In a survey of 600 Australian young women aged 15-19 titled: "Don't send me that pic" came a lot of information about how teenage girls are dealing with their porn-informed boy-friends.

You can read the full report here, or an opionated summary of the findings here.

But if I may share one paragraph that stands out to me as we have a societal shift from "selfie before hi" and "sex before kissing"
When asked, “How do you know a guy likes you?,” an 8th grade girl replied: “He still wants to talk to you after you [give him oral sex].” A male high school student said to a girl: “If you [give me oral sex] I’ll give you a kiss.” Girls are expected to provide sex acts for tokens of affection, and are coached through it by porn-taught boys. A 15-year-old girl said she didn’t enjoy sex at all, but that getting it out of the way quickly was the only way her boyfriend would stop pressuring her and watch a movie.
Now of course I realize not all teen boys are like this, but it is a growing trend. Definitely calls for shift in understanding sexual health.

02 November 2016

Difference between being Rude, Mean and a Bully


A fellow Author, Signe Whitson, in the Notes on Parenting community wrote an excellent piece on the difference between being Rude, Mean, and a Bully. Because usually all those terms get lumped together with Bully.

I'll share the primary definitions, but read the full article on Huffington Post for more insight.

Rude = Inadvertently saying or doing something that hurts someone else.

Mean = Purposefully saying or doing something to hurt someone once (or maybe twice)

Bullying = Intentionally aggressive behavior, repeated over time, that involves an imbalance of power.