For Mental Health Week, name how you feel. Don’t numb it. It is CMHA’s 70th Mental Health Week, and this year we took the pulse of Canada’s emotions and found that the pandemic has taken its toll. This according to the latest round of research from CMHA and UBC researchers, which found that 77% of adults report feeling ‘worried or anxious,’ ‘bored,’ ‘stressed,’ ‘lonely or isolated’ and ‘sad’. These difficult feelings may, in fact, be a fitting emotional response to these difficult times. Margaret Eaton, National CEO of CMHA, sees it this way: “While it’s discouraging to think that so many Cana ..read more

This CMHA Mental Health Week, we’re diving into how we feel. It’s hard to deal with our emotions when we don’t know what we’re feeling. You may have been taught to push your bad feelings away, but research shows that understanding and naming our feelings can make sadness, anger and pain feel less intense. And there’s no question – these pandemic times of pain and anxiety are intense! Recent CMHA research with UBC found that 40 per cent of Canadians experienced a decline in their mental health since the pandemic started. Many of us are exercising outdoors to deal with the stress, but one in fiv ..read more

Of all the seasons, winter may be the hardest on our mental health. According to a 2018 study[1], half of Canadians report the lowest level of happiness during the winter months, when we tend to hunker down indoors, connecting less with our communities, with nature and with loved ones. Now, tie that to the despair and anxiety experienced by Canadians since the pandemic hit, and this winter may be the hardest one yet. In fact, over 70% of Canadians expressed worry during the second wave of the pandemic, and 40% of Canadians reported that their mental health had deteriorated since March 2020.[2 ..read more

Over the years, we’ve seen a steady increase in mental health awareness. More and more, we’re hearing and talking about wellness, mindfulness, therapy, stress management and self-care. While it’s exciting to see increased interest in mental health, the popularization of wellness can sometimes lead to misinformation and the desire to profit from it—sometimes even called “wellness washing.” While taking luxurious baths can feel great, self-care goes far beyond that. True wellness requires more than skincare serums, kitchen gadgets and scented candles—and you don’t always need to spend money to f ..read more

This article was written for ParticipACTION’s Move for your Mood campaign. Visit their website for more about the campaign. Move to improve your mental health Before we talk about how to improve your mental health, let’s make sure we agree on what we’re talking about. At the Canadian Mental Health Association, we notice that people use the terms “mental health” and “mental illness” interchangeably, but really, they mean different things. Mental illnesses are disturbances in thoughts, feelings, and perceptions that are severe enough to affect day-to-day functioning.[i] Some examples are an ..read more

The Canadian Mental Health Association is now expanding its BounceBack® program across Canada with support from Bell Let’s Talk. BounceBack is a free, guided self-help program that helps adults and youth 15+ learn to manage low mood, mild to moderate depression, anxiety, stress or worry. Through telephone coaching and skill-building workbooks, participants can learn ways to overcome their symptoms and improve their mental well-being. Based on cognitive behavioural therapy, BounceBack has been shown to reduce depressive and anxiety symptoms by 50%. Already offered by CMHA in ..read more

Hope. It’s not blind optimism and it’s far from toxic positivity. It’s being able to imagine an alternative future and moving towards it. It’s the opposite of giving up. This year has been full of challenges in our personal, social and professional lives. We’re facing uncertainty in our safety, our economy and our planet. But these challenges are not without opportunity. Despite these challenges, we have hope. And during our 5th annual Mental Health for All Conference (MH4A), hope is exactly what we found. This year’s conference, themed Hope in an age of uncertainty, brought together over 825 ..read more

A lot is being said about stress these days, and it’s no wonder. The pandemic has brought with it countless sources of extreme stress. But there has been relative silence on a topic that would help us get through the stress. And that topic is “resilience.” Maybe that’s because we all know what stress is, and what it feels like. And maybe we are less familiar with the concept of resilience. Resilience, which comes from Latin and literally means “jumping back up,” is about adap ..read more

It’s been said many times, but we’ll say it again: working in the pandemic is not business as usual. Whatever your job, chances are you have had to make some adjustments. For many, that adjustment was moving the workplace to your kitchen table or home office. And it wasn’t an easy feat. Despite all obstacles, we’ve navigated through Zoom meetings, noisy households and working in sweatpants (okay, that one might not be so bad). So, if talk of returning to the workplace is stirring  ..read more

Back to school has always been a time of transition. The end of summer. The apprehension. The excitement. And if it came with a bit of anxiety for your kids, well, that was to be expected. But back to school means something completely different this year as we deal with COVID-19. This year, the usual back-to-school pressures may be eclipsed by a more potent set of worries. The fundamental one: will our kids be safe?  Some parents have answered this question by opting for a virtual classroom. For those whose children will return to a school, all the new safety procedures—and whether they w ..read more