With the trade war between Canada and the U.S. being an ever-evolving situation, the President of an Alberta-based mental wellness organization is highlighting the importance of protecting your mental health and sometimes stepping away from constant information.
President of the Porchlight Mental Wellness Society, Amy Raes explained this is happening at a time where where you can have an “insane amount of information” at the touch of a finger and while it is important to be informed, it is also important to step away and be intentional of when you choose to look at that information. She said an example of this is choosing to look at newsreels or stories in the afternoon instead of being inundated with real-time information all day.
“We look at COVID as a clear example of this, we need to put information into context and sometimes context takes a little bit of time to develop. So we need to be able to step back and wait for the full story to come up before reacting,” Raes said. “I think taking a break from social media is really important.”
She added something else the COVID-19 Pandemic highlighted was the importance of talking about one’s mental health during a time of widespread uncertainty. She said there are a lot of people out there who want to talk about their struggles and what they are going through but they are unsure of how to start the conversation.
She says the organization’s suggestion is when you ask someone how they are and they automatically respond with something along the lines of “yep, I’m good,” take a second and ask “but how are you really?”
“Just pause and give them a few seconds to answer. We found through one study that all you need is eight seconds, Raes said. “All you need is eight seconds to just sit with a friend and that is the length of pause or the length of time that people really need to open up and to have that conversation.”
