Wellness & Well-being Highlights April 1
Wellness & Well-being Highlights
for the
Week of April 1, 2024
This week’s edition of our Worker Wellness & Well-being blog highlights how Metal Health stigma is now being referred to as “silent discrimination”—to how loneliness is affecting workers—to the need to comprehend the human and economic impacts of the Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore. This week I would like to highlight the unintended consequences of sports gambling. In spite of Pete Rose’s MLB betting scandal several years ago, a 2018 US Supreme Court decision paved the way for the ubiquitous online gambling at the college and professional levels that we see today. Whether it is a pitcher’s interpreter skimming funds or players shaving points to cover their own debts, since this blog focuses on worker wellness, I would be remiss not to mention that gambling can be addictive—not much different than alcohol or cocaine—because it triggers the part of our brain that releases dopamine…also known as the “pleasure” hormone! As I explained in a previous blog, contemporary science suggests that the young adult brain does not fully form until one is 25 years old. As such, I think the WSJ article linked below serves as the canary in the coal mine. Why? Allowing an addictive habit to enter our college campuses for the sake of making money to offset administrative expenses may—in the long run—end up being more detrimental to our society than the current student loan debacle. Case in point, please consider how “prop” bets have changed the nature of merely betting on a game. Not to mention, if fed and state legislators do not soon install much-needed guard rails (i.e., disallowing players to bet on their own sport, coaches & staff banned/jailed for leaking inside info, etc.), sports we currently trust to be “unscripted” will eventually sink to a level of believability to that of the WWE.
Construction / Stigma = Silent Discrimination
Are “clean needle” programs legal?
Loneliness / Personality / Time
Coping w/ Anxiety, Anger, Fear…
Improving Emotional Intelligence
Vagus Nerve & Emotional Health
Dementia: Diabetes / Pollution / Alcohol
On making sports SAFER for kids
Baltimore bridge & Legal fight ahead
Future of St. Louis Metro Police?
STL Co Jail & Beauty Shop Training
Upcoming webinars, etc.:
Denver Zoo & MH for vets, etc.
NOTE: The links provided above are for informational purposes only. None of these serve as a substitute for medical advice one should obtain from his/her own primary care physician and/or mental health professional. Please contact johngaal@moaflcio.org with related questions or comments.
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