Wellness & Well-being Highlights March 18

Wellness & Well-being Highlights

for the

Week of March 18, 2024

This week’s edition of our Worker Wellness & Well-being blog highlights challenges (one from The White House and the other regarding First Responders) both concerning the opioids crisis—to how some online gaming sites provide venues to exploit vulnerable children—to how domestic violence has now been recognized as the leading cause of traumatic brain injuries. This week we have an opportunity to examine a recently released report on the State of the World’s Mental Health of its internet-enabled global population. It appears that the decline in MH, across the 71 countries studied, which began pre-COVID, continued through 2021 and mainly remains stagnant. With a 15-minute anonymous survey, these authors examine the concept of mental well-being which “inherently reflects an individual’s sense of how their inner state impacts their ability to function within their life context.” Key findings: MH challenges are linked to the younger the age of cell phone ownership and increased intake of ultra-processed foods; and the wealth of a nation does not equate to better well-being (Note: UK and Australia ranked 2^nd and 6^th to last, respectively, and the Dominican Republic and USA ranked 1^st and 29^th, respectively). Interestingly, another article this week touches on how what we eat negatively impacts our MH, sleep, and learning. Apparently, ultra-processed foods hit our brain’s reward system not unlike alcohol and addictive drugs. In fact, scientists have found that people who eat high-fat, high-sugar snacks also had changes in how their brains learned. In addition, such a diet is linked to increased anxiety and depression which may result in a proposed call for inclusion of new MH disorder: ultra-processed food use disorder. As I reflect, maybe there was something to that saying I heard back in the 1970s: You are what you eat!

Sources: https://mentalstateoftheworld.report/2023_read/

https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/ultra-processed-food-brain-health-7a3f9827

State of World’s MH

The UK is not a happy place

White House & OD Challenge

EMTs & Curbing Opioid ODs (1)

EMTs & Curbing Opioid ODs (2)

Blackpool’s Deaths of Despair

Alaska / Friends / Suicides

Ukraine / PTSD / Psychedelics

Workplace Safety: More than just policies

Audit / Psychological Safety / Employees