Wellness & Well-being Highlights November 3rd

Wellness & Well-being Highlights

for the

Week of November 3, 2025

This week’s edition of our Worker Wellness & Well-being blog provides us a look at the proliferation of dangerous products being sold to teen-agers at Gas Stations and Smoke Shops—to a recent study suggesting that modeling vulnerability can help address Mental Health issues in the construction industry—to what sleep doctors want us to know about the impact of time changes on our bodies and minds.

This week I would like to discuss the importance of what we say and how we say it. In the first article, Weil insists, “When someone is grieving, just say something.”[1] Her advice is based on the experience of losing a child. While she acknowledges that most of us do not know what to say in the midst of a tragic loss, there are some lessons she learned thereafter worth sharing and a few not so much.

The second article is mostly focused on reducing tensions during tense conversations but nevertheless offers tips applicable to the difficult situation mentioned above. A few are listed below:[2]

1) I hear you: When grief and trauma are involved, people do not need fixing…they need someone to listen. (Active listening requires one to step outside of their problem-solving mode and into a mode that many of us are not familiar/comfortable with. Hint: Remember the acronym WAIT: Why am I talking?)

2) Let’s find a way through this together: While most parents never get over the death of a child, they do find paths to ‘walk alongside’ their loss. In this time of need, they need support. (Helping with everyday tasks (i.e., grass cutting, grocery shopping, cooking meals, walking the dog, etc.) gives those in distress time and space. Hint: If you offer to do something…show up and do it!)

3) I appreciate you bringing this up: Gratitude builds trusts and, in turn, long term relationships. (When someone in need shares intimate details, it is incumbent upon us to use that info in a helping or healing manner. Hint: The ONLY time one should break that trust is when the person in need is thinking about hurting her/himself and/or others.)

Please check out the rest of this week’s blog: https://moworksinitiative.org/category/worker-wellness-news/

Sources: [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2024/01/18/death-mourning-baby-grief-support/

[2] https://geediting.com/gen-10-phrases-that-instantly-lower-tension-in-difficult-conversations-according-to-psychology/

WARNING: Gas Station/Smoke Shop (7-OH) Kratom

Construction / MH / Vulnerability

Mourning & Greif: What to say?

Tension: Language Matters

Trump’s CDC Cuts Compromise Public Health & Safety

White House Demo & Asbestos Concerns

2025: Workers’ MH Decline

Women / Menopause / Silence

Cancer Avoidance?