How about a mental health day!

So it was late afternoon and I was chatting with some of my young, active and thoughtful research team members. And guess what came up? We need a mental health break during the “dog days” of winter. 

The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.

We know that the winter blues are very common at northern latitudes – such as all of Canada. We know that there is a mental disorder, called Seasonal Affective Disorder that is linked to the relative lack of sunlight during our winter months. We know how long that stretch of going to work when it is dark and going home when it is dark is – especially between Christmas and the first holidays in the spring. Apparently there is even some anecdotal evidence that work and school problems peak in February. And, we know how important a good down day – preferably one in which we can go exercise outside in the sunshine- is for our mental health.

So here is my proposal (actually it is the proposal of Jess Wishart and Christina Biluk), but I am putting forward as mine. Let’s have a national holiday in early February. Lets call it mental health day. Why not? We can just prorogue for a while. I bet that it will be good for all of us. And the researchers can study to see if the two weeks after the day show less work and school stress than the two weeks before the day. Or they could do a controlled trial – one part of the country with the day off and the other part without. Hah. Maybe we should just take the day off!