In year a when everything turned upside down, skiers hitting the slopes at Rabbit Hill south of Edmonton feel a sense of relief.
“Just a little it of normal would be great, and Rabbit Hill gives us that,” Lauren Hawes said.
She came with her family on New Year’s Day.
Like it has been for many, the pandemic has been hard on her mental health.
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“My extended family is in Nova Scotia, so we haven’t seen my husband’s mom, brother or sister-in-law in years, and we are really missing them. I would like to hug my own parents, they live in St. Albert. I’ve seen them but I haven’t hugged them in months,” Hawes said.
“I’m trying really hard to stay positive.
“Knowing that the scientists are doing their science thing, and the health-care workers are doing their incredible brave work and we will get there and it will be okay eventually,” she said.
A recent Global News Ipsos poll showed amid the pandemic, 28 per cent of Canadians are struggling with mental health, 15 per cent said they are consuming more alcohol and seven per cent are struggling with drug addictions.
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University of Alberta psychiatry professor Peter Silverstone said there is more hope in 2021 and that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
“We haven’t left the tunnel,” Silverstone said. “We are about 100 days away — by the time the weather has changed, the economy has changed and enough people have been vaccinated.”
He suggests an 100-day challenge to improve mental health, as opposed to making a long-term New Year’s resolution.
“There’s a lot of evidence that setting small goals to achieve is much more beneficial in the short and long term, [as] opposed to setting a big long goal.
“Every day you can do at least one kind of exercise, every day you can reach out to somebody, every day you can try and help somebody else,” Silverstone said. “By the end of the that, you will have done 100 different things.
“If you’re a family with kids, you can do 100 days of ‘Simon Says’, and do an activity with your kids and find some interesting challenges.”