PRESS RELEASE: How's Your Mental Fitness? | Canadian Mental ...

How?s your mental fitness?

November 8, 2012

Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), in Proud Partnership with the AIR MILES Reward Program and Healthy Minds Canada (HMC), Launches New Highly-Interactive Website Designed to Help Canadians Improve Their Mental Fitness.

Today, the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) in proud partnership with the AIR MILES Reward Program and Healthy Minds Canada (HMC), launched a new website called, ?My New Head? (mynewhead.com), which focuses on helping Canadians of all ages improve their mental fitness. But, the benefits don?t end there, as a bonus for signing up, participants will receive 20 AIR MILES reward miles. ?There can be ?no health without mental health? and there is no greater investment than the investment one can make in sustaining and building mental health throughout one?s life,? says Peter Coleridge, National CEO, CMHA. ?We are truly excited to launch this new and innovative mental health website designed to help Canadians learn about and improve their mental fitness. We encourage all Canadians to visit the website, work their way through the various tasks and challenges, and earn 20 AIR MILES reward miles while doing so.?

?Healthy Minds Canada (HMC) is thrilled to support the CMHA and the AIR MILES Reward Program to bring ?My New Head? to households across Canada,? says Jean Milligan, Executive Director, Healthy Minds Canada. ?Along with these two national leaders, united by a common goal, we will be able to reach out and help improve the mental fitness of millions of Canadians through this innovative and engaging new website.?
?HMC believes that ?health begins with the mind? and, for over 30 years, has been dedicated to finding the best ways to improve the mental and overall health of Canadians,? continues Milligan. ??My New Head? is an exciting new approach that will help reach more people than ever before.?

?My New Head? will give users free online access to a non-diagnostic tool and practical, highly interactive and fun content that has been specifically designed to help users of all ages learn about and improve their mental fitness. Those wishing to participate are asked to sign-up and answer a few brief survey questions that are centered on four key subject areas: Mind, Body, Self and Life. Based on one?s individual answers, customized content is generated that participants can complete at their own pace including: reading, watching and listening to various mental health focused pieces. Participants are then asked to make their way through various fun self-monitoring challenges. Additionally, and as a reward for successfully completing and working through the initial challenges, participants will have an opportunity to unlock bonus content and challenges.

?For the past two years AIR MILES for Social Change has been driving social change across Canada by inspiring and rewarding healthy behavior shifts on a mass scale. Earlier this year a successful pilot with the CMHA showed us that our Collectors want to learn how to better manage their mental fitness. Now we are growing our partnership further with CMHA, this time reaching out to a national audience to encourage and reward all Canadians for taking steps to proactively manage their mental health? said Angela Simo Brown, General Manager, AIR MILES for Social Change.

?Through a partnership with the AIR MILES Reward Program and the support of Healthy Minds Canada, CMHA is able to promote ?mental health for all? and reach out to Canadians in a unique and unprecedented way,? says Coleridge.

Canadians can participate and register at: www.mynewhead.com. Registered participants will be asked to answer a few short survey questions to help serve up the interactive mental fitness content most applicable to their desires. Also, between Nov. 8 and Dec. 31, 2012 the first 62,500 AIR MILES Collectors who participate will receive 20 AIR MILES reward miles.

About Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA):

Founded in 1918, the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) is one of Canada?s oldest not-for-profit organizations. With more than 10,000 staff and volunteers in hundreds of communities across Canada, CMHA provides vital services and support to well over half a million Canadians every year. As the nation-wide leader and champion for mental health, CMHA facilitates access to the resources people require to maintain and improve mental health and community integration, build resilience and support recovery from mental illness. Learn more at: www.cmha.ca.

About Healthy Minds Canada (HMC):

Healthy Minds Canada is a charitable foundation established in 1980 with a mission to improve the well-being of Canadians by funding mental health and addiction research. To date, HMC has funded close to 400 research projects at 42 teaching hospitals and universities across Canada. In addition, HMC disseminates the outcomes of this research through resources, workshops and symposia helping practitioners, service providers and support networks to provide the best treatments and services possible for those in need. Learn more at: www.healthymindscanada.ca.

About the AIR MILES Reward Program:

Founded in 1992, the AIR MILES Reward Program is Canada?s premier coalition loyalty program with more than 10 million active Collector accounts, representing approximately two-thirds of all Canadian households. AIR MILES Collectors can earn reward miles simply by doing their everyday shopping at more than 220 leading brand-name Sponsors, representing thousands of retail and service locations across Canada and leading global brands online. Collectors can indulge in more than 1200 leisure, entertainment, merchandise, travel and a range of accredited, environmentally-friendly lifestyle rewards. With AIR MILES Cash, Collectors can also have the flexibility to instantly redeem their AIR MILES reward miles in-store towards many everyday and high value purchases like gas, grocery, drug store items and home improvement purchases at participating Sponsors.

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Source: http://chly.ca/press-release-hows-your-mental-fitness-canadian-mental-health-association/

channel 2 news adrienne bailon

Seemingly endless Wis. election cycle eases to end

In this Oct. 31, 2012 photo, volunteer Rita Pincsak, right, staffs a Republican phone bank in Waukesha, Wis. With Tuesday?s election finally over, Wisconsinites are entering a period of unusual political calm. Since 2010 the state has been caught up in an endless series of elections, recalls and recounts. But for now the political races are over. That means a breather for busy campaign volunteers, a break for residents overwhelmed by robocalls, and more flexibility for advertisers who saw all the best TV spots get snapped up by deeper-pocketed buyers of campaign and issue ads. (AP Photo/Dinesh Ramde)

In this Oct. 31, 2012 photo, volunteer Rita Pincsak, right, staffs a Republican phone bank in Waukesha, Wis. With Tuesday?s election finally over, Wisconsinites are entering a period of unusual political calm. Since 2010 the state has been caught up in an endless series of elections, recalls and recounts. But for now the political races are over. That means a breather for busy campaign volunteers, a break for residents overwhelmed by robocalls, and more flexibility for advertisers who saw all the best TV spots get snapped up by deeper-pocketed buyers of campaign and issue ads. (AP Photo/Dinesh Ramde)

MILWAUKEE (AP) ? Candidates approving this message have been at it for two years in Wisconsin, along with the robocalls, angry commercials, emails begging for campaign donations and glossy political mail.

Think you had it bad over the last few months? Don't complain to Wisconsin voters, who have endured a continuous stream of elections, recalls and recounts since 2010, including one statewide election each month between April and June.

With Tuesday's presidential and congressional races finally over in this battleground state, residents are settling in to a campaign respite.

Some said they're answering their phones again. Local advertisers have access to the prime television spots that had been monopolized by wealthy buyers of campaign and issue ads. Campaign volunteers suddenly have free time.

"I'm going to catch up on all the reading I've been putting off for a year," said 77-year-old Luonne Dumak, who estimates she spent eight to 20 hours per week volunteering at a GOP headquarters in southeastern Wisconsin for the last two years, including helping Republican Gov. Scott Walker beat back a recall effort.

"But you know," the retired office worker added, "in the spring there's another state Supreme Court race."

Many local voters probably don't want to hear that.

The action started in 2010, when Walker defeated Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett in a governor's race that cost $37.4 million, a record at the time. Walker moved swiftly to curtail collective bargaining rights for most public employees, sparking massive protests and prompting 14 Democratic state senators to flee the state in a futile attempt to block the plan.

Democrats then gathered enough signatures to force several Republican officeholders, including Walker, into recall elections as payback. Republicans responded by doing the same to a few Democrats.

But since the governor couldn't face a recall until he'd been in office for at least a year, Democrats in the meantime transformed an otherwise quiet Wisconsin Supreme Court election into a heated referendum on Walker.

A few months later, in the summer of 2011, nine state senators from across the state faced recall elections stemming from their positions on the labor law. Democrats defended their three incumbents and also took two of six seats from Republicans.

Five more elections arrived in rapid succession this year. Then a Republican presidential primary in April was followed by a Democratic primary in May to decide who would challenge Walker in the June recall election.

In August, four Republicans squared off in a bruising primary for the U.S. Senate. It came to an end Tuesday, with the deciding of the presidential and U.S. Senate elections that had attracted national attention and money to the state.

Margaret Grace, a junior and member of Marquette University's College Democrats, spent two years helping with one hectic Wisconsin campaign after another. After working so long to organize volunteers, make phone calls and knock on doors, she said it felt weird to have all the elections come to an abrupt end.

"It's certainly different. We were saying, 'What are we going to do now that we don't have a campaign to work on?'" she said.

Her group says it's considering partnering with environmental or women's rights groups on campus.

All those Wisconsin elections meant plenty of campaign spending: $81 million in the Walker recall race, about $65 million for the U.S. Senate race and $44 million for the state Senate recalls last year. A lot of that money went to TV stations in battleground areas such as Brown County.

Stations have to give legally qualified candidates their best ad rates. But issue groups, who are often well-funded and eager to spend, can be charged anything, said Steve Lavin, the station manager at WBAY-TV in Green Bay. Where a regular advertiser might be charged $2,000 for a prime-time spot, an issue group could be charged $20,000 to $30,000, he said.

That left some reliable advertisers scrambling for preferred spots. David Gruber, a personal injury attorney, is well-known throughout the state for his catchy commercials. But with fewer favorable time slots to choose from, he said his office compensated with billboards and website ads.

So many elections in such a short time could have caused Wisconsin voters to burn out. But the opposite was true. While voter turnout nationally was lower Tuesday than it was in 2008, the number of Wisconsin voters who turned out increased by about 80,000.

Still, the elections took a toll on some people.

Rita Pincsak, 63, of Brookfield said political divisions caused her to break off friendships with people whose views weren't compatible with hers. And James Stanhope, 60, of St. Francis said he stopped answering his phone for the past two months to avoid robocalls.

"I've gotten sick and tired of it," said Stanhope, adding that the endless TV commercials were intolerable. "I mean, when you know ads by heart and they start playing in your head, you've had too much."

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Associated Press writer Carrie Antlfinger contributed to this report.

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Dinesh Ramde can be reached at dramde(at)ap.org.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2012-11-08-Wisconsin-Endless%20Elections%20End/id-69fada661f1f4c3194c9f195fcc8d82c

brandon jennings