Search Results

Studies by occupational and environmental medicine researchers report that up to 40% of U.S. workers experience fatigue. Low energy levels can sap your motivation, reduce productivity, lead to increased errors, and harm interpersonal relationships by making you cranky and difficult to work with. Keeping energized at work can vastly improve the quality of your time spent on the job, and it can help you jump-start your career. What You Can Do at Home 1. Get enough sleep Although medical professionals recommend that adults get at least 8 hours of sleep per night, the average adult reports sleeping just 6.8 hours per night according to a 2005 Sleep Foundation poll. Getting a good night’s rest is the simplest way to dramatically boost your workday energy levels. To maximize the quality of your sleep, avoid using alcohol, tobacco and caffeine (include tea) close to bedtime. All three interrupt sleep patterns. If you chronically snore, check with your doctor to see if you may be suffering from sleep apnea, a condition that disrupts oxygen flow to the brain during slumber. 2. Exercise regularly Although exercising before work is a great way to increase both mental and physical energy, studies show that you can permanently boost energy levels throughout the entire day by maintaining a regular workout schedule. Better yet, consistency is more important than intensity. Even a brisk walk for 20 minutes each day can make the difference between feeling awake and energetic or sleepwalking through the day. 3. Eat right Not only are vegetables and whole grains good for you, they help maintain consistent energy levels because their sugars are absorbed slowly by your body, thereby helping it to avoid blood sugar crashes that lead to exhaustion. (Looks like your mother was right all along!) 4. Reduce stress Stress takes both a mental and physical toll on your energy. Look for positive ways to release work or family related stress. Seek counseling or mental health guidance for problems that seem overwhelming. What You Can Do at Work 1. Put down the coffee, pick up the water Although coffee can be a quick energy boost, users inevitably surf that wave right back to the bottom. Coffee also causes dehydration, one of the most common causes of fatigue, delivering a double whammy to your energy levels. Experts recommend that adults drink at least 8-10 cups of water per day. Coffee junkies can vastly improve energy levels by swapping out their coffee consumption with water. 2. Take a short break While putting your nose to the grindstone for 8-10 hours may seem admirable, taking short breaks every hour or two can actually increase productivity. When your attention starts to waver from your work, take a step away from what’s in front of you and allow yourself a quick walk through or outside the building. 3. Snack regularly Health experts agree that eating several smaller meals a day instead of the usual three large meals helps to smooth out energy levels. Keep supplies of healthy snacks available at your desk for between-meal snacking. 4. Seek out new challenges Repetitious and mundane tasks can sap mental energy as boredom replaces enthusiasm. Proactively seek out new tasks and responsibilities in order to challenge yourself mentally. When you can seemingly do a job in your sleep, it’s time to move on to something new.

LIFT session, a LifeSpeak Company, Partners With FSEAP, a Leading Employee Assistance Program, to Bring Digital­ Physical Wellbeing Solutions to Its Clients TORONTO -- (BUSINESS WIRE ) -- LIFT session, a LifeSpeak Company (TSX: LSPK) and the leading fitness and wellness platform for benefit providers, announced it has expanded its global footprint in the EAP market by partnering with FSEAP, a not-for-profit organization that is a leading EAP provider. Through this partnership, FSEAP will add a compelling new offering to their EAP solution to service the burgeoning demand for physical wellness benefits by organizations around the world. "Organizations are recognizing physical wellness benefits play a critical role in employee stress, mental health management, and workforce engagement," said Raffi Tchakmakjian, President of LIFT session and Chief Growth Officer of LifeSpeak. "We're delighted to partner with FSEAP to help organizations around the world provide a more well-rounded wellbeing offering for their employees. LifeSpeak is committed to reducing the stigma around mental health and providing support for total wellbeing. We are especially proud to work with an organization that devotes 100% of its profits toward supporting mental health and community-based programs." This partnership will amplify FSEAP's proactive wellness offering with personalized, app-based workout journeys. The LIFT session platform offers on-demand and live virtual workouts and activities curated and delivered by experts in physical and mental wellness. This includes app-based workouts, web chats with wellness experts, micro wellness breaks, and more. FSEAP will also offer LIFT session wellness challenges to support clients as they help employees build healthy habits and foster workplace engagement in a hybrid work model. "Our clients continue to demand digital wellbeing solutions that can support and engage the entirety of their workforce," said Joyce Zuk, National FSEAP Board Chair. "Digital physical wellness was the next logical step in providing a well­ rounded wellness offering to support this need. We are especially excited about the opportunity that this provides us to further differentiate our offering with a high-quality solution that is known for its ease of use and high usage rates." As an online platform, LIFT session is accessible anytime and anywhere through any mobile or desktop device. It provides organizations with the company-branded experience they desire and users with the flexibility to access their program wherever and whenever they need it. The value LIFT session provides organizations is reflected in the 95+ percent satisfaction rate of its users. For more information about how LIFT session can help your organization with employee wellness and engagement, visit www.liftsession.com About LIFT session, a LifeSpeak company LIFT session, a LifeSpeak company (TSX: LSPK), is a digital fitness platform that helps wellness providers offer premium virtual fitness services to their clients. With LIFT's best-in-class virtual personal training, virtual group training, and wellness broadcast services, LIFT is capable of extending its partner's service offering beyond their physical locations and making their service offerings available to clients anywhere. By offering services through wellness providers and businesses, LIFT session offers its online fitness platform to millions of customers globally. Follow LIFT session on Instagram and LinkedIn About FSEAP Founded in 1974, FSEAP is a national social enterprise division of Family Service Agencies providing employee and family assistance programs (EFAP) and Integrated Workplace Wellness Solutions. As the only private, not-for-profit, community­ based EFAP provider in Canada, we strive to sustain healthy workplaces and strong communities. FSEAP's client-centric services support customers large and small in every economic sector with evidence-based solutions that promote and maintain the health and well-being of employees and workplaces. FSEAP's services support a diverse customer base and their employees with evidence-based solutions that promote and maintain the health and well-being of employees and the workplace. About LifeSpeak Inc. LifeSpeak is a leading software-as-a-service provider of a platform for mental health and total wellbeing education for organizations committed to taking care of their employees and customers. With 18+ years of experience creating and curating thousands of expert-led micro-learning videos and other digital content, LifeSpeak's proprietary library's depth and breadth of easily consumable content helps companies around the world support their people anytime and anywhere. LifeSpeak serves a diverse global client base across many industries and sectors, including Fortune 500 companies, government agencies, insurance providers, and other health technology firms. LifeSpeak is the parent company of Lift Digital Inc. ("LIFT session"), ALAViDA Health Ltd. ("ALAViDA"), Encompass Education Solutions ("Torchlight") and Wellbeats Inc. ('Wellbeats). To learn more, follow LifeSpeak on LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/company/lifespeak-inc ), or visit www.LifeSpeak.com . Forward Looking Information This press release may include "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Such forward-looking information may include, but is not limited to, information with respect to our objectives and the strategies to achieve these objectives, as well as information with respect to our beliefs, plans, expectations, anticipations, estimates and intentions. In some cases, but not necessarily in all cases, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology and phrases such as "forecast", "target", "goal", "may", "might", "will", "could", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "intend", "plan", "indicate", "seek", "believe", "predict", or "likely", or the negative of these terms, or other similar expressions intended to identify forward-looking information, including references to assumptions. In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, intentions, projections or other characterizations of future events or circumstances contain forward-looking information. Statements containing forward-looking information are not historical facts nor guarantees or assurances of future performance but instead represent management's current beliefs, expectations, estimates and projections regarding possible future events, circumstances or performance. Forward-looking information is necessarily based on a number of opinions, estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by LifeSpeak as of the date of this release, is subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ, possibly materially, from those indicated by the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, the risk factors identified under "Risk Factors" in LifeSpeak's Annual Information Form, and in other periodic filings that LifeSpeak has made and may make in the future with the securities commissions or similar regulatory authorities in Canada, all of which are available under LifeSpeak 's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com. These factors are not intended to represent a complete list of the factors that could affect LifeSpeak. However, such risk factors should be considered carefully. There can be no assurance that such estimates and assumptions will prove to be correct. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information, which speak only as of the date of this release. LifeSpeak undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking information, except as required by applicable securities laws. If you are an existing FSEAP customer and would like more information about LIFT Session through FSEAP, please contact your dedicated account manager. All other inquires, please contact us .

Toxic drugs claimed more than 7,560 lives in Canada in 2020; approximately 21 deaths per day. During the first year of the pandemic, there was a 96% increase in apparent opioid toxicity deaths, compared to the year before. Since then, opioid deaths have remained high. This year, we mark International Overdose Awareness Day with a continued sense of grief, urgency, and hope that stigma and failed drug policy will become a thing of the past. A particularly tragic dimension of the issue is that overdoses are occurring right in people’s homes, where they use drugs that they thought would be safe. Many of those lost didn’t necessarily grapple with addiction issues but were using recreationally but with tainted drugs. And far too many are dying from overdose because they’re using alone. Observed on the 31st of August every year, International Overdose Awareness Day (IOAD) seeks to create better understanding of overdose, reduce the stigma of drug-related deaths, and create change that reduces the harms associated with drug use. Overdose can affect anybody and one of the messages of this day is that the people who overdose are our sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters – they are loved and they are missed. No family should ever have to go through the pain of losing a loved one because of overdose. Stigma around drug use Studies show that stigma is a major underlying factor driving the opioid crisis in Canada and acts as a major barrier to effective addiction prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts of the individual. The personal shame and public stigma attached to drug use have largely contributed to the worsening of the opioid crisis. Most of the public still think that substance use disorder or addiction only impacts people who struggle with homelessness or are on the streets, but most of the people dying from these toxic drugs are actually from families like our own, living in cities, suburbia, and rural communities. And while men 20 – 60 are at highest risk, rates are increasing at a faster rate for women, seniors (due to additional health issues/medications), and young children who are accidently exposed. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, 21% of the population of Canada (approximately 6 million people) will meet the criteria for addiction at some point in their lifetime. When seen in this light, we begin to realize that substance abuse and addictions’ challenges are incredibly common across Canada. Risk Factors for an Overdose The following are the top risk factors for overdose: Tolerance Shift : Individuals with decreased tolerance due to recent release from incarceration, drug treatment/detoxification, hospitalization, abstinence, or intermittent non-daily use of opioids are at risk. Mixing Drugs: Combining opioids with other legal (including alcohol) or illegal substances may enhance their effects and thus increase the overdose risk. Previous History of Overdose: Individuals who have had a prior overdose event at any point in their lifetime are more likely to experience another overdose. Physical Health Issues: If a person’s body is already burdened with an acute or chronic illness (e.g., asthma, other substance use disorder, HIV, etc.), the person is more vulnerable to overdose. Variation in Strength/Content: Illegally purchased substances vary greatly in their strength (e.g., one bag of heroin or fentanyl might not be as strong as another bag even when obtained from the same seller). Switching Ingestion Method: How a person ingests a substance plays an important role in overdose risk. Injecting is usually riskier than other forms of administration, but an overdose can also occur when a person just swallows a single pill. Using Alone: If no one is there, no one can help. Overdose reversal can be effective 1-3 hours after use of the opioid, but the risk of fatality is high if the user is alone. Prevention and Harm Reduction If you use substances, follow these tips to reduce the chance of experiencing an overdose and to stay safe: Learn about Overdose Prevention Strategies and Support Lines (see resource links below) Don't use alone; but if you do, tell someone and use the Lifeguard App or Brave App Check for tainted drug warnings, and start with a small amount Do not mix substances, including alcohol Use where help is easily available (e.g. Supervised Consumption sites) Make a plan/know how to respond in case of an overdose Carry a Take Home Naloxone (THN) kit (Obtain a free kit learn how to use it before you need it) Talk to your health care provider about substance use and alternatives to toxic substances If you or your dependent family member are struggling with substance use, reach out to your EFAP for support. We’re here to help. If you want to participate in World Overdose Day events August 26th - 31st , follow these links to a list of events: https://www.overdoseday.com/ Support Lines and Services National Overdose Response Service (NORS) : a peer-run, peer-led overdose prevention hotline for Canadians providing loving, confidential, nonjudgmental support for you, whenever and wherever you use drugs. Call: 1-888-688-NORS (6677 ) Federal and Provincial Support Services : https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/substance-use/get-help-problematic-substance-use.html Other Resources Brave App: The Brave App connects app users with someone who can send help while using drugs alone. Users set up an overdose plan, detailing how, when, and who is sent for help; supporters activate the plan if an overdose is detected. https://www.brave.coop/app Lifeguard App: The Lifeguard App offers a lifeline to people using drugs alone -- by monitoring the window during which an overdose can occur. https://lifeguarddh.com/ Drug and Overdose information sites: https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/opioids.html https://cmha.ca/brochure/overdose-prevention/ Overdose Prevention Toolkits for Organizations https://ontario.cmha.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/CMHA-Ontario-Reducing-Harms-Updated.pdf https://www.ccsa.ca/sites/default/files/2022-02/CCSA-Substance-Use-Workplace-Employers-Employees-Trades-Toolkit-2021-en.pdf

Feeling uncertain about international market shifts? We've got you covered. FSEAP - 100% Canadian. 100% Committed to Your Well-being.   In times of global economic uncertainty, FSEAP offers a uniquely Canadian Employee Assistance Program (EAP) solution—Dependable. Local. Responsible.   Shielded from international disruptions, our Canadian-made EAP remains unaffected by shifting global policies. FSEAP is the only non-profit EAP provider in Canada, with offices and service providers that are 100% Canadian. With us, you can feel confident knowing your organization is supported by a trusted, locally rooted network.   As a social enterprise, every dollar invested in FSEAP’s EAP program doesn’t just support your employees - it strengthens your local community. Unlike traditional providers, where profits benefit shareholders and executives, our model reinvests directly into community support initiatives. By choosing FSEAP, you create a robust safety net for your workforce while contributing to programs that build social capital and foster long-term community well-being.   Support Local. Choose Canadian. Choose FSEAP.

The holiday season brings joy and festivities, but it can also be a time of increased stress and emotional strain for many individuals, especially in the workplace. Organizations have a pivotal role in supporting their employees' mental health during this period. Here are five effective strategies for companies to care for their employees' well-being during the holidays: 1. Flexibility and Understanding: Recognize that the holiday season can be overwhelming for some employees. You can offer flexibility in work schedules where possible and allow for time off or adjusted hours to accommodate personal commitments or family events. This flexibility demonstrates empathy and understanding of the diverse needs of your workforce during this time. 2. Remind of Support Services: Reiterate the availability of mental health resources and support services. Make sure that employees are aware of the resources available and how to access them, such as FSEAP’s Resource Kits, Counselling, WorkLife Supports, e-Courses, online Self-Help Resources, and more! Communicating these supports clearly will emphasize your organization’s commitment to supporting employees' mental well-being. 3. Encourage Time Off and Boundaries: Advocate for the importance of taking time off to recharge. You can encourage employees to use their vacation days and emphasize the importance of setting boundaries between work and personal life. Discourage the expectation of constant connectivity during time off, allowing employees to fully disconnect and enjoy their holiday break. 4. Organize Stress-Relief Activities: Arrange stress-relief activities or initiatives within the workplace. This could include mindfulness sessions, yoga classes, or team-building exercises focused on relaxation and reducing stress. Providing opportunities for employees to unwind and practice self-care can significantly alleviate holiday-related stress. 5. Show Appreciation and Gratitude: Express gratitude and appreciation for your employees' hard work and dedication throughout the year. A simple thank-you note, a small token of appreciation, or a heartfelt message acknowledging their efforts can go a long way in boosting morale and fostering a positive work environment during the holiday season. By implementing these strategies, organizations can create a supportive and compassionate environment that prioritizes employee mental health during the holidays. Investing in employees' well-being not only cultivates a healthier workforce but also strengthens loyalty, engagement, and productivity within the organization. This holiday season, let's celebrate not just the festivities but also the well-being of those who contribute to the success of our workplaces.