Nearly half of Canadians say the cost of living is negatively affecting their mental health, according to new findings from Mental Health Research Canada. “When I mean Canadians, I also mean individuals who have a mental illness, so are having worse mental health, and just everyday Canadians are struggling with anxiety and depression. When they have these high costs to living, they can’t afford to pay bills, it is a major driver of poor mental health and we saw it previously a few years back and we are seeing the onset of it again now,” says Michael Cooper, data and partnerships vice president with Mental Health Research Canada. Cooper says their research found 46 percent of Canadians say cost of living negatively affects their mental health. It’s worse for women between the ages 25 to 36, as 63 percent feel that way. “That’s nearly two in three women indicating that the cost of living is impacting their mental health,” says Cooper. As the cost of living increases, so too does people’s stress level. Researchers found 37 per cent of Canadians cite difficulty paying household bills and 35 per cent are struggling to afford or maintain stable housing. “This isn’t a particularly surprising trend. We saw in 2023, 2024 that a significant spike in inflation was having a significant impact on Canadians’ abilities to pay bills, which was having an impact on their mental health,” says Cooper. The research focused on Canada as a whole, but Cooper feels the numbers would be worse for Atlantic Canadians. “We collect this data every three months and when we looked at this in more detail three months ago, we did find there was a statistical difference in Atlantic Canada, marginally so but outside the margin of error so my expectation is that it is likely a little bit higher for Atlantic Canadians than the rest of the country,” says Cooper. Julie Cass, a mental wellness expert and founder of the Positive Change, says it’s worrisome that this has been the impact of cost of living alone, as there are many additional stressors beyond daily fees. “When we’re stressed about things like the cost of living, our central nervous system is not feeling safe. So that stress is already showing up in your body. So what do I do when that stress is showing up in my body, it’s learning to pause,” says Cass. She says it’s important to focus on what matters and what’s going right in your life and look to those things every day to help manage what is out of your control. “It’s harder on our mental health because it’s for prolonged periods of time. When our body is stressed for prolonged periods of time our cortisol spikes and our fight flight freeze is constantly activated,” says Cass. When it comes to calming your stress levels and relieving the mental burden, Cass has a few techniques that don’t cost anything. “It’s using the tools that we already. Engaging in deeper breathe whether it’s box breathe, getting your exhale a little longer than your inhale and calming yourself down and getting your cortisol levels just a little bit lower so that you can tell the brain I am going to take this one step at a time,” says Cass.
