Avoid the Flu…Have a Kid or Two Instead!

 They say confession is good for the soul…so…fess up. Have you ever pretended you were sick...had the flu... just so you could take time off from work, even though you were perfectly healthy? If so, you're not alone. You may not be right, but you sure aren’t alone.  80% of all employees have done this (commonly called a "mental health day") at one time or another and some are serial users of mental health days. (Is that healthy for your career?) 

That's the word from a survey of 1000 workers conducted by ComPsych. So, why are we taking skipping work? The most popular reasons were family and relationship issues, work-related stress, low energy, boredom and lack of motivation.

But how about really being sick?  Simple. Have a couple kids!  When it comes to having children, the more the healthier …for the parents, that is. On average, people with children are 52 percent less likely to contract colds than childless folks, say researchers from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Furthermore, parents with three or more children were 61 percent less likely to succumb to the sniffles, according to tests conducted on nearly 800 adults.

 But parents were only 48 percent less likely to catch a cold if they had only one or two children. SO…the more kids, the healthier you are and the more you are likely to need one of those phone it in mental health days every now and then!