This past Wednesday was #BellLetsTalk Day. An important day for mental health, but it is important on all 365 days of the year, not just one. On this day, Bell Canada donates five cents to mental health research initiatives for every text message or call by Bell customers, every tweet or retweet with the #BellLetsTalk in it, every use of the Facebook profile picture frame or Snapchat filter, and every view of Bell Let’s Talk official video on social media.

This year was the ninth straight year that Bell has done this, starting in 2011. The total number of interactions has increased every year starting with 66 million in the inaugural year, and this year reaching over 145 million, and they also passed one billion total interactions over nine years this year. This year’s version of the campaign raised over 7.2 million dollars, and over 50 million dollars has been raised since 2011.

This is a sports blog. So, here’s where the sports connection comes in. Professional athletes are human too. Some of them face the same struggles as we do, like mental health. Many athletes have suffered in the worst way possible due to mental health.

A lot of sports teams, players, and personalities took part in Bell Let’s Talk day this year simply by tweeting #BellLetsTalk. But others were more involved, like Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock, who did an interview (video courtesy of TSN’s Youtube channel.) with TSN to prove that it can happen to anyone. Babcock was unaware of what mental health was until he lost two of his friends to it. Since then, he has been a big supporter of Bell Let’s Talk Day. He thinks mental health is very important and so do the players that he coaches.

Former Canadian Olympian Clara Hughes was one of the first spokespersons for Bell Let’s Talk. She battled depression after the 1996 Olympics. She organizes annual bike rides across Canada to help raise awareness for mental health, and even wrote a book about her struggles, which came out in 2015.

If you struggle with mental health or depression, talk to someone. It’s OK to not be OK. Talk to anyone, a family member, a friend, a teacher, colleague, or a doctor or therapist. The only way to deal with mental health is to talk to someone about it. I personally have never struggled with mental health or depression, but I am still a supporter of this initiative, and try to do as much as I can by raising awareness on #BellLetsTalk Day. This is a great thing that Bell does every year, but mental health is a problem people face all year around, and it should be talked about every day.

For more information, please visit the Bell Let’s Talk website.