Summer's Best 8 Words of Wellness Wisdom

If you get bit, then KEEP THAT TICK.

Ticks are almost everywhere now. This summer (and fall), your employees are far more likely to get a tick-borne illness than diabetes or a heart attack. The numbers tell it all: every year there are twice as many new cases of Lyme Disease -- and that's only one of at least 15 tick-borne illnesses -- than heart attacks. So Quizzify would urge you to devote a little effort to educating your employees on ticks. Just a thought...it's not too late to sign up for Quizzify in time for us to send your employees our Summer Hazards series of quiz questions, which covers this exact topic.

And judging from the scores on those questions, there is a lot that employees don't know. For instance, dog owners shouldn't let dogs lie on their beds during high tick season. (Dog owners are also twice as likely to get tick-borne illnesses as others.)

We can help you teach employees how to avoid them, how to remove them, and exactly why the New York Times recommends that “consenting adults” perform reciprocal tick checks. (That'll get their attention.)

But the most overlooked piece of advice -- even by the experts in today's New York Times article about ticks -- is the 8-word couplet at the top of this article. Doctors can send it to the lab if there is a question about a diagnosis. It is much easier to find a pathogen in a tick than in someone's blood.

Here's another reason to focus on ticks: unlike much of wellness, which requires a very long-term commitment and may not be popular amongst employees, you can have a noticeable, appreciated, immediate impact on tick-borne illness. It's all about employee education, which is easy. It doesn't require much behavior change, which is hard. It's not hard to keep a tick after you remove it. The only "behavior change" required is suppressing your desire to seek revenge by flushing it down the toilet.

To make your job easier, we are allowing non-Quizzify customers access to our downloadable break room poster. It can be downloaded from this very helpful blog post, that contains what you need to know. The poster distills this wisdom into infographics for your employees.

PS Since, unlike Quizzify customers, you aren't sending us checks, your "fee" for this poster can be to share this LinkedIn Pulse with as many people as possible.