Brennan Sarich

PR and marketing specialist focused on digital content, healthcare and branding. Chat with me! #mentalhealth #tech #education

[Olive (Like the Reindeer) @GayOliveGarden]

people visiting toronto for the world cup get to winess the 8th wonder of the world (dufferin mall)

[Brennan Sarich @bsarich]

The number of young people OBSSESEED with this album people will never understand.

[Craig Baird - Canadian History Ehx @CraigBaird]

On this day in 2002, Avril Lavigne released her debut studio album Let Go.
The album sold 16 million copies and remains the best selling album of the 21st century by a Canadian artist. The album earned Lavigne five Grammy nominations and four Junos including Album of the Year.

[Vincent Alexander @NonsenseIsland]

RIP Marjane Satrapi, the great cartoonist and film director, best known for PERSEPOLIS. She was only 56. A great talent. She will be missed.

[Brennan Sarich @bsarich]

@SandyofCthulhu @interference22 Used to love these!

[Brennan Sarich @bsarich]

Loved these designs.

[Co-op Tory 🍁 @CoopTory]

The Birds of Canada banknote series was so peak.

[Robin Hawkes @robhawkes]

This is my grandad, he built the original R2-D2 for the first Star Wars film…

Jack was a master sheet metal worker, and was roped into using his skills on an obscure project to turn the sketches for the droid into something that could be constructed out of aluminium sheets.

I always knew he'd helped make part of R2-D2. However I only found this photo in recent years and have since learned that he was actually instrumental to the construction of the entire droid, particularly with working out how to machine the complex shapes like the dome and legs out of single sheets of aluminium.

He didn't just build one either, he ended up constructing a handful of the droids for various uses in the film. I still have no idea how he did it, especially without modern software and computer-controlled machining.

Unfortunately I never got to know him as he died when I was a baby, though I have a feeling we share a lot in common.

I also have his old Dragon 32 computer that he was using to learn programming in the 1980s, with reams of hand-written code that still works on the computer.

#MayThe4th #maythefouthbewithyou #StarWars

[Woke Shrek 🤠🇳🇴 @wokeshrekTO]

The English voice of Sailor Moon is running for my ward's council seat

[Brennan Sarich @bsarich]

Exciting news

[Matina Stevis-Gridneff @MatinaStevis]

The New York Times can now proudly say that we have an office in Toronto, where most of our Canada team is based, for the first time in our 100+ years of covering the country. Very proud to be building up our presence here.

[Andrew T. Walker @AndrewTWalker]

I am calling for millennials to be grandfathered back into this program. BOOK IT was the best thing in my elementary education.

What do we need to do to qualify? Read classics of American literature? I’ll read whatever is necessary to score that personal pan pizza.

[Joseph Steinberg @jbsteinberg]

These RapidTO lanes are totally retarded. The idea is well-intentioned, but Bathurst was already backed up at Front all evening due to badly designed traffic lights. Now it's completely insane. And streetcars aren't moving any faster because left turns are still allowed!

[Brennan Sarich @bsarich]

@Austen 1000%

[Brennan Sarich @bsarich]

How is this even legal. Wow.

[Nathaniel Arfin @ArfinNathaniel]

Ford was told he couldn’t conduct government business on his personal phone. He did it anyways.

A court ordered he release his cell phone records. He refused.

Today, the Ontario Government will vote to allow Ford to delete those records, retroactively.

This is authoritarian.

[Brennan Sarich @bsarich]

@CraigBaird 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[Brennan Sarich @bsarich]

This is absolutely KILLER.

[Conor Nolan @conor_draws]

Putting together an entry for my local library t-shirt design contest. I've never wanted to win something more.

[Barack Obama @BarackObama]

What the Artemis II astronauts did over the last 10 days was a testament to their bravery. And the fact that they traveled farther from Earth than anyone ever has, re-entered our atmosphere at more than 24,000 mph, and splashed down safely was a testament to human ingenuity. Thanks to everyone at @NASA for making this mission possible, and for taking us along for the ride.

[Brennan Sarich @bsarich]

@Cappy_Nate Add me! Work in health, tech and education.

[P.S. I Love ME @ps_ilove_me]

🚨Research confirms that your brain physically reshapes itself when you feel grateful, and the process happens in reverse of what most people think.

The common story about gratitude goes like this: count your blessings, feel better, repeat. Mental health gurus treat it like a mindfulness exercise where you inventory good things until your mood lifts.

The neuroscience reveals something far stranger.

Gratitude doesn’t work by making you notice positive things that were already there. It works by literally building new neural pathways that change how your brain processes all incoming information, positive and negative.

When you experience genuine gratitude, your anterior cingulate cortex lights up in ways that are measurably different from other positive emotions like joy or contentment. The anterior cingulate sits at the crossroads between emotion and attention. It decides which signals get amplified and which get filtered out before they reach conscious awareness.

Most people live with an anterior cingulate trained by evolution to scan for threats, problems, and gaps. This made sense when predators could kill you, but in modern life it means your brain’s default setting is to spotlight everything wrong, missing, or potentially dangerous in any situation.

You walk into a room and immediately notice the stain on the wall, not the ten things that look perfectly fine.
Gratitude practice doesn’t override that system. It builds a competing neural network.

Each time you feel grateful for something specific, you’re strengthening synaptic connections between your memory centers and reward circuits. Your brain begins associating the act of paying attention with positive neurochemical hits. Over time, this creates a new default: your attention system starts scanning for things worth appreciating instead of things worth worrying about.

The really wild part is how fast this happens. Neuroimaging studies show detectable changes in brain activity patterns after just eight weeks of consistent gratitude practice. The prefrontal cortex, which handles executive function and emotional regulation, develops stronger connections to the limbic system, where emotions get processed. People literally become better at managing stress and making decisions under pressure because their neural architecture has physically reorganized.

But here’s where it gets interesting in ways that most gratitude research misses completely.

The brain changes from gratitude practice don’t just make you feel better. They make you perceive reality differently. Your visual cortex, auditory processing, even your sense of time passing, all get influenced by which neural networks have become dominant in your anterior cingulate.

People with gratitude trained brains report that colors look more vivid, music sounds richer, and positive experiences seem to last longer while negative ones seem to pass more quickly. This isn’t metaphorical. Their brains are literally processing the same sensory input through different neural filters than they used before.

This explains why gratitude feels fake and forced when you first try it. You’re asking a threat detection system to appreciate what it’s designed to ignore. The neural pathways for appreciation barely exist yet. It’s like trying to play piano with no finger muscle memory. But once those pathways strengthen, gratitude stops feeling like work and starts feeling like upgraded perception.

The most profound part might be how this rewiring affects social relationships. The neural networks that handle gratitude overlap heavily with the networks that handle empathy and social cognition. When you strengthen one, you automatically strengthen the others.

People who develop strong gratitude circuits become measurably better at reading facial expressions, predicting how others will respond to their words, and maintaining long term relationships. Their brains get better at spotting what others are doing well instead of cataloging what others are doing wrong.

What started as a simple practice of noticing good things ends up rebuilding the fundamental neural infrastructure through which you experience other people and they experience you.

The brain you have today was shaped by every thought pattern you’ve repeated for years. The brain you’ll have next year is being shaped by the thought patterns you’re repeating right now.

Gratitude just happens to be the most efficient way to aim that reshaping process somewhere useful.

[Neil Pasricha @NeilPasricha]

Dear Prime Minister Mark Carney (@markjcarney),

I was on the Toronto Ferry last year staring at our majestic waterfront.

I saw paddlers, kayakers, dragon boaters, sailors, windsurfers, fishers, paddleboarders, water taxis, and cruisers all sharing the space in harmony.

When we docked at Hanlan’s Point on the Toronto Islands I was surrounded by hikers, joggers, cyclists, birders, picnickers, swimmers, photographers, beachgoers, frisbee golfers, naturalists, and thousands of tourists and locals enjoying this lush ecological paradise surrounded by our sparkling freshwater lake.

Please don’t destroy this by paving Lake Ontario.

Three weeks ago Ontario Premier Doug Ford (@fordnation) announced he will "seize" Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport (YTZ) in order to expand runways into Lake Ontario (1), bring in jets against the legal contracts governing the airport (2), and nix 14,000 mixed-use homes slated to go up on the shore (which taxpayers have already spent $1.4B developing). (3,4)

Although this decision is not his to make — Billy Bishop is governed by the City of Toronto and the federal government (5) — Premier Ford says he will overrule the City to "bring in jets one way or another." (6,7)

Premier Ford says he has the "full support" of your federal government to do this. (8)

Prime Minister Carney:

It is not too late.

Please say no to expanding Billy Bishop airport into the lake.

We don’t need this, we don’t want this, and we can’t afford this.

We don’t need this.

We can already go anywhere we want to go.

I live right in downtown Toronto.

I can be anywhere I want in the world, tomorrow.

I can walk to bus, subway, streetcar, and UP express stations from my house and I fly 40x per year.

In the past year I have been to over 35 airports on 3 continents and YYZ is one of the absolute best. In fact, in the past month it has won "Best Airport Staff in North America" (9), been ranked 4th in all of the Americas in efficiency (out of 50 airports) (10), and won Best Large Airport on the entire continent (an award it's won eight times in nine years.) (11)

Right this second, checking Uber, I can get from my house by car to Toronto’s Pearson International Airport (YYZ) in 21 mins and to Toronto’s Billy Bishop Island Airport (YTZ) in 14 mins.

Right this second, if someone at Union Station wanted to get to YYZ on public transit it would take 28 minutes (UP Express) and to YTZ would take 22 minutes (TTC streetcar).

We are talking about a 6 minute time savings here.

If we want to serve southwestern Ontario’s population with expanded jet service we simply need to use the 7000m of existing, high-capacity, under-utilized jet runways within 2 hours of Toronto at Hamilton (@flyYHM ), Waterloo (@flyYKF), and London (@flyYXU) versus entertaining a "special economic zone" to force a jet-strip into the most environmentally sensitive and densely populated waterfront in the country.

We don’t want this.

This tiny speck of ecological paradise provides critical respite from our dense and urban concrete jungle and is vital for mental health, community, and happiness.

Over 400 peer-reviewed studies show urban forests and parks mitigate depression and anxiety and enhance overall mental well-being. (12)

I know you agree because four days ago on March 31, 2026 you announced your "Force of Nature" strategy with the vision of "protecting, restoring, and valuing nature." This wonderful program declares a federal investment of $3.8 billion dollars into "protecting critical habitats and aligning industrial strategies with biodiversity conservation." (13, 14, 15)

Also, I looked into the runway expansion into the lake that Premier Ford has promised.

Right now the shortest jet runway in Canada is 1832m (YHM Hamilton, ON) and the shortest jet runway in the world is 1508m (LCY London City Airport, UK). There are also new Canadian Aviation Regulations (RESA) stating all runways need to add 150m on each end for safety. (16, 17, 18)

Today the Billy Bishop runway is 1216m. (19)

Even the most conservative assumption — building the shortest jet runway in the entire world! — still requires a minimum of 600m more runway to land jets.

Here is a current aerial view of Billy Bishop Airport. (Photo 1 / attached)

Here is an aerial view of Billy Bishop Airport with the smallest possible runway extension of 600m added. (Photo 2 / attached)

(Of course this photo doesn’t include additional parking, hangers, gates, aprons, tarmacs, fueling stations, de-icing stations, blast fences, control towers, baggage carousels, taxi pickups … )

We can’t afford this.

Premier Ford was first elected in 2018 as the right wing candidate (PC) with 40.5% of the vote (left wing side of NDP and Liberal was 53.2%) and campaigned as a fiscal conservative. (FN) He attacked the Liberals for their $6.7B deficit and vowed a "return to balanced budgets" that would "begin in 2019." (20, 21)

Since then Premier Ford has won two more elections — with a nearly identical right / left vote split and record lows in voter turnout — and has now presided over 8 budgets. (22, 23)

In order from 2019 to 2026 those eight budgets have been for *deficits* of $8.7B, $16.4B, $13.5B, $5.9B, $5.6, $1.1B, $12.3B, and, most recently, just announced last week on March 26, 2026, coming in at a 77% increase on his own 2025 forecasts, $13.8B. (24, 25)

Since Premier Ford was elected he has *increased* Ontario’s debt from $338B to $485B. Ontario now pays $17.2B a year … just in interest payments. (26, 27, 28)

Notably, Premier Ford’s most recent $13.8B deficit budget does not include any money for the projected $1-2B cost of expanding Billy Bishop airport.

(Prime Minister, you and Premier Ford are both 61 and have a seemingly warm relationship despite wildly different education and business paths. (29, 30, 31, 32) Might you have time for some evening finance tutorials?)

Prime Minister Carney:

We don’t need this, we don’t want this, we can’t afford this.

Please say no to this expansion plan.

Please allow the legal agreements governing the airport to remain in the hands of those who legally own it — the City of Toronto and the federal government — and not with Premier Ford’s provincial government who is attempting to autocratically rule something in which it has no stake.

At the Junos six days ago on March 29, 2026 you praised 82-year-old @jonimitchell and justifiably called her "one of the greatest artists of all time." (33)

Joni warned us about "paving paradise to put up a parking lot" and now that’s exactly what Premier Ford is proposing we do.

The Toronto Harbour, Toronto Harbourfront, and Toronto Islands are a crown jewel for the functioning of our great city, our great province, and our great country.

Would New York City pave over Central Park?

Would Paris put runways on the Seine?

We absolutely should not pave the paradise of Lake Ontario to put up runways and parking lots we don’t need, don’t want, and can’t afford.

It's not too late.

Please say no.

Thank you,

Neil Pasricha

//

(1) https://t.co/lgQ5WdNcwV
https://t.co/A74NIBBFil
(2) https://t.co/B3ujtqHAxs
(3) https://t.co/Heig4pdd1T
(4) https://t.co/iQuAopsifd
(5) https://t.co/Daj6zWY9mC
(6) https://t.co/AgBbiwy2R9
(7) https://t.co/QFNa94c4sn
https://t.co/3O9To68MN1
https://t.co/QFNa94c4sn
(8) https://t.co/3O9To68MN1
(9) https://t.co/I3kBjq6thM
(10) https://t.co/kgRl5vJV8W
(11) https://t.co/8stbfkcmcm
(12) https://t.co/VJiYAGJ9JJ
(13) https://t.co/7ZiPrHlVxa
(14) https://t.co/dqg5ldemUZ
(15) https://t.co/ytJ0iv8ymB
(16) https://t.co/jwQm4JzTUN
(17) https://t.co/LMheI43DKb
https://t.co/8YX8IF1gqi
(18) https://t.co/Ci7qMEMpMw
(19) https://t.co/KmhPvr48Ir
(20) https://t.co/PCk3ah5cR0
(21) https://t.co/ZuviVaCKVF
(22) https://t.co/xSk5kvX4Ym
(23) https://t.co/DwJHjj05BY
(24) https://t.co/JVmlSC4Y1z
(25) https://t.co/NXBsJyGS8g
(26) https://t.co/e2kIIzuMsy
(27) https://t.co/jKAUVglOoB
(28) https://t.co/08PLVXXUJI
(29) https://t.co/doLO2tbShf
(30) https://t.co/r98N6I0ahT
(31) https://t.co/LcMIgaigwB
(32) https://t.co/y0wFa9L42e
(33) https://t.co/HvMafmRLtK
//

CC: Minister of Transport @SteveMcKinnon, Minister of Environment @JulieDabrusin, Mayor of Toronto @OliviaChow, MP @RunChiNguyenRun, MP @J_Maloney, MP @JulieDzerowicz, MP @Coteau, MP @Rob_Oliphant, MP @Vgasparro, MP @Yvan_Baker, MP @Jzerucelli, Ontario Minister of Transportation @PrabSarkaria, Ontario Minister of Infrastructure @KingaSurmaMPP, @PortsToronto, MPP @MaritStiles, MPP @JessicaBellTO, MPP @ChrisGlover, Councillor @BravoDavenport, Councillor @DianneSaxxe, Candidate @Massey_Toronto, @Nieuport, @JenniferQuinnTO, @Envirodefense, @BirdsCanada, @NoJetsTo, @CycleTO, @TheGlobeAndMail, @TorontoStar, @CBCToronto, @TheCurrentCBC, @BlogTO

[Brennan Sarich @bsarich]

@kevinmanthei This opening was one of my favorite things of all time as a young person.

[Hoops Crave @HoopsCrave]

Cookie Monster reacts to 12 tons of KitKat bars stolen:

“Me not approve, but me understand.”