Depression, Suicide, And The Pressures Today.

What a great time at SMU speaking with these amazing coaches. Teachers and coaches are facing a new game and it's not as entertaining as football. Their students are being challenged more today than ever before. Parent's should consider, what coaches use to do to motivate students may be hurting their cause now and not even know it.

Here is what I shared with these coaches at SMU in a nutshell.

? Every thought creates a neuro pathway charge in the brain. 

? 90% of your thoughts today are the same from yesterday. 

? When we are feeling threatened, outcast, image comparison, pressure to keep up, even the feeling of having a difference of opinion with someone else, the body sends signals of threat to the brain. 

? These subconscious emotions create chemicals, one in particular is cortisol

? Cortisol changes the bloods makeup and slows down the neurons in the logical area of the brain and sends more blood to the muscles. It’s like a Siri system for physical strength.  

? The logic areas of the Neuro-cortex is shutting down, while the emotional area of the brain is firing off. 

? Much like how we all have reacted during road rage…don’t deny it. The difference is, you made it home. Some of these kids are ending their life.

Many young adults and maybe you, are being bombarded with these emotional charges of comparison, ridicule, and the chemicals associated with fight-or-flight. This is creating a never ending emotional road rage scenario in the mind. Logical/rational thinking becomes the weakest link in their daily life. In the past, a person could shut their door and get a break from the school yard challenges which, allowed other neurons and brain activity to fire off to create different emotions.

Consciously we know how fake a lot of social media is. In my seminars, I share stories about my time as a talent agent, road manager, and working on Sony pictures lot. I have witnessed how movies are made, how the sound is recreated, special effects are done, and yet, my heart still beats faster watching a scary movie. This is because the subconscious does not know the difference between real and fake. Now consider, in our society, we are bombarded with over 5000 subliminal messages a day, and it has an impact on your subconscious.

So, what can be done to fix this?

You can’t fix anything by force, when you try, you become the problem. It’s like screaming for silence.

There is one step that I have done and it has helped me and clients. What is it? Break the never ending social media cycle. I mean all electronics for at least 24 hours. I do this for 3 days out of the month. When I say, break away, it’s all social, news, music media. Anything that creates words in my head. 

What does breaking away from social media do?

When you see everyone smiling or having it all on social media, your subconscious is telling you, you’re the only one with problems. Knowing that the subconscious controls 95-98% of your daily routine, you have to provide new messaging to create new emotional charges and neurons.

This allows the brain and the body to fire off different neurons and allows new chemical responses to the environment. Consider, many kids and young adults have NEVER been without a phone in their pocket, so there is an entirely different chemical combination that begins to fire off in the brain that most likely has never taken place.

Breaking away provides a contrast to the current reality, almost like a Narnia experience. The chemical interaction that is associated with thoughts is what reinforces the thoughts you think. Those thoughts create a loop of feelings and thoughts, a tennis match of the mind and body. The more you feel something, the more you think it. It’s the reason why when your sad, you would rather listen to sad music.

My disclaimer

I am not a doctor! I don't write this trying to insinuate how easy it is to fix the scenario we are in as a culture. I am aware that there may be a million different scenarios and circumstances associated with where someone is at in their mental state. I am also extremely sensitive to those who have lost loved ones due to depression or some other disorder. In fact, I have several close friends who have lost loved ones. I myself came very close to pulling the trigger when I was a young teenager, battling depression, not once, but three times. You can read about one of those stories in the book Resilience: Turning Your Setback into a Comeback. If you would like to receive a free E-book version, click here and I will make sure it's sent to you.

I am only offering up a suggestion that may be able to help. Most doctors manage depression with drugs but, science has shown, that the body produces its own drugs through thoughts. There has been countless scientific research done on the Placebo affect and the body's ability to heal itself. In the book "You Are the Placebo by Dr. Joe Dispenza, he outlines several case studies like Norman Cousins, Herbert Benson M.D. to the 1957 UCLA psychologist Bruno Klopfer article that was peer-reviewed telling the story of the power of the mind. With these studies and many others, my suggestion can’t hurt. Separating from social media for a time, will simply provide a different drug like state in the mind. It’s not easy so, I leave you with the analogy.

The kid who screams and cries not wanting to leave his plastic pool in the backyard when you are trying to take him to the beach will only appreciate the beach once he/she experiences it.