Happy February

Well January is now past us and for many the warmth of summer cannot get here fast enough. I know for me I am dreaming of the long rides on my Harley Davidson with my buddy Lisa. (I have got to get her out of that closet)

February is always a goofy time of year for me. It is a time of year when I have had just about all I can take of the cold. It is also a time when I am really tired of the darkness. I leave my home at 5:30am every morning to go to the gym and it is dark. I get to the office and it is dark. I leave the office and it is dark. Dark, Dark, Dark.....did I mention it is Dark.

This is the topic of this little intro..Darkness - I found a pretty interesting article I thought that I would share on the subject. Now you do not have to have Bipolar Disorderto suffer from winter time depression. As a matter of fact, I am not sure that Bipolar really has anything at all to do with this subject at all. I think everyone suffers somewhat from winter time depression. I mean come on....it's depressing to be closed up in the house. To not be able to get outside or open the windows. The sounds of summer are just fun.....Kids laffing outside while they play (during normal playtime hours). The smell of fresh cut grass on a Sunday morning coming through an open window, carried in by a breeze that makes music as it flows through the blinds. Ahhhhh yeah, I can smell it now.

I guess my point is... people really need to pay attention to this type of mental depression. Our world is filled with so much BS, and I think that in the winter we get even more of the BS dumped on us because...well face it..we're stuck in the house and for many of us we watch way toooooo much TV.

Suggestions;

Get out of the house. Go to the gym, put on some warm clothes and walk outside. Head out to Wal-Mart, K-Mart, or some other mart and just look around. Malls and and other stores are nice and brite.

Sun lamps and tanning beds...If you are a person who does not worry about the UV thing or other issues associated with tanning beds head out to one. If you are a person who worries about that stuff....cut a picture of one out of a magazine and take a look at it for 9 minutes or so.

TURN OFF THE TV - I am horrible when I get to much news. Lisa is in charge of controlling my news to Andy Griffith ratio. I have to get at least 6 hours of Andy for every 30 Minutes of news.

Cut way down on Sugarand other Depression influential foods. It is bad enough dealing with normal depression....try and cut down on the self induced stuff as much as possible.

And here is an idea... take a trip to one of those hotels that has the pool, slide and other summertime feeling things. Heck if you can't get to the beach....bring the beach to you.

Bottom line here for Feb... Just a few more months and we should be back in the sun again. Try your best to offset the winter time blues with some summer time dreams....You never know, you might be able to smell the fresh cut grass sooner than you think.

God Bless

Paul

ARTICLES of Interest

Suspect peanuts sent to schools

Does sunscreen save skin — or damage it?

Did you know that you can purchase Paul's CD "My Five Keys to living with Bipolar Disorder" online and get it instantly as a download. You can! CLICK HERE

Spring Events 

Well we are rounding third and heading for home as they say. I cannot believe that we are already so close to spring break. It seem like just a few days ago I had the kids home with school out.....Oh I almost forgot, I did....For the 5th snow day.

Anyway....I realize fully that many schools have their mental health events planned already for the spring however if by chance you are one of those who do not and have been considering bringing me in to speak let me address a couple things real fast.

#1- Please call the office as soon as you can. I am very limited on the days this spring I have available to speak. Thanks to the economy my Marketing and Internet Consulting business has been way down, thus I have had to put more focus on it. Which means I need to be in Cincinnati more than normal farming new business. It is my company that makes it possible for me to help supplement schools with little or no budget.

#2- If you know of other schools in your area that we can block book with please call them and coordinate dates with them before calling. Remember we can save a lot of money by hitting 2-3 schools per trip. It helps all of us save money.

#3- You can use the booking form on the website at www.BipolarBoy.com or call 877.984.2665. If you use the booking form and do not hear back please call. Sometimes we have issues getting through via e-mail. You should always hear back from someone in my office within 24 hours. Be sure to add zasscobooking.com, and getinformation.com to your allowed domain list. 

and last....REMEMBER we will never allow a FEE to stop us from reaching your students or audience. If you are interested in hosting a show call....we'll make it work out.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Paul

YOUTH SUICIDE

I am working on a new project which I hope to have finished by the end of the year with my son Alex. As part of the research for this project I did a survey of 102 College Students from all over the United States. I have found the answers to this survey to be nothing short of amazing. What they have had to say about their High Schools is eye opening to say the least.

It is near impossible to for us to get in to a High School. I get things like "we do not think that talking about suicide is appropriate" and my favorite "we feel if you talk about suicide the kids at risk may try to commit suicide" Oh yeah....As a matter of fact I was interviewing a High School Superintendant in our area here and she said those words to me while she knew I was recording the conversation. Scary.

Anyway I found an article about High School Suicide that I would like to share with you. I am going to plead that if you have a high school student that to contact their school and ask them what they are doing to help these kids address mental health. If they say nothing I suggest strongly that you demand they do something. LOOK it is not the school place to raise your children, but we cannot allow them to address things such as sex, drugs, and alcohol without addressing the one thing that controls all of that.....YOUR BRAIN! We have got to teach these students how to take better care of their brains.

Here is a little of the article along with a link...

YOUTH SUICIDE FACT SHEET 

Youth suicide is a major public health problem in the United States. Although the overall suicide rate has declined over the past twenty years, from 12.1 per 100,000 in 1979 to 11.3 per 100,000 in 1998, the suicide rate for teens 15 to 19 years old has increased by 6 percent. For adolescents 10 to 14 years old, the suicide rate increased by more than 100 percent over that time period.

READ the ARTICLE

SURVIVING SUICIDE TO BE E-RELEASED

Paul's book "Surviving Suicide" -ZassCo Publishing 2005 will be released in an e-version for download by March 2009. The followup book to "Dear World", this book talks about what Paul did after that life changing day. Look for more details in next months Mental Note.

Active Minds has a wonderful new website. Make sure you go and check it out.

Learn more about this organization by visiting www.activemids.org now. I urge you to consider starting a chapter. For all those High School people on my list I also urge you to take a look...after all your kids probably could benefit even more. Face it, if we can get to them before they hit college maybe we can address some of their mental instability early enough to prevent major problems after high school!

Just a note: Any school contacting us that has an Active Minds Chapter will get a special rate discount for any booking. It is our way of saying thanks for allowing this fine organization on your campus.