The Overnight Walk is June 2!

My daughter, Reese and I are doing something incredible together! We’re participating in the Out of the Darkness Overnight Walk – an extraordinary event where participants from all over the country join together to walk 16-18 miles over the course of one night.

We’re fundraising to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.  Proceeds will help those affected by suicide and mental health conditions by supporting research, advocacy, survivor resources, education, and awareness programs. AFSP has set a bold goal to reduce the suicide rate 20% by the year 2025, and we are proud to be part of that mission.

You can help us with a donation no matter how small (even $5 or $10) or share this with your friends and family. Thank you for your support in a cause we’re passionate about!  Together we can save lives and bring hope to those affected by suicide.

Blessings,
Koy & Reese

Depression and loneliness epidemic

Blue Cross Blue Shield reports a 33% increase in major depression diagnoses from 2013 to 2016 while Cigna reports that overall loneliness scores in America are alarmingly high.  The news is worse for young people!  Millennials have experienced a 47% increase and teenagers a 63% increase in major depression.  While there are likely multiple factors a 2017 study indicates night time usage of cell phones in teens can increase depression and anxiety and reduce self-esteem.  Psychologists suspect disrupted sleep is a big factor behind these emotional problems.  All of us need electronic curfews and as parents we should model this.  Younger people ages 18-22 were also surprisingly more likely to experience social isolation than older people ages 72 and older.  Loneliness evidently has the same impact on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes daily; more dangerous than obesity.

Teach teens to be nice…to themselves

It’s no secret adolescence is the period of peak stress. Rachel Simmons writes a fantastic article in the NY Times about self-compassion for stressed out teens.  Unfortunately, anxiety and depression have skyrocketed in today’s teens.  Between 2012 and 2015 depression increased 50% in teen girls and college students experiencing overwhelming anxiety reached 62% in 2016.  Many adolescents attempt to motivate themselves to succeed with self-criticism; the idea of self-compassion is completely foreign. However, researchers analyzing studies of 7,000 teenagers with high levels of the self-compassion trait report lower levels of anxiety and depression.  Previously, researchers discovered self-compassion not only eases psychopathology in adults but bolsters motivation and high performance standards.  Self-compassion involves noticing one’s feelings without judgment, self-kindness or talking to one’s self in a soothing way and common humanity, or thinking about how others might be suffering similarly.  I don’t know about you but my teenager is going to get weekly lessons on self-compassion.

Talking to your kids about school shootings

As we all reel yet again from the tragedy yesterday in Parkland, Florida it’s important as parents to be equipped to discuss these issues with our children.  NBC News asked mental health experts how they discuss these tragedies with their own children.  It provides some good ideas about how to communicate and process the events from yesterday.  I’ll be having these same discussions with my 9th Grader and Fifth Grader.  Avoiding, minimizing or ignoring the topic isn’t the right strategy just as forcing the discussion on to our kids is not healthy or helpful.

Suicide

A YouTube celebrity vilified across the Internet and in most mainstream news programs for an insensitive video vanishes for one month and comes back with the best mental health awareness video I’ve ever seen.  He has tens of millions of subscribers and millions of fans; two of which are my own children.  Suicide is the second leading cause of death in young people.  One in six high schoolers seriously consider suicide.  Logan Paul ends his video by pledging one million dollars to suicide prevention organizations.