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Surviving the U (How to Bump the Slump)

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I am a visual learner, so let's start off with a picture and then I will explain it below. The picture: The explanation: This simple graph shows the correlation between age and well-being in the United States. Respondents rated their life satisfaction on a scale of 0-10, with zero being the worst and 10 being the best.  Age goes across the bottom, satisfaction scores on the left.  Do you see the slump?  It's sort of hard not to!! I recently had a conversation with a friend and she commented that she thought that at this point in her life, things were supposed to get easier.  You are never supposed to talk about a women's age or weight, but she is somewhere near the nadir of the curve above.  I'm guessing her life satisfaction was low and I can totally relate as  I'm 54 and looking for the upswing.  To be honest, the last couple of years absolutely sucked as I watched my marriage unravel in the worst possible way, moved, and went into busine...
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WAKE UP!

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Last blog post I told you what I learned from Robert Cooper, Ph.D. about going to sleep, now let me share with you what he told us about waking up properly.  Coffee drinkers you will not be happy---here we go: Glass of cold water----first thing in the gut and some folks suggest around 16 ounces! Coffee----wait one hour.  WHAT????   Meditate/Pray Bright lights----turn them all on! One hour try not to bend over---keep your spine straight.   Best exercise----push ups.  How you do this without bending over is beyond me! Food---small bits, but get something in there! A lot of this research is based on the stomach sending the proper signals to the brain.  There are some theories out there that we actually have three brains---one in our cabeza, one in our heart, and one in our stomachs.  Try doing some of the things above in the first 20 minutes when you get up and let me know how your day goes.  As for me, I'll be ...
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Sleep---Nothing to Snooze About....

"The best bridge between despair and hope is a good night's sleep." Quote by: E. Joseph Cossman  Blog by Dennis Gillan www.dennisgillan.com Sleep ---so vital to our wellbeing and lately so elusive for me.  I wake up in the middle of the night and I’m up.  Like 3:30 in the morning up and reading the news on my phone up.  Just up.  If you see a post on my Instagram page at 4:00 a.m. that’s not a scheduled post using a buffering app----that’s me and I hate it. I recently heard neuroscientist Robert Cooper address brain health and when he started talking about sleep, I perked up.  See what I did there? Dr. Cooper is an engaging speaker and apparently a smart guy.  You can find his work here:   http://www.robertcooperphd.com/      According to Dr. Cooper here are five quick things we could all put into play starting TONIGHT:  1.     Clear your mind.  Have a notepad handy and ...
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Lower the Drinking Age For Alcohol & Raise the Legal Age for Broccoli Consumption

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image via sciencetimes.com Lower the Drinking Age For Alcohol & Raise the Legal Age for Broccoli Consumption  Binge drinking problem solved.  Next up Cancer.  Wait you need a little more explanation?  OK here I go: Alcohol use in underage kids is an issue.  Heard this morning that 1800 kids die per year on college campuses alone, add in those untold numbers that happen outside of the college arena and yeah, it’s an issue.  As a father of two boys, one now over the legal age and one trying like heck to get there, and I have some skin in the game as well and here is my well thought out solution.  LOWER THE DRINKING AGE TO 14 AND TELL KIDS THEY CANNOT HAVE BROCCOLI UNTIL THEY ARE 21. Let’s unpack the first part of my ingenious solution---lowering the drinking age.  When I was a kid (oh shoot I just became my dad) the drinking age was 18.  At this age you typically were on your way out of high school and heading towards work,...
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2 Reasons Why I Watched 13 Reasons Why

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I may not be the ideal demographic for the Netflix series that seems to be taking the kids by storm these days called 13 Reasons Why.   I’m a 53 year old white guy living in South Carolina and I had to watch this show.  The series follows a bunch of kids impacted by the suicide death of fellow student, Hannah Baker.  Hannah leaves behind 13 cassette tapes detailing what drove her to this decision and this entire series is based on the 2007 fictional novel of the same name written by Jay Asher. As stated above, Hannah dies by suicide and the producers of 13 Reasons Why have decided to show the act in the final episode.  This decision has many experts in the suicide prevention business upset.  Every suicide upsets me, even if they are works of fiction, but on the positive side, this show has forced us to have a conversation about suicide.  A conversation we’ve been avoiding for way too long.  As a Nation we are not very good at preventing ...
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Newsflash---I don't get women! But I am getting closer....

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OK---it's official---Trump will take the presidential oath in January and a lot of women are not happy about it.  Why? Now I for one, did not get how upset people were about this election.  I participated in the election, but on election eve I had one of my suicide prevention talks to give at Furman University and by the time I got to the hotel room, I was wiped out.  I turned on the TV and the election was still too close to call so I turned it off and passed out. Woke up the next day and Trump is our guy.  Got in the car and drove to my next talk in Charlotte.  I purposefully avoided all news stations so I could enjoy the ride. We did our suicide prevention thing in Charlotte for the construction industry, drove home and logged into Facebook and Twitter only to find out it was the end of the world.  People were freaking out about his election since early in the morning and the majority of them were women.  I did not get it. Why? Because I...
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Had the Pleasure of being on Truth Moment!

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