I had a busy week. I spoke at Metamora and Peoria Notre Dame high schools in Peoria, IL and closed out my trip in Peoria at Bradley University on Wednesday night. Yesterday I spoke at UMASS Lowell to a psychology class and all of their athletes. This morning I was a guest on a radio show in Cleveland to talk about the recent school shooting there. One of the questions really struck me. The interview closed with the host asking/telling me that part of the problem with young people today is that they are numbed to death and wanted me to talk about it. I talked about how death is a lot more prominent now than in the past. I cited a study in Japan that showed about 60% of 8 year olds interviewed thought if you killed someone they would come back to life because they do in video games and how this isn’t only prevalent in video games, but news, movies etc. And how in some ways death is glorified.

As I hung up after the interview and got on my plane from Boston to LA I thought about my answers and I wasn’t completely happy with this answer about violence. I think what I should have added was the fact that when you are 14 and you have a rough life filled with neglect, abuse, mental health issues and constantly being made fun of it’s really hard to value life. You are only here for 14 years and all you know is pain, Why would you think you have a future? It reminded me of what the creators of South Park said in Bowling for Columbine. They said something to the effect of their thoughts on Columbine were that how could high school mean so much to someone that they would kill someone else, themselves and so many other people. I think this is part of it. When you don’t know how much can change later on and all you have sucks you don’t see a way out.

I loved that Michael Moore interviewed Marilyn Manson in Bowling for Columbine. In the movie he said he would have listened to the kids who did what they did that day. This most recent school shooter was a fan of Marilyn’s as well. Maybe it’s time someone take his advice.

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Some of you may be reading the title of this blog and thinking what do the New York Mets have to do with mental health. That is exactly what I was asking myself this morning when I saw a little title on CNN that says, “Mental Help for Mets Fans.” Again my little link maker is busted so here’s the link to the story http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1667340,00.html?cnn=yes Not only is this a story, but it’s also in Time Magazine. I don’t know if my book will ever be in Time, but alas my message and my favorite baseball team is.

I guess I should start at the beginning. As a youngster growing up in northeast Pennsylvania I had choices for my favorites teams. We lived an hour from Philadelphia and an hour and a half from New York City. So in a lot of cases favorite teams are divided. My dad really doesn’t have any favorite teams so I wasn’t bred to like any team over another. At the ripe old age of 8 I started to watch baseball on TV and low and behold that year the New York Mets won the World Series. As an 8 year old this was amazing to me! I was so elated that surely the Mets had to be my favorite team for the rest of my life. I bought all of the paraphernalia.  I begged my parents to take me to spring training games when we were on vacation in Florida. I went to see them play in different cities. I have even stuck with them through some terrible years since I was 8. Granted I am no different from other sports fans, especially my Philadelphia Phillie fan friends who are definitely tougher than me, because they used to choke worse than anyone, until this year at least. For those of you who don’t follow sports the Mets just had the worst collapse in major league baseball history, which rings me back to the point of this blog!

A fellow Mets fan wrote this article for Time. In it he interviewed about 5 or 6 psychologists to find out what fans can do to deal with the Met’s downfall. There is actually some really good advice in there. And I know a lot of times people don’t get why sports affects other people so much and this has been studied endlessly. For me I think it’s a mixture of things. You follow a team for 162 days and it becomes a routine in your life, once that routine ends you can be lost as to what to do. For others they may project everything that is going wrong in their lives into the hope of having their favorite team succeed. As someone who worked at a Circuit City Distribution Center near Philadelphia I watched this in a lot of Eagles fans. SO when the team loses you’re forced to go back to your life and if that sucks, well then you need another distraction. Also let us not forget that nationalistic pride in one’s country also translates into individual sports teams. And if you don’t think nationalism is dangerous may I remind you of World Wars 1 and 2 and just about every other war. SO what can people do. Well the article says to definitely feel the loss and make sure you talk about how much it affects you. If you don’t it can come out in other ways, like drinking etc. It also says to start following other sports to take up a new routine and get your mind off how terrible the Mets finished the season. Another coping strategy that is suggested is to look at how competitive the field was and how maybe the Mets were beat out by better teams. (which is a total lie, but we’ll let it slide) Know that it is just the end of the season and not the end of the world. And lastly the article promotes a sense of community saying I am not alone in my misery. There are other Mets fans to cry with!

Overall this is a great example of how we can tie mental health into an area that isn’t often directly associated with it. The advice given for dealing with the Mets loss can be used in everyday life. Talk about your pain. Find healthy ways to deal with it and know that you’re not alone. If more people opened up about all of their emotions on a regular basis, not just sports, then maybe it wouldn’t be so hard to deal with your favorite sports team’s failures! As for my Mets there’s always next year!

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There was an article on CNN today about an author/psychologist who has a book coming out titled, “Addiction Proof Your Child.” In the book he claims that if you let your child drink early then you will cut down on their chances of binge-drinking later in life, because you will teach them to drink in moderation and take away the forbidden fruit. Here’s the article http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/09/27/kid.drinking/index.html trust me I would love to make that a creative little link, but my computer hates me!

Anyway the author of this book, Stanton Peele, reports that he let his daughter start drinking in moderation when she was in middle school. He says that this is the practice in a lot of other countries and it helps cut down on binge drinking. I have always thought about this. Binge-drinking is a huge problem in the U.S. it’s estimated that 7.2 million underage drinkers binge drink. I don’t know what the numbers are in other countries. But this article says it’s lower in Greece, Israel and Italy. I do believe some young people like this guy’s daughter may be ok with starting to drink in moderation early, but I don’t think it’s the practice for every person and I really don’t think it’s the way to Addiction Proof Your Child.

In my experience both in my own life and speaking to so many other people binge drinking is often a form of expression, before it’s an addiction. I got drunk for the first time when I was 11. It definitely wasn’t my parents giving me the alcohol, but even when I was allowed to start drinking at family functions around the age of 19 it definitely wasn’t just social. Yes people would say to me Ross stop it. Or Ross you’re cut off, but the fact was I binge drank for other reasons than addiction and I’m not alone. So I would love to read this book and agree with this guy, because I’m sure there are astute viewpoints and opinions on our culture, but unfortunately something as complex as addiction and binge-drinking can’t be summed up by start them off in moderation and they’ll be ok. Especially when so many young people have parents who don’t drink in moderation and grandparents who didn’t before them.

So keep this in mind if you’re binge drinking this weekend!

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Yesterday I spoke to about 800 students at Culver Academies in Culver, Indiana. It’s a private boarding school next to a beautiful lake. The students and faculty were awesome there and I had a great time. Even with a creepy painting in the guest house I stayed in!

Much like a lot of other top private schools in the country a lot of young people at Culver are stressed out. It’s the same weird competition where  it seems like everyone is trying to see who can handle more stress, more tests, less sleep and go through more, but like I say in my presentations no one wins that competition. I talked to 28 of the student leaders at Culver about this and we all agreed that they will try to set an example of a much better competition like oh I don’t know I got all of my work done ad am going to sleep or have fun now!

It’s also interesting to me how a lot of people may think that this is only happening at their school or in their lives, but really it’s a phenomenon that isn’t just in high schools or colleges, but in workplaces and affecting just about everyone at any age. It’s why taking time for your mental health is so important and vital to our survival. I wish everyone the best with finding that! Thanks again Culver!

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