Mental Health Matters - Drink water

And we're live just like that. Apparently we're not doing an intro today. So anyway, I told DJ to click the buttons and well, he clicked the buttons. So anyway, hi everybody. Welcome to Suicide Prevention Saturday, which we may or may not be rebranding to whatever I said, Mental Health Matters. Simply for the fact, for those of you who are with us last weekend, it was actually a replay, which I didn't intend to do, but it did get cut off 5 or 10 minutes into it. So in talking to the YouTube people that I know out there, they said, well, if you avoid the word suicide, since YouTube does actually have a problem with people committing suicide live on YouTube. They take them down as quick as possible, however. So we may be changing Suicidal Friendship Saturday to Mental Health Matters instead. Still same bat channel, same bat time, um, of 9:00 PM Eastern. And, um, yeah, those things still on Saturday nights, that sort of stuff. So we will see. I hate changing the name because since 2018 it has been Suicidal Friendship Saturday. But if we would prefer not to get kicked off midstream, this is what we're gonna try for a little while because they have kicked us off twice in just the last 3 to 5 months. So welcome to, yeah, I'm gonna have to work on that cuz Suicide Prevention Saturday. Why are we here? Because 2 out of every 3 gun deaths we hear about are suicides. And if we would like to actually save some lives, we need to talk about mental health and we need to talk about violence prevention. And funny thing is, if we talk about mental health, it helps prevent suicide as well as violence and that sort of thing. So, all right, DJ, hi, how are you?

I'm doing well.

I am going to not look at the chats. So, um, here are— here, here is our plan for tonight. Um, other than discussing the fact that we're changing the name, good chances of probably going forward, uh, drink water and take care of yourself. The reason that is the theme for this evening is because on Thursday Yours truly spent a little more time in the ER than she would have liked to because I have not been drinking my water. Now, mental health and water— what does water have to do with mental health, right? How do we tie these things in? Well, number one thing you can do for yourself is sleep, and that is the number one health thing you can do for yourself. Two is then water. Three is then nutrition, and then four is exercise. The problem I had is last weekend when I was away, I was exercising plenty because I was working a match on my feet all day for 8 to 10 hours at a time, did not drink enough water, then came home, was dead tired, and continued not to drink enough water, which is usually what lands me in the hospital with the migraines because my regular migraine meds do not work. Which made me realize this week the thing we should talk about is mental health is all about our general health. And for our general health, sleep is number one. Uh, there are tons of research out there that talks about how important getting your good night's sleep is. Now we have a thing called sleep hygiene, things like turning off this lovely screen y'all are staring at right now at least 30 minutes to an hour prior to going to sleep, That's one of the most common things people have to work on to have good sleep hygiene. Two is a cool room. Uh, DJ was asking me whether it's cold because I am in my fuzziness right now. And, um, it's just that— no, I've been outside today and it was really hot, so I got hot and sweaty. And I think most of you understand when you get hot and sweaty and then you cool off, and I haven't had time for a shower today, so I am cool because I was hot and sweaty. So anyway, um, a cool room, no blue lights for half an hour to an hour prior to going to bed, going to bed at the same time. Uh, you guys know after this show is Hillbilly, and Hillbilly goes from 10 until, in my brain, midnight. But I think it's 10 to 11. No, it's 10 to midnight, isn't it? It usually is 2 hours. So anyway, this is why I can't stay up past my bedtime, because I do try to have that consistency. And then going to bed at the same time and waking up at the same time. If you can aim for those things, those are some really good things that will help your sleep hygiene. Then there's the water. I've been talking with the kid, uh, my daughter, because that's who I drive to school, uh, in the morning because my 18-year-old is now driving himself to school, so I don't spend as much time with him. So sleep hygiene, water— what are ways? All right, so this is a question I really have for you guys, right? 'Cause I'm sure I'm not the only one who struggles with water intake. I have this lovely bottle that has times on it. Says like 8:00 AM, good morning, 9:00 AM, keep going, noon, enjoy with lunch or something like that. And so it's got like literal times of the day and they come in different sizes. Some of you guys have may seen these. And that's like one way that helps me if I remember to fill that bottle up. And having lemon or lime to squeeze in there helps me because sometimes I just get really tired of drinking water. And then even though I just had the migraine on Thursday, it is now Saturday. Have I upped my intake? No, no, I have not. But do I know I should? Yes. And will I tell you you should too? Yes. And you know what Tony Robbins calls that? He calls that shitting all over yourself. So We should do lots of things that we do not do. We need to do the things and we need to put in place the things that will help us do those things. So yes, the question is, because DJ put it out there, is how do you hydrate? Ooh, Abigail, I am impressed, girl. 3 liters of water every day. That is awesome. When I am doing really well, I absolutely do that. But I have not been doing really well lately in that I have not yet had a liter of water yet today. And I'm off, but I have to have ice. Yep. So cold. Oh, so that's actually something I'm working on for increasing liquid intake as in general, is that Why am I saying this? Words. Sorry, I'm reading— see, I, I mean, the thing, I made the mistake of looking at all of the stuff, so now I'm reading G webs. So I have to have ice. I like it cold most of the time. I love being able to reach into the fridge and grab something cold. My cooler back here— I thought for sure if I put a cooler in my office that I would get better about water intake. It has not helped me yet. So, um, and this is what I was reading. Ron drink— wait, sorry. That's all me and Ron drink is water. We don't drink any pop or anything like that. Yeah, so I don't drink a lot of soda either, but I'm not drinking anything. And like I said, I know with my migraines it ends up being not awesome. Now, going to the ER, that is the extreme. I don't usually get them that bad. That's like a once a year-ish or once every other year thing. Um, so, but there's, there's just like, we all have our little tips and tricks as far as how do we keep ourselves more healthy. Um, I am working on losing 100 pounds and it's going to take a while. And one of the things I know that will help that is drinking enough water, but I also just know in general So when we're talking mental health matters, what we are talking about is everything. It's what we focus on, whether it's our sleep intake, our water intake, our food intake. Oh, the news, the stuff that you guys watch here on YouTube or Rumble or Facebook or wherever you're watching it. And I'm sorry, I just— I'm like, because I'm over on Facebook, Mike Ballinger, who said hi earlier, I do know that his puppy is getting so big. I don't know if y'all remember me showing the pictures, but I don't have them right now. However, because it got me sidetracked, I am going to, uh, answer G Web's question. The lanyards on the lap, do I collect them? No, that is actually— well, maybe sort of a little bit, but most of those lanyards actually came from SHOT Show because there's Silencer Central, there is USCCA stuff. What are the red ones? I don't even know. Uh, Silencer Shop and Silencer Central. So yeah, that's kind of what that was. It was just, you know, happened to be that way. So not a ton of stuff. All right, DJ, my goodness, sir, we're already 10 minutes in and I have not had you say hi to everyone. Um, although I'm looking at Woods because I'm great in water but smoke and eat bacon, so I'm not great. I'm like, I don't know. Water is good, and that helps wash the bacon down. The smoking, I got nothing there, but depends on what you're smoking, so I suppose there's that as well. All right, sir, by all means, do say hi to everybody.

Hello everybody, and hello also to the Krabby Turtle. He was out there first with the pink hand waving. Gun Websites was next in the room. Misty Mrs. Wayne is out there. Hello Misty. G23 dropped in, so did Abigail Sorcha Finnegan. Sorry, a fan 93 apparently on both kind of sides of the communication link. Woods is out there as we saw, and so is Mike Ballinger. So that's your roll call for now.

All right, good to know. All right, so I was looking at, um, Abigail's. I'm like, I like myself a Coke and, uh, Malibu is my favorite rum to go. Coke, Malibu, and a lime. However, I do not drink that all that often. Uh, my, my mom was an alcoholic and my dad was a drug addict. And so I try to limit all of these things because I am guessing my gene pool is relatively good for being an awesome and amazing addict. And so yeah, all of these things are within just a little bit. So, all right, sleep, drinking water, good nutrition, exercise. If all you did, if all we did, any of us focused on those 4 things, our mental health would be pretty darn good. Because here's one of those things: in thinking about people who have high degrees of depression and anxiety, they generally do not have good sleep habits, good water intake, good nutrition, and good exercise. They generally do not feel that they are worth taking care of. And so if someone you know, including yourself, are feeling anxious or depressed, one of the easiest things you can do is move them, i.e., go for a walk, go swimming, take them somewhere, go to the store and go shopping with them, It can be something very, very simple. And this is where we haven't done this in a while, and I'm with this, the, the, my fuzzy blanket on. I'm not sure how well this is going to work, but this is where the simple things we've done in the past, which is shoulders back, chin up, looking directly in front of you, helps change your mood. If you look up like you're looking to God it takes a different part of your brain and plugs it in, and because of that, it changes how you feel. So our motion, how we move, is directly linked to our emotion. And so if someone is down and their shoulders are crunched, we're closing off our ribs and not being able to breathe as well. And you guys have heard this from me before, but it's always good to be reminded because sometimes it will sink in and sometimes it will be not. Who here, you guys ready to raise your hand? Pink hand waving, crabby turtle, I expect you to do this one. But think about a song or a smell or a food that automatically just makes you happy. Speaking of happy, something as simple as someone singing happy birthday to you. Right? Although I know some people are different about birthdays, so maybe that's not a good example. But DJ, I am confident you have lots of songs that you could think of, like, off the top of your head, as far as what is something that, you know, if you're not feeling awesome, like, that there is something that you could immediately— oh yeah, I gotta turn that song on and I'll start tapping my toes or something along those lines. But I think I lost DJ, so I'm not sure. Are you there, sir? He looks like he got— I'm snuck in the— I'm sticking you out. Oh, see, pink hand waving. All right, sorry. Um, so yeah, so like, what's an example of a song that you can think of that like, if you weren't feeling that great, what's a song you'd want to throw on?

Kiss, Rock and Roll All Night. It's making me— it's making me kind of like laugh a little bit now because it's just, it's so ostentatious, it's so over the top, it is so behemoth '70s rock and roll that is actually pretty good pop music. And that's one from my youth that absolutely will do it like every time. I've burned out several, but every once in a while I'll go and revisit them, like Queen's We Are the Champions, because that I remember from being in like the 6th grade, specifically a wrestling tournament, and I gave out Any kid who was on any sports team ever, "We Are the Champions" will make you think of that bus ride.

There is always some bus ride where "We Are the Champions" was absolutely on that.

You're on that. Yep, me too. It brings back good memories. See, it's like that, you know, both of us had the corners of our mouth lift. You know, we were smiling. We had that release of endorphins because it was like a good memory, hopefully. And yeah, that's a, that's a really pleasing thing. And I kind of want to dovetail into some of the things that you were talking about, the good habits sort of thing. You know, in addition to the sleep and the, the eating regular and making some healthy choices if you can sort of thing. The other thing is regular exercise. And don't think about lifting weights or running a marathon. A walk will do it. And if there's even some small part of your routine during the day, walking to the mailbox, there you go. I mean, any little contribution you make like that will make your body feel better overall. And it's not that much of an output. If you want to do more than that, You know, the benefits of that are to like, you know, get your body pumping. And also it will make you more— it'll make you closer to sleep, make you more tired maybe at the end of the day. There are lots of benefits to that. And it's not like I'm trying to shout that one from the rooftops necessarily, because another couple of things I was thinking of were any kind of activity that relaxes you. Um, you know, like any of the textile arts, you know, who knows, you might want to like do counted cross-stitch or anything playing, right?

Because you play music, so there's that.

Yeah, yeah. Or, you know, any of those kind of, any of those kind of diversions. And an example that I have is, you know, my mom's nearly 80 and she does like 3 crossword puzzles a day. And that's not all she does, but because she's reading the entire newspaper with them and then doing them sort of thing. And she's the kind that will save if she doesn't know or doesn't know a few of the words, she'll set it aside And like, so she has this reference catalog of things she hasn't figured out yet. So it's that kind of diligence, that persistence. It gets you into the next day's habit and, you know, the following day. And there's a ready supply of things to do for most of us, particularly online, you know, doing some reading or something like that. I think, I think that turning the pages of a book as I'm reading, though it hasn't been very often lately, is a really relaxing activity. It's not just the imagination being spurred. Or I mean, whatever the topic is that you're reading about. I like to do a lot of fiction because it's escapist. And so I have the opportunity to visit, you know, a different science fiction world. That's been my habit lifelong. So I like doing that. Your focus on positivity, like looking up, smiling is another one of those things that really works. If you try to focus on positivity wherever you are, like I have a knee-jerk reaction to a lot of irritating things living in the city. So I allow myself a little burst of, you know, somebody cutting me off, saying something about it, but it's letting it go following that. Oh, puppy.

Yeah, sorry. Well, like, because I'd mentioned, uh, Mike's, uh, pupper, and this is, this is one of the, the— but I mean, it's like simple stuff like this. Like, you're talking about reading a book, and I'm like, there— it's like, I know it's like a meme sort of thing, but everyone's like, oh, what's the, uh, what's the internet for? Puppies and kittens, right? Watching silly cat videos or watching a cartoon or something like that. But yeah, sorry, I couldn't help myself. I'm like, look at the booger.

Yeah, absolutely. That's, you know, having a pet. You know, I have the advantage of Leaping Lena Circus Kitty. She's sleeping right over there on her tuffet kind of deal. It's— but it's good. Anytime you can spend— anytime a human being can spend more time around mammals that aren't human beings necessarily is a good thing. Yeah, it's a reflection of— go ahead.

Oh no, I was just saying Missy was talking about, you know, you're talking about different, um, tactile things that we can do and crocheting. And when I said tactile, I didn't mean to say tactical, although I suppose we could get into tactical crocheting, but that's not really the idea. But I mean, so, but so Mike's dog here is— it's a twofold dog. In that, other than the fact that she's got 5 million folds, but it's just like she's going to be a pet, but she's also going to be a rescue animal in that she's being trained to go find lost animals. So it's just like everything has definitely the opportunity to turn into more than what it just says. So simple things, taking a deep breath, drinking your water, getting some sleep, putting good nutrition into your body. Simple does not always mean easy. All of us could drink more water. Um, and oh yeah, GT3 put, you know, building firearms. And I know Abigail was out here before, so I'm hoping that's another thing that she likes. Um, Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, and armor. Yeah. Everyone's got a different idea of what is relaxing. Um, it was so funny when I met my husband, I liked everything except for metal, and then my husband loved Metallica, and so I got to listen to Metallica. And then, um, now like I even know what Korn is. So it's like you just never know what's going to be the thing. Yeah, so see, I didn't click that one, GT3. I just want you to know, as I said Korn, that, um, DJ actually pulled that one out.

So we also have some more Metallica in the house.

Yeah. Um, all right, so back to the group chat here, folks. What do you guys think of Mental Health Matters changing the name of the show? Because like I said, I have a hard time doing it, but if you guys can all say yes, it's fine. And as much as I would dislike the idea of having to say goodbye to Suicide Prevention Saturday, I think I can change my poor little vocabulary to go Mental Health Matters. DJ, since you're live here and can chat with me directly, what say you, sir? What do you think based on— I don't know. Well, I got, I got one. I like it. Take that.

Yeah, I, I think that you're— it's a, it's a simple suggestion and it, it covers the bases. It does. But like, encouraging those out in the chat today and those in replay, toss it in the comments here or the comments out there when the show is over. That'd be great. Maybe make a consideration of something else, maybe melding a few things together. But, you know, Brooke, I think, I think you may have picked the winner right there. First out, first out the gate.

Well, it's just like, like I said, I'm like, I, I love my Suicide Friends Saturday, but now that we've been booted off twice in less than like 6 months. I'm like, and the first time I did talk to some of the other people who are a little bit more YouTube-ish knowing, um, than I am. Like, yeah, we try to stay away from the word suicide in general. So, uh, Gizzard, I'm assuming that we all see you over on Hillbilly's channel later on this evening. I will not be. I'm going to bed because as we discussed, sleep, sleep is the number one health indicator, by the way. Um, But yeah, so Mental Health Matters, I figure it kind of has that play on words, right? In that mental health matters because it's important, but then mental health matters, and then each week ideally we're gonna try to have a different theme, which we generally do. So I'm hoping that the play on word—

work—

plays— wow, words. Yeah, no, DJ, your turn. I, I've given up.

You giving out a closing out the show? I'm—

yeah, I'm like, I can't, I'm done.

Um, but yeah, he came up with nothing.

I just like— I'm like, okay, I'm gonna— yeah, I'm gonna let you finish off because I think I'm done.

Well, it has— it's been— I like the, the loose flow of the show. I've enjoyed chatting and I'm glad to see so many great faces out there. Faces and names, I guess, because I know some of them, what they look like. But other than that, I guess we're going to say goodbye tonight. And joining us this evening was, uh, going backwards down the numbers line. I hope Gary is still listening enough to say, hey, Kisser Gary, I got you, man. Mike Mellinger was also here. So was Woods out there in the Pacific Northwest. Sorry, a fan 93 checking in. Abigail Sorcha Finnegan has some, uh, recipes. You can check the chat for those later. G23 is in the room and participating, so is Misty, Mrs. Wayne. Good to see her. Gun Websites and Crabby Turtle rounds out the audience for tonight. So again, thanks everybody. Um, try to bring somebody next week. Name change, new day, get everything started on the right foot— the left foot and the right foot— as we march forward in this program. Again, thanks for joining us everybody, and until I see you all again, be safe, have fun, take care of yourself and your crew. And rock with—