Sgt. Tony's Fitness Boot Camp

Some of you reading this are members of the same club with Ashley and me. This isn't a club anyone wants to be a member of: people who've been affected by the su***de death of a close loved one. For Ashley, it was her mom 21 years ago today. For me, it was my brother in 1991.

Su***de death hits differently. Grief is grief, of course. And losing someone you love, irrespective of how, is horrible, miserable, and debilitating. But to lose someone by their own hand ... on top of the grief that follows the loss, there is a sense of being rejected too. They chose to leave us, we say to ourselves, because that's how it feels. But in the vast majority of cases, that's not why they did what they did. The pain and desperation they felt was just too unbearable to go on.

I had served as a Su***de and Crisis Intervention Center volunteer for two years before leaving for Japan. That compounded my own sense of grief and loss when my brother died ... "You couldn't even help your brother, how worthless you are," I said to myself. I wrestled with that sense of guilt for years. Intellectually, I knew that wasn't the case, but emotionally, that's how it felt, despite what my brother said in his su***de note. He didn't blame me or anyone else. He blamed Vietnam.

Some of you know the pain I'm talking about. And even if it wasn't the su***de death of a loved one, su***de touches a lot of us in some way. Maybe all of us.

I talk a lot about things we can do to improve our brain health. But that's something a little different from mental health, isn't it?

Here are some phone numbers that might be helpful for you or for someone you love.

See you on the Quarterdeck in the morning. Oh, one more thing. If you're reading this and it's been a while since you were on the Quarterdeck with me, the door is wide-open and I'd love to have you back! "But, Tony, I've gained so much weight," or "Tony, I'm so out of shape." I couldn't possibly care less! You may have noticed that I'm NOT perfect in any way whatsoever. Tomorrow is the beginning of a new month. What better time to get going again.

(We're at Colonial Park United Methodist Church at the corner of Park and Estate: 5:30 and 6:45, and it's still just $90 per month. My fees haven't gone up in more than 15 years!)

National Center for PTSD
802-296-6300
Provides information on prevention, treatment, and symptoms of anxiety, depression, and related conditions.

Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline
800-4-A-CHILD (800-422-4453)
Available 24/7, offers assistance to victims of child abuse and neglect.

National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD)
800-NCA-CALL (800-622-2255)
Provides information about substance abuse, prevention, and recovery.

Postpartum Support International (PSI)
1-800-944-4773
Offers support for women experiencing postpartum depression and other perinatal mood disorders.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Disaster Distress Helpline
1-800-985-5990
Provides 24/7 crisis counseling and support to people experiencing emotional distress related to natural or human-caused disasters.

Veterans Crisis Line
800-273-8255 (Press 1)
Available 24/7, offers support to veterans and their families.

We set the quads this morning. We do this from time to time. It's a good quad exercise and especially good for anyone whose knees are sore, painful, or lacking in range of motion strength.

If you've got knee issues, set the quads!

Quad Set Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Good evening, everybody!

Our friend, Marne Anderson has two kittens that need a good home. Marne says,
"Meet Zeus and Zorro. Charlie and I rescued these ten week old brothers from an abandoned house in
Moscow. We had them neutered and they have all of their shots. We are looking for a good home for them preferably together. I am contacting all of my cat loving friends in the hope that you will spread the word. They are adorable and loving."

How can you beat such cool names? Zeus and Zorro!

Hey, everybody!

Tomorrow is Heavy Weight Wednesday!

See you in the morning!

Sgt. T

This morning during the 5:30 class—we did Lucky 13—a topic came up that I don't remember us talking about as much as we did. The topic was introduced by a mom lamenting having to read to her little boy before every meal. He won't eat until someone reads to him.

It reminded me of research on this topic I'd done before. The presence of books in the house of little children has a huge impact on their learning.

The evidence strongly supports making books and shared reading a normal, abundant part of childhood. The benefit probably comes not from the physical books alone, but from the language, interaction, curiosity, knowledge, reading habits, and intellectual curiosity that books help create in a home.

It's not just about vocabulary. Reading together builds listening comprehension, story sense, background knowledge, and the back-and-forth of real conversation, especially when the adult pauses to ask "what do you think happens next?"

There's even a brain-scan study. Preschoolers with richer home reading environments showed more activity in the brain regions tied to making sense of meaning while listening to stories. This held up even after accounting for family income. It was a small study (19 kids), so I wouldn't call it proof, but it's a striking hint that this stuff shapes the developing brain.

And here's the part that surprised me most: a massive 20-year study across 27 countries found that growing up with a 500-book home library was linked to 3.2 more years of education on average, a boost roughly equal to the difference between having barely-literate parents versus college-educated ones.

You don't need 500 books to see a benefit, either. Even 20 books in the house showed a real, measurable bump. And interestingly, kids whose parents had less schooling themselves seemed to benefit the most from having books around.

Bottom line: you don't have to be a "reading family" in some elite, curated way. Just keep books around, read out loud when you can, and talk about what you're reading. The evidence says that's enough to matter.

I never saw either of my parents read anything but the newspaper, but my mom made sure we had a set of encyclopedias in the house, though I never saw either of them take a volume from the shelves and read. But I did.

My kids grew up with a ton of books in the house and I read to them at night when they were little. Doing that doesn't guarantee that a child will grow up to be life long readers, but the research is clear. It has measurable and quantifiable positive results for growing kids.

You've heard me talk about improving our brain health as we age. And I've talked about how important it is for your brain to be challenged.

Pay no attention to the title of this video. He's not going to teach you any Japanese. In fact, he doesn't use any Japanese at all until the end when he says good bye.

Pay attention to what he says about your brain.

www.youtube.com

For almost two and a half years, for six days a week, I spent eight to nine hours every day working on my dissertation. I did research, I took notes, I read, and read, and read, and read, I looked at my "master plan" (which I designed myself because no one tells you how to write a dissertation) and I wrote.

I also had to fight the Procrastination Monster every day. This video isn't about writing a dissertation, it's about how we all approach tasks we don't want to do.

Facebook gave my feed a boot camp photo from more than 15 years ago. I looked at the photo and then read the comments. In the comments I found one from a guy who'd done boot camp with me and then fell off the wagon. In his comment he said, "Man, I need to get back to the Quarterdeck."

He didn't.

I posted a boot camp related photo here a few months ago and out of the blue, he commented: "Man, I need to get back to the Quarterdeck." 🙃

While working on my dissertation, I had to break up my study time into 25 minute blocks and then take a 5 to 10 minute break. You may be familiar with this "Pomodoro Technique." My 25 minutes "on" had to be singularly focused. (I may be a bit ADD.) No chasing rabbits, no getting distracted by other things; I turned my phone off. And I kept a notebook on my desk to write down ideas I had in the moment, just to get it down on paper so that I could stay focused on my work at hand.

This is a really good video, I think. (That's why I'm posting it!) At one point, the presenter will talk about "your why."

Unfortunately, corporate/institutional America took the definition of "why" and turned it into unwelcome and pointless business jargon. After that happened, any mention of "your why" has been dismissed with an eye-roll and a sigh, and moved into the same file folder with "mission statements," "circle back," "synergy," "organic," "low-hanging fruit," "bandwidth," "wheelhouse," and "move the needle."

Corporate America is really good at taking incredible ideas and turning them into annoying and dreaded terms.

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