Because learning about your brain and sleep can be fun . . .
When Paul McCartney woke up with the melody to what became the song “Yesterday” he had a dilemma: was it his or someone else’s? McCartney woke up and hurried to the piano. He worked out the melody that was stuck in his head to avoid forgetting it. He thought he had never heard it before…
Getting to know yourself through reflection and dream journaling can be painful. We all have an ideal, a belief about who we are. Our ideal self does certain things. Our ideal self thinks certain things. This ideal breaks down. I shouldn’t go around thinking about chocolate chip cookies all the time. You’re a little out…
Water and sleep go together. And lots of people end up with a lot of reusable water bottles. Many collect them. Many are given promotional ones. Some of them are appealing, on sale, and people end up with them at the last minute when they’re checking out of a store. Or they get influenced by…
How you can fall asleep faster—and without any medication—by using the Two-Pillow Ear Bud Sleeping Trick. Most people are side sleepers, upwards of 80 percent. Chances you are too. As side sleepers, they’re more comfortable sleeping mostly on their sides. This makes listening to sleep music, binaural beats, or sleeping sounds with your typical earbud…
Find yourself waking up angry because of a dream? Don’t let it go! Don’t forget it. Go on, write it down! We might do something only because it makes sense to do it. We brush our teeth, for example, because we want to avoid cavities. It makes sense to avoid cavities. They’re painful and…
A child of seventeen—a girl—country bred—untaught—ignorant of war, the use of arms, and the conduct of battles—modest, gentle, shrinking—yet throws away her shepherd’s crook and clothes herself in steel, and fights her way through a hundred and fifty of hostile territory, never losing heart or hope and never showing fear and comes—she to whom a…
Let us take a moment to appreciate the complexity of the human body—both yours and mine—and how this complexity affects how and why we sleep. For that, we will turn our attention to the limbic system located in the brain. You don’t hear much about this group of structures, though you feel their effects every…
You must balance everything in your mind. If you think this always goes off without interior controversy, you’re sorely mistaken.
She shows up with a smallish shrunken cooked head on a plate. The head was attached to some shoulders. I was surprised, taken back. It’s a dead human I’d be eating! I hesitate at first and then start eating. It’s delicious.
Remembering even one thing can help you. All dreams aren’t sweet. Remembering some dreams is like trying to grab motor oil streaming out of an engine: slippery, unpleasant, hot, messy, confusing, and imperfect. Like the backyard mechanic performing routine car maintenance, one can have their “oil collection container” (think dream journal or scrap paper) handy.…
Buy 10 drinks, your 11th is free. Stay five nights, your sixth is free. Accumulate 10,000 points by flying, shopping, and bonuses, and you get a free flight. All kinds of businesses have customer loyalty programs. Should you make a personal loyalty program where you reward yourself for being loyal to yourself? Almost every business…
One common reason people take narcotics and hallucinogens is to “relax” and “chill out.” They want to take the edge off of the hardness of life. The dangers and disadvantages of those often-illegal drugs are well known. Who hasn’t heard of overdoses, the lost families, the problems that they cause? Why in Hell would anyone…
Dopamine is a drug that you make for yourself. Have you ever noticed how talking and joking with friends makes you feel happy? How about when you’ve been inspired and whip up something tasty in the kitchen? Have you ever taken a walk in nice weather and been happy that you got outdoors? You’ve taken…