THE NAG

Am I the only one who sometimes lies awake at night, thinking of all the possible lackluster and uninspiring things while trying to solve all the world’s problems?

It’s recently occurred to me that when something is nagging at me in my sleep, it’s usually my mind doing some serious backstage work for me.  If you’re a terrible micromanager like I am, sometimes you need help navigating through the muck to get to the bigger picture.  The more you try to ignore it, the longer and more intensely it nags.  This seemingly annoying cobweb picking isn’t random or useless, even though sometimes it’s enough to make you really want to stuff your face in your pillow.

Apparently, when you go to sleep, your conscious mind becomes dormant and your subconscious mind takes over.  This loyal way-finder  knows what’s best for you.  It’s your decipherer and problem solver, it’s the one that always has your back and if you stick with it, without fail, it’ll deliver. 

Thomas Edison used to intentionally tap into his subconscious by falling asleep with a set of keys in his hand.  When his hand, which he’d strategically place over the edge of the bed would relax, he’d drop the keys and the noise of them hitting the floor would pull him out of his subconscious.   He’d report waking up with the answers to his biggest questions and problems….kinda like a “lightbulb”.  He once said “Never go to sleep without making a request to your subconscious”.

We avoid looking at the stuff that keeps us up because it’s uncomfortable.  We feel stressed about it because it feels like a drag to look at it, never mind to deal with it.  We’ve all been told that “anything worth doing is hard”.  Says who?  No wonder we run away from problem solving.  We avoid it because it’s uncomfortable but we also know that if and when we do deal with it, not only will we feel much better but we’ll grow. Nothing bad comes from the nagging other than our avoidance behavior, which is entirely self induced.  But still, we’re slow to launch. 

We have this tendency with our physical health too.  If something keeps showing up again and again, chances are it needs to be handled.  Our bodies don’t take well to being ignored.  When we do ignore it, it’ll just raise its voice and nag you in more places.  This concept should come naturally to those of us who are parents - “I’ll stop nagging when you start listening!”.

Our itchy eyes and runny nose in the spring and fall aren’t there because we have a deficiency of Flonase, just like our high cholesterol isn’t there because we’re deficient in statins and our toddlers’ ear infections don’t keep recurring because they’re antibiotic deficient.  These chronic problems will keep showing up because instead of solving them, we’re masking them.

Our political talking heads spend their time asking how to make drugs more affordable and more accessible, meanwhile nobody’s asking why we’re so sick.  Once again, we’re asking the wrong questions.

We’re born to adapt and thrive.  We have an innate propensity toward healing but the further we move away from adaptation, the closer we move toward illness and disease.  We can’t ignore it and there is no magic pill for this.  The mind and the body are brilliant at telling us when something isn’t well adapted but we’ve been expertly taught to turn the other cheek and “suck it up”.  This feels normal because after all, everyone else is doing it.

The US makes up 5% of the world’s population but we Americans take 75% of the world’s prescription medications and 80% of the world’s opioids.  

The most commonly prescribed class of medications currently are anti-depressants and the fastest growing population for this class of drugs are kids.  

We currently prescribe 5x more Ritalin to our kids than the rest of the planet combined.  

We prescribe more cholesterol and blood pressure medications than ever, yet heart disease still ranks as the leading cause of death in the US

I think we should have conversations with our kids about listening instead of ignoring body and mind language.  If something isn’t going away, it means it’s important and deserves your full attention AND it doesn’t have to be “hard”.  

Leonard Cohen (greatest song writer EVER) nailed it when he said “there is a crack in everything…and that’s how the light gets it”.