Hi, Folks -

If you're like me, all the talk of folks' being "triggered" and in need of "a safe space" just boggles your mind.

You might tend to figure it's an effect of some 'tweaking' someone did to the public education system. And maybe it is. Perhaps some intentional plan to induce "victimhood" is what it really is all about. Maybe.

On the other hand, presently I've managed to get myself on mailing lists of a number of health-product companies, and I'm receiving between 5 and 10 e-mails each day for a variety of products. Some of them are pretty interesting, though most of them insist on delivering their information by way of obnoxiously long "presentations". One can escape those, most of the time, just by trying to leave the page and then clicking "Stay on Page" when offered the choice, resulting in the same obnoxiously-long information but at least presented in text form.

One such e-mail that I've received today is for a "help you sleep" product that does at least have some interesting ingredients. :) But more to the point, it includes this information:

A Good Night’s Sleep Lets You Make Better Decisions

and Move Forward

You see those two little red almond-shaped parts of your brain below?

Amygdala in red.

Source: Life Science Databases/Wikimedia Commons

These are your amygdalae.

They are the parts of your brain responsible for your emotional reactions to situations – especially stressful situations. So they’re notorious for producing your negative emotions.⁶

But during REM sleep, your amygdalae become less active. And this is when the rest of your brain goes to work to store memories from your day – WITHOUT the negative feelings.⁷

This means proper, natural sleep "defangs" stressful memories – letting you learn from tough times and wake up the next day a little more at ease and a little more ready to move forward with your life.⁸

This elegant mechanism in your brain is the reason "sleeping on it" is so effective. You essentially hit a "reset button" on your emotions.

As the great American author John Steinbeck said, "It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it."

But the unfortunate truth is...

You Might be Sabotaging Your Personal Growth by Sacrificing Sleep

If you can’t get a good night’s sleep, your amygdala gets antsy. And it blocks your ability to be neutral when something comes your way.⁹

Researchers found sleep-deprived people were not able to ignore neutral distractions. And after only one night of no sleep, their amygdalae were hyperactive. While the well-rested participants could easily focus on the task at hand.¹⁰

The researchers wrote, "These results reveal that, without sleep, the mere recognition of what is an emotional and what is a neutral event is disrupted. We may experience similar emotional provocations from all incoming events, even neutral ones, and lose our ability to sort out more or less important information." ¹¹

In other words, when you’re sleep-deprived, everything feels like an emotional event. That’s why you feel on edge or snap at your spouse or kids when you’ve had a bad night’s sleep.

Interesting, yes? Could it be that the High-energy Visible light emitted by the LED screens of 'smart' phones, tablets, modern TVs, etc., are causing sleep to be less restful and restorative for those folks staring at such screens for many hours a day?

"...without sleep, the mere recognition of what is an emotional and what is a neutral event is disrupted. We may experience similar emotional provocations from all incoming events, even neutral ones, and lose our ability to sort out more or less important information."

Could a few days of 'fasting' from 'devices' reduce one's tendency to be 'triggered'? Dunno; just thinking out loud with you. :)

I'm not hawking the sleep product but for those who might want to know about it, here's the text version of the ad for it:

https://primalforce.net/Landing/mb_nativerest_hermit_lp.html

Blessings.

--hobie

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