Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Rational Medical Advice #1



That’s right readers, I’m introducing a brand new column to the Gource. It seems to me that today more than ever people are uncertain about how to correctly take care of themselves, medically speaking. Sure, you can open just about any magazine in the check-out aisle of a poor-people’s grocery store and find articles from “doctors” and "babysitters" telling you how to prolong your inevitable transformation into a corpse, but I plan on offering you something more: I’m willing to actually address your health, and to offer you strategies for living your life that will maximize every aspect of your being, down to a cellular level.


Sleep – Do Humans Really Need It?

Last night most of you did something I didn’t: you got into bed, closed your eyes, and amid thoughts of God-knows-what, drifted off to sleep. You probably persisted in this demonstration of acedia for at least six hours, probably more. Let me ask you one question: What did you accomplish with those unconscious hours? Unless you consider applying a glaze of saliva to a very small section of your pillow and dreaming about being relentlessly chased by God’s bloodthirsty angels of love accomplishments I’d wager the answer to my question is Nothing At All.
Compare your night to mine: I read the better portion of a book, wrote a couple personal letters of venom to people Who Know What They Did, balanced my checkbook, thought fondly of a few, and cleaned the nibs of numerous fountain pens. I also realized how unnecessary sleep is, and designed the banner for this new column. You let your brain paralyze you so you wouldn’t get up in the middle of the night and run headlong into a desk.
If you ask a medical professional why it is that the human body seems to crave sleep, he’ll tell you it’s because sleep offers you a chance to heal, solidify memory, and rest after a day of work. Guess what this snake-oil salesman of a professional will forget to mention: you can heal, remember things, and rest without falling asleep. Right now I’m sitting down – a position in which the entirety of my lower body gets to rest. What’s more, I can remember what happened yesterday just fine, better even than if I’d slept this past night. I can’t address the importance of sleep for healing purposes, as I am not the kind of dolt who manages to get infected with ailments, nor am I the type of clumsy fool who injures himself during everyday activities.
Short advice: stop sleeping. You don’t need it. You do, however, need to get more done with your life if you ever want to be considered a healthy person. You probably need a haircut, and there’s a good chance there’s a drug you ought to be taking that you haven’t had prescribed to you yet. These are issues to be addressed at a later time though. For now, I’m off to anywhere that isn’t bed.

1 comment:

Alex said...

hear, hear!