Happy Face 20

I listened to a program yesterday on CBC Radio about sleep. This is a cross nation call-in program, and it is rather interesting to hear from other Canadians. I didn't listen to the whole program, having better things to do during those two hours of a Sunday afternoon, but I still didn't hear anyone addressing the culture and society of stress that may be making getting healthy and adequate sleep such a challenge for so many. Apparently one third of Canadians don't get adequate sleep. I am somewhere on the borderline of that little cipher. Each of these last two nights I have slept four hours, then had to go down for a nap after getting up in the small hours of the morning. I am actually surprised that with the stresses we are all living under that more of us aren't getting enough sleep. We have, among other worries, the spectre of climate change, and the thread of that little threat hanging over our heads has already broken and now we are seeing what is the beginning of sorrows. We are more digitially connected than ever, globally, and now we know all the details of the news being reported whether in Togo, Paris, Beijing, Colombia, or elsewhere in the world. Nasty things occur in the world, they occur throughout the world, all over the world, twenty-four hours a day, and seven days a week, and now we can know even more and ever more about all those dreadful acts and events than ever before, thanks to our wonderful global news networks keeping us up to date on news websites all over the internet. It's all there, waiting for you, at the click of a mouse. Gobalism has brought in a vicious, particularly voracious style of capitalism that takes no prisoners, and now the competition for securing decent remunerative employment has become so frenzied and breakneck that workers are being told that they have to constantly be retraining, upgrading, improving their skills and bolstering their resumes, because the stable good paying job is as extinct now as the woolly mammoth, and anyone can be replaced, be it by human or robot. Unregulated market capitalism has thoroughly taken over the real estate industry, and now the cost of housing is way out of proportion with wages and living expenses and it's going to be much worse if you happen to live, like me, in a particularly beautiful city that everyone else wants to move to. These are some of the ambient stresses that have come to dominate and define our daily lives. With everyone addicted now to their smartphones, which are notorious robbers of sleep, then there really aren't going to be a lot of us left who can enjoy a decent eight hour sleep, and with the gowing splintering of community, reltionships and sustainable friendships, is going to further up the ante. I think the particularly vicious environment of competitiveness that global capitalism has brought our way is really affecting us in so many other ways. I heard on a radio documentary early this morning about special apps used by walkers, runners and cyclists to measure their vital signs. All the fun and enjoyment has been robbed of what should be simple enjoyable recreational activities, as testosterone-addled males (and not a few females) lose whatever brain power they might still have in their zeal to compete, improve, make themselves look better than others, and in the end, just making themselves miserable. How can anyone ever possibly enjoy the moment of a walk or a bikeride, while constantly obsessing over how much bio benefit they are getting, how much fitter they're getting, and how much better this is going to make them look than others? This is sad, so sad and it is beyond sad. It is pathetic. As for myself, I really couldn't be bothered. If it's not enjoyable, I won't do it. I don't need to measure or count my footsteps when I walk. I already know by time and estimated distance that I usually walk at least six miles a day and that is sufficient. Otherwise, I'm going to enjoy it. As far as my own sleep needs are concerned, even if I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep, I can still get up, take a shower, do some exercise, get dressed, do my sacred readings, make and eat breakfast, start writing my blogpost de jour, then go back down to sleep for three hours or so, as I have just done, and then get up, finish writing my blog and get on with the rest of my day. There has been, by the way, ample reserch that shows that our current obsession with getting a full night's sleep, does not square with reality. Many of us naturally have segmented sleep, and this has been true for many people throughout the history of our human existence. I suspect that this preoccupation with adequate sleep has more to do with our current wellness fixation, which is just going to be all the more anxiety provoking, since it shows that we are not performing to satisfaction, and at the end of the day, or at the end of the night, is going to keep robbing us of sleep. Are we smiling yet? Happy face. And don't forget to laugh.