Every day or two I hear a new health theory. Do you? Here are some recommendations I’ve lately encountered:
I teach a writing class every Thursday night on Zoom, and two weeks ago one of my students, Dr. Josie Oppenheim, said: “The more you nap, the longer you’ll live. Studies have shown that even one nap a week can make a difference.” Come to think of it, my father lived to 104, and took a little snooze every day – more than once a day, as he aged.
How To Take A Nap
A nap is like a seduction – and the person you’re seducing is you. You know that Woody Allen movie where he screws a red lightbulb into a lamp every time he romances someone? Woody has a point. There should be a ritual to seduction.
When I decide to nap, I close the curtains, lie down in my bed – the bed I sleep in at night – turn on the light, and open a book. The book must be carefully chosen. I don’t want a mystery novel, or a magazine, or anything engrossing. I want a book that exhausts the mind.
In fact, I’ve found the perfect text, and I will lend it to you if I ever finish it (which is unlikely.) It’s by the great Joseph Conrad, and no one‘s ever heard of it. The title: The Mirror of the Sea. It’s a memoir of Conrad‘s life as a sailor. The book is exquisitely written, educative, but intensely soporific. (That means it puts you to sleep. Certain herbs are called “soporifics”: hops, chamomile, passionflower, St. John’s wort, valerian root. Of course, if you want to cheat, you can take one of these herbs to facilitate your nap.)
After the nap, recline for a while and remember your dreams. Today, my nap-dream ended while a woman was singing a long folk song – something like “Barbara Allen” – but the tune was wrong, and the incongruousness of her melody awakened me.
For a while, I lay still, remembering the discordant entertainer.
You should never set an alarm for a nap; you should let it live out its natural lifespan, unless you have some high-pressure career like CEO or trash collector. Come to think of it, my first job after I flunked out of college was doing construction. One of my coworkers – let’s call him Charlie –would eat lunch, then fall asleep, and always wake up exactly at the moment our lunch break was over. Charlie had a psychic gift on the level of teleportation.
Remember my weekly Zoom writing class? One part of the class involves me asking a series of questions. This week one was:
Think of a funny place to put a Band-Aid.
Rhoney Stanley, who’s a dentist with a MPH (Masters in Public Health) replied: “On your mouth.“ She explained that she encourages her patients to put a Band-Aid on their mouths, which forces them to breathe through their noses.
I’ve heard for years that nose-breathing is superior to mouth breathing. But why? I wrote to Rhoney, who replied:
Breathing through your mouth is deleterious to your health. If you seal your mouth, you are forced to breathe through your nose and that is the better way to breathe as it calms down the vagus nerve and gives you Nitric Oxide (helps erections among other benefits)
Then in a second email, Rhoney continued:
I also have an appliance called myomunchee I got from Australia, which you sleep with or wear during the day and forces you to breathe through your nose because you have this bulky thing in your mouth and you can’t stick your tongue out when you wear the myomunchee. (www.myomunchee.com)
I looked up “the superiority of nose-breathing” on Google and found that nose hairs filter out dust and toxins and send them down your throat instead of to your lungs. The nose humidifies oxygen. And breathing through the nose regulates air temperature – your lungs don’t like extremely hot or cold air. Your sense of smell alerts you to dangerous impurities around you. And it’s harder to hyperventilate while breathing through the nose.
So Rhoney’s right — put a Band-Aid on your mouth!
Two people told me, two days in a row, that I’d lost weight. I wasn’t conscious of it, but my only theory is that I avoid, whenever possible, eating late at night. Instead, I’ll have a glass of juice. My wife bought a case of Lakewood Pure Black Cherry juice from the food co-op (am I allowed to endorse a product in this essay?), so that’s what I’m drinking. Supposedly cherry juice fights gout, as well, by lowering uric acid levels in the body. Black cherries contain anthocyanins, which are powerful antioxidants that help reduce inflammation.
In an ad that plays before a YouTube video, a woman in a polyester blouse said: “I cook a lot, so I’ve used a lot of cutting boards. But recently I learned that plastic cutting boards add microplastics to our food…” And an image filled the screen of evil shards of plastic, looking like multicolored geometric confetti. Once you’ve seen microplastics with your own eyes – even if they’re only the unleashed whimsy of a graphic designer – you’ll never use a polymer cutting surface again.
My friend Tom sent me an article from the Eco-Logic substack about the worldwide precipitous reduction in insect populations. One factor is the interaction of pesticides. A study in Nature (2021) showed that each of two individual pesticides had a 10% death rate for bees, but combining these two pesticides resulted in 90% bee fatalities.
At our house, we’re aiding the insect world with our pollinator‘s garden, consisting of flowering milkweed, echinacea, bee balm, goldenrod, mint. (The garden is entirely the work of my wife, Violet Snow, but I’m taking co-credit for it, just for the purpose of this essay.)
Remember, health is not just personal. All beings on earth together form one mega-being, and we must assist that mega-being however we can. So improve the health of your spouse or a local dog, and your sciatica will disappear!
[Note: Some of the medical advice in this essay may be incorrect.]
Join the family! 
