Rabih Dagher

We sometimes throw advices here and there without really knowing if they are true or not. The reason for that is that those advices were fed to us by our parents or friends without us questioning their legitimacy. But now NBC News chief medical editor Nancy Snyderman wrote a book called “Medical Myths That Can Kill You” that busts a lot of those medical myths through medical proof and explanation.

After ruling out some myths, here are examples of correct statements:

• you cannot get the H1N1 virus from the water in the water fountain,
• the HPV vaccine is not only for girls,
• reading in dim light does not ruin your eyesight,
• energy drinks do not give you energy,
• university grads live longer than those who stick only to high school.

An explanation is found in the video below by NBC Today Show:

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For most of us, we think of life as a journey that has a serious purpose of the end, and the thing is to get to that end. We go to kindergarten, then we head to school, then high school, then university, then work, etc… as if the great thing is coming at the end of each grade.

But, we miss the point the whole way along. It is a musical thing, and we’re supposed to sing or dance while the music is being played.

Watch the animation below by Trey Parker and Matt Stone (creators of the famous animation South Park) on top of a short narration by Alan Watts, best known as a foremost interpreter of Eastern philosophies to the West:

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Last week I was experimenting with Polyphasic Sleep, and specifically the Uberman sleep pattern (read more on Polyphasic Sleep in my other post here) which consists of a 20 minute nap every four hours. One thing I noted during my trial is how my iPhone made this experiment easy for me.

For the Uberman sleep, you need six reminders for each nap during a day, along with six timer alarms to make you wake up from the naps. Setting up those reminders/timer alarms would be so annoying if your alarm only handles one setup a time. Luckily my iPhone made it very simple for me. I could setup in parallel six timer alarms which were always on, and post six reminders for my naps repeated every day, with two alerts five and 15 minutes before each nap.

I absolutely didn’t need to get worried about my naps neither about waking up from them. Though you might hate the iPhone, it will be your best friend if you get to be a polyphasic sleeper, unless you need an ear-popping alarm to make you wake up from those comatose naps!

iPhone alarm