About 25 years ago, when I began a healing practice, I told my clients to make sure they took afternoon naps.

We have no energy in the afternoons. This is the design.

25 years ago, I didn’t know that the nervous system hit a low ebb between 2:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m., and one had virtually no energy for mental work or physical activity. I just knew that my Dad always lay down for about 45 minutes in the afternoon, after lunch, and he was the healthiest person I knew.

Later I was to learn about Chinese medicine and energy medicine. I was to learn about the circadian rhythm and the different meridians and organs; I was to learn which system hit a high point during which hours and which system hit a low point during which hours. When I learned that our “lung” energy was at its’ lowest peak during the afternoon hours around 4:00 p.m., which meant we were getting less oxygen then than at any other time during the day, things started to make even more sense. To push through the afternoon with coffee and stimulants began to make less and less sense.

There is a condition caused by not resting in the afternoons. It is endemic in our culture.

Then I started seeing Liver Chi Stagnation. This seemed to be epidemic, especially in women. This sluggish metabolic phenomenon caused all sorts of problems, especially in women’s hormones. Resting in the afternoon did more to ameliorate this condition than anything else I could recommend.

I often recommended the “100 Day Cure,” which, in ancient Chinese medicine, was simply 100 days of a 30- minute nap every afternoon. If one did not make it to the 100- day mark, that person had to begin again. I had read some amazing testimonials as well as some dense difficult clinical literature on the subject.

RESTING CURES EVERYTHING FROM BLOAT TO INFERTILITY!

What I was not prepared for was this: each client I recommended this to and who fulfilled the 100 days completely cured their malady. One woman was able to conceive after almost 8 years of being infertile. Another cured her PMS and writes to me from time to time. She is still asymptomatic. Another person, this time a man, cured years of belly bloat.

When I read last year that the corporations in Silicon Valley have “nap rooms” and insist that their employees nap every afternoon, I felt very, very justified, and very impressed with that inner voice I had listened to. This is the voice of reason that, though no one else may be speaking that particular logic at that particular time, becomes too loud to ignore. WE ALL HAVE THAT VOICE. Remember, this was 25 years ago. And now, it is almost commonplace to take a nap in the afternoon. *

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*It is not recommended to go to sleep at this time, as sleep creates a brain wave activity that is not as beneficial as just resting. The idea is to relax and rest for 20-3- minutes every afternoon.

The same thing happened with the game of ping pong

I studied Family Systems in graduate school at NYU, and I worked, during my internship, with a particularly conflicted and volatile family who fought a great deal. I suggested installing a ping pong table in their home and going for a game rather than a fight. I reasoned that, because fight or flight was so linear (I did not know about Triple Warmer and the vagus nerve at that time), this crossover pattern in the lobes of the brain could certainly lessen the intensity when an argument was about to begin.

Ping Pong for ADHD and Autism

I have used the ping pong table for several families over the years, especially families with autistic and ADHD children. Well, guess what? THE PING PONG TABLE IS A FIXTURE IN SILICON VALLEY. AT GOOGLE. AT MICROSOFT. It is mandatory for executives and workers to play a game when stuck in a problem. It helps find a solution. It is obvious why – any crossover exercise helps the brain get “un-stuck.’

Next month: the Sun and Skin Cancer

The logical inner voice I listened to years ago – the one that told me to nap, to play ping pong - also told me that the sun didn’t cause skin cancer. More about that in next month’s newsletter…

Love, Gopita