Permission Granted!

I awoke refreshed.

If you know me, you'll know that I love to make connections, you'll know I love ideas and I like to mate them and make them multiply. You'll know I am always keen to experiment on myself before teaching or sharing with anyone.

So this morning, as I literally laughed out loud almost waking my wife, it was because of one of my experiments gone right.

Why am I asking a clock for permission to begin my day?

I laughed because I suddenly had the thought, 'Why am I asking a clock for permission to begin my day?'

Over a year ago I noticed my mum was starting to lose her memory. Apparently, this happens to some older people but there doesn't seem to be a consensus for why it happens. There is concurrent evidence of amylose plaques in the brain, evidence that neural connections that are required to form memories take much longer to make or are not made at all. But why?

Part of my doctorate was studying fouling of surfaces by denatured proteins - a bit like the way milk sticks to the inside of a pan when heated. One thing I learnt was how, just like raindrops find it easier to form around dust particles a surface can remain clean for a long time even though there's a high concentration of denatured protein around it doesn't stick to the surface. And then a little bit of nucleation, a scratch on the surface or a bit of limescale, then suddenly the build-up of protein on the surface massively accelerates. After that any protein that comes near sticks.

And then a little bit of nucleation... then suddenly the build-up... massively accelerates.

I wondered if the plaques were a form of fouling. As I trawled through articles talks and videos. I found a TED talk on how the plaques build up. Another on how unlike the rest of the body, that has a lymph system for draining away waste material, the brain has none. So all the waste accumulates during the day to be washed out by the cerebrospinal fluid at night when the 'cabbagely' bits shrink and let the fluid flow through them. There was another on how the brain that normally runs on glucose might require a different energy source if anything goes wrong, the article suggested Ketones form Coconut oil which apparently on the Krebs cycle (the magical map of biochemical energy pathways) can provide alternative fuel. But more fuel means more waste material even if you do get more memories.

And then by chance I saw an advert. It was an advert for pillows from one of the world's greatest salesmen, Mike Lindell. There was a graphic that showed how the pillow supported your neck to keep your head horizontal.

The engineer in me kicked straight in. How can your brain drain when most pillows elevate your head above horizontal? Even smart cerebrospinal fluid can't flow up hill. Gravity is your friend

The experiment began. I would get rid of my pillow completely and add more coconut oil to my diet and my mums. My mum's memory seems to have improved. For me over a three-month transition as my neck muscles and tendons grew and adjusted, I was able to abandon pillows altogether. And with that came the deepest most refreshing sleep I've had for decades. Probably since I was a baby.

And that's why I awoke refreshed this morning.

But instead of leaping up to take advantage of my brand-new day. My thoughts were to look at the clock to see what time it was. Was it too early to get up? It's as if I wanted the clock to give me permission to start my day.

Do you wonder what and who you are asking for permission from?

And that's when I laughed out loud at the realisation that I was asking a clock for permission. I just took my own initiative and here you are - reading this post! The clock would never have permitted it to be written let alone read.

Do you wonder what and who you are asking for permission from? Do you wonder what you might experience, learn or achieve if instead you just took the initiative?