What to do when you find yourself in the arms of Dr. Google at 3am
or her unfortunate step-cousin, reddit
For the last 20 years, I’ve kept a strange bedfellow. Maybe you have, too?
As I notice a tickle in my throat, or a bump on my foot, or wonder if my thoughts are normal or signs of a latent tropical tick-borne illness, I roll over and consult Dr G.
She knows everything, and she’s happy to tell me all about it, with helpful links to deep and endless rabbit holes.
At first, the land of the probably diagnoses - the common cold, an ingrown hair, pre-peri-menopause, and then a host of worrisome and less likely: Ebola, non-hodgkins lymphoma, spiritual sickness inherited from my grandmother. And finally the commercial solutions from wellness world - coaching, cleanses, and bee venom.
Internet canker sores.
She solves nothing, Dr. Google, and makes getting back to sleep no easier. Plus, the blue light… and melatonin…
I have explored sufficient medical weirdness (my personal hobby in the dark hours) to earn a 65% on the practice NCLEX exam, despite taking zero nursing courses. It’s not quite enough to be a nurse, but it’s significantly better than chance. Some ideas:
What to do when you find yourself in the arms of Dr Google at 3am
Write the inquiry into the notes app (or better) scrawl it on a paper for the morning, like you do with a dream journal. Then you’ll have a fun puzzle with your coffee:
“sour gummy parasite infection - contagious?”
What was I thinking? No. Idea.Read a mediocre leadership book, possibly about how decentralized leadership of Al Qaeda changed the way the US engages in combat. Team of Teams is my current, penned by a retired US Army General who may have had a ghost writer or loads of help and yet still lulls me nicely. I haven’t learned much about chaos and complexity or modern warfare, but it does knock me out faster than first hand accounts of West Nile.
Yoga Nidra. Yes. Put sound in your ears that works you up less. Here is my favorite.
The thing about worry, fear, anger, sadness, (and whatever other emotions might join the party at 3am) is: they are not dissuaded by more information. Unlike the nagging confusion about whether indention is a word (infuriatingly, it appears to be, even though indentation is clearly the far superior choice), Dr. Google offers no solace or comfort, just a slippery slide into the spiral of outlandish creativity. Maybe if you write sci-fi for a living you can leverage this quirk. But otherwise?
Try anything else.
My friend Zreba says that this is the time that God comes closest to hear our prayers, so if and when I can ever remember to pray first and Google second, I do. It feels mystical and romantic to pray at 3am, even if you don’t know how and aren’t affiliated with God in the classical sense.
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