If you’ve been feeling under the weather lately, you might expect your doctor to recommend eating your vegetables, loading up on fitamin C, and drinking more water. But what if he told you to have more $ex, dumb it down, and watch p0rn? Huh? Crazy as it sounds, that’s exactly what my doctor prescribed for me recently.
As someone who can’t name all nine Supreme Court judges or instantly recall who the fifth president of the United States was, imagine my surprise when my doctor told me, “You’re too smart. It’s making you sick.”
“Too smart?” Right…my thoughts exactly. I write about $ex and relationships, not quantum physics.
But here’s the situation: I live a healthy lifestyle. I eat organic, don’t smoke, drink only socially, and exercise regularly. Yet I get the flu, tonsillitis, strep throat, or bronchitis several times a year. My doctor explained that the body needs sleep to repair itself every night, and if you don’t get those necessary eight hours of Zs, it can weaken your immune system and make you more susceptible to catching these pesky viruses.He then went on to explain that the reason I’m nocturnally challenged is because intelligent, creative, and successful people often have a hard time “turning off their brains” at night. “You need to dumb it down,” my internist told me with a straight face. Say what?
“Your brain needs a break to get into sleep mode,” he continued. “Try some mindless, relaxing activities, like $ex.”
(What if you’re already battling a cold or flu bug? We’ve got answers on whether you should have $ex when you’re sick.)Not quite sure if my doctor was just being funny, I called in the experts to corroborate or refute this diagnosis and treatment plan.
“Yes, it does have some validity to it,” says Frank Lawlis, Ph.D., the director of psychological testing for American Mensa. “Intelligent people tend to said get their immunity system compromised through their lack of sleep and stress. I wouldn’t call it dumbing down, but doing more meditation and more relaxing activities that are not intellectually stressful.”
Alon Avidan, director of Sleep Disorders Center, also thinks my doctor is at least partially correct. “Being intelligent and having a high IQ has nothing to do with our ability to fall asleep,” he says. “But, the second part is true. There is a lot of data now linking immune function and sleep. You can be healthy, a vegetarian, and exercise, but if you don’t get sleep, it’s as if you’re having a Big Mac every single day.”
