🖼 framing sleep
People are not 'bad at math'. Math is a language like football plays, music sheets, or topographic maps. Like Spanish, football, music, or topography then, the comparison of numbers via math needs translators. Sleep scientists Matthew Walker did just that on the Joe Rogan podcast when he talked about sleep.
Part-of-the-reason we aren't sleeping well is all the light in our lives. External lights, yes. Internal lights like incandescent bulbs, yes. But the most recent thief is our screens. Walker said:
"Lightbulbs can suppress the hormone melatonin which tells your body when to sleep. Add in screen usage and one hour of iPad reading delays the release of melatonin by three hours. So if you read on your iPad in California your melatonin peak is not going to arrive until Hawaii time."
That's a great translation and even better reframing.
Rather than frame the problem chemically, Walker frames the problem geographically. This perspective introduces relevance. No one knows what 'delayed melatonin release' feels like, but a lot of people know what jet lag feels like.
The biggest problem in medicine isn't opioids, it's obstinance. Patients don't do what their doctors tell, suggest, nudge, hint, and prescribe. Part-of-the-reason is bad framing.
People need the practice to get better at different languages and science, math, and numbers are no exception.