Worldwide, many tons of sleeping pills are taken each year. A huge number of people take it on a chronic basis, while it is well known that the effect disappears after 3 weeks. Why is this? A question that may truly keep one awake.<\/p>\n
\u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n
The answer, which is an answer-in-three-stages, may keep one awake even more. At a first stage: sleeping pills are addictive. If not physically (the border is very thin), then certainly psychologically. Therefore, stopping them keeps one awake through 1) the physical rebound effect* and 2) the deep conviction \/ expectation (auto-suggestion) of needing a sleeping pill.<\/p>\n
\u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n
So as a society, we flood people with something that is expensive, not effective and in the end just an addiction. Most of it on prescription.<\/p>\n
\u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n
So the second stage of the answer is to this question: why do we do this? One cannot simply say that doctors who prescrive these pills are to blame, though they may have a responsibility of knowing better. This question is a more profound one. Our society as a whole is prone to addictions such as this. In some way, the trust towards the addiction is already there before the addiction itself.<\/p>\n
\u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n
And this brings us to the third stage: why is such a trust present in this society? Here we come to a very general relation between human being and society.<\/p>\n
\u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n
There is at the deepest level a kind of \u2018competition\u2019 between both. This of course is a matter of speaking. It\u2019s certainly nowhere conscious, so there is no blame at this level, though one may see a blame at the level of people who take advantage of this situation knowingly<\/em> or while not wanting to know<\/em>. In the wellness domain, the competition is about where lies the \u2018strength\u2019 to heal. Is it present within human being, or does it have to be given from outside?<\/p>\n \u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n In many cases, \u2018inner strength\u2019 is being degraded or ignored. This is a general undercurrent in our culture. It is continuously heightened by individuals \/ groups taking advantage of this. However on a higher level, it leads its own life. The chronic use of sleeping pills is but one example. Pain killers and antidepressants are other examples.<\/p>\n \u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n Falling asleep is a very natural phenomenon of course, requiring the possibility to let oneself go and in this to be completely present<\/em> as a total person. In the deepest sense, this possibility itself is at stake. Again: this is not a conscious strategy, so there is no blame principally.<\/p>\n \u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n I think we should give priority to the individual, not as an ego-centrically oriented being, but as a total person. It is this total person (and even only<\/em> this total person) who in the end can relate to others and to the world and who in the end can really change: himself as well as the whole world if need be.<\/p>\n \u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n So wherever possible, inner strength should be heightened, not lowered. This is an attitude that we should all take.<\/p>\n \u25ca\u25ca\u25ca<\/p>\n [physical rebound effect*: to be compared with an elastic string that you pull and then let go]<\/p>\n