Lose the Television and Clear your Mind
Friday, September 21st, 2007I gave away my television a few weeks ago, and it was one of the best things I have ever done. Some of the effects I have experienced since giving up T.V. are:
What I’ve learned is that television actually brainwashes all of us—and this has been scientifically proven. In the mid-sixties, Dr. Herbert Krugman discovered that our brain wave pattern switches from Beta waves (signifying active, logical thought and reasoning) to Alpha waves (signifying hypnotic suggestibility) after only watching TV for 30 seconds or so. Even more interestingly, when the subject of his study went back to reading a magazine, the brain waves switched back to the Beta range.
I recently read that people in an Alpha brainwave state are at least 25 times more suggestible to hypnotic commands than the same people in a Beta brainwave state.
Advertisers are aware of this fact, as Krugman used these findings to consult with the advertising industry. He told the industry that people watching television learn the messages that come from the TV in a state of “low-involvement”. This means that T.V. bypasses the conscious mind and the messages are implanted directly into the subconscious. This, of course, is textbook hypnosis.
I realized that the state of low awareness that the television induced in me was just too draining energetically. I gave away my television and haven’t looked back.
Of course, I like entertainment just as much as the next person, so what am I doing now to “fill the gap”? (Funny that we even feel the need to fill that gap, huh?)
I am doing other things, like exercising more and spending more time with my fiancée, but I am also watching a lot of very interesting documentaries on Google Video. I am finding that the video areas of StumbleUpon give me plenty of entertainment when I am looking for video stimulation—without the commercials and the quick-cutting.
I can watch movies on my laptop, and I’ll probably get a projector because I am still a lover of good films.
And, finally, if I want to watch a show that I like (such as Prison Break or Traveller), there’s always TV Links or iTunes.
I simply don’t need that big old mind-numbing box anymore.
