Keep A Cool Head

Above is a picture of my various hats and caps. I am pretty flagrant with wearing them and it is not to conceal a balding pate. My hair is turning gray but seems to be growing at its usual clip. Just got the annual yearly summer short-cut shearing at my 1960's barber with the clippers. Even the radio station is from that era. The barber says that the station's signal waxes and wanes during the day. Coming in and then fading out. Seems appropriate for an old school shop where there are echoes of yesterday.   

He is a good barber, handy with the clippers, which many current hairstylists are not. He only charges ten bucks. I particularly enjoy the eyebrow trim, something I am reluctant to do at home on a macro-scale besides a snip here and there of a particularly rowdy eyebrow strand. Cutting my hair short for summer allows my head to be cool in the heat, particularly when I am working out. Nothing worse that a wet mop on the head during a long run.

However, I wear hats and caps a lot inside during the summer in establishments that turn on the AC full-tilt. I use AC to cut the heat, not to make my place cold. That is just weird. So, I bring my hat or cap into restaurants along with my fleece. It is 90 degrees outside, but 65 inside and close to the vent dropping chill on my head. I get summer colds that way. My brain and body has a hard time transitioning from hot to cold as a rule. 

One thing I have changed within the last couple of months is that I no longer wear a hat or cap to bed. Once the summer comes, the AC goes in the bedroom window. And, I cool the whole house with it as my townhouse doesn't have central air or heat. So, past practice was that I would wear a hat or cap to bed all throughout the year. Or, a broad head band. That seemed to provide some security beyond just physical comfort. A shield from the outward world to a degree. 

A couple on months ago, I blogged than my dreams were becoming avenues for irritations big and small, much of them just invented out of thin air. Occasionally, they'd draw from some outward reality in my life but most of the time they were just random hassles where I cannot figure where originating. Because I have an interest in neurology which my doctoral work had a piece of, I know that during sleep, the brain is actually quite busy in it own state organizing memories, cleaning the slate, and just healing. Kind of when a computer network is down for maintenance. It is me time for the mind.

I surmise that wearing the cap to bed was creating a closed circuit of sorts. My brain wanted to exhale but the covering was keeping things in. So, I jettisoned the hat and caps and go to sleep unadorned. I am finding that my dreams are at least more vivid and consequential, in the sense that I understand them better and what issues they are pointing to for attention and perhaps resolution if possible. So, rather than my head over-heating, it is breathing. I feel freer.

Keeping a cool head in general is wise. I am not talking being a stoical zombie but staying in a calm state as much as possible. As a for instance, yesterday I had to move a big piece of equipment. To do it in ways that I had done so previously, required a lot of he-man. I could do it. But, I stepped back and accomplished the same goal by going laterally rather than up or down. It was a small thing but it reminded me that using my brain rather than my brawn is often a safer avenue.