Persistence Wins the Race Every Time

Yesterday was not a very good day for me personally.  I saw more "Blue Screens of Death" in one day than I've seen my entire career as a computer programmer.  WTF!?  Needless to say, I spent hours futszing with my machine, getting a little further in the process and then "BOINK" ... Blue Screen of Death.  Thank you Microsoft.  I worked on this problem until about 7pm before I threw in the towel and decided to take a new approach.  Today, I will rebuild my mom's laptop to have only work stuff on it, maybe this will help me to get real work done... my team mates are depending on me.

My mom, she was OK yesterday but she didn't sleep well the night before; her day was not as good as it could have been if she had gotten enough rest.  She couldn't find her words at all.  My mom was in a place where she thoguht she was better than she really was.  A really tough place for her to be in, especially for me the Care Giver.

What went wrong?  Is the question that I was asking myself, over and over again.  Then it hit me... I MADE THE RECORDING WRONG!  It's been a few years since I made one... I forgot the most important component, the binural beat track that would help my mom's brain to be receptive to the suggestions.

Simply, as described in Wikepedia,

Binural Beats are auditory processing artifacts, or apparent sounds, the perception of which arises in the brain for specific physical stimuli. This effect was discovered in 1839 by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove.



The brain produces a phenomenon resulting in low-frequency pulsations in the loudness and sound localization of a perceived sound when two tones at slightly different frequencies are presented separately, one to each of a subject's ears, using stereo headphones. A beating tone will be perceived, as if the two tones mixed naturally, out of the brain. The frequency of the tones must be below about 1,000 to 1,500 hertz for the beating to be heard. The difference between the two frequencies must be small (below about 30 Hz) for the effect to occur; otherwise, the two tones will be heard separately and no beat will be perceived.


Binaural beats are of interest to neurophysiologists investigating the sense of hearing. Second, binaural beats reportedly influence the brain in more subtle ways through the entrainment of brainwaves[1][2] and can be used to reduce anxiety[3] and provide other health benefits such as control over pain.[4]

I remixed the recording and had my mom sit in her chair and listen.  It took me a few times to get her to stay still and listen to it all the way through, it is only 15 minutes long.  The 3rd time she sat to listen, she listened.  She loved the music mix.  I put a new music track on the recording, one with ocean wave sounds and piano, my mom's favorite music instrument.

My mom appeared happier after she sat and meditated with the recording playing in her ears.  She was out like a light within 30 seconds when her head hit the pillow.  Perfect.  The recording worked.  I suggested that she would sleep through the night, getting a restful sleep. 

3am she did wake up to use the bathroom, she walked by her bathroom in her room.  I found her in the kitchen, "Susie, where's the bathroom?" 

I led her back to her bathroom and tucked her back into bed.  She woke up at 7 am, wide awake, alert and able to find her words.  No stuttering this morning.

Sometimes we need to try something else... trial and error.  As long as we don't quit, success will eventually come... that's how I feel with my mom and my computer troubles.  Persistence wins the race, everytime.