With Electric Shocks To Eternal Bliss— The Hottest Craze for Stressed-out Managers
Or just headaches, skin burns, and a lingering metallic taste in the mouth.
While sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll were considered ways to happiness in the 1960s, today we try yoga, massages, and, believe it or not, electric shocks.
As long as we use all of these to escape from living in the moment, none of them will make us happy.
Electroshocks for stress reduction and performance improvement
Remember this movie scene: A patient rears up as if struck by lightning. Their body convuls in an epileptic seizure until they finally sink down into unconsciousness. Even though Jack Nicholson’s performance in the film “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” is described as exaggerated by proponents of electroshock therapy, no one would voluntarily undergo such a procedure, one would think.
Wrong.
Electroshocks for the brain are in demand and now available in a toned-down form for everyone as a consumer device or even as a do-it-yourself kit for the home.
Anyone can now give themselves an electric brain shock.
A 9-volt battery, a few sponges, and some saline solution, and you’re ready to go.
Next: Electric chairs for the home?
What’s next? Kortslutning (Swedish for short circuit), the electric chair for the home from Ikea? Electrostimulation training for the muscles and brain stimulation in one. And you wouldn’t even have to lift a finger. I can already see the advertisements: relax or learn 12 languages comfortably through electrical brain stimulation in front of your TV or Netflix stream. Imagine the evening family scene: all strapped into their electric chairs, smiling blissfully while administering electric shocks to each other like morphine.
No brain, no pain
How does one even come up with the absurd idea of voluntarily giving oneself electric shocks, especially in such a sensitive part of the body as the brain?
It is supposed to have a stimulating and mood-lifting effect.
The whole insane trend is called transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and, according to wired.co.uk, is all the rage among athletes, musicians, and, more recently, ambitious and stressed-out managers.
Aside from healthy food, massages, and yoga, today’s stressed business people can have their brains shocked at modern wellness spas.
For relaxation, optimal vitality, brain activity, and productivity.
In other words, everything so they can function better.
I dare say that such an approach to life will most definitely lead to a short-circuit in the long run. With or without electroshock therapy.
Now, how does voluntary electro-torture for performance improvement work?
Quite simple. Electrodes are mounted on the scalp and forehead, and small electric currents are sent through the brain.
What was once reserved for patients in psychiatric institutions is now available in a narrow-gauge version for anyone who wants to improve their mood, enhance there productivity, or reduce their stress level in no time at all.
You don’t even have to go to a special spa to do this; consumer headsets can be found in great quantities on Amazon or eBay.
If you’re even braver, join the very active do-it-yourself brain shocker community and simply build your own brain stimulation device. At your own risk, of course. Also, by the way, the safety and effect of the devices sold is not proven.
These experiments are not without danger
Although some users rave about very positive results, such as the best sex ever after the electric shocks, others only get headaches, skin burns, and a lingering metallic taste in their mouths from it. Sudden mood swings and epileptic seizures are also reported.
Any form of escapism will not decrease stress levels. It increases our inner tug-of war.
When we don’t focus on what you’re doing right now but are already thinking about the next to-do item or the next deadline, that’s a sure recipe for stress. Like that, we live in the future, not in the now, and that leads to a painful inner tug-of-war.
I understand wanting to put an end to this tug-of-war, but we don’t get rid of stress by escaping it through electric shocks, alcohol, drugs, or whatever else we can think of.
That’s all just escapism.
But when we are fully present and focused here and now, in this moment, instead, the inner tug-of-war suddenly comes to an end.
A German version of this article was first published in the Austrian technology magazine e-media in September 2019 in my column “Code Red”.
