Yoga Nidra at the Gas Station

February 1,  2023

I
 went to the gas station this morning to fill up Joyce’s car because she so dislikes the experience of being at the gas station nearest our house. The gas pumps have little screens that play 5 minute video loops and make you have to watch them as a hostage to how long it takes to purchase and pump a Prius tanks worth of gas.

Sometimes its technology/finance news, such as dystopian marketing initiatives by Google or Amazon. Other times its an accelerated action depiction of say, how to make a creme brule with an acetelyne torch.

And sometimes its a health, organizing, or resilience building tip from this lovely presenter named Maria Menunos, who my research on Wikipedia for this paragraph has revealed herself to be a model/actress who became an entertaiment and lifestyle reporter, who as far as I’m concerned is the entire reason to watch the GSTV (Gas Station TV) network. It isn’t just that she’s easy on the eyes but that she’s the undisputed mistress supreme of the one-minute self-help advice medium. Additional info: Her parents were both hard working janitor/immigrants. She grew up in Medford, MA and went to Emerson College known for its Communications and Media programs.

Reading between the lines, she found a way to be useful to humanity by sharing evolved self-help advice she (or she and her staff) discovered as she learned to cope with the vicissitudes of working hard while trying to avoid burnout in the brutal entertainment industry. One of the tips was to “high-five” yourself in a mirror, because it automatically raises your mood, even if it’s just you seeing the image of a person exactly your own size at eye level high-fiving you.

Other tips have included writing lists of gratitudes to start or end the day, or to make sure you hold the steering wheel with both hands when you drive so as not to create unnecessary spinal imbalance or tension.

But recently, I was shocked to hear coming out of the gas pump that her tip of the day was the guided relaxation practice of Yoga Nidra. She said that this spiritual exercise gives the benefits of hours of meditation in a relatively short time, and can allay anxiety and promote deeper and more restorative sleep.

Now on one hand, I can see how millions of motorists (116 million monthly unique viewers, according to GSTV’s website) might be unusually open to new ways to avoid experiencing nervous breakdowns as we all teeter on the edge of economic chaos, poverty, famine, fascism, environmental collapse and World War III. But on the other hand, how does my specific, esoteric personal daily practice end up coming out of the television on Gas Pumps throughout the United States of America going about my random business in the noosphere of mass media and popular culture? I never saw that coming.