A blog post from Travis:
Back in 2018 I completed my PhD at a university in Amsterdam, a process that took 5 years alongside teaching full-time in the *other* Holland. It was the culmination of a dream planted in me 13 years earlier in my first Hebrew class in the Fall of ‘05. I expected to be relieved and elated. Instead, I entered a long season of mild depression, heightened anxiety, and persistent fatigue.
At first I called it my post-dissertation depression, with a light-heartedness that covered for my fear that it wouldn't go away. I didn’t sleep great, had a hard time getting out of bed most days (snoozed a lot), felt disconnected from my work, broke out in a cold sweat whenever I opened my email, was generally more critical and less playful, often felt overwhelmed internally, withdrew from social interactions—especially when I didn’t know people that well. I got my work done, and often found some enjoyment from it. But I carried a heavy burden internally that I didn’t understand.
I processed it a lot with my spiritual director. I listened to it, tried to befriend it and learn from it. Which I did. And it persisted. It would ebb and flow in intensity, but it was always present to me, whether or not it was visible to others.
Sometime this past June, Mariah and I began exploring the x39 and other patches from LifeWave. I didn’t notice many changes over the first month, to be honest. But then sometime in late July I began to realize that I was sleeping better, wasn’t hitting snooze at all when the alarm went off (regardless of how many hours I slept), woke up quicker, felt more connected to my work, was more enthusiastic about life and less stressed and overwhelmed. I reconnected with my playfulness. I started playing basketball again after several years off.
Over the last couple of months I’ve felt like a new person, like I received my life back from myself; like I’d put it in a locker and forgotten about it for 5 years, then stumbled on the note where I scribbled the padlock code.
I’m not really a rah rah kind of advocate for things, but I do believe in the research behind the patches, and the results we’ve experienced from them over the past 3 months or so, especially when accompanied by other beneficial life practices (like Sabbath and spiritual direction, for example).
If you or someone you know struggles with restorative sleep, or feels a general kind of blandness or malaise they can’t explain, or has a vague notion they’re only living part of their life and they’d like to find a way to increase their vitality, these patches might be able to help. I can’t promise they will. But I can say that I was mildly depressed for several years, and I’m not anymore. And for that I’m really thankful.
