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One thing I never forget to carry when I’m out and about is a bottle of water, regardless of whether it’s summer or winter. However, a few days ago I did forget and it was a 45 minute drive. I only realised I didn’t have any about ten minutes into the journey. That’s when I suddenly felt thirsty and water was all I could think about.
Then it got me thinking about when I lived in London in my younger days. I never carried water with me anywhere. No one did. Back then, it was unheard of. Now, however, everyone seems to carry it no matter where in the world they live. Even in a country like England where, most of the year it’s cold and wet, people are now carrying it with them. To be fair, in the Middle East, and in other hot climates, the need to have water to hand is important but why in countries like England and the US when you rarely feel thirsty?
Is it a trend, like it used to be to carry a coffee with you as you walked down the street. One might wonder, therefore, why people are suddenly more thirsty or are afraid they might need water when they’re out. Again, in the 80s and 90s in England, I never came across someone sipping water or a coffee anywhere I went. I never felt the need to drink it nor did anyone else. Conspiracy theorist might tell us that our foods have certain additives whose side effects are ‘thirst’.
But I think it’s much simpler than that.
I feel that nutritionists, so-called health advisors and advertisers play a huge roll in playing with our thoughts, using what’s known as ‘suggestions’. They repeatedly tell us we must drink 1.5 litres of water a day to stay hydrated. But they neglect to mention that water is not our only source of fluids. It comes from the foods we eat and from our teas and coffees. In fact, hypnosis works in a similar way. From what I understand, if a hypnotist wants you to feel very thirsty all he needs to do is to suggest it to you while you are under. Of course, for this to work, and to be effective enough, you’d need to be a willing participant to the hypnosis.
Now many years ago, while watching an episode of Columbo, I first heard the term ‘subliminal cuts’. This is a technique used by advertisers to add suggestive images in the middle of a movie or game an audience is watching. These images are fractional flickers that the eye doesn’t see but which science says that the brain is able to register. Advertisers hope these images that the brain registers will encourage the audience to become obsessed with whatever is in the subliminal cuts and go and buy it. But, rest assured, according to experts, we are not being manipulated into behaving in a certain way by these cuts because the method isn’t as effective as people think. That being said, is it not possible that in the middle of a football match, advertisers might sneak in a frame of water or beer? Or even a frame for ice creams or hotdogs? How effective it is, or even if it’s actually a thing, I don’t know, but might it not be possible? That being said, I also wonder about food allergies. Growing up in England I only ever came across one allergy and that was to pollen. During the summer, when the pollen count was at its highest, many children suffered from ‘summer sniffles’. But I never came across any kid with allergies to nuts, milk or kiwi.
It was unheard of. But today, many airlines have even stopped serving nuts on planes because some people can’t even be around them, much less consume them. How did such allergies suddenly surface? I rather think it’s the parents who are partially responsible. They hear so much about allergies from health professionals that they refuse to expose their children to them.
So, the next time you go to the cinema and suddenly feel the urge to get a popcorn, maybe your brain registered something that your eye didn’t catch.
