Meir Medical Center Event Speakers Gov. Mike Huckabee and Judge Jeanine Pirro Greet Author/Attorney Peter Ticktin and his wife Debra

It’s always refreshing to hear Gov. Mike Huckabee speak.  Last time was at a benefit Rita and I attended in Aventura, Florida for Meir Medical Center in Israel.  As usual his energy filled the room early in the pandemic before facemasks would become so startlingly fashionable.  

Huckabee credits sleeping pills he’s taking called Relaxium®, which gives him a fantastic night’s sleep from which he awakens full of vigor to start each new day. 

The geniuses who developed and brought Relaxium® to market are a rare couple who could pass for Hollywood movie stars.  Dr. Eric Ciliberti is a handsome MD, clinical neurologist and sleep expert who developed Relaxium®. 

His wife Timea, the company’s CEO, is an immigrant from Hungary who wasted no time launching and managing a hugely successful enterprise with her husband.    Besides successful entrepreneurs, they’re an attractive couple who could be walking (never sleepwalking) on Hollywood red carpets.

Since meeting them, I’m starting to take Relaxium® myself and feeling noticeably more alert during the day.  Yes, there’s nothing more satisfying, refreshing and invigorating than that good night’s sleep. 

Actually, many people today are experiencing symptoms of a new malady Dr. Ciliberti calls COVID-Somnia.  That’s right, it’s a new form of insomnia, another irritant this prolonged pandemic has created.  Behind our face masks, many of us are still droopy-eyed sleepy from not having what’s so essential to maintaining our health, alertness and probably our immune system too—a sound, uninterrupted night’s sleep.

BTW, if you would like to contribute to a marvelous, wide-awake hospital in Israel that treats all nationalities, Arabs, Christians and Jews alike, I highly recommend you contact American Friends of Meir Medical Center.  Bruria Angel will tell you all the wondrous things this marvelous hospital does.  Among them is helping premature babies survive outside the womb, as it provides newborns with the right environmental conditions to develop.  But their neonatal intensive care units need more of these life-saving incubators.

Now back SLEEP and to the Governor Huckabee whose energy and enthusiasm almost made him President of the United States. 

Dr Ciliberti, known as the ‘The Sleep Warrior,’ sheds some light on light itself.  Although, electronics give off many different colors, blue seems to be the culprit  when it comes to sleep.  The doc says blue lights send signals to the brain making us think the sun is up, which in turn disrupts nature’s way of helping our body prepare for sleep, preventing us from releasing a sleep hormone called melatonin.

The Blues

He says that excessive exposure to blue light at night contributes to mood disorders and depression by disrupting hormone secretion, neuroplasticity, and by aberrant signals being sent from the retina to brain regions that regulate emotions. 

Although many people feel that watching TV helps them drift off to sleep, Dr. Ciliberti recommends to his patients that they turn off the TV, and all electronics, at least 30 minutes before going to bed. 

Now a final word about Huckabee.  He’s an inspiring leader who feels deeply for this country of ours.  He maintains that what’s so lacking today in political discourse is treating each other with a sense of decency.  Since we’re all so polarized, he likes to mix in his special brand of humor with his disarming smile. 

If he were ever to run again, he’d have my vote as I believe he could awaken America that we could accomplish so much more if we were truly the United States of America.

That is providing the next time before we all go to the polls to vote we get a good night’s sleep!

Besides an inveterate blogger, Tom Madden is an author of countless published articles and five books, including his latest, WORDSHINE MAN, available in January on Amazon.  He is the founder and CEO of TransMedia Group, an award-winning public relations firm serving clients worldwide since 1981 and has conducted remarkably successful media campaigns and crisis management for America’s largest companies and organizations.