There are few reasons to visit Pecatonica, Illinois. The only time I’d been to the agricultural village 15 miles west of Rockford was for a Metallica concert when I was 14. Now, two decades later, I’m headed there for the extreme opposite of a heavy metal show: to live in monk-like silence while attending a 10-day meditation course. No speaking. No phone. No Wi-Fi. When I enrolled, the experience sounded like a healthy escape, a chance to be reacquainted with the unmediated me. To get perspective on why I can’t use the bathroom or get to sleep without the soothing glow of the internet. Instead, I would binge-watch myself, browse the infinite scroll of my own mind.

Suddenly I’m wondering what in the hippie-dippie hell I’d been smoking. Barreling west on I-90 toward the Dhamma Pakasa Illinois Vipassana Meditation Center in a car driven by a meditator I connected with on the retreat’s ride-share board, I’m feeling a million miles from Zen. The prospect of confronting the aspects of myself I’ve staved off with the help of my Netflix queue makes me jittery. I cop a final digital fix as suburban sprawl gives way to dense cornfields. I thumb through Twitter. Shoot off work emails. Peruse my bookmarked news sites. Then, as the car turns off the country road and onto the retreat’s driveway, I text a farewell-for-now to my regular contacts.

The meditation center spreads across a charming but modest patch dotted with weeping willows and cattails. The campus’s three main buildings — a dormitory, a dining hall, and a meditation hall — encircle an algae-choked pond teeming with small frogs. Inside the dining hall, where students check in, the first things I notice are the tennis balls. They cover the feet of every chair to eliminate noise.

“Welcome to meditation prison!” jokes the men’s student manager, a middle-aged guy named Jim Herndon, as he processes my registration. The barrel-chested former air force chaplain radiates what is known in Pali, the sacred language of Theravada Buddhism, as metta — a potent “loving kindness.” He hands me a small drawstring bag for my wallet, keys, and other valuables, which will be locked away for safekeeping. I place my iPhone in the bag and feel an immediate flutter of separation anxiety. “A lot of people find it difficult to let go of their phones,” Herndon says with an empathic smile. “But you’re in for a life-changing experience.”

The objective of Vipassana is nothing less than liberation from all suffering. The technique is thought to be what the Buddha himself used to achieve enlightenment around 2,500 years ago. By developing the mental acuity to perceive first the natural breath and then the smallest sensations on the body, meditators break the habit of craving positive sensations and rejecting negative ones. The path to happiness is understanding that all things pass.

A coordinator bangs a gong to signal the beginning of “noble silence.” That prohibits not only speech but also gestures, eye contact, reading, and writing. The only people we’re allowed to speak to are the student manager and the teacher, who is available twice a day for brief questions. We vow to abstain from killing any being, sexual activity, drugs and alcohol, exercise, and using “luxurious beds” (instead we’re provided with a thin, summer-camp-grade twin mattress). The retreat is segregated by gender. The organizers say it’s to reduce distraction. Signs even demarcate outdoor paths: “Male Boundary” or “Female Boundary.”

We file over to the meditation hall, leaving our shoes in a cubby by the door. From a shelf packed with pillows, I grab one that looks like a Moroccan pouf. Herndon assigns each of us a spot on the carpet of the dimly lit room. Once we are all seated with our eyes closed, the teacher, Ginger Lightheart, a grandmotherly type, cues a recording of someone chanting in Pali. It is the voice of the late S.N. Goenka, the course’s ever-present meditation guide and avuncular host of the nightly video lectures. Goenka, who died in 2013, is responsible for popularizing Vipassana around the world. More than a million people have taken a 10-day course. Dhamma Pakasa alone, one of 13 centers in the United States, has taught an estimated 12,000 students since 2004. It’s so popular that even with 20-some sessions a year, I was waitlisted twice.

“Staaart with a calm and quiet mind,” the guru purrs in his voice-of-God baritone. He instructs me to observe the breath going in, the breath moving out — a practice called Anapana that is the first step toward Vipassana. Maybe the air goes in just one nostril. Maybe both simultaneously. Either way, my mind is to act as a watchman. “Work diligently,” Goenka says. “Work patiently and persistently. You are bound to be successful.”

Then … silence. Well, almost. Someone’s stomach gurgles. Someone else farts.

I crack open an eye. In our modest, loose-fitting clothing, we look like we’re at an adult sleepover. I squeeze my eye shut again and concentrate on my breath. I notice my exhalation ever so slightly moves the hair in my mustache. But then my mind is beset by distraction. My lower back aches and my knees throb from sitting cross-legged. Mercifully, Goenka’s voice returns. He burbles an exit chant in Pali. After that, we troop to the spartan dormitory. It’s 9 p.m. Lights out is at 10. I lie in the dark, eyes open, wondering how I’m going to survive the next 10 days.

The morning of the first full day, I sleep through the 4 o’clock wake-up gong, finally stirring when the breakfast bell tolls at 6:30. At the dining hall, I scoop oatmeal out of a metal steam tray and make a cup of instant coffee. The only sound is the clinking of silverware against plates.

I gaze around, making sure not to lock eyes with anyone. Most of the youngish white guys in my group look like Outward Bounders who lead zipline tours. One wears a “Namaste” T-shirt. Another’s hat reads “Be Here Now.” There’s also a hippie elder with stringy gray hair and a wannabe monk with shaved eyebrows who seems to levitate in his foot-glove shoes.

The retreat, including room and board, is free of charge. That’s strategic: By taking money out of the mix, I become a beggar-monk, thankful for anything I’m given. For lunch at 11 a.m., we are served “simple, vegetarian” meals: curried chickpea stew, Thai-style saffron rice. There is no dinner. Instead, during a 5 p.m. tea break, new students are offered apples, bananas, and oranges. I eat one of each and actually feel my ego deflating.

Aside from meal breaks and an afternoon rest hour, I am to meditate, in either the dorm or the hall, for 10 hours and 45 minutes per day. Three sittings are mandatory all-student Goenka-guided affairs in the hall. The final one is followed by a viewing of the guru’s evening lecture — a mix of technique-related reminders and apocryphal stories.

During the second day’s discourse, Goenka first mentions “the monkey mind,” the unstable, agitated brain that swings from one thought to the next. The intention of Vipassana, he says, is to tame this havoc-causing wild animal. It strikes me that the internet is the monkey mind’s manifestation, offering branches in the form of links and tweets from which to swing from one disparate subject to another.

Taming my monkey mind is no easy task. Not when I’m seated cross-legged on the ground for an hour. “It’s like running a marathon sitting still,” the guy who gave me a ride had warned me. I find myself thinking about anything but the sensations around my nostrils. I mentally belt out the chorus of “Karma Chameleon.” I script a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode set at a silent retreat. Back in my dorm room, I find it impossible to meditate with flies buzzing in my face. Buddha surely would’ve let them live. I smack them dead against the window with a Kleenex box.

By day 3, I feel like I’m whittling my mind into a sharp and useful tool. My attention still strays, but it’s on a shorter leash. I’m stingingly aware of the world around me in a way I haven’t felt since I was a child. I note the dewy air just after sunrise dancing with the barnyard scent of the Illinois countryside. The central pond inevitably becomes a metaphor for my mind: Some days the water is murky; other days, so clear I can observe its greatest depths.

Day 4 we graduate from Anapana to Vipassana, directing our hyperawareness to the entire body. Moving from the top of my head to the tips of my toes, I scan each part, attentive to any sensation. Just observing. By days 5 and 6, when we’re urged not to flinch for a full hour, I extend my stillness record to 50 minutes. Everyone limps out of the hall on numb legs to walk the paths in a postmeditation stupor. I wonder if the occupants of the rare car that passes believe the asylum residents are escaping.

It’s obvious some of my fellow meditators are struggling. They’ll exit sittings early to sulk on a bench or crouch alongside the pond, lazily poking at the algae with a twig. A few days into the course, one student leaves because the discipline reminds him too much of his strict Mormon upbringing. Goenka tells us that it’s normal to ache, to be frustrated by wandering thoughts. He says this is the body and mind resisting attempts to correct the habits that lead to a life of misery.

After chafing against the rules for a few days — no one’s gonna tell me when I can and can’t bathe! — I realize therein lies the genius of the retreat. With everything decided for me and diversions eliminated, feelings I’ve long ignored or drowned out rise to the surface unbidden. I seethe with fresh resentment over losing a job. I swell with regret for being “too busy” to visit a beloved uncle in the days before he succumbed to cancer. Each painful thought exhibits as an unpleasant bodily sensation that diminishes somewhat once I observe it with a balanced mind.

I also recognize that no matter how laid-back the environment, I can always find someone or something to annoy me. Here it’s my suite mate, a stern-faced physician. Our bedrooms are separated by little more than a thin stucco wall. And he’s a snorer. He wakes with the aid of an against-the-rules electric alarm at 3:45 a.m. — robbing me of 15 precious minutes of sleep — and jumps into the shower. The dorm plumbing squeals like a stuck pig. The worst part: Noble silence dictates I say nothing. One morning, incensed by the predawn racket, I ask myself, What is this anger? Physically, it manifests as a quickening of the pulse. Faster, heavier breathing. Tenseness. I observe the sensations, reminding myself that they will pass. As if by magic, they do.

And, oh, how clearheaded I am! Maybe it’s the regimented sleep; I’ve not been to bed consistently before midnight since elementary school. Or perhaps all the vitamin-rich vegetarian food. Or maybe it is the meditation. I watch a bee poke around on a flower without thinking, Gee, I should Google “How do bees pollinate?” Pangs of boredom surge through my body for the first time since I was a teenager, and it’s like being reunited with a long-lost part of myself.

When noble silence ends on the retreat’s final full day — a “cushion” day to ease us back into the world — I worry speaking will disturb whatever inner peace I’ve managed to cultivate. In front of the dorm, I join a circle of guys chattering. “Can the Goenka impressions commence?” I say. The line gets a laugh. Talk quickly turns to sensations. One describes feeling like his skin was covered in fizzy Pop Rocks. Another speaks of pleasurable surges of lightning down his spine. Yet another achieved bhanga, a sense of total bodily dissolution.

There are also plenty of accounts of dark nights of the soul. One guy admits to sobbing daily. Another confides that he had fantasies of torturing someone who had severely wronged a loved one. There are epiphanies, too. One 20-something decided he should break up with his girlfriend, while another says he’ll now agree to his girlfriend’s request for an open relationship.

After breakfast on departure day, a volunteer hands me the bag that contains my wallet, keys, and iPhone. Do I really want to plug back into the Matrix? I push the power button. The Apple icon appears. It reminds me of the full moon on the ninth night, pure white light in the big black sky. Alerts for 10 days of missed text messages and emails and voicemails flood the screen. I sense my monkey mind stirring, preparing to swing again.

Then Goenka’s sonorous voice rattles in my head: “Start with a calm and quiet mind.” I close my eyes, focus on my breath, then my body, and I remember the law of impermanence: This too shall pass.

“I like to wear statement earrings on TV. Inexplicably, the people who most regularly comment on them are almost exclusively middle-aged white dudes who’re like, ‘What are those earrings?’ and I’m like, ‘Is that you, Miranda Priestly?’ When it’s dumb stuff like that, I usually just ignore it. But sometimes it makes me feel better to have a clapback. If someone is being cruel and sets me up for a joke, I’m going to hit it out of the park. I deserve that every once in a while.

“People who are really happy would never spend their time making people feel bad by sending them messages about how ugly and stupid they are. When people do that, it stems from their own insecurities and dissatisfaction with their own lives. Whatever’s fueling that is something that should be pitied. Sometimes I’ll write, ‘Sorry things don’t seem great for you right now. I hope they get better.’ They usually don’t respond to that any better, but that’s what they need more than me being mad.”

How did you get started cuddling professionally?

In 2008, I had been struggling with anxiety and depression. I drove two hours to a cuddle party workshop and went through an hourlong welcome circle talking about agreements, rules, communication boundaries. And then we cuddled. I remember sitting in the parking lot after, thinking, Oh my God, what happened to me? I was more relaxed than I’d ever been in my life.

How does cuddling help people?

There is a different quality to touch that has no expectation. It’s really about making people feel more comfortable in their bodies and giving them a sense of physical and emotional ease and relaxation.

Who hires you?

Most clients are men. Women are touch-privileged in our culture — it’s much more socially acceptable for them to touch other women or children. Men get accused of being creepy or a predator.

What if there’s an errant erection?

It happens. It doesn’t necessarily signal intent. We just either ignore it or, if it’s distracting, change the position.

Big spoon or little spoon?

I like being the middle. At cuddle parties we have multiple people and sometimes do, like, a spoon drawer.

From $80 an hour. cuddlist.com

How can prayer help anxiety?

Prayer helps us get perspective. It’s very interesting that Jesus says, “Give us our daily bread. Help us forgive.” His advice is to imagine yourself as part of something larger. Because anxiety isolates, and you end up feeling so alone. There’s a whole world of us whose earrings don’t match and who haven’t eaten breakfast. My anxiety is not the biggest thing in the universe.

The idea of praying can be intimidating.What’s your advice for getting started?

A common misperception is that prayer means putting words to things. But prayer often has no words. In Psalm 46, the psalmist says, “Be still and know that I am God.” It’s a matter of shutting up. Be quiet, find a safe space, and just be still. I’m not talking about sitting for 20 minutes. I’m a gerbil. I’m talking silence for 30 seconds or a minute. If I remember I forgot to give the dog her medicine, I have a pen and paper nearby, and I can just write “dog.” And then I can try again.

What if someone isn’t a believer?

I have a sister who doesn’t believe that there’s a god. She sits very quietly and she imagines the great cosmos, and she imagines the stars. She looks for the most distant star, and she casts all her cares there.

When I worked at a daytime TV talk show almost a decade ago, I kept two aluminum bats in the back seat of my old Toyota. They were an accident of a Saturday morning garage sale. They donked against each other when I drove, but every once in a while, after a long day of debates on, say, the merits of onstage musical chairs as a means of connecting our audience to touring Broadway musicals, I’d haul those hammers to Stella’s Batting Cages in Lyons and swing at baseballs for 30 minutes without pause.

Hitting a baseball is a hard pleasure, undertaken alone, beneath a helmet, in a cage. I wanted the isolation of it. I wanted to hit something, yes. But I wanted the hypnosis that comes with mind-free repetition.

A good baseball swing is a viscous motion. And when you connect crisply, repeatedly, that sharp clank is a musical report. People turn their heads.

The longer I stayed in there, the more the day receded from memory. In the failing sunlight, I’d swing until my back hurt. I’d swing until my hands blistered. I’d swing until I forgot.

I’m a crier — always have been, always will be. Being a particularly moist-eyed adult is fine when you’re, say, at a movie or watching a video of golden retriever puppies wrestling (their faces!). But unfortunately for me, it’s still considered a bit gauche to get openly weepy at your office desk. So over time, I’ve accumulated quite a selection of spots for a discreet workday sob session. Here are my favorites.

1 Food court at the Shops at North Bridge

Pro Headphones in, you can tune out the world; high turnover of fellow diners means you won’t be judged for staying for an hour, two hours …
Con Wiping tears and snot with fast-food napkins is abrasive on delicate nose skin.

2 Riverwalk

Pro Being outside and watching the river can feel calming and meditative.
Con There’s a strong chance of being immortalized in a plethora of tourists’ photos from the architecture boat tours and/or having to watch several dogs poop.

3 Bathroom at Block 37

Pro Surprisingly private. There are eight stalls in the basement and never more than one other person in there at a time.
Con The entrance to these is locked after the mall closes at 8 p.m., inevitably when you most need them.

4 Lurie Garden at Millennium Park

Pro The fresh air allows you to blame tears on a pollen allergy.
Con You will overhear at least one child asking her parent, “Why is that lady crying?”

5 Art Institute on a free admission day

Pro Anyone who sees you crying will think you are deeply moved by the Thorne Miniature Rooms.
Con High risk of being surrounded by judgmental teens on field trips

6 Tunnel between Red and Blue lines at Jackson

Pro Outside of rush hour, it’s absolutely empty; your cries sound impressive when echoing off the tiled walls and ceiling.
Con Faint yet unmistakable urine smell

Golden milk, which derives its sunny hue from turmeric, is popping up on café menus with insistence. Think of it as the pumpkin spice latte of the yoga and meditation set, signaling with each yellow mugful that one is doing mindfulness. Originating in pared-down form in India, the concoction has been used for its health and relaxation benefits for centuries. Curcumin, the main active ingredient in turmeric, is something of a cure-all in holistic medicine: Studies suggest that the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant does everything from warding off heart disease to combating depression. For a meditative moment and a mood boost, try this lightly sweet version from First Sip Cafe in Uptown.

First Sip Cafe’s Golden Milk

Yield 4 to 5 servings
Active time 5 minutes
Total time 20 minutes

28 oz. full-fat unsweetened coconut milk
2 tsp. grated fresh ginger
2 ½ tsp. ground turmeric
½ tsp. ground cinnamon, plus more for garnish
⅓ cup honey (up to ½ cup, to taste)

1 Whisk together all ingredients in a heavy-bottomed pot.

2 Let simmer over medium-low heat for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. If you want it thicker and sweeter, let it simmer another 5 to 10 minutes. For a smoother texture, strain the milk through a sieve to remove ginger fibers.

3 Pour 6 to 8 ounces into a glass, and garnish with a sprinkle of cinnamon. Golden milk will keep in the fridge for up to 3 days. Some separation will occur, so stir thoroughly to recombine. Reheat on the stove or in the microwave.

The Loop is a great place to develop an anxiety disorder, which I did two years ago, having worked there, daily, for five years. There’s a sense of loneliness that accompanies subsisting among skyscrapers: the omnipresent emptiness of monuments to capitalism combined with the lingering panic that everyone has some place to be and, yes, we’re in each other’s way. It’s why I came up with a routine that allows me a pace more in line with my raised-in-the-forest heartbeat: I walk, slowly, across Chicago’s bridges.

It’s not about being Baudelaire’s flâneur — unlike Parisians, we Chicagoans have places to fucking be. It’s just a few transcendent moments to remind myself why I choose to live here. On my way home to East Garfield Park, the Lake Street Bridge acts as an airlock between the world of frantic conference calls and my neighborhood block, slow and familiar. It’s not a border; it’s a passageway that brings a sharp temperature drop and long breezes, with views of barges, water taxis, and skyline, all at once.

In this segue I’ve picked up tidbits from tour docents (the Reid-Murdoch clock tower was once the only way workers had to keep time since watches were too expensive). And I’ve chatted with tourists after they trusted me with their cellphone cameras, letting them know that, no, McCormick & Schmick’s is not a great restaurant. For me, the bridge is a therapeutic construction, a literal object of connection, linking not just riverbank to riverbank, but us to one another. On our bridges we become less alone.

Chicken That’ll Melt Your Face Off

Scientists say spicy food alleviates stress — pleasure of pain, increased serotonin, yadda yadda yadda. Which brings us to Dancen. All you need to know about the buldak at this Ravenswood hole in the wall is that the Korean dish’s name translates to “fire chicken.”
$15. 5114 N. Lincoln Ave.

Bend and Palm

There’s no word that fills a bargain seeker with more Zen than “BOGO” — and in this twofer, Rachel Duerkop of the yoga studio Tula offers a combo of yoga and Reiki geared toward anyone who sits or stands too much. In other words, all of us. $20 a class. 2827 W. Belden Ave.

Massage, But Practice

In exchange for helping New School for Massage students training in the art of healing touch, you get a nearly hourlong therapeutic Swedish rubdown for less than an end table at Ikea. $40 for 55 minutes. 747 N. La Salle Dr.

Acupuncture for the People

At the Logan Square clinic Five Point Holistic Health, you can receive a 45-minute treatment for just $40. The catch? You’ll need to share your space with other human pincushions. $40. 3234 W. Fullerton Ave.

The Most Relaxing Airbnb

Horse whispering is so passé. Help care for the fish (tending animals = stress reducer) before unwinding at Koi Whisperer Sanctuary & Japanese Gardens, a traditional Japanese inn that includes a teahouse, meditation room, sauna, and spa. $109 a night. 6N779 Route 31, St. Charles

Breather in a Cup

Emperor’s Jasmine Pearls tea is not only fragrant and floral but may help you live longer. According to Rare Tea Cellars CEO Rodrick Markus, who ships the stuff from his Lake View warehouse, centenarians on the island of Okinawa gulp the soothing hand-picked, antioxidant-rich green drink. $40 for a quarter pound. rareteacellar.com

Relaxation, Unplugged

Would you believe that the minerals in seaweed can suck out the stress of living with a smartphone glued to your hand? At least that’s what the new Kohler Waters Spa in Lincoln Park claims will happen during its Digital Detox Body Wrap, which includes a scrub with a dry brush, a mini-facial, scalp and foot massages, and that ocean-tinged body mask. $200. 2358 N. Lincoln Ave.

The Goop(ish) Life

In one session at Source Healing, make like Gwyneth and receive a custom treatment that could include acupuncture, cupping, guided breath work, and recommendations for Chinese herbs and nutrition. $200 to $350 for 80 minutes. 650 N. Dearborn St.

Good Vibrations

During the Intuitive Song Experience at Sounds Good Studios, “sound guide” Davin Youngs uses otherworldly, wordless singing — along with the vibrations of crystal bowls, bells, rattles, guided touch, and light — to balance wonky energy. “It may sound far out,” Youngs admits, “but there is something wonderful about being held in the care of someone’s voice.” $300 for 75 to 90 minutes. 410 S. Michigan Ave.

The Ultimate Bath

Ditch your moldy grout for a view of the Chicago River from the pristine oversize soaking tub (with space for two) in the Langham’s Regent Suite. Ahhhh. $9,000 a night. 330 N. Wabash Ave.

“I didn’t like what Gaga wore to the Met Gala. Not only did it become a Twitter storm, there were YouTube videos making it seem like I had a feud with Gaga, which is impossible. On a good day, it’s like, OK, I’m going to say this. I know not everyone’s gonna like it, but I can ignore the hate and say my own opinions because I am an American. I try to be aware. If you get surprised by the vitriol, you can really get your feelings hurt.

“I’ve made days for myself where I just enjoy life without the internet. The first day, it happened on accident. I was just having a really good time and I realized that I hadn’t been online. Then I started doing it on purpose. I found some parties and I’d say, This day, it’s just gonna be me dancing with my friends. I don’t have to prove I’m having a good time.”

Got a zit? Scab? Ingrown hair? Wart? Callus? If it grows on a human body, I desperately want to watch someone pop, pick, tweeze, scrape, or clip it. Not because of some overly fastidious sense of hygiene. Rather, doing so ignites a soothing, crackling bonfire of brain chemicals that makes me feel like I’ve just downed an Ativan. It’s gross. But God, does it help me sleep.

I discovered this odd effect right around the time that the Southern California dermatologist known as Dr. Pimple Popper (real name: Sandra Lee) became a YouTube (and eventual TLC) star. Her 5.7 million subscribers, known as “popaholics,” compare her soothing aura to the joy of Bob Ross and leave comments like “Does anyone else watch these videos to delay a mental breakdown?”

I wouldn’t go quite that far. But having a free, easily available, nonaddictive tool to lull me toward dreamland is indescribably helpful, even if I have no idea how it actually works. My best guess is that I’m feeling a wash of whatever endorphins monkeys get as a reward for picking insects off each other. Sure, I seem disgusting in the big city, but I’d fit right in on the savanna.

So would my mom. I recently introduced her to a medical YouTube channel called Wound Care Window. As we watched a doctor carefully trim callused skin that had been hiding a diabetic ulcer, I murmured, “I would love to do that.”

“Me too,” Mom murmured back. “What’s wrong with us?” But we were too calm to care.

Strawberry marshmallows

Mallow, uh, mellow out with these pillowy pink treats ($24 for a box of 12) at Rogers Park’s XO Marshmallow. Each strawberry-size cube contains 10 milligrams of hemp extract — the perfect puff that won’t get you high. 6977 N. Sheridan Rd.

Full-body soak

Noble Square’s Piva Beer Spa, the only one of its kind in the city, lets you add CBD bath crystals to an hourlong thermal water soak ($125) to soothe chronic aches, inflammation, and even insomnia. 1052 N. Milwaukee Ave.

Pedicure

A $55 package at Simone’s Nail Lounge in Garfield Ridge loops in four CBD treatments: a foot bath, an exfoliating sugar scrub, a gentle leg wrap, and a minty moisturizer. All of which just might help you get over the anxiety of a stranger touching your feet. 6650 W. Archer Ave.

Dog treats

Even good boys and girls gets stressed, so TropiCBD, a Long Grove family business, developed these vegan nibbles ($25 for seven ounces), each with four milligrams of full-spectrum CBD (with over 100 nonpsychoactive cannabinoids), to help alleviate everything from separation anxiety to seizures. tropicbds.com

Mocktail

The 700 Club ($13) at River North’s Entente has a layer of vibrant purple French violet syrup floating on a mix of lime juice, cucumber-mint lemonade, and cucumber citrate, plus a generous one milliliter (a full dropper) of CBD. You’ll feel the smoothness of the oil but won’t taste it. 700 N. Sedgwick St.

Scalp treatment

More Top Picks Night Mode Vs Blue Light Filter Whats The Difference

Yes, the stuff can even promote hair growth. At Bronzeville’s K2’s Kuts, barber Keith “K2” Will massages patrons’ noggins with follicle-strengthening serum infused with Physicians Grade brand CBD ($10). 4318 S. Indiana Ave.

My parents have lived in the same house since the early ’80s with no intention of moving, but from a young age, I would spend the odd Sunday with my mom walking around our small suburb going to open houses. I loved those days. For 30 minutes, we’d wander each one, inspecting carpets and closets, cooing and critiquing. I’d pick out which room would be mine and imagine which shelf would store my Barbie collection. Years later, I still remember my plans for the bedroom in a certain 1920s brick bungalow, down to the direction I dreamed of orienting my bed.

A quarter century later, I still do this. Except now, I don’t even have to leave my house. When I am even the slightest bit stressed, I don’t need a meditation app or yoga practice. I have Zillow.

I don’t even realize I’m doing it half the time, as if my mind starts typing “three-bedroom houses for sale in Wilmette” like a computer automatically entering cooldown mode. I’ll set arbitrary guidelines — perhaps a price range, or a yard worthy of the multiple dogs I intend to own someday. And then I hunt, scouring hundreds of slide shows for the exact right property.

Imposing a task with absolutely zero consequence quiets the chaos that is my brain. I look at large suburban houses and find serenity in their manicured order. There’s no clutter to be dealt with. No laundry piling in the corner. I imagine inserting myself into these static-free environments, and I can almost envision a future where peace and structure are always mine.

Why are you such an advocate for workplace meditation?

More people miss work because of anxiety, depression, and burnout than from a physical ailment like a cold or fever. A little stress is helpful and leads to productivity, but being 100 percent “on” all the time will lead to extinction. The more leaders can do to teach good mental health strategies, the more likely they are to have a well-functioning, productive, and happy team.

How does one meditate while on the clock?

People often feel like they need to identify the perfect, quiet location and spend a lot of time sitting in silence. But just three explicit and deep breaths can make a big difference in the midst of a stressful day. Or imagine a ray of pick-your-color light flowing through your body, starting in your feet, moving up your ankles, calves, thighs, and slowly continuing through your entire body until it’s released from your skull. I use this while commuting to business meetings.

And if you don’t even have time for that?

Try rubbing your thumb and forefinger together. This can be done anywhere discreetly. It works every time.

Corporate sessions start at $500.
chillchicago.com

“When the first episode aired, it was attacks from all angles — from about my looks to my voice to my mannerisms. I asked a couple people who’d done similar things how they dealt with it, and they told me, ‘You know, you don’t have to read all the comments,’ and I’m like, ‘Please. I can handle it.’

“At the beginning, it’s all exciting, good and bad. And then it becomes addicting. And then you start caring about what they’re saying. And then you start following those people.

“I really wanted to go out there and represent being a gay man in Chicago. And then people were hating me — they’d send me pictures of my body fat. It became that push-pull: You want to see what people are saying, but you also have to be prepared for people to come after you. It can very quickly spiral out of control. So you have to be careful not to get addicted to the good, just like you can get addicted to the bad.”

You specialize in maladaptive perfectionism. What is that?

It’s a person’s unhealthy striving toward not just high goals, but excessively high or impossible goals, with very strong negative reactions if they fail to meet those goals exactingly.

What happens then?

If they don’t get the promotion or don’t get into a particular university, they may process it as evidence that they have significant flaws. They collect these examples — I call this the archive. The larger that archive grows, the more it impacts their self-worth and self-confidence.

Is this on the rise?

A study from my colleagues at the University of Bath found unequivocally that perfectionism has a higher prevalence in younger generations. So in that way, yes, it is on the rise.

Where does this tendency come from?

It may be embedded in the way we shaped our present society. We advertise not only perfectionism but the costs of falling short. These messages are even a part of the goals well-intentioned parents set for their child: “You’ve got this” or “You’ll do fine; you’ve aced the last two tests.” That messaging is absent of reminders that mistakes are normal.

If someone is hearing a little bit of themselves in this, what can they do?

Consider working with a mental health professional. Otherwise, do a self-check about whether you have set impossible standards and, if so, set priorities. If it’s important to be a very good parent, do you also need to be a really good parallel parker?

There is nothing exactly like living in Hell, but there is something close to it. In Hell, where I lived for most of 2013 and 2014, there is, as Dante understood, no hope. You wake up every morning realizing your nightmare will continue into your waking hours. The loss you have suffered is permanent. There is no healing, no improvement, but even more important, there is no possibility of any to come. The most unbearable thing about your unbearable life is that you will always be forced to bear it. And in this, you are most like a character in a sitcom.

Ralph Kramden lives in Hell. His get-rich schemes will never work, his wife will always hold him in contempt, his best friend will always be a fool. George Costanza lives in Hell. He will never find happiness or love or even a decent job, because our enjoyment is dependent on his miseries. He is oblivious to those of us who watch him, and thus cannot know that his constant punishment by fate provides us with joy. I do not know if his knowing this would make him feel any better.

In the midst of my horrific divorce, living alone, desperate to save my relationship with my children and failing, I occasionally wondered if somebody watching from behind a fourth wall might find it enjoyable. I might have — if I could’ve turned it off. And on a number of particularly dark evenings, I considered doing just that.

And then I started watching Parks and Recreation.

Parks and Rec is a sitcom, of course, in the Office-pioneered faux-documentary style, and it has the trappings of a sitcom: a workplace setting; a cast of characters who constantly bicker, argue, and scheme; and issues that seem earthshaking to all concerned but can still be resolved within half an hour, less commercials. But it is different from all other sitcoms in one existentially significant way: Things change.

The show’s theme is announced in episode 1, in which Leslie Knope, the officious, eager small-town bureaucrat, listens to a citizen complain about some problem and demand that she do something about it, and Leslie says to her, “OK. I will do something about it. I will help you.” In some if not all other sitcoms, the earnestness of her determination would then be undercut by her own hilarious incompetence. In Parks and Rec, she eventually succeeds, in this and in other projects, and thus finds a way out of Hell.

I ended up having to ration myself to one episode a night — two, on the really tough days, when my kids wouldn’t speak to me or I discovered I had been eliminated from yet another cherished family tradition. And every time, I would turn on the TV and marvel at these people — hilariously flawed, petty, silly, unhappy people — who were doing their best to make things better. And every now and then, they would succeed.

Parks and Rec was for me not a diversion. It was church, because it offered salvation, in the promise of change. Escaping Hell is difficult, because sometimes there are too many people who enjoy seeing you there. But with enough effort, and grace, and color-coded folders, it can be done. When Leslie Knope was elected to the Pawnee, Indiana, city council, I wept. And I wept again at the show’s finale, which leaped forward to the then-fanciful future of 2017, when all of the characters had moved on, grown, changed, been rewarded, and found what they had been searching for (though not in the places they had been looking). Parks and Rec taught me how to look forward once again — to the next episode and, finally, to my own life.

In my younger days, my attitude toward flying was always up, up and away, whether my journey called for boarding an aged TWA jet to London or a puddle-jumper departing from a lonely northern Wisconsin airport. Then one day, all of that confidence evaporated. As a young reporter, I covered the 1985 crash of a Delta jet that killed 136 passengers and crew. Flight 191 smashed into pieces while it tried to land at the Dallas-Forth Worth airport amid an unexpected microburst. I interviewed airline sources and crash survivors, as well as kept tabs on the flow of passengers’ families and friends at DFW as they sought information or initiated funeral arrangements. It was distressing, yes. But I did my job and thought I moved on.

Not long after, however, I started to dread flying. My paranoia would kick in at the boarding gate and escalate after I took my seat. I would sweat, fidget, and press an imaginary emergency brake with my leg every time the aircraft tilted. Turbulence? Don’t ask. After years of panic and anxiety attacks, my doctor prescribed Xanax. It calmed my mind — sometimes I’d even nap during liftoff — and made air travel bearable.

Until, that is, I started working for former Governor Pat Quinn. As his communications director, I would occasionally travel on the state’s small, twin-propeller plane from Midway to Springfield and back. During the 45-minute flights, the governor and staff would discuss policies, scheduling, and other matters. We were expected to be engaged — meaning no Xanax.

So I developed this ritual: I thought about the two pilots and eight passengers aboard and rationalized that was a pretty good ratio. In the air, I’d peer down at Illinois’ open fields and tell myself this small plane could glide to a safe landing if the engines cut out. I took comfort knowing these were short flights because that meant less time for something to go blooey.

Yes, it’s nutty. But who cares? After so many years of dealing with airplane anxiety, I’m all for flying in the face of reality.