What if only 50% of people were successful at driving?

When you first learned to drive, there was a lot to take in.  You have to work the controls of the car with your hands and your feet.  You need to quickly read signs and anticipate turns and traffic lights.  You make adjustments to the mirrors, the seats, the wheel, and the center console.  And you were independently operating a vehicle at speeds many times faster than you ever went on your bike.  There is an element of danger and risk.  And even though you probably felt scared and overwhelmed at times, you did not give up.  Why?  

You had lots of evidence that you could learn to drive- look at all the people around you who did it.  And you wanted to learn to drive- the benefits were clear, not the least of which was autonomy.  So you practiced and kept at it until you were successful.  You may have gone slow at first, but you were moving forward.

But what if your 16-year-old self learned on the first day of Driver’s Ed that only 50% of those attempting to drive would be successful in actually qualifying for a drivers’ license?  Would you have thought twice about continuing as you went through the weeks of training?  If you had a few negative experiences or close calls, your brain probably would have looked for evidence that driving wasn’t for you.  You may have had thoughts like:  “Well, I’ve never really had great depth perception.”  “I’m not good at multitasking.”  “I just can’t get all the mirrors right.”  “It’s too hard to think about where to turn while I’m trying to keep track of all the other cars around me.”  And “It’s just too fast!  I can’t handle it.” 

You may have heard the statistic that about half of all CPAP users are ultimately successful at using the treatment long term.  While you can’t un-know that statistic, I want you to recognize how toxic it could be in your own journey with CPAP treatment.  Learning to “drive” a CPAP machine takes time.  It takes patience, practice, and troubleshooting.  It may take weeks to months.  But if you want to do it, you can.  Your mind needs to do two things:  1) find evidence that you can succeed and 2) remember that the benefits are clear.

Now that you are an experienced driver, consider how automatic the behavior is.  You probably don’t even have a conscious thought about putting on your seatbelt.  Not only can you drive your own car, you can drive someone else’s or a rental.  You can drive in places you’ve never been before while carrying on a conversation, listening for the directions, and operating the infotainment system.  The same can be true for CPAP once you are fully acclimated to sleeping with it.  And, similar to “sit back and enjoy the ride”, you can “lie down and enjoy the slide” into healthy sleep.