Rule #7 Sleep well, think well.

When I read this chapter I kept going to my husband to say see I told you so. This chapter was vindication for how I work. Back in our grad school days, my husband and I took the same classes. We wrote the same papers but we did it in different ways. I slept, while he struggled over note cards. This does not mean that I did not take notes, nor have a ton of index cards on my desk, I did. But I used to look over my notes, outline, re-read the expectations, then take a nap. I use to tell him I wrote my papers in my sleep. When I awoke I started writing and it just flowed. I would still refer to notes for details and references but the main body of the paper was there in my head. I appreciated the story about Mendeleyev (pg 161) I used to share that with my students it was one of those ‘told you so’ moments. The expression ‘sleep on it’ has some merit.

I want my daughter and every teenager to read this chapter. She gets her work done and had good grades, but lives life in the sleep deprived stupor that many teens experience. I know her learning, progress, and general mood would be so much more improved if she just slept. Sleep helps the brain to process information, it is working while we sleep. We are just giving the time to work with all the input of the day, before we give it anymore to deal with. We process, think, learn and store information while we sleep. It is not a waste of time, as we are often told.

The following are some excerpts that caught my attention.

“It goes by many names – the midday yawn, the post-lunch dip, the afternoon “sleepies.” We’ll just call it the nap zone, a period of time when we experience transient sleepiness.”

“…a long sleep at night and a short nap during the midday represent a human sleep behavior at its most natural.” (pg159)

The NASA study (pg 160) that is shared is very powerful. A 26 min nap improved performance by 34 % and a 45 min nap improved cognitive performance for more then 6 hrs.

In another experiment “one night’s loss of sleep resulted in about a 30 percent loss of cognitive skill.” (pg 162)

My take a ways from this chapter – sleep. Sleep each night, nap when you can. Listen to your body and realize sleep is as necessary as good nutrient and exercise. It should not be missed or short changed.