A single treatment

“Researchers have discovered a single treatment that improves memory, increases people's ability to concentrate, strengthens the immune system and decreases people's risk of being killed in accidents. Sound too be good to be true? It gets even better. The treatment is completely free and has no side effects. Finally, most people consider the treatment highly enjoyable. Would you try it?”

So begins an APA (American Psychological Association) “Research in Action” article that encourages each of us to get 8 or more hours of sleep each night. With longer daylight and possibly more summer play time, this month’s wellness email gives a gentle encouragement to still also make sleep a priority.

"A well-spent day brings happy sleep." -Leonardo da Vinci

Maybe try this --

Sleep an extra hour

“An extra hour of sleep can do more for a person’s daily happiness than a 200% increase in household income (Science).”

That rather remarkable statement is made in a Mindful article, and though they reference the journal Science I’m not finding the research, so can’t substantiate the claim.

Still consider also these substantiated detriments of an hour less of sleep per night:

- From a University of Surrey sleep study reported on here: “What they discovered is that when the volunteers cut back from seven-and-a-half to six-and-a-half hours' sleep a night, genes that are associated with processes like inflammation, immune response and response to stress became more active. The team also saw increases in the activity of genes associated with diabetes and risk of cancer. The reverse happened when the volunteers added an hour of sleep."

"It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it." -John Steinbeck

- In a 2012 article published in the American Journal of Human Biology, UC biomedical anthropologist Kristen Knutson, PhD, reviewed research on sleep and cardiometabolic health and concluded that sleep restriction leads to "substantial and clinically significant changes in appetite regulation, hunger, food intake, glucose metabolism and blood pressure control."

"O bed! O bed! delicious bed! That heaven upon earth to the weary head."

-Thomas Hood, Miss Kilmansegg - Her Dream

- In a 2012 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, a team of UC researchers uncovered a molecular clue to how lack of sleep might promote diabetes: Fat cells in people who don't get enough sleep have a 30 percent reduced ability to respond to insulin.

“Of all the things a man may do, sleep probably contributes most to keeping him sane. It puts brackets about each day. If you do something foolish or painful today, you get irritated if somebody mentions it, today. If it happened yesterday, though, you can nod or chuckle, as the case may be. You've crossed through nothingness or dream to another island in Time.”

― Roger Zelazny, Isle of the Dead

Yes I’ve talked about sleep before. Yes, I’m here again lauding the benefits of sleep. Maybe it’s because it seems like a rather easy and attainable to-do for feeling well and bettering overall health, and we can all use a reminder?

Many of us need an extra 60-90 minutes sleep per night. PLUS more sleep would decrease some of our home stress moments. For fun I’m throwing in this rather interesting bit of research – about more stress at home than at work, and about levels of happiness (different for men and women: can you guess whether it’s men or women who are happier at home?) – you can make of it what you will.

"I love sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?"

-Ernest Hemingway

[Research offers information rather than determination: let's do recall that we can find good in all our moments, at home or work or anywhere, and that happiness can, in large measure, be chosen.]

Before reading on, I’ll close with a wish for you to make the most of the day, and to sleep long and well at night. May wellness and goodness always be with you,

Dee

"And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created."  -D.H. Lawrence

“I lie down and sleep; I wake again, for the Lord sustains me.”

– Psalm 3:5

Be aware of stress/happiness levels at work or home

"Researchers from Pennsylvania State University tested the cortisol levels of 122 workers during the workday and on weekends. Using saliva samples, they found that levels of cortisol – which is a biological marker for stress – were on the whole much lower when the person was at work than when he or she went home.

The researchers also asked men and women about their levels of happiness at work and at home. While men over all reported being happier at home than at work, women were happier at work than at home. Women also reported higher levels of happiness at work than did the men in the study, which will be published soon in the journal Social Science & Medicine. The study was released in May 2014 by the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit group that focuses on work and family issues.

Sarah Damaske, an assistant professor of labor and employment relations at Penn State and the study’s lead author, speculates, “I think it suggests that there is something about work that is good for you. Being in the moment, focusing on a task, completing that task, socializing with your co-workers — all of these are beneficial and that’s part of what’s lowering your stress level.’’

"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."

-William Shakespeare, Macbeth

“It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved.” – Psalm 127:2