Is it true that sleeping more than eight hours a night hastens your demise? People certainly think so. Several years ago a national TV news reporter asked me if it was true, because after working shifts “I go home and sleep for ten or more hours, will that shorten my life?” A recent article in Journal of […]
Recovering Lost Sleep
The American Sleep Disorders Association recommends American adults get seven or more hours of sleep each night. Many don’t. Between work, children, cellphones, aging parents, more work, illness and overall stress, lots of folks get a whole lot less sleep than they want. They need sleep recovery. So they sleep in over the weekends, or […]
It’s About Time
Timed Lives Time rules life, and body clocks direct and define much of yours. Twenty-four hour (circadian) clocks continue to be implicated in most aspects of human health, joy, and performance. A recent British study out of the UK Biobank of 91000 people recently refocused attention on how disruptions in body clocks play out in depression and […]
Night People in the Day World
What Happens When Biology Opposes Society Are you a night person (owl) or morning person (lark)? You may not be sure. The majority of people fall in-between, sometimes called sparrows or hummingbirds. But if you’re a true night person, beware. It’s not easy working in the Lark Work World. For owls, every work day can feel like […]
You Want to Live Long?
Unpopular Health Imagine a magic elixir that’s free and grants much longer life (12 years for men, 14 years for women.) Despite benefits radically dwarfing the advantages of all health care, the elixir is almost universally spurned. For to receive this magic elixir individuals must put up with what are commonly regarded as unacceptable intrusions: they must […]