Sleep more, get smarter
Today, Reuters published an article, “Lack of sleep may be deadly, research shows”.
Clearly lack of sleep leads to grumpiness. You must have had a bad night or two in your time? The French call a night where you can’t get to sleep a white night.
Getting enough sleep is important if you are going to adopt the slow lifestyle. A UK member of the International Institute of Not Doing Much (IINDM) who writes The Art of Tea has been struggling with how to arrange his life so he can stay longer in bed.
William Demnet, in his book, The Promise of Sleep, cited a study where Harvard graduates did better by sleeping more and studying less.
This makes a lot of sense to me. The mind needs time to process, to incubate input. But the fast-paced, rushed lifestyle thinks of sleep as an impediment. I blame the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison for this sort of ‘always on’ mentality.
I’ve been reading, How to be Idle, by Tom Hogkinson. He makes a compelling argument for staying in bed longer in the morning. In fact, I’ve been trying it out and I recommend it, too.
If you’re the sort of person that goes in for creativity, then allowing yourself to be in that early-morning hypnagogic state or even lucid dreaming will only help you listen to your muse.
Of course, if you’re cosmetically challenged, then remember what Sophia Loren said about sleep being a natural beauty treatment. Sleep more, get smarter.