“There is more information in one Sunday edition of a big city newspaper than the average person took in during their entire life 200 years ago.”  Jonathan Wells

How many hours of sleep do you get each night on average?

Suddenly, a terrible storm came up, with waves breaking into the boat. But Jesus was sleeping.  (Matt. 8:24; NLT)

I was doing a little research to supplement our final wellness class today.  The topic is rest — the sixth (and final) key factor to wellness as outlined by our UNCOMMON Wellness Coaching ebook.  I found a couple of blog posts which had some fascinating and little known facts about sleep.  I’ve included both posts as Links of the Day, but what follows is a gleaning of some of the more interesting facts from the two posts.

During sleep our brain is, in fact, extraordinarily active. As it turns out, much of that activity helps the brain to learn and remember.  There is a consolidation process that brain goes through while we are asleep that helps us restore what was forgotten during the day.  During sleep, the brain selectively preserves certain emotionally charged memories and discards others.  Finally, the brain replays the events of the day allowing us to firmly establish the order of those events.  Makes me wonder if one can “program” their brain as to which memories to keep and which to discard?

After first learning a task or process, our performance of that task will almost always improve after sleep.  Maybe the brain is practicing?  This finding leads some to speculate that we need an hour of sleep for every two hours of being awake.  How are you doing in this area?  Are you anywhere close to the 2 to 1 ratio?

Teenagers need more sleep than any other age group except babies, typically nine or more hours per night.  People who sleep eight hours score better on mental tests than people who sleep six.  Where were these statistics when I was going to college?  What also immediately pops into my mind when I see this information is the craziness of the residency programs most med students must survive.  (Or is it more accurate to say that most patients of med students must survive?)

Using an alarm clock to force yourself awake unnaturally is bad for you.  Now here’s a fact that I bet virtually everyone who reads this already knew.  We just didn’t have the scientific backing to prove our intuition.  Now we do.  So live out your fantasy and smash that bugger with a hammer.  But, you will have to train yourself to wake up naturally without it.  Fairly easy to do the blog asserts, so you’ll have to read the blog post for instruction on how.  BTW, not to brag, but we haven’t used an alarm clock for years.  Love it!!!

So, I encourage you to scan the two blog posts I’ve included.  There is a lot more fascinating information about sleep found within.  I just skimmed the “tree tops.”  And get some sleep!!!

Prayer Power
Father, help us realize that sleep is not a waste of time.  Help us dispel the lie that only lazy people sleep 7-8 hours a night.  Speak to our hearts about our personal sleep habits.

Links of the Day
What is Your Brain Doing While You Are Sleeping?
Sleep Your Way to Success

Blessings on you as you turn in early tonight as a first step toward getting enough sleep.

“The human brain is a wonderful organ. It starts to work as soon as you are born and doesn’t stop until you get up to deliver a speech.”  George Jessel

 What does wellness have to do with the brain?

Alcohol and prostitution have robbed my people of their brains.  (Hosea 4:11; NLT)

Those DG subscribers who have been with us for a while know that I really enjoy reading and writing about the amazing power of the human brain.  I think part of this is because the brain has been largely misunderstood and underestimated and is a lot like unexplored space in terms of how rapidly modern science is beginning to explore the inner workings.  It is truly one of the most amazing features of our body, and I’m sure we’re not even scratched the surface with our knowledge and new understanding.

All that aside, I’ve been focused on wellness for the last couple of months as Sharon, Randy, and I have labored to put together our UNCOMMON Wellness Coaching e-book.  In fact, some may be wondering if I have “wellness” on my brain?  Well, I confess that I probably have been pretty single minded of late.  Interestingly enough, I ran across a blog post by Jeff Nickles titled “20 Ways To Train Your Brain for Peak Performance.”  In his post (today’s link), Jeff offers a number of interesting ideas for keeping our brain “young,” a topic that is of great interest to me — for obvious reasons. 

I was struck by how many of the 20 ways that Jeff mentioned were congruent with the things we were stressing in our wellness book.  Here’s a short list of overlaps that I found:

• We have a chapter on exercise and Jeff’s way #5 points out that one study shows that physical activity increases the volume of the brain.  See you at the gym tomorrow?
• Another chapter in our book is on rest.  Jeff’s post offers way #4 suggesting that things are clearer and brighter after a good night’s sleep.
• A number of his other ways speak to stress issues that we address in our chapter on stress.  Jeff suggests meditation, positive thinking, reducing TV watching, reminiscing old memories,  et al. as ways to reduce stress and thereby train your brain for peak performance.
• One of his ways even overlaps with our chapter on nutrition as he points out that protein rather than carbohydrates is the better way to feed your brain.

So, it almost looks like we could adopt a subtitle for our book…something like UNCOMMON Wellness Coaching to Train Your Brain for Peak Performance.  Thanks for the idea, Jeff.

Prayer Power
Father, we continue to marvel at Your incredible design for the human body.  Grant us the grace and understanding of how to properly care for such an amazing machine.

Link of the Day
20 Ways To Train Your Brain for Peak Performance

Blessings on you as you outline a regimen of brain training this weekend.