A (wait for it) sleeping aid...............

 

...........................................that never fails.

A virtuous cycle....................

 

Regular meditation will support better sleep. Better sleep will allow deeper and more profound meditation.

-Nicholas Bate

Although, more sleep would be pretty good.......

 No, we don’t need more sleep. It’s our souls that are tired, not our bodies. We need nature. We need magic. We need adventure. We need freedom. We need truth. We need stillness. We don’t need more sleep, we need to wake up and live.

-Brooke Hampton

Ah............................

 If you can't tell what you desperately need, it's probably sleep.

-Kevin Kelly, Excellent Advice for Living

The doctor says.....................

.................give yourself a break: 

Here’s a tip for anyone wanting to become a machine of relentless focus: stop trying to become a machine of relentless focus. Despite the officially sanctioned fairy tales, you can’t. Your brain does not work like that. Nice theory — wrong species.

-From this post by Eric Barker

On the bright side....................

via

Never heard this one before..............

Consider what life would have been like for a farmer in New England in 1700.  In the winter months the sun goes down at five, followed by fifteen hours of darkness before it gets light again.  And when that sun goes down, it's pitch black:  there are no streetlights, flashlights, light bulbs, fluorescents—even kerosene lamps haven't been invented yet.  There's just a flickering glow of a fireplace, and the smoky burn of the tallow candle.
     Those nights were so oppressive that scientists now believe our sleep patterns were radically different in the ages before ubiquitous night lighting.  In 2001, the historian Roger Ekirch published a remarkable study that drew upon hundreds of diaries and instructional manuals to convincingly argue that humans had historically divided their long nights into two distinct sleep periods.  When darkness fell, they would drift into "first sleep," waking after four hours to snack, relieve themselves, have sex, or chat by the fire, before heading back for another four hours of "second sleep."  The lighting of the nineteenth century disrupted this ancient rhythm, by opening up a whole array of modern activities that could be performed after sunset:  everything from theaters and restaurants to factory labor.  Ekrich documented the way the ideal of a single, eight-hour block of sleep was constructed by nineteenth century customs, an adaptation to a dramatic change int he lighting environment of human settlements.  Like all adaptations, its benefits carried inevitable costs: the middle-of-the-night insomnia that plagues millions of people around the world is not, technically speaking, a disorder, but rather the body's natural sleep rhythms asserting themselves over prescriptions of nineteenth century convention.  Those waking moments at three a. m. are a kind of jet lag caused by artificial light instead of air travel.

-Steven Johnson,  How We Got to Now:  Six Innovations That Made the Modern World

Seeking............................

............................................................................immortality.

True for non-investors as well.................

“Investors should always keep in mind that the most important metric is not the returns achieved but the returns weighed against the risks incurred. Ultimately, nothing should be more important to investors than the ability to sleep soundly at night.” 

-Seth Klarman

Remember...................

"The human brain is like any muscle in the body — it can get fatigued and can’t always operate at full speed. Willpower can be fleeting once decision fatigue sets in."

-Ben Carlson, as culled from here

(A refresher course on sleep may be found here.)

Just following instructions................

Truly dangerous.............................

“What the hell time is it?" muttered the old man. He was always an aggressive sleeper. Sleep was one of the things he did best, and he loved it. Some look upon sleep as an unfortunate necessary interruption of life; but there are others who hold that sleep is life, or at least one of the more fulfilling aspects of it, like eating or sex. Any time my old man's sleep was interrupted, he became truly dangerous.” 
-Jean Shepherd, Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories: And Other Disasters

Aspirational..................

      "To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face, to great the day with reverence, for the opportunities it contains;  to approach my work with a clean mind;  to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the Ultimate Purpose toward which I am working;  to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart;  to be gentle, kind and courteous through all hours;  to appreciate the night with weariness that ever woes sleep and the joy that comes from work well done - this is how I desire to waste wisely my days."  

-Thomas Dreier

Trying to decide......................

......if I should stay up reading all night, or just go to bed:

This used to happen....................

.............................................a lot more than it happens now.  Not sure what has changed:  me or the books?  Actually, I'm pretty sure.

Last night was poker night.......................

On sleeping on it.......................

"As my father told me back when I was first learning about handling money, 'Any decision about money that you can’t sleep on — or haven’t slept on — is one that you’re not ready to make.' ”
-Chuck Jaffe

Are you ready for more..............................

...............................................politicization of science?

thanks craig

On sleep deprivation.....................

Not getting enough sleep?   Here is the abstract of a study from the Department of Behavioral Biology, Division of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research suggesting you may want to rethink that:

Relative to baseline, sleep deprivation was associated with lower scores on Total EQ (decreased global emotional intelligence),  Intrapersonal functioning (reduced self-regard, assertiveness, sense of independence, and self-actualization),  Interpersonal functioning (reduced empathy toward others and quality of interpersonal relationships),  Stress Management skills (reduced impulse control and difficulty with delay of gratification), and Behavioral Coping (reduced positive thinking and action orientation). 

Esoteric Thinking (greater reliance on formal superstitions and magical thinking processes) was increased.

Magical thinking.   Hmm, maybe I'll stay up all night blogging.

All night..........................................

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” 
-14th Dalai Lama