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Finding More Time

Posted by Alex Lickerman Print Print Email Email to a friend

Photo: jinterwas

Could any commodity be more precious than time?  Is there anything any of us want more—or more of—that at the same time seems to be more beyond our control to increase?  Who among us wouldn’t strike the most Faustian of bargains for an extra year of life?  Or an extra decade?

We certainly can all adapt habits that have been shown to increase the likelihood of our living longer:  moderate our alcohol intake, avoid smoking, exercise, and so on.  But such measures won’t give us what we really want:  an increase in the amount of time we have each day. Continue reading…


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The Critical Importance Of Sleep

Posted by Alex Lickerman Print Print Email Email to a friend

sleepMost people who come to see me complaining of fatigue are worried something is wrong with them physically but turn out only to be sleep deprived.  Sleep seems to be something we all wish we did more, making us for the most part a chronically and persistently sleep-deprived society.  Though studies suggest large differences exist in how much sleep different people need to function normally, the range varying from less than 6 to more than 9 hours, and that short sleepers and long sleepers run in families (suggesting a genetic component for people operating on the extremes of the sleep curve), other studies suggest as many as 33% of us don’t get enough sleep to satisfy our basal sleep need (the amount of sleep needed on a nightly basis to perform optimally). Continue reading…


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