Snooze Or You'll Lose

One of the most maddening facts of life is that we rarely take advantage of opportunities even when they are shoved right into our face.

It's kind of like the movie cliche of the guy who has his sights on the bad (or good) guy and doesn't pull the trigger when they have the chance. It's one of the most cliched scenes in cinema. That's the best way for the serial killer in the woods to keep coming back for more sequels. You don't nail him in the head with a shovel when you have the chance. Oh well.

How about rarely sleeping in when you have the golden opportunity to rest? Anyone with kids knows that it's easier to wake the dead than to get a child up for school on most days. And yet they always seem to be up at the crack of dawn on weekends and vacations when they COULD be sleeping.

I think we are all guilty of this. Most of us shrug it off and figure we will just "catch up" on sleep at some "later" point, like the weekend.

But new research is finding that for some people, it may be too late to catch up on precious sleep.

Those with chronic sleep deprivation may, in fact, damage their ability to do this. Research out of Northwestern University looked at rats and found that those that were chronically sleep deprived didn't catch up on sleep even when given the chance to sleep more hours.

So whether it's the baby keeping you awake or the workload you keep bringing home night after night, try to get as much sleep as possible.

I need to do the same. But...yawn...it's just so hard.

I am just fine with 5 hours a night tops. Really. Do I look like I'm not OK?

Don't answer that.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.