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Have you ever let your day be ruined by cruddy weather? Or felt higher than a kite because of an 85 degree perfect day? Or perhaps lament after listening to the weather forecast?

The most amazing thing about the weather is that you have absolutely no control over it. You do however control how you respond to it. You have the choice at any given moment to deal with the weather, no matter what it is, in a negative or more positive way. You have the choice to go outside and be a part of life no matter the weather outside (okay, severe, dangerous storms are an exception.) Or, you choose to remain indoors begrudging the seasonal process and the locale in which you live.

I mean, why even complain about the weather? You have no control over it. And complaining does nothing but make you feel cruddy while, more importantly, bringing everyone else around you down. Talk about something else! You indeed can bring down others or be brought down by others due to the weather forecast when you focus on it. But why? Do you really truly want to have a cruddy day? No.

Now on paper you know which choice you would rather make: You would always choose a good, positive and happy day rather than a cruddy one! But how do you do that?

Stop Talking About the Weather
No matter where you live the weather is a topic of conversation, in warm or cold climates, it does not matter, the weather is discussed and discussed daily. And weather is relative, even those in warm climates live more like it is winter in wintertime for indeed the sun does set earlier and the days do feel colder to them. They become less accustomed to even minor variations in the weather. While they do not contend with snow nor heavy coats and the need for mittens and the like, they still feel it to be winter.

So train yourself to steer clear of weather discussions if those discussions are going to fuel negative thinking. On a bright and beautiful day, certainly remark how glorious it is, but otherwise train yourself to keep quiet. Change the discussion topic. Ask about something else, such as a new recipe to make, how the Saints are faring, which way the whales migrate. Anything but the weather!

Put a Pencil In It!
In between your teeth that is. Force yourself to smile! Since Darwin first identified notions of 'facial feedback', a small collective of emotion researchers and positive psychologists have known for years that feigning a smile can make one feel better, more positive in a matter of several minutes. So keep a pencil tucked behind your ear, on your dashboard, next to your kitchen sponges. Practice putting a pencil in between your teeth, much as a romantic might a rose, and keep your lips up and off the pencil. It works! And yes, you will feel silly, that is partly the point. But remembering this when the weather is gray and winter is long is going to help you reframe the weather and to stop giving it so much weight!

Whoopee!
Now not that kind of whoopee! Though that will work too to get your mind off the weather. But what I mean is find a way to laugh every day. And I mean silly laugh! Ridiculous laughing. Go buy a whoopee cushion and remember what it was like to be 8. Good humor is vastly important, it is attractive in others and people find it attractive within us when we show it.

When we find a connection with others we seem distracted by the weather outside. Now while whoopee farting will always make me laugh, it may not be your flavor (my brother just rolls his eyes!). But you have something silly so go find it! Use it!

Live for Today
Do you really have any other choice? We get sick if we don't. If we don't, we bring others down. We fail to smile at our kids. We get cranky with our co-workers. We rue the dreary, cold, snowy weather.

Many of you may know who Steven Covey is. He once said: "Between stimulus and response, one has the freedom to choose." So between stimulus (another bad weather day) and response (Oh, gosh, why? Why do I live here? This is horrible!) is the freedom to choose. You do not have to make the choice of others and be brought down by the weather. You can choose to maintain a constancy of style and thinking that remain truly independent of the weather and your community's response to it.

How do I know? Because I speak from experience. I grew up on the beaches of southern California and never even saw snow until I was 26,. Yet, I had my children in the Midwestern United States and, by gawd, I now live in Russia! But I choose to remain light and positive in spirit. So, people frequently remark that I bring light into their gray days. I refuse to talk about the weather because it is irrelevant. It is just weather (frozen water due to a tilting away from the sun). You cannot control it, so why let it control you? I can honestly say I have trained myself to not let it impact me. Sure I dress accordingly and am mindful of powerful storms, but I don't let it dictate my mood.

I use a pencil in between my teeth to feign a smile when I have to. I exercise outdoors despite it. And currently I have a whoopee cushion under my knee because it is snowing and it is not yet November! I choose to be positive and in a great mood today! I hope you find a way, like me to not be as variable as the weather!

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NOTE! This article is not intended for people with potential or diagnosed sleep disorders or persons with clinical depression. This is an article intended for a typical person who does not get enough sleep and is looking for new ways to understand sleep and how to get more sleep.

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Introduction

A friend of mine remarked the other day how tired she has been. I mean, she was truly tired, worn out, dissatisfied with things and a bit stressed out at the end of each day and not feeling much better by morning. She started to imagine because she is getting older perhaps there was 'something wrong' - thinking maybe she had a thyroid issue or perhaps her iron was low.

She made an appointment with her physician who said he could take all the requisite blood work to find out if 'something is wrong.' But he said he had one qualification before he proceeded: "Tell me what your schedule is like." So she goes on, not ever having made the connection herself, to tell him what her days are like. He got stuck on what he took away from her commentary: "I go to bed at midnight and get up at 6 am." "Ding!" he must have thought. She is exhausted, not feeling great, thinking something is wrong medically, but she's getting only six hours of sleep night after night. So he tells her he'd be happy to oblige with the medical tests if, and only if, she does not feel better after a month of going to bed at 10 and getting up at 6.

My friend honestly had never made the connection to how she was feeling while getting only six hours of sleep a night. She admits to knowing 'we need eight' but figured 'I was different,' and 'that rule does not apply to me' but, lo and behold, she learned that indeed it does. And the rule applies to you too! Personally, though, that realization makes me smile. I know that feeling better is just two short weeks away (if not a matter of days) if you read this and take it all in as though I were your professional advisor.

Part I ― Put Sleep at the Top of Your To-Do List

How many of you want to feel better, happier, healthier and stronger each day? Of course, we all do! Ask yourself:
• Do you want to be a calmer, more patient parent?
• Would you prefer to be a more loving, less irksome spouse or partner?
• Are you lacking motivation to stick to a workout routine or your studies?
• Do you desire more creativity and fluidity in your thinking?
• Or perhaps, you simply notice that you catch too many colds or are a bit too worn out or run down day after day and you just want to feel better.

Well, maybe what you need is more sleep!

This is an essay about the relationship between sleep quality and overall feelings of well-being. We all know we need sleep. We all know that when we do not get enough sleep we do not function as well. Yet, most of us do not get the 'optimal' amount of sleep. In fact, you may miss out on a good night's sleep just once or twice a week and think it's not having a detrimental effect. But I'm sorry to have to report: It does! And in ways you may not fully appreciate.

So, my primary goal for you in reading this article is that you'll learn to become more mindful of how lack of enough sleep truly alters how you think, feel and relate in all aspects of your world. Your inner mental life, your emotional outer life and your overall well-being are impacted by your sleep quality. Everything is easier when you are well slept and everything is harder when you are poorly slept. Certainly you may generally be aware of this, but actually many of us are not mindful of it on a daily basis. The same reality is true for your children, your spouse and all those others around you: Everything is easier when we are well slept and everything is harder when we are poorly slept.

The doings of sleep

Did you know that a good night's sleep cures a lot of ills? Well, it does! We spend a third of our lives asleep yet most of us know little about the doings of sleep. In infancy, childhood, and adolescence sleep is the time for physical growth and brain maturation. Sleep works to keep our bodies healthy by reducing inflammation and cancer risk, alleviating emotional stress, maintaining daily alertness and bolstering memory, providing greater physical energy and better daily moods, reducing accident rates and much more. With better sleep we become better partners and parents, workers and learners. Our moods are more positive, our thinking less muddled, our humor intact, and our behavior is more tolerable when we maintain daily good sleep quality.

Lack of sleep, on the other hand (even just one hour short a night on many nights), kicks off an ancient stress response. The body triggers an inner biological alarm that essentially reports, "There must be something wrong! Danger lurks!" We know when our ancestors did not get enough sleep it was because something was terribly wrong in their immediate environment. This ancient stress response was an adaptive process. It gave them the clarity, physical energy, and motivation to stay alive in times of threat and turmoil. Yet, while it was very useful and advantageous, it was an arousing process, one flooding the body with stress hormones. Unfortunately back then, just like now, if stress hormone overload happened too often the body started to break down.

But for most of us today, nothing is that dramatically wrong. We just cannot seem to fall or stay asleep! Our alarm clocks wake us before we are ready. Our children pitter-patter in at odd times during the night. We have so much work to do. Sleep is not at the top of our to-do list. And yet we are still functioning with a brain that needs sleep more than it needs food or water. We are still functioning with a brain that, when it misses out on sleep, an inner alarm is triggered announcing, "There must be something wrong! Danger lurks!"

Think about it. Lack of sleep translates into something going biologically wrong. The body becomes stressed. Stress, in turn, produces certain thought and emotional consequences. When we are poorly slept it becomes inordinately hard to listen well to others and to accept what they have to say. It's difficult to find calm and succinct ways of putting our own thoughts and feelings into words. It's nearly impossible to be amicable and remain patient when we are tired! Consequences indeed. And I have not even touched on the issues of motivation, desire to work and staying engaged in critical activities. Imagine! Even just one hour less of sleep per day, day-in and day-out, can have this kind of harmful impact on your daily life!

Working and active couples have busy lives and that cuts into sleep. Typically, they have children and that cuts into sleep. And, lack of sleep promotes less good sleep. When this overarching lack of sleep begins to promote daily irritable moods and negative thinking states, you then begin to pick on each other. You become more rigid and less forgiving. Your love erodes slowly over time. Why? Because of a lack of sleep!

Teenagers have many struggles, don't they? I firmly believe a good many of their issues intensify because they do not get nearly enough sleep! They have a sense of not fitting in. They fall prey to social pressures. They medicate with drugs and alcohol. They suffer from worry, anxiety, depression and lack of motivation to get work done promptly so they decide to stay up late to get it done. (You can read about my ideas on how today's technology such as Facebook contributes to this process.)

I believe most of us get less than 'optimal' sleep; and, that condition is a causal factor in many relationship problems.

Adequate sleep is essential

So are you thinking about sleep loss a bit differently now? There's more. When we lose sleep the stress response sets in and another negative cycle ensues: lack of sleep promotes poor sleep quality! As a result, our bodies are even more stressed during the day. Yet, we don't really appreciate that reality because we feel we can get up and easily conduct our daily lives with just 6 or 7 hours of sleep. People do it all the time, right? But, there's a big problem. Our body and brain need at least 8 hours of sleep! Less than that won't work because of the balance within our sleep cycles of two pressing brain needs: rejuvenation and understanding. It is during very deep sleep that our bodies and brain become rested and rejuvenated for the next day's events. And just as important, it is during the dream state that our brain comes to understand the previous day's events. Rejuvenation and understanding: We need both! We cannot function at our true, optimal level emotionally or mentally without adequate sleep. I write much more about this in Parts II and III.

You should want to put sleep at the top of your To-Do list every single day. Remember to keep mindful of the fact that even a little less than 'optimal' sleep does indeed alter your daily mood and thinking states. Without adequate sleep you are not going to be quite as positive as you could be or you should be. Yes, sleep is that important. Maybe what YOU need is more sleep!

Part II ― Sleep Myths, Sleep Cycles and a Couple of Sleep Tips

You cannot go a day without sleep

You cannot go a day without sleep. It's as simple as that. Unlike water and food which you can do without for about three days and three weeks respectively, you cannot go twenty-four hours without sleep! Your brain will fall asleep every single day whether you like it or not. Ultimately you have no control over the point at which you enter sleep. It happens to you automatically. Except in extreme circumstances and with the aid of stimulant drugs, you cannot keep yourself awake when your brain decides it's time to go to sleep. When you need to sleep you do, even for just a few seconds at a time. This is why people, even professional truck drivers, occasionally fall asleep while rolling down the road at 65 miles per hour!

Myth: Sleep is an all out snooze fest for the brain. Fact: No. Sleep is a critically important process that the body and brain need to occur naturally every single day.

Adults need 8 to 8½ hours of sleep a night. Sure, you can survive day in and day out on 6 or 7 hours of sleep. But you will not function at an optimal, intelligent, physically healthy and emotionally-well level. Sorry, I know it's disappointing, but it's true. There are virtually no exceptions. Adolescents need at least 9 to 9½ hours of sleep a night. Children need even higher averages than that (elementary school age kids generally need 10 to 10½ hours) with the greatest needs for sleep in infancy (upwards of 16-20 hours of sleep a day needed).

Your children can get up day after day with less sleep than 10 to 10½ hours. You just need to know that they will not be as cooperative, stable, alert, understanding or happy as they should.

Myth: "I am one of those who needs less sleep." Some people can function just fine on less than 8 hours of sleep per night. Fact: No. Sorry, but it just ain't true. Your body actually keeps an internal 'sleep log' of anything less than what is needed biologically; and, your biological need for sleep is the same as all other human beings.

When you get less than 8+ hours of sleep, your body keeps track. When you go night after night with less than 8+ hours of sleep, your body develops a internal 'sleep debt' that it holds onto for about two weeks. The need for sleep is constant and unvarying. You know you cannot go much more than three days without water, right? We all understand that, without water, a human will become so dehydrated he or she will become delirious and die. We also know that he or she can go a few days and function before death. But is that poor soul functioning optimally and happily in those few days? Of course not.

Our requirement for water is biological. Sleep is no different! Your brain will not let you go more than 24 hours without putting you to sleep! It's biological! You might think you can 'function just fine' on less sleep, but there will be both short-term and long-term consequences. You cannot get off scot-free when you lack sleep.

Sleep Tip: One of the great paradoxes about sleep is that sleep begets sleep!
When we are worn out we often have a hard time falling asleep or staying asleep for a good solid 8 to 8½ hours. This is why some of you may be arguing with me right now: "But I cannot sleep 8 hours!" The reason for this is that the lack of sleep you have been getting continues to fuel an inability to sleep a full 8 hours. And, this lack of sleep continues to fuel the stress response which is keeping the body in 'alarm mode.' In essence, much of your daily functioning is colored by that alarm system going off outside your conscious awareness.

Myth: People need less sleep as they grow older. Fact: No. Once passed adolescence, young and old adults alike need 8 to 8½ hours of sleep a night, never less. Keep in mind that the human brain is not fully 'adult' until about age 25.

As a consequence for lack of adequate sleep, you may be testy and feeling irritable and stressed. You may look to find ways to explain your condition, but as with most people, you don't imagine the real cause: lack of 'optimal' sleep. A person may feel overwhelmed, stressed or poorly motivated and be searching for ways to explain the stress or lack of motivation but a lack of 'optimal' sleep almost never surfaces! We humans are quite good at coming up with explanations for our unhappiness or poor moods, for our lack of motivation, or feelings of being overwhelmed... but we tend to not look directly in the mirror. Our sleep patterns are a reflective mirror of who we are and how we function each day.

The Sleep Cycles

Normal sleep cycles in humans follow 90-minute iterations. Each cycle is comprised of five stages. If you are well slept you go through five full cycles each night. If you are not well slept then you are truncating the last cycle (or perhaps even two!). Each cycle, while 90 minutes in length, has differing purposes as the night progresses. Here are the stages simplified:

• Stage 1 ― Very Light Sleep. You are still settling in after having turned off the light and decided 'it is time to sleep.' This stage is sometimes characterized by fantastic images resembling hallucinations, known as hypnagogic states. Not everyone remembers having them. But they are important signs of possible stress, significant learning, or sleep debt in those who do. Unless you have a nighttime awakening, you enter Stage 1 only at the beginning of your sleep time and then not again until morning. If all goes according to plan this will take 20 minutes. If you hit the pillow and are completely 'zonked' or it takes you more than 30 minutes, this is a sign of a problem. Children can fall asleep faster. In fact, if it takes longer it is generally a sign of being overtired not actually un-tired!

• Stage 2 ― Light Sleep. In this stage, your brain is slowing down but you can be easily woken and your muscles are not yet fully relaxed. You are asleep.

• Stage 3 ― A relatively quick Transition from Light Sleep to Deep Sleep. Primarily what is happening is that your muscles are showing more relaxation, you do not move at all, you are harder to awaken and your brain is slowing down its activity even further.

• Stage 4 ― Deep Sleep. Your brain is at its true resting state, about 75% its daily activity level. It is incredibly difficult to wake you now. You will be very confused if you are. If for some reason you awaken during this stage, you will feel as though your body is paralyzed. It is during this stage that your brain is rejuvenated for the next day's activities.

You now move back up through to Stage 3 and then Stage 2 sleep to enter:

• Stage 5 ― REM (Rapid Eye Movement) Sleep. Your brain becomes very active yet your muscles are so relaxed you do not move. You are now dreaming. You have five dream cycles a night. You will remember them only if you wake up immediately during or after that time. Some of us (about 20%) are lucid dreamers (we can become aware of our dreams while dreaming.) And, 8 out of 10 dreams are negative in nature (struggling, fighting, forgetting something and so forth). The end of your 8-hour slumber culminates with a dream cycle. So, if you wake yourself up before that 8-hour time you are depriving yourself of that final dream set.

The nighttime sleep cycle in normal adults looks like this:

The amount of time each stage comprises the 90 minute cycle changes as the night progresses, with periods of Stage 4 deep, recuperative sleep progressively shortening and periods of Stage 5 REM/dream sleep lengthening. It is the deep Stage 4 sleep that gives you the refreshed feeling in the morning (if you get it that is!) and the Stage 5 dream sleep that your brain so desperately needs for the reasons I'll discuss later in this essay!

Remember that ideal sleep which produces the greatest daytime benefits follows the balance between deep sleep and dreaming sleep. You need both! But we now know that dreaming is of primary importance to the brain's ability to remain alert, focused, and vigilant during the day and what allows us to learn from our experiences.

During times of emotional stress or significant learning our brain spends more of the 90 minute sleep cycles in dream sleep. We also experience what is known as 'REM rebound' whereby when we are deprived of REM (dreaming) in one night, on the next night our brains make up that time by drawing from Stage 4 (Deep Sleep). Your 90 minute cycles are still 90 minutes but more time is spent dreaming than in other stages of sleep, in particular deep sleep.

Sleep Tip: Keep in mind that you and everyone else needs two weeks of good sleep to reap the rewards!

Humans experience 24-hour cycles of varying alertness, body temperature, and growth hormone secretion. Our body temperature rises as morning approaches, peaks during the day, dips for a time in early afternoon, and then begins to drop again before we go to sleep. Light levels do impact alertness throughout the day. Humans who are still growing do their physical growth during sleep when growth hormone is secreted. The food eaten during the day is essentially transferred to cellular growth during the night sleep cycle. Children do not grow physically during waking hours -- deprive a baby or child of sleep, you deprive them of healthy physical growth.

If you are chronically depriving yourself of sleep then your brain has to make up its need for dreaming by depriving you then of deep slumber. When this happens each subsequent night's sleep is not ideal, even if you get 8+ hours of sleep. So this is why even after an 8-hour night you may not feel refreshed. Or why after an extra long sleep, say on the weekends, you do not necessarily feel wonderful but in fact a bit groggy. And that feeds your false belief that you do not need 8+ hours of sleep.

Myth: The Weekends are for Sleeping In! Fact: No. Many of us sleep in on the weekends hoping to compensate for lost weekday sleep. While sleeping late may help catch up on your sleep debt, it alters your sleep schedule. You sleep late one or two days and then wake up early again on Monday. Your body must adjust to these changes and most of us do not have bodies that adapt that quickly. The overall quality of your sleep is poor.

Adult insomnia

The single biggest contributor to adult insomnia is this deprivation cycle. Even though you are exhausted, you may have a hard time falling asleep. Why? Because of the vicious cycle of REM rebound (i.e. you get less Deep Sleep to make up for lack of REM) and thus poor Stage 4 Deep Sleep. Your body perceives this situation as a 'threat' and begins fueling you with the physiological mechanisms to 'fight or to flee' (known as 'the stress response').

Additionally, this deprivation cycle is what leads to fatigue and mental slowness, daily drowsiness and so on. This highlights just how important REM sleep is! Our brains have to dream! It is during the dream state in adulthood that our brains lay down the memories of the day's events, process new information, make sense of our worlds, help us to be prepared for negative and unexpected events and so forth. But it does this in fantastical ways!

Now is the time you may be asking, "What does last night's dream actually mean?" No one knows for sure but generally you take in some amount of information from your physical environment (say your bed sheet is tight around your ankle perhaps) and your brain makes a story with it (you dream you have suffered a sprained ankle) to help you prepare perhaps for something in your waking life (you are worried about the new exercise program you are not fully committed to). This is where the wonder of sleep and dreams reside.

When adults are well slept week after week they are 'wicked smart' and emotionally stable whereas a lack of sleep 'makes us dumb' and moody! Sadly most adults are chronically deprived of sleep so they do not know just how smart and happy they can be. If I could put you in a two-week sleep lab and promote fabulous sleep you would be immensely impressed with your mental ability and how grand your daily mood has become!

Children need an incredible amount of sleep

Myth: Children With a Sleep Deficit Will Be Tired. Fact: No! This myth could not be farther from the truth! While some children do show signs of obvious fatigue, many children can actually behave in very hyperactive ways. When not well slept, their bodies flood them with stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline (think of these as natural 'caffeine-ators'). While overly active, their emotions are also not well controlled: they tend to get angry easily and intensely and/or are more likely to dissolve into tears with slight frustration during the day. At night they have a hard time going to sleep or wake in the middle of the night or early the next day, and so you think they do not need as much sleep and just figure them to be 'difficult' or 'hyperactive.' And a vicious cycle ensues.

Children need an incredible amount of sleep. As adults we need to protect their sleep! It is during a full night's good sleep that their bodies grow and their brains store memories, lay down new skills in the form of those memories, and sort through which brain wiring they do and do not need! Only during sleep can their brains do that. Think of it this way, there is too much going on during the day otherwise.

In infancy and throughout childhood and adolescence the brain is still growing to the point of adult levels (reached at approximately age 25). It is during dreaming that the brain is making important connections among all the different brain regions. Dreaming facilitates brain maturation! We take in information during the day and it gets laid down in the form of cell (neural) connections at night. The brain needs time to shut down for a period of time each day (deep sleep) and then become active without your conscious interference (dreaming) so that it can maximize the trillions of connections among all the cells in all the different brain areas. How cool is that? But only during sleep does this happen!

Part III ― 'Blanket Statement' Critical Sleep Tips

Once again, while asleep your brain has the opportunity to a) process the previous day's events; b) make connections among brain cell; and, c) allow your body a chance to rejuvenate its cells.
Good sleep quality means you will feel more mentally alert. Your immune system benefits. Your emotions are more positive and any negative emotions are better under control. And, you have more physical energy for those tasks you deem important. You stop making problems where there are none!

What you can start doing today

So what can you start doing today? Well, that depends on you, your family structure you're your current routines. While many of these are very common sense, let's go through some 'blanket' statements, pun intended:

• Blanket 1 ― Never wake a sleeping baby. This you should pay attention to: Do not keep a baby awake during the day thinking he or she will sleep better at night. Lack of sleep stresses a baby's body and just like in older children (and even you), an internal alarm system gets rung and stress hormones get released which then serve to make nighttime sleep more difficult. Let a baby sleep! A lot! His or her brain will naturally, over time, establish a routine of daytime to nighttime alertness and sleep. It does take time.

• Blanket 2 ― Do your absolute best not to wake a sleeping child or teenager who has gone to bed at a reasonable hour. They are sleeping for a reason. During times of stress or significant learning they need more sleep - same is true during physical growth spurts (they are growing more, so need more sleep). Important note: this is for those who are going to sleep 'on time', not those who are staying up late. A child who honestly has gone to sleep well (not sick) and stayed asleep at night will at times need a bit of extra sleep for biological reasons. Whenever you absolutely can, let that happen.

• Blanket 3 ― If you must wake a sleeping child or teen, do it gently and slowly, trying to allow their brains to come up from sleep to wake easier. For instance, open curtains or use a 'dawn or sunrise light' that slowly brightens for thirty minutes before it is time to awaken. If you find you have to actually gently shake your child awake, try to look at their eyes first to see if they are moving back and forth rapidly. If so, try to wait a bit longer, let the dream state finish whenever you can. They are dreaming for a reason!

• Blanket 4 ― Limit all computer use and interactive games an hour before bedtime. These activities they are arousing in nature and will make the onset of slumber more difficult. Instead, establish evenings of reading or even television. Both are better than computer screens which really do keep the brain aroused. Regarding TV though, I have personally experienced with my kids, "But Mom I want to watch until the end of the show!" Been there too? Well, that does interfere with a natural progression toward drowsiness and sleep onset. More importantly, this really that means no My Spacing or Facebooking in the later evening before bedtime. That is, if you want good quality sleep.

• Blanket 5 ― By all means limit simple refined sugar and anything with hidden caffeine in the evenings. For instance, chocolate contains caffeine. Do you or your kids have after dinner treats with much in the way of chocolate? If so, you may want to rethink those.

• Blanket 6 ― Establish regular, reliable bedtimes. Re-establish this -- set a new precedent in your household. Set your family structure by bedtimes - count backwards from how many hours of sleep you know they need and at what hour they need to be up daily. Keep to that bedtime! So a 9-year-old needs a minimum of 10 hours. Putting him or her to bed at 8:00 pm with a bit of quiet reading allows him to fall asleep by say 8:45 or 9:00 pm at the latest. That will allow him or her to sleep well until 7:00 am and wake up on his own to get ready for school. You can fudge this based on the ages of your children and when you feel they need to get up for the day. On special occasions they can stay-up later, but not every weekend or every weeknight (for instance, limit sleepovers to once a month). Staying up late every weekend puts too much stress on their body for the next week. Teenagers too still need a minimum of 9 hours of sleep to grow and function at their best. You can even tell them I told you so!

• Blanket 7 ― Using common sense...find ways to make the sleep environment comfortable for you and your family. Your bed needs to feel good to you. The lights need to be out and the noise level down. (About night lights, children do have nighttime fears, the use of a nightlight or house light needs to be negotiated such that the room is dark enough to promote sleep but the child feels heard and safe.) Your body needs to feel soothed, warm and calm. You can teach yourself the process of guided, progressive relaxation and do so for your children. Relatively simple process of deep breathing while feeling/imagining your body parts from toes to head becoming soft, warm and relaxed. Additionally you may want to use sleep masks and ear plugs to limit light and noise levels.

• Blanket 8 ― What about 'sleeping aids' you may be asking. I am sure you can guess within the body of my writing that I am not going to recommend sleeping pills per se. And you guess correctly! If you are taking in all of this information you will see that largely it is the way we think about sleep and not sleeping enough that promotes a need for 'sleeping pills.' But that being said there is a natural hormone that our bodies produce that relates to sleep onset and our overall circadian rhythm: melatonin. There is still a bit of controversy about the use of over-the-counter melatonin supplements but I do advocate the short term use of it to alleviate the pressures associated with jet lag (generally defined as crossing five time zones) and high light levels as found in certain world regions in the summer and winter months. Children generally produce higher melatonin levels than do adults. Supplements should be kept as low as possible (keep in mind adults produce >.3 mg per day). As an example, you may want to try 1-3 mg an hour before you want to be asleep. Of course, the use of melatonin with children should absolutely be discussed with a physician prior to use.

• Blanket 9 ― It is true that attempting to unwind and fall into sleep on a thirsty or empty stomach is difficult. A bit of low fat milk or cheese or a handful of nuts at bedtime will help. And while a 'nightcap' might make falling into slumber easier it does not allow for natural sleep cycles. A glass of wine at dinner, hours before, is better if you do want to drink.

• Blanket 10 ― Turn off the snooze alarm! Many people set their snooze alarm well before they actually have to get up. Some people derive some sort of pleasure in hitting it hard and going right back to sleep and then doing it again ten minutes later and then once again perhaps. Just bring it up as a topic of conversation sometime and you will see people's glee come out. Some people feel that they somehow are more powerful than their snooze button. Instead though, consider that this process really deprives you of the much needed last 30 minutes of sleep! And that is your final dream cycle and movement into wakefulness. Seriously, I recommend do not set the alarm earlier than you have to get up. Consider disciplining yourself to the point of getting up when you actually have to, upon the first beeping of the alarm. Besides, if you have a sleep partner who does not have to get up this 'snooze' process is really disturbing his or her sleep.

Talking about alarms, I might as well end these 'blankets' with this very shocking fact: if you are well slept night after night, you do not need an alarm clock! If you're well slept, you will rise naturally by 6 or 7 in the morning. (If you need to rise by 5 for instance, you do need to go to bed an hour earlier and your body naturally will wake up unassisted and well rested.)

Decide to sleep well

In conclusion, thank you for having read this far along and keeping sleep quality for you and your family at top of mind. Now you know that doing so will go a long way to promoting greater daily well-being and personal productivity. So, your next steps might be:

• First, deciding right now to make any necessary shifts as an individual and/or as a parent to better the sleep habits of you and your family. You need to buy into this shift for a minimum of two weeks to reap the rewards. Think of it this way: that is less time than is needed than the six week program at your gym to 'revamp' your fitness level! That is less time than is needed to lose five pounds safely. That is less time than is needed to complete your taxes (if you are like me)!

• Second, allow yourself to become more understanding of the role of sleep in your daily life and stop the negative cycle that ensues when you get less than 'optimal' sleep. One of the things you can do is keep a running tally of how much sleep the family gets and when any one member is not well slept be more forgiving of his or her behavior - refrain from making negative statements (such as, "You are so naughty!") about your child but gently urge him or her to see a relationship between poor sleep and behavior (such as, "I think you are having a hard day because we did not help you get enough sleep last night.").

• Third, if you feel that you cannot sleep 8 hours because you do not have enough time, consider how much time you may waste during the day because of a lack of sleep. That For instance, when you are in an unhappy or even a foul mood, people are not as compliant with your requests. Of course, you then have to keep asking them or put up with the fight that inevitably ensues. Days like these probably wear you out from fatigue and you cannot mentally and physically complete tasks as quickly (so simply put it takes you more daily minutes to do things!)! Make the time. Get your sleep. All 8+ hours of it!

In conclusion

If you read any of my other writing you know that I am a positive psychologist, working to teach people like yourself how to grasp the triangle of thinking-feeling-doing in their every day lives and how to shift it from a negative triangle (which most of us have) to a positive triangle (which most of us have to learn and work toward). Please feel free to visit my website at: www.HeidiLepper.com.

One of the factors that will allow this shift to take place is in good sleep quality.

So I'll finish by asking: Do you want to feel better, happier, healthier and stronger each day? I promise you, get the proper amount and quality sleep, and you certainly will! Just giving it a two week trial.

Download and Print this Article as a PDF

Two books I recommend:

1. The Promise of Sleep: A Pioneer in Sleep Medicine Explores the Vital Connection Between Health, Happiness, and a Good Night's Sleep

2. Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child

Some people try to change really big things in their lives in order to feel better. They may buy a bigger house or a new car, change jobs or ditch their spouse. It doesn't work. After a period of initial adjustment, they find themselves feeling lousy as before.

Here's some really good news: I believe absolutely everyone can wake up feeling truly better every day! We can accomplish this by incorporating new ways of thinking. Yes, it entails throwing out the old and bringing in the new. But, in small layered ways; not via wholesale big ways. Much like that New Year's Resolution to lose weight that most often fails by mid February, so too changes to our personal functioning tends to wane and falter even after a few weeks. But why?

First, large scale changes in life are hard to do! But it is in our nature to want that big change now because we tend to only see the successes of others and not what it took for them to get there. Second, we tend not to appreciate the importance of steadfastness and constancy. And then third, you need the awareness that helps fuel the change.

With a lot of hard work 'throwing out the old' and laying down the new in terms of how you see and relate and act in this world, you too can feel truly better each and every day. So keep reading:

First: A Story
My son scraped his arm the other day and was asking me when it would no longer hurt so much. I told him that in all likelihood it would take about a week to be pain free and scabbed over and about two weeks for the mark disappear completely. "Well why is that, Mom? How does that work?" he asked me. So I told him about the immune system cells inside his body that never stop working.

Every moment of every day his body will be sending cells to the sight of his scrape to take away the old damaged cells and deliver nutrients to help grow brand new cells until the scrape is totally healed. Slowly the nerve endings that send pain signals to his brain will be renewed and then the surface cells will be re-grown. The healing cells truly never stop working, doing the same thing day in and day out even in the thick of night while he sleeps. It is a biological process and virtually nothing can make it go faster. Even despite tremendous medical and pharmaceutical advances, for our body to heal a wound it takes time and the constancy of working cells. If the cells stopped working, healing too would stop.

Second: A Corollary
Almost daily I am astounded by the words people use around me:
    • "Oh, I could never do that."
    • "I don't think I will ever adjust."
    • "I feel so overwhelmed."
    • "I don't have the energy I used to have."
    • "I get so angry!"
    • "I just don't feel happy."

And remember, these statements are uttered by people that are largely living functional lives. For the most part they get up and going every day, but they feel like life is becoming just too much or too little of what they need and what they find satisfying.

Many of us truly do not see that we ourselves control this entire process through old ways of thinking and relating that are like well worn paths. We do not realize that we can indeed change this process. Some aspects of who we are as people are very hard wired (activity level for instance), but much of who we are in terms of how we feel daily is indeed something we can shift.

Again, I believe we all can feel better and can actually feel good every day! And not by all moving to the Bahamas for daily fun in the sun. We can feel better by building very positive inner mental lives that translate into very positive outwardly expressed lives. And, positive energy turns into physical energy that fuels ourselves, our loved ones, and tall those we touch day to day. To get to this place we need a model to follow and for that I always go back to the physical body when trying to find a way to grasp the concept.

When injured your body engages in a 'miracle of constancy.' It simply goes into a state of biological repair fueled by your sleep and nutritional habits. It does not give up. Your body keeps picking up old and laying down new cells. It does this over and over and over again until any injury is healed. Well, a life that has not been well lived, a life that is becoming difficult or mundane or overwhelming and unhappy, can be healed through this exact same process. You can work the 'miracle of constancy' in your own inner life.

Third: The Solution
The main principle of the 'miracle of constancy' for you and your life is positive beliefs healing a negative daily style. I am vastly hopeful that when you marvel at the ability of small unthinking cells to heal a major wound, that you can use your true thinking cells to heal any issues or problems in your daily function and relationships.

It is now simply up to you to work the miracle of constancy. This means making and maintaining small, not large, changes each and every day. Get rid of the old and lay down the new a little bit at a time. We maintain greater change when we make small changes, not when we go for large changes.

The human body has been working the miracle of constancy for thousands of years to heal and protect. Now you can use this knowledge as a corollary to believe that your inner changes will have the same result! How cool is that? So make a plan. Only you know which issues you are having. (Again it could be too much control or anger, too much sadness or poor motivation. It could be too much worry or concern and so forth.)

The Mantra. Small changes start with stopping old patterns. Little mantras such as 'Don't go there' for those of you prone to self-defeating or obsessive thoughts. 'Get off the stage' for those of you prone to being a touch too dramatic. 'This is not about me!' for those of you prone to anger. 'This is not a tiger in the jungle' for those of you prone to nerves. 'Turn it off now!' for those of you prone to procrastination in favor of say Facebook or online porn.

Only you can find which mantra is going to be best for you. This mantra is a way to trigger awareness of an old way of doing something and to stop it dead in its tracks. Then...

Interact with People. Small changes in how you interact with people can make a true difference. Look a person in the eye. Put your phone down, stop typing at your laptop, put your fork down and look that person in the eye. Now hold it for a few beats to make a connection. Do this every day!

We tend to get so busy and overwhelmed and self-involved in our daily lives that we stop tending to how we interact with people. Forging a connection through mutual eye contact can help you the maintain course for positive change which is long and hard for many of us...we have a lot of ground to make up and having people help us along is vital. Then...

Banish Negative Statements. Small changes in your negative thinking styles can go a long way. Statements that hold 'always' and 'never' tend to be negative and closed. They do not allow for another possibility. Notice them and then banish them from your inner dialogue and outer speech. Statements that hold if-then type statements about other people keep you stuck from making the changes you need for yourself. (Example: "Well if only he would just pay more attention to me, I would stop feeling so insecure!') Again, notice them and banish them. Use a mental stop sign when you notice yourself using them. You truly do have control over your thoughts!

Constancy is key: Keep the faith that daily practice of applying small new layers will reap long-term healing and growth. Your immune system cells have known that your entire life. Now your 'thinking cells' do too!

I imagine you may have to re-read this piece a few times and let it settle in your mind before you begin to see it in action. It was only a few years ago that I found a way to talk about it in ways that my students found vastly meaningful in their lives though I had been teaching it for many years prior to that. So I am encouraged by that and want now to see if it can benefit you like I know it has for many of my former college students.

Childhood Pain & Fear
In the simplest terms, we humans learn very quickly from those things that take away inner states (inner feelings) we do not like. In other words, if something causes us pain, we learn to avoid that thing. This makes a great deal of sense especially when we are talking about physical pain. For example, did you ever play 'mercy' as a child with a sibling or best friend? How long could you stand having your fingers turned back by another? You learned that once you said "mercy" the pain would stop...so next time you could trust that if you said "mercy" the pain would stop. Again, this is very easy to understand. It makes perfect, wonderful sense.

How about when you were a child and you got scared by something, say, on a TV program? You felt a sense of fear and so you may have covered up your eyes and plugged your ears. You essentially turned away from the television and thus your fear was diminished. You learned that you felt better by turning away and so the next time you felt similarly scared you would again cover your eyes and plug your ears. You were not in physical pain but were instead emotionally distressed. You had an inner 'ick' you wanted to get away from. You found that you could do that by stopping whatever was causing fear by tuning it out and covering up your eyes. Again, this process is largely easy to understand.

But this concept is much harder to understand in adolescence and adulthood when oftentimes we are plagued with an inner 'ick' much more complex than that of a child with an intimidating big person or a scary program on television. In adolescence and adulthood, our inner 'ick' generally comes from relationship conflicts, feeling overwhelmed by work, school and life in general, or, feeling unmotivated to do what we need to be doing, or by disgust at ourselves and our behavior, or by social anxiety and so forth.

Avoiding the 'Inner Ick'
As we get older, we learn to avoid experiencing an adverse state (the inner 'ick') by developing alternate behaviors. For example, you might subconsciously say, "I think I am feeling badly but I do not exactly know how or why. I just know I feel 'ick' inside and I want it to stop!" So, if we feel anxious, or upset, or fearful, or distressed about something or some situation, we learn to avoid that thing or situation. And when we do so (avoiding that is), the anxiety or upset or fear or distress we were experiencing diminishes and we feel better. We repeat that cycle of turning away from the inner 'ick' by avoiding similar experiences again in the future and finding an alternate behavior in order to feel better. Academically this process is known as 'negatively reinforced behavior,' and all animals learn this way. That is, while in an aversive state, we will engage in behaviors that attempt to make that aversive state stop! Again, it all this makes perfect, protective sense.

Facebook as an Alternate Behavior
Let's put it all of this common sense into a tangible example of something that happens to many of us on a daily basis but that largely undermines our positive growth and experience. With today's exploding social media and networking technology, many of us (myself included) are using sites like Facebook on a daily basis. Sound familiar? Okay. Let's say you are a college student and you really need to buckle down and get to studying for that chemistry exam. But you really don't want to. As a result, you feel anxious over the impending exam and come to feel completely unmotivated to study. This does not feel good, does it? (Your negative thinking cycles kick in and start punishing you inwardly. You are not actually having the time of your life while this is occurring. Instead, you feel pretty crappy.) What's a student to do? So sitting in front of the computer you click over to your Facebook page for a while...now hours go by...but somehow you have indeed felt better in that time. The 'ick' you were feeling about your studies went away temporarily due to the distraction of Facebook. Isn't Facebook cool? The problem though becomes that the next time you feel 'ick,' what might you do? Well click over to Facebook, of course!

We ALL do this from time to time. Some of us do this a great deal. Incredibly, most of us have taken on habitual styles of negative thinking that compel the 'ick' in the first place and then learned ways of avoiding that 'ick' for temporary stretches of time. My purpose though is to put forth the idea that if you change that style of thinking, you will not have the inner 'ick' in the first place; and, without the 'ick' there is no need for Facebook (sorry Facebook, this really is not an admonishment of you!). And then you will have more time to stay engaged in those acts and situations you thought were icky and impossible.

Now many of you reading this may not be students, but you may be an office worker or professional instead. You may be a parent or a lover. You may want to lose weight or be a better person. Regardless, for many it is SO much easier to click over to Facebook then to have to sit down in front of your spouse for a dialogue you believe will be very difficult; or, buckle down and get a report done you find dreadfully boring; or, get up out of bed to do twenty push ups. You know what I'm talking about.

Here's my advice
I want you to consider that whenever you click over to Facebook you have not taken an opportunity to grow in a vital way. I want you to realize that, for the most part, the inner 'ick' is quite temporary. It stems from negative thinking and indeed it stems from a negative overall style. In the same way, the benefit of a few hours of Facebook also fades and you are still left with that thing you need to accomplish.

Here's what you can do instead:

1. Appreciate the 'ick.' When viewed in a positive way it can serve two purposes: to show you when you are being negative in your thinking style and need to find a positive 'tweak' and also that this is a time to engage instead of turn away!
2. About that positive 'tweak'...when you recognize the 'ick' and the potential to turn away to Facebook, you are more likely to stay engaged because you now know that you will come to teach yourself something better! You will be learning the skill of positive thinking and behaving, which ultimately is going to lead to a much healthier, happier, more balanced life. (Again, sorry Facebook!).
3. Use a timer. Really! The inner 'ick' really is a temporary state. It does not last long, but it is, in fact, strong enough to get you to turn away initially because you have done that so many times in the past! You have to recognize the 'ick' as a "state" that truly is temporary. When you do, the 'ick' will not actually overwhelm you. It can't because the 'ick' is a product of your own thinking and not actually anything outside of yourself. So, set a timer! Do that for ten minutes and you will see that after just a few minutes you are already in the flow of that task you were so dreading that now you don't want to stop and the 'ick' is actually gone! You then realize that most times in the past you went for your Facebook behavior before you even gave yourself a chance.
4. Thwart the 'ick' before it starts with a daily morning mood booster. I personally like to use music. Every time I listen to tunes that I like my body and brain respond in a positive way and the morning fatigue or negative mood lifts. Keep in mind that the majority of people wake to a bit of fatigue and sour mood, moods generally lift during the day. But you can facilitate the process by boosting yourself every morning.
   
   Some other ideas that may work for you to boost initial morning mood:




• Feign a positive 'lilt' in your voice when you say good morning to your mate or family. They will respond with a smile, and your will respond back with a smile, works that well.


• The pencil trick works wonders as well...again put a pencil in between your teeth as you would the stem of a rose and feign a smile...within a few minutes your mood will begin to lift.


• Morning devotionals work well for many people or jotting down something about the day you feel grateful for.


• A hug, a good old-fashioned hug works every time...we get so rushed during the morning that sometimes we fail to connect truly with our soulmate or family on that positive level...that being said, look your family in the eye when you talk, we have a tendency not to stop and really look and listen...and when we do, it lifts each family member up for the rest of the day.

So again to recap quickly...when we turn away from negative states driven by negative thinking styles and not by the reality in our own world, we might feel better temporarily but we deprive ourselves of living a balanced, positive life. We live so much better when we face that inner 'ick' and deal firmly with the task or issue at hand rather than running away from it to Facebook.

Are you hot or cold?
Long ago Aristotle discussed this aspect of differences among us and wrote about what he termed "constructive emotional behavior" or the temperate person. I liken this notion to an internal emotional thermometer. This thermometer is our internal gauge of how to respond to events in our lives and the relationships with others that we have. Keep in mind a physical thermometer tells us how hot or cold it is outside and we use this information to help us decide, for instance, how we should dress before we head out for our morning jog. But this thermometer is only as good and helps us maintain a good body temperature insofar as it is accurate in its hot or cold reading. Are you following me?

I take what Aristotle wrote about (as well as others since him, especially Dr. Paul Ekman) and I apply that to our emotional lives and an internal reader of how hot or cold we run. How does your emotional thermometer function? Does it tend to overestimate the heat of a situation or come in ten degrees too cool? Most of us have emotional thermometers that are not fully functional, we get stuck at times running too hot or running too cool.

In Aristotle's view he defined the temperate person as that person who first expresses emotion in the right amount, felt and expressed emotion equals the event that triggered it. Given that most of us are not temperate (being temperate however is the goal of a healthy personality), this means:

• First, that we tend to overreact or under react emotionally to important events.
• Second, the temperate person feels and expresses emotion at the right time. It is simply a fact of social living that there are times at which emotional displays are more or less beneficial to us. Knowing the difference means you run at the right temperature.
• Finally, the temperate person feels and expresses emotion in the right way. In my view this is the most important aspect of being a temperate person, our felt and expressed emotion occurs in such a way as it does not negatively impact other people. For instance, we can become angry, but our anger does not hurt another; we can become afraid, but our fear does not scare another; and, we can become sad, but our sadness does not burden another.

So think about this again and how it relates to the way in which you live emotionally. Do you run too hot? Do you run too cold?

Do you run too hot?

• Do you tend to overreact to things?


• Do you tend to react too quickly or perhaps react inappropriately given the situation?


• And do you at times cause harm or hurt others in your emotional display?


• Have you ever said something in the throes of anger that you later regretted, for instance?

Or cold?

• Or do you run too cool?


• Do you tend to under react to things, whereby others view you as unemotional or aloof and uncaring?


• Do you not show a display of emotion when the situation largely calls for it?


• And do you at times leave others feeling unloved or unattended to because of your "coolness?"

Learning how your emotional life and relationships can be run by a thermometer that needs a bit of adjusting can go a long way toward becoming a happier, more satisfied person. You can become aware of your internal thermometer and adjusting it by remembering to think about how the thermostat on your wall at home gauges an accurate room temperature. The goal ultimately is to develop an awareness of your emotional thermometer so that you can cool yourself off if you are running too hot or heat yourself up if you are running too cool in much the same way as you want your home thermostat to assist you in how to dress for the day.

To help you remember this, go ahead now and draw yourself a thermometer, put a set point of 75 degrees - this is the temperate person... he or she who responds in the right proportion, at the right time and in the right way (does no harm). Pencil in where you honestly think you are temperature wise and work to re-set that emotional thermometer! It works!

I will admit I was struggling with food and eating and my own weight for a few years after my last son was born. I got too skinny. I got too skinny because I was moving my body a ton and not eating enough. I ate most assuredly but I did not eat enough to replace all that I used so my weight just kept getting lower and lower. It then became a game of "How low can it go?" "Can I fit into the littlest, bittiest pair of jeans?" "Will I finally come to love my legs?" But thankfully no more! I am lean and muscular most assuredly now but no longer too skinny and I have bigger jeans to prove it!

In a new and novel way, I feel prepared to talk about weight control, eating disorders, and body image. But I need you to bear with this imagery and see if it can help you. Early last summer, I was putting sunscreen on my incredibly verbal, and indeed lean, 6 year old today. He was sucking in his tummy very dramatically and it was hard for me to rub in the sunscreen so I asked him to stand still. Those of you who know him may now be smiling.

While sucking in his stomach very dramatically (and I will say it was very unattractive as it had a very emaciated appearance), he remarked: "Mom, you know if we did not have enough money to buy food this is what I would look like!" And I thought to myself "That's exactly right!" Just that morning as I was up moving my body to stay fit I thought to myself "Okay so 20,000 years ago the only time my ancestors got a lot of food or really good food was when they worked really hard for it. A long fought battle with a herd, or an extra long walk or run, or a dead sprint to catch a creature not normally caught. They expended a ton of calories and got something great! They took in extra calories because they moved their bodies more!"

Moving and Eating Are Irrevocably Tied
Twenty thousand years ago we lived vastly different lives. It is believed that for the most part we lived in small family clans and traveled within somewhat small geographic areas based upon the availability of food and water. We were lean and muscular, we had healthy body fat levels and great muscle tone. Why? Because we moved our bodies every day in search of food and we fed our bodies accordingly. It is doubtful we were actually moving for any purpose other than in search of food (okay, I suppose we also chased after potential mates and wandering children). But my point I hope is taken. If we moved our bodies more it was because we were in search of food.

We evolved a well-balanced system of moving our bodies and food intake. Simply put we were not fat because there was rarely an abundance of food. Nor did we under eat because we had to eat when food was available. Even more simply put, we maintained a healthy body weight and muscle mass and fat ratio because it was healthiest for us, and if we didn't, we died.

Mirrors, Mirror on the Cave Wall? No!
More importantly, we did not have wall mirrors or ever-present media telling us what we should look like. I think when you put into perspective the idea that we evolved in this system and our bodies today still reflect this evolutionary process you can come to terms with your body and exercise and food. You will start to listen to people when they tell you "you look great!" or perhaps even "you are too skinny!" Again, our cavemen ancestors did not evolve within a system of self-image. They did not stand in front of a mirror pinching their sides, wishing away the fat. But most assuredly they did help each other maintain healthy body weights because it was best for the family clan. They needed each other to be as healthy as possible because it was best for the community!

Universally we find individuals with muscle mass and a bit of fat the most attractive physically. Think about the bodies you find attractive. They have great muscle symmetry but are not too skinny. There are not overly exposed veins or tendons or muscle fibers showing; there is no emaciated appearance.

My young son spoke to this: He knows overly skinny physiques are not attractive, that they are a sign that one is not eating enough and he relates that to not having enough money to buy food. But growing up with mirrors and advertising telling us how we should look, our perceptions of our bodies get skewed, so we take on emotional relationships with food and exercise.

An Evolved Healthy Balance: Move More and Eat Less
"Am I a healthy caveman?," or "Am I a healthy cavewoman?," you should ask yourself now. Do you have a balanced life of physical movement and food intake, a balanced view of what your body looks like? We are vastly harder on ourselves than anyone ever is of us. If you repeatedly hear back from those around you that "You look great!" then you do! Believe what others are telling you, stop looking in the mirror. If you have to, stop buying magazines and watching television.

The basis of all diets is move more and eat less. But how many of us do this in a balanced way? A balanced body is the evolved system for all humans and when we purposely upset that balance we will get sick. And that is a warning from the body that something is wrong.

What Can I Do?
Keep this mental imagery in mind: Am I as healthy as a caveman? Am I as healthy as a cavewoman? Think about what you find attractive physically in others and listen to others! They are a better mirror, a more trusted mirror than yours. As their mirror they will tell you when you have slipped over that edge of being healthy to unhealthy in terms of your food intake to movement balance.

Talk with people who love you about how to find that healthy balance of movement and food. Learn when emotions wreak havoc on this process for you. And keep reading the things I write as all of it will help you live a more balanced life.

However, it is important to understand, we cannot protect ourselves from bad experiences in life. And that's okay. In fact, we learn best from the negative experiences that happen to all of us. And appreciating this is itself a skill, and is the very epitome of positive thinking.

New skills to be learned in a new job

Now use your imagination with me. Let's say you get a brand new job as a Starbuck's barista. You feel very unsure of yourself and vastly incompetent at first. I know this to be true because during college I worked at a place similar to Starbuck's (once upon a time Starbuck's did not exist in every city!). I felt confused by all the different drink options; I was intimidated by the hissing steam machine! Customers were not patient with me while I learned, for in fact at the time I did not even drink coffee!

We generally have two styles in dealing with these inferior feelings at first.

• We become more uptight and concerned and we become very nervous about the learning process; or,
• We may go the other way and take the attitude that we already know how to do everything and do not actually have to be taught anything (the epitome of defensiveness to be sure)!

Regardless, you are new to Starbuck's and indeed you have new skills to be learned. You need to be taught these skills by those more experienced than you, you need to stay engaged in the job and positive in belief that you will learn and become more competent as a barista. Then in a few months you are old hat and can whip out any drink on command and now with a wonderful smile on your face because it has all gotten quite easy.

I am confident you agree with this process and I am confident you can relate. This is the process is the same in any new job. We have to learn the skills required of that particular position. What is vitally important however is that you stay engaged with the new job for if you don't you will not learn the required skills. Moreover, you need to actually get up and go to work! Of course, you do so because you want to get paid. And to keep getting a paycheck and those all important tips you will need to be a good barista. Fail and you will not be there for long and your income and possibly even your lifestyle will be jeopardized.

Listening, learning and being non-defensive are critical life skills

Learning the skills required of life and living while developing a healthy personality (defined largely as freedom from worry and depression, a non-defensive and open style, as well as acceptance and tolerance of self and others) is truly no different than acquiring the skills of a good barista.

Listening, learning and being non-defensive are critical to staying positive and engaged over time (as new memories need to be formed and that is a time based biological process). Unfortunately, we do not get paid to learn the skills of a healthy and happy life. While there's no external incentive such as money, there is a basic understanding within all of us that our choices and lifestyles are essential factors in whether we do things right and whether others will find us likeable.

The consequences of an unhealthy lifestyle are:

• We get sick more often and more severely;
• Our personal relationships are not nearly as fulfilling and rich;
• Our work is boring or overwhelming;
• Our families irritate us or overwhelm us; and,
• We become more and more rigid in our views and how we display those views.

• Practice 'Happy Habits:' We can at times, when all other problems are 'solved,' simply act happy.
• Understand the Limits of Money: Know more money does not make for enduring happiness or even better moods.
• Value Time: Having autonomy and independence with our time, however, does.
• Do What You Enjoy Doing: Meaningful work is important, being engaged daily in work and fun activities do promote lasting happiness.
• Stay Fit: So too does regular exercise!
• Get Rest: And a good night's sleep!
• Think Positive: When we focus on others, when we count our blessings and feel grateful for all that we do have, we pay attention to our inner life that promotes lasting happiness and positive mood.
• Nurture Others: Finally, our relationships, the closest ones to us must be given priority and nurturance. We promote happiness in ourselves and in our close loved ones when we tend to those relationships, when we forgive, support, and are tolerant of each other. When every day we simply adore each other we promote our own and their happiness.

Achieve happiness one milestone at a time

You can eliminate the worry and the strain, the stress and the pressure to keep up. That's right; no more depression, no more anxiety! You very likely have frequently heard about the 'milestones' listed above but perhaps have not found a way to incorporate them every day. Or, perhaps you just need this inspired reminder to stay true to these milestones while you live and work among others who are stressed and strained, negative and cynical. Keep in mind, each one of these 'milestones' is important, none stands alone! Each serves as a piece to the puzzle of lasting satisfaction and fulfillment. Keep faith with these known truths and hopefully you will find the inspiration to keep you moving along a positive path.

Long ago, Aristotle outlined a concept of constructive emotional behavior. The individual who shows constructive emotional behavior is the "temperate person." Aristotle described this person as one whose emotions are in the right amount, proportionate to the event that caused them. His emotions are expressed at the right time, in a way that is appropriate to what triggered them. And finally, these emotions are expressed in the right way as they never do harm to oneself or others.

Hundreds and hundreds of years have passed since Aristotle described the healthy personality. Many theorists have since elongated his notions, from Freud to Jung, from Rogers to Erikson, from Maslow to Meade. There are commonalities and individualities with respect to the definition and development of the healthy personality among all of these classic theorists. While we Americans espouse the virtues of 'happiness' we find it ever fleeting, seemingly an elusive chronic state of being. Instead of a quest for happiness, instead of wanting happiness say for your children, I would like you to consider living your life in ways that are useful and functional, ways not tied to notions of 'happiness' per se but with the undying belief that use and function will indeed compel that state you so desire.

Happiness as a feeling state

Consider these words: worry, closed, rigid, partial, begrudging, constrained, suspicious, envy, defensive.

In contrast to these words: authentic, present, open, fluid, whole, forgiving, caring, creative, accepting.

Now I would like you to close your eyes for a moment and experience those two sets of words: worry, closed, rigid, partial, begrudging, constrained, suspicious, envy, defensive versus authentic, present, open, fluid, whole, forgiving, caring, creative, accepting.

Which one sits better within you? Which one feels more positive? I am confident you all find that second set a more pleasant experience. You may not on the outside be able to pinpoint exactly what the words mean or how to achieve them, but I am certain they indeed feel better to you when you think about them. Indeed, these are the individual markers that lead to happier, more useful and functional lives.

Happiness as a feeling state, an emotional experience is in and of itself temporary, as are the other emotional experiences you know as fear, anger, sadness, disgust and so forth. Strong emotional experience is fleeting. But when you develop and practice the qualities necessary for usefulness and personal function, you will find that you experience your days and your relationships in largely more positive ways, in ways less tense, and ultimately over time you feel happier.

Environmental Supports and Internal Structures

My hope is to motivate each of you who reads this article and returns to it from time to time, to move away from that first set of words: worry, closed, rigid, partial, begrudging, constrained, suspicious, envy, defensive to that second set of words: authentic, present, open, fluid, whole, forgiving, caring, creative, accepting. I want you to know that to change effectively in more positive ways you need two things: environmental supports and internal structures.

To help you understand the idea of how a healthier, happier you stems from changing the environmental supports and developing new internal structures, I am going to digress for a moment: Let's say I tell you "I want to run faster!" What will you say back to me? You will say "You need to train better, eat and rest well, and then be patient!" We all know that for one to become a stronger, faster, better runner he needs to train diligently but without the emotional worry over it, to rest when he needs to rest and eat really well and avoiding vices, and let time go by so the body can develop the biological systems that support faster speed. This seems absolutely obvious, does it not? The key is learning to alter the environmental supports and develop the internal structures necessary for that faster speed.

Developing greater life satisfaction, more satisfying personal relationships, greater involvement at work, and so forth, each that we all desire follows this same basic pattern: learn new things, practice using those new things, rest well and avoid vices, and let time go by with patience and belief it will work! Really! This article is one of the environmental supports. You can learn new ways of thinking, feeling, and acting, I hope! Then you can start to practice some of these things and start to notice small shifts over time in how your respond, think, and feel. That is all. A simple formula really. But you have to believe, without any worry, that you can make these internal changes!

So start now: Write down the list of negative versus positive words I gave you:

• Find one environmental support: Perhaps start with a trusted friend whom to talk to about these words and how they make each of you feel differently inside and how they trigger negative versus positive thoughts. Be honest that you want to move from the negative to the positive (and being accepting means that we all have some negative we can move away from).
• Find one internal structure: Understand that your memory system impacts how you think, feel and act and that you want to rewrite this system from negative to positive. Appreciate this takes practice, time, and belief. With that I leave you with this, "Practice hope. As hopefulness becomes a habit, you can achieve a permanently happy spirit." – Norman Vincent Peale

So you want to understand yourself and others better? Have you ever overreacted or gotten upset at seeing someone else overreact? Do you want to feel more at ease, to have more loving relationships, to be more effective with your kids, or to tackle your school work in a more motivated way? Balanced understanding first and mindfulness second are the keys to achieving these very personal goals. Let's first start with understanding:

Better understanding

Fear, surprise, disgust, happiness, sadness, and anger are believed to be the six universal emotions. All emotional experience stem from these six basic emotions. Each has a specific social purpose or adaptive function and long ago evolved within us over thousands and thousands of years. Emotions involve physiological changes, cognitive or thinking patterns, behavioral trends, as well as body, voice, and facial expressions.

So that means, when you get angry, your heart begins to race, you believe you are right, you lash out with big, upright posture, a voice that is booming, and a face that is glaring, and a while later you do not feel so angry.

So that means, when you get happy, your heart begins to race, you believe you are right, you call to your friends in a voice that sounds so bright, a posture that is jumpy, and you wear a big smile on your face, and after a time you do not feel quite as happy.

So that means, when you get sad, your heart begins to race, you believe you are right, your body gets very still, your voice gets quiet, and you look away from others, and some time later you do not feel so sad.

Are you noticing a trend in any of this?

Two Things to Remember!

• When you are in the throes of strongly felt emotion, you believe you are right! No matter how much others attempt to convince you otherwise, you believe you are right, you feel justified, you are focused on the emotional experience and you become instantly rigid. Emotions alter the way you see yourself, your world, your past and your future.
• Emotions are fleeting, they are temporary, they do not, cannot last! They trigger a biological process deep inside your brain and body. Minutes or many tens of minutes is about as long as strongly felt emotions last. If they last much longer than that, you will collapse in exhaustion. Once the emotional experience begins to subside, your above feeling of righteousness also dissipates...you start to see yourself, your world, your past, and your future in a more open, balanced, flexible way. You may have to admit you overreacted, that you perhaps were wrong.

Again, emotions are programs that evolved within us because they once upon a time served a useful survival function. Survival for humans was based on quick movements and signaling to others nearby important information about what was happening, for good or for bad. You do not have time to contemplate what is or wrong, what you should or should not do - you are right and so you do!

In today's world however, for most of us humans, we are not working on day to day survival in terms of fighting off tigers or stumbling upon a brand new food source. We are dealing with bosses at work, deadlines at school, jealousies over lovers, battles with children, and so forth. But the same old functions in our brains and bodies are at play.

Be More Effective

So how can you apply this understanding to your life? By balancing this understanding about emotions, again that first they make us believe we are right and no amount of convincing otherwise is going to work until the emotion itself subsides, with daily mindfulness practice of deep breathing and the 'floating tongue' technique. Learn to slow down your own emotional responses through mindfulness training and you start to see yourself and your relationships in a brand new, better way. You can learn to temper your own overreactions, you can feel calmer and more in control every day, you can maintain more positive moods throughout the day, and understand your boss, your spouse, your roommate, or your child better. How cool is that?

*Float Your Tongue

Whenever we are not actually asleep, talking, eating or drinking, our tongues are engaged in very fine movements that are essentially forming the words of our thoughts. And those thoughts are often times negative and self-defeating. The daily practice of not letting your tongue make those private words will help you learn the practice of more positive and hopeful thinking. With your lips closed, float your tongue in the middle of your mouth not letting it touch the top, bottom or sides...feels funny! Hold it for as long as you can many times a day. While going to sleep is a great time to try it!

Dream Content

When we are well slept, and that means on average of 8.5 hours a night (not 5 or 6 mind you, but 8.5 hours a night as adults and much more as teens and children), we go through five dream (REM) cycles every night. Reports from sleep studies suggest that more rather than fewer of our dreams are negative in nature (about 8 out of 10 dreams). Struggling against something, getting lost, not being able to move, infidelities, fighting with someone and so forth make up most of our dreams. But nightmares are more negative, more vivid and certainly more frightening, waking us up and making it very hard to go back to sleep. Nightmares are not nearly as common as our every day negative dreams, but we sure do remember them even years later!

Nightmarish Lessons

Nightmares may be nature's way of making sure we learn valuable survival skills but in the safety net of our own beds. The Threat Simulation Theory (proposed by Antti Revonsuo) postulates this notion. We need to practice, safely, over and over again something that might possibly come up in our waking life. Something very challenging, something so threatening that we need extra rehearsal to prepare for it.

To read more on Revonsuo's TST: Evolutionary function of dreams: A test of the threat simulation theory in recurrent dreams [An article from: Consciousness and Cognition]

Let me give you an example: I was born and raised in California where I heard about the "Big One" throughout my childhood and it just so happens that my most frequent nightmare as a girl had to do with earthquakes. I can still recall them: earthquake hits and I cannot get home! or earthquake hits and I am home alone! Those nightmares scared the daylights out of me! Now I am a Midwesterner and I no longer have nightmares about earthquakes. But I do have nightmares now and again about tornados! I traded one negative possibility for another by moving halfway across the U.S. and so I have to be prepared in different ways.

I smiled just a few months ago when my oldest son woke up early one morning with a tornado dream himself. As he was describing his dream to me and how badly it scared him I looked out the window to make sure there was not one coming toward us as his dream description seemed real enough to be true, so that I too shared a bit of his fright. And yet I smiled. And why would I smile when my son was so frightened and upset? Because his brain was helping him learn a lesson, solve a problem, develop a skill in the safety of his own bed! And I find that remarkable!

How Again Can Nightmares Me?

As individuals, as parents to children, as roommates or lovers, we will all experience nightmares. But I want to present the skill of positive reframing that once you begin to practice you can use for yourself or with your children or roommates or lover over and over again. You can handle the downs in life, those things in life that you fear or dread, because you are indeed prepared for them. An ancient primitive system kicks on in the dark of night and it is helping you!

The next time a nightmare keeps you or someone you love up at night introduce the idea that this dream is not something to erase or avoid or ignore, but one that you can be pleased with, that you can learn from, that you can smile about. By viewing bad dreams and nightmares in a positive way, as great nighttime teachers, we start to teach ourselves and those we love that we do have the inner strength to contend with life.

To read a similar notion as this one, go to: That Damn Dream Again by Jesse Bering, Ph.D. in Psychology Today.