Summer is great. We get so much daylight that it’s a great time to grow your own food and there’s ample time to enjoy outdoor activities. And, since I rarely use an alarm clock, Summer is a time that I find myself being quite productive because I get up so early in the morning. By 6:00am the Sun is starting to poke into the bedroom window, and before I’m awake and feeling refreshed (assuming I went to bed early enough the night before).
In my pre-7am reading, I came across a Ted Talk by Charles Czeisler that discusses what influences our sleep cycles and how they’ve changed over time. While the whole (short) video is worth watching, I’ll spoil it for you: artificial light and caffeine are the two things he implicates in our national “sleep epidemic.”
Kathleen wrote about this Getting Good Quality Sleep, but it’s worth reiterating. Sleep really matters, and it’s really easy to fall into poor sleep habits–especially with all the distractions available in our modern world.