James B. Maas

Perhaps the best thing you can do for your youngster is to become a good role model as far as sleep. If you value sleep, your child will pick up on that too.

Often we are totally unaware of our own reduced capabilities because we become habituated to low levels of alertness. Many of us have been sleepy for such a long time that we don’t know what it’s like to feel wide awake.

If possible, you should avoid sleeping pills and over-the-counter sleep remedies. They make you drowsy and appear to induce better sleep, but in reality they lead to disturbed, fragmented sleep. Natural sleep is always best and can usually be achieved by following good sleep strategies.

It’s simple: sleep better and sleep more. Most people need to rest just one extra hour per night to stay completely alert all day.

Ten hours of sleep is operationally defined as our need because that’s what is often required for optimal performance.

According to Dr. William Dement, chairman of the National Commission on Sleep Disorders Research, 'The national sleep debt is larger and more important than the national financial debt.' Are you a contributor to this deficit? If so, you’re far from being the person you can be.

For fully restorative sleep, you must properly set the stage for the theater of the night. Most important, your bedroom must be quiet, dark, and cool.

Increasing your sleep by one hour is the best diet. You can lose as much as a pound a week just by sleeping a little longer.

The only way to repay your sleep debt is to get more sleep. You can’t repay years of sleep debt by one night of good sleep, any more than you can compensate for years of overeating by a one-day diet.

For fully restorative sleep, you must properly set the stage for the theater of the night. Most important, your bedroom must be quiet, dark, and cool.

Most adults require between seven and a half and nine hours of sleep to be fully awake and energized all day long. As a rule of thumb, you’ll probably have to add one more hour to your current sleep schedule.

Sleep plays a major role in preparing the body and brain for an alert, productive, psychologically and physiologically healthy tomorrow.

If you have time to run to Starbucks for a latte, you have time to nap. Just as with anything else, it’s a matter of prioritizing.

It’s time we learned to value sleep not as a luxury but as a necessity.

If you need an alarm clock to wake you up, if you find it hard to get out of bed in the morning, or if you’re tired during the day, you haven’t slept enough.