Wander Woman

On my flight home from Denmark, I debated whether I should write a blog post. My movie system was broken so there were no pleasant distractions on the nine hour flight. I had made notes for my next newsletter, crafted the beginning of an upcoming speech and played a word game for an hour. The flight left in the morning so I was trying to stay awake to get my sleeping back on track.

During the last hours of the flight, I had the options of staring at the flight map or writing a blog post.

As I slowly pulled my computer out of my bag, my Scientific American Mind magazine fell out. I had finished reading the issue but thought I would flip through it for inspiration. Then I found the article called Half Asleep.

The article described the research showing that even though you may be good at keeping yourself awake to cross one more thing off your to-do list, parts of the brain flips over into a sleep-like state when you are tired.

Do you ever feel like a part of your brain is dozing off even though you keep tapping your keyboard? It’s likely your neurons are only partially firing.

So why bother writing when you are sleepy? You will only have to edit or redo it when you fully rested.

I put everything back in my computer bag, selected my Sleep Playlist on my iPod, and closed my eyes with no guilt. I wrote this post in the lounge on my layover after my nap, a cup of tea and a chair massage in the express spa in the terminal.

Happy Holidays!! I dare you to turn off the email on your phones and shut down your computers for a few days. And I wish you many wonderful naps.