A little nap will do you...

Naps are a great way to recharge our brains and boost our energy, but we don't always have time for long siestas. Enter the researchers to tell us what science tells us.

Australian researchers studied twenty-four young adults who sleep well at night but don't normally nap. The participants napped for 5, 10, 20, and 30 minutes (plus a control of no napping) and then were measured across a range of benefits for three hours afterwards. The results:

The 5-minute nap produced few benefits in comparison with the no-nap control. 

The 10-minute nap produced immediate improvements in all outcome measures (including sleep latency, subjective sleepiness, fatigue, vigor, and cognitive performance), with some of these benefits maintained for as long as 155 minutes. 

The 20-minute nap was associated with improvements emerging 35 minutes after napping and lasting up to 125 minutes after napping. 

The 30-minute nap produced a period of impaired alertness and performance immediately after napping, indicative of sleep inertia, followed by improvements lasting up to 155 minutes after the nap. 

 A power nap of about 15 to 20 minutes is your best bet when you're feeling weary, but only if taken between 1:00 and 3:00 PM in the afternoon. Here's why. The longer you nap, the more likely you are to wake up from deep sleep, leading you to feel confused and groggy. [Also, i]f you sleep [too late in the day], the tendency would be to get into the first deep sleep of the night from which you would wake groggy and grouchy. Basically, you're not going to feel great post-nap if you end up in a deep sleep. You also risk the possibility of throwing off your circadian rhythm by entering that deep sleep or just sleeping at all too late in the day. While any sleep will improve your cognitive ability, it seems you can only sleep during the day without consequences if you time it just right.

While the perfect amount of time you should nap for may vary, if you're not sure how long to snooze or your naps just aren't cutting it, give the ten-minute power nap (also known as a nano nap) a try. 

Paraprosdokians? What is that?

Once in a while you come across a word which you have never heard of before but which is full of hidden delights. Paraprodokians is one such word.

PARAPROSDOKIANS are figures of speech in which the latter part of

a sentence or phrase is surprising  or unexpected; frequently humorous.

Here is a partial list , perhaps you can add to them:

• "Take my wife – please!" —Henny Youngman

• "He was at his best when the going was good." —Alistair Cooke on the Duke of Windsor

• "There but for the grace of God — goes God." —Winston Churchill

• "If I am reading this graph correctly — I'd be very surprised." —Stephen Colbert

• "You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing—after they have tried everything else." —Winston Churchill

• "On his feet he wore...blisters." —Aristotle

• "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." —Groucho Marx

• "A modest man, who has much to be modest about." —supposedly Winston Churchill, about Clement Attlee

• "She looks as though she's been poured into her clothes, and forgot to say 'when'." —P. G. Wodehouse

• "I like going to the park and watching the children run around because they don't know I'm using blanks." —Emo Philips

• "She was good as cooks go, and as cooks go she went." —Saki

• "I sleep eight hours a day and at least ten at night." —Bill Hicks

• "I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat." --Will Rogers

Here are another group that caught my eye:

 1. Where there's a will, I want to be in it.

 2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it's still on my list.

 3. Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright

until you hear them speak.

 4. If I agreed with you, we'd both be wrong.

 5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.

 6. War does not determine who is right - only who is left..

 7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting

it in a fruit salad.

 8. They begin the evening news with 'Good Evening,' then proceed to

tell you why it isn't.

 9. To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many

is research.

 10. Buses stop in bus stations. Trains stop in train stations. On my

desk is a work station.

 11. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.

 12. In filling out an application, where it says, 'In case of

emergency, notify:' I put 'DOCTOR.'

 13. I didn't say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.

 14. Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the

street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.

 15. Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a

successful man is usually another woman.

 16. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.

 17. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a

parachute to skydive twice.

 18. Money can't buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.

 19. There's a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so

they can't get away.

 20. I used to be indecisive. Now I'm not so sure.

 21. You're never too old to learn something stupid.

 22. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.

 23. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

 24. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever

you hit the target.

 25. Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than

standing in a garage makes you a car.

 26. Where there's a will, there are relatives.

Mitt, the twit

Sometimes the daily newspapers catch the essence of the man more accurately than all the psychological evaluations and punditry. So it was with Mitt Romney in his trip to England. The Daily Mail headlined " Mitt, the Twit" while other papers were even less kind one saying that Mitt came on a charm offensive but there was no charm and lot of it was offensive.


The fact is that during the last month I have watched with growing horror the campaign of Romney: his ability to tell lies convincingly, to distort and to change his opinions within twenty four hours without blinking an eyelid, to hold two contrary position on every subject and yet pretend that both are honestly and deeply held. It is no secret that I am an unabashed admirer of Obama but I have never seen a presidential candidate who is so mendacious and so without any deep convictions of his own as Romney.


The november election has become like a game where one side has openly declared its intention to cheat : a large number of republican governors have passed laws ensuring that the poor, the elderly, the disadvantaged can no longer vote. Of course this is cloaked under the need to prevent voter fraud but the real facts are they are but one part of a strategy to keep a all white oligarchy in power since the demographics point in a different direction.


Charles Blow, a New York Times columnist, put it even more bluntly:


"First," he says, " there’s the specter of the oligarchy lingering over this election, which disproportionately benefits Republicans." So far this year, 26 billionaires have donated more than $61 million to super PACs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And that’s only what has been publicly disclosed.” That didn’t include “about $100 million that Sheldon Adelson has said that he is willing to spend to defeat President Obama; or the $400 million that the Koch brothers have pledged to spend during the 2012 election season.” And it should not also be forgotten that Romney has his own wealth of a quarter of a billion to put into play as well.

"Then," he adds, " there’s the widespread voter suppression mostly enacted by Republican-led legislatures." According to the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, at least 180 restrictive voting bills were introduced since the beginning of 2011 in 41 states, and 16 states have passed restrictive voting laws that have the potential to impact the 2012 election because they account for 214 electoral votes, or nearly 79 percent of the total needed to win the presidency.

The blunt fact is that the Republicans are leveraging the deep pockets of anti-Obama billionaires and sinister voter suppression tactics that harken back to Jim Crow to wrest power from the hands of docile and still sleeping Democrats. "And", says Blow " if Democrats don’t wake up soon, this election might not just be won or lost, it could be bought or stolen." 

And that might bring the twitt to be the President!!

Creating your own luck

How often have we heard the expression that it was " just my luck that I did not win..." or bemoan the fact that some friends seem to have all the " luck in the world".  Of course lucky events exert a dramatic influence over our lives for luck has the power to transform the improbable into the possible, to make the difference between life and death, reward and ruin, happiness and despair. 

People have searched for an effective way of improving the good fortune in their lives for many centuries.  Lucky charms, amulets, and talismans have been found in virtually all civilizations throughout recorded history.  Touching (“knocking on”) wood dates back to pagan rituals that were designed to elicit the help of benign and powerful tree gods.  The number thirteen is seen as unlucky because there were thirteen people at Christ's last supper.  When a ladder is propped up against a wall it forms a natural triangle which used to be seen as symbolic of the Holy Trinity.  To walk under the 
ladder would break the Trinity and therefore bring ill fortune. Many of these beliefs and behaviors are still with us.  


In 1996, the Gallup Organization asked 1,000 Americans whether they were superstitious.  Fifty three percent of people said that they were at least a little superstitious, and 25 percent admitted to being 
somewhat or very superstitious. Superstitious beliefs and behaviors have been passed down from generation to generation.  Our parents told us about them and we will pass them on to our children.  But why do they persist?  


I believe that the answer lies in the power of luck.  Throughout history, people have recognized that good and bad luck can transform lives.  A few seconds of ill fortune can lay waste years of striving, and moments of good luck can save an enormous amount of hard work.  Superstition represents people’s attempts to control and enhance this most elusive of factors.  And the enduring nature of these superstitions beliefs and behaviors reflects the extent of people’s desire to find ways of increasing their good luck.  In short, superstitions were created, and have survived, because they promise that most elusive of holy grails – a way of enhancing good fortune. 


Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, decided to carry out a ten year experiment to test his theories about luck.What were his findings?

His  research revealed that lucky people generate their own good fortune via four basic principles.  (1) They are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, (2) they make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, (3) they create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and (4) finally they adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good. Wiseman’s core finding was that  you can create your own luck. “I discovered that being in the right place at the right time is actually all about being in the right state of mind. Lucky people increase their odds of chance encounters or experiences by interacting with a large number of people. Extraversion, Wiseman found, pays opportunity and insight rewards. 


The moral of the story: if you want to be lucky, be open to more opportunities, interact with a large network of people, break routines and keep a relaxed attitude toward life.

Greeting cards and greetings

This is the time of the year that I receive a lot of greeting cards- fathers day, birthday, get well ...They are all beautiful with wonderful quotations in graceful printforms and of course a delight to read. But all of them seem to be missing something- emotion, passion, personal connection- something.


 Retail greeting cards ha become a $7.5 billion business and there are more than 3,000 greeting-card publishers in the U.S., with the two largest companies — Hallmark and American Greetings — holding 82 percent of the market share. Christmas leads the list in terms of card popularity with nearly 1.5 billion expected to be sold industrywide, according to Hallmark Cards. That is followed by Valentine's Day with 144 million cards, Mother's Day with 133 million and Father's Day with 94 million. 


 In the last few years, the greeting card industry has seen a rapid growth but is now facing challenges from even newer forms of technology - the e- cards! Experts attribute the recent decline in card sales to increasing competition from e-cards and custom card services, as well as more modern, and time-efficient, ways of communication. But 20 paper cards are still sent for every e card. It seems that electronic communication is better for sharing information but greeting cards are better for sharing emotion.

I must confess that I still love the paper cards that annually descend on our household although I search the cards for the informal comments scrawled on by my correspondents rather than the elegantly words carved in by Hallmark. I still remember the days when we had no cards but sent our greetings in letters written in our own hands. 


So we have moved from handwritten notes to greeting card to e-cards! Not a change I welcome but then I  received a e-letter from my grandson which combined the immediacy of technology with the emotion of a handwritten note!

" Dear Dada;

Papa told me you weren't feeling well, so I decided to write to you. It was very difficult because Papa won't let me play with his toys! He has a nice white one (which I'm using now), and a black shiny toy which he makes me talk to everyday. But he won't share (maybe you can have a "word" with him, whatever that is.) 

But I managed to get to his white toy! I always do! It's so fun to hit these little clicky things.
Anyway, Papa said you hurt yourself and were feeling bad. I know how you feel - only today my Nana let me slip and hit my head on the table. I cried because it hurt, but Mama and Papa took so good care of me and showed me so much love I was laughing before long. I think you should do the same - Bhua and Dadi must be taking very good care of you so you should feel good soon! They all love you very much. And I do too! I can't wait till October!

Besides, you must be better when I come visit in October! Then maybe Mama and Papa will let me run around so we can play!

Okay, Papa will not be happy I used his toy so I will go now. I'm sorry I can't write more but I'm only 8 months old! If Papa had his way, I would be writing something called "War and Peace" (I don't know what that is - is that a tasty treat?).
Love,
Nik"