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According to a growing body of research, napping is a smart thing to do. It can help refresh the mind, make you more creative, boost your intelligence, and even help you live a longer, healthier life. It’s slowly gaining acceptance as part of a healthy lifestyle, even in some corporate offices. Read on as we share the science behind the need to nap, and a scientist-approved method for taking the ideal snooze.

Outline from subheadings:

• Why We Need Naps

  • Not getting enough sleep
  • Poor nutrition
  • Our bodies are programmed that way
  • It’s an evolutionary necessity

• Studies on Napping

  • The benefits of napping apply even to the very young
  • Sleeping on the job is a good thing
  • An afternoon nap markedly boosts the brain’s learning capacity
  • Naps are more effective than caffeine
  • Napping can boost your memory
  • Even a short nap can have a marked effect on your health
  • Naps make you more creative
  • Want to boost performance? Take a nap

• How to Take the Perfect Nap

1. Watch the time
2. Find a quiet and dark place
3. Lie down
4. Get in the napping zone
5. Coordinate your caffeine
6. Plan to nap
7. Set an alarm
8. Cut out the guilt

Meditation brings many benefits: It refreshes us, helps us settle into what’s happening now, makes us wiser and gentler, helps us cope in a world that overloads us with information and communication, and more. But if you’re still looking for a business case to justify spending time meditating, try this one: Meditation makes you more productive.

How? By increasing your capacity to resist distracting urges.

Research shows that an ability to resist urges will improve your relationships, increase your dependability, and raise your performance. If you can resist your urges, you can make better, more thoughtful decisions. You can be more intentional about what you say and how you say it. You can think about the outcome of your actions before following through on them.

Our ability to resist an impulse determines our success in learning a new behavior or changing an old habit. It’s probably the single most important skill for our growth and development.

So how do you do it? If you’re just starting, keep it very simple.

Sit with your back straight enough that your breathing is comfortable — on a chair or a cushion on the floor — and set a timer for however many minutes you want to meditate. Once you start the timer, close your eyes, relax, and don’t move except to breathe, until the timer goes off. Focus on your breath going in and out. Every time you have a thought or an urge, notice it and bring yourself back to your breath.

That’s it. Simple but challenging. Try it — today — for five minutes. And then try it again tomorrow.

You can find plenty of articles in magazines or on the Internet with tips for living a happier, more fulfilling life. Things like “exercise” and “be an understanding spouse” are all time-honored ways to beat a path to happiness, and won’t be included here. But there are also some seemingly random activities that are more like cheat codes to happiness — things you never would have expected can actually make you feel better about yourself and your life in general. For instance …

1. Thinking About Death […]

2. Doing Chores […]

3. Riding the Subway […]

4. Getting into Fights […]

5. Keeping Your Mind Busy […]

6. Eating Red Meat […]

7. Watching Sad Movies […]

Read the article for more details.

12 Great Reasons for Music in Education

• Build self-confidence
• Stimulate the imagination
• Strengthen hand-eye coordination
• Develop better listening skills
• Increase pattern recognition
• Improve language & communication
• Enhance memory
• Teach self-discipline
• Cultivate creativity
• Reduce stress and improve focus
• Help and inspire at-risk students
• Improve academics & SAT scores

  BONUS: Music makes learning fun!

Music has been a part of every human culture we have ever discovered. It wasn’t until a little over 500 years ago, with the birth of the Renaissance and the invention of the printing press, that music started to shift from an integral part of daily life, spiritual and healing practices and community ritual to a form of entertainment that could be commercialized […]

For the most part, modern society has narrowed its value of music by only viewing it through two principle lenses: that of commodity and that of entertainment.

It’s no wonder so many decision makers have lost track of the tremendous intrinsic value music has to development and the vitality of our culture. If we are going to truly benefit from the use of music for education and the cultivation of a more creative, intelligent and compassionate nation, we must first shift our values around music itself.

As children, we can’t help but get in touch with creativity, we’re starting to learn how the world works, everything comes from a beginner’s mind. As we begin practicing and repeating things, the brain eventually figures it out and moves onto the next thing. Eventually, our curiosity for most things fades away as life begins routine and we miss out on the possibilities around us. That is why I’m always impressed and inspired when I find someone who uses creativity as a modality for healing.

Today I wanted to bring to you a former New York television executive Deb Eiseman, who after suffering debilitating chronic pain after a car accident found healing through creativity. Her life has now been transformed from one riddled with chronic pain to feeling happy as an artist and designer. She contends that it was through finding her creativity that she was healed. Can we do the same?

Deb’s advice to anyone dealing with chronic pain:

Don’t quit 5 minutes before the miracle. When you are in debilitating pain for an extended period of time, you either get bitter or get better. I feel like I reached a fork in the road and chose the path that allowed me to see the gifts in the pain. Pain is an amazing teacher and I feel so fortunate that I was conscious enough to be open to learning from it.

I also think that it is important to choose the intention to heal. When I was in such overwhelming pain, it was much easier to pay attention to the pain as opposed to the healing process. But then I realized that paying attention to the pain made me feel really powerless and just kept me in pain. Once I made the conscious choice to think about the healing process, everything started to shift and the healing unfolded.

You know what visions I get in my dreams? Visions of falling off of buildings (and doing the full body spasm thing when I hit the ground). These 11 people, on the other hand, had dreams that changed the world. Let’s hope that my visions take a turn toward genius sometime soon. Until then, I’ll just take inspiration from these guys.

1. The Periodic Table [Dmitry Mendeleyev]

2. “Yesterday” [Paul McCartney]

3. Frankenstein’s Monster [Mary Shelley]

4. Jekyll and Hyde [Robert Louis Stevenson]

5. Twilight [Stephenie Meyer]

6. The Necronomicon [H.P. Lovecraft]

7. The Terminator [James Cameron]

8. Jack Nicklaus’ Golf Swing

9. The Sewing Machine Needle [Elias Howe]

10. DNA [Dr. James Watson]

11. Stephen King’s Misery