When Not to Talk About the Importance of Sleep!

One afternoon last week, I received a call from a radio station asking me if I would agree to be interviewed by them at 6:00 AM the next morning to discuss “The Importance of Sleep”.

There is much to be said for morningness (regularly rising early). In fact, my colleague, Nancy Digdon, who has led two empirical research projects on the cognitive shuffle / Serial Diverse Imagining using our app, published a couple of important papers on the subject.

They found positive correlations between

• emotional well-being,
• psychological well-being,
• social well-being,
• mindfulness,
• sleep quality, and
• morningness.

They also found that mindfulness is a direct predictor of well-being and an indirect predictor of well-being, mediated by sleep quality.

However, these days, I don’t tend to wake up before 7:00 AM. To practice what I preach, I explained this to the coordinator and turned down the interview on “The Importance of Sleep”.

References

Howell, A. J., Digdon, N. L., & Buro, K. (2010). Mindfulness predicts sleep-related self-regulation and well-being. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(4), 419–424. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2009.11.009

Howell, A. J., Digdon, N. L., Buro, K., & Sheptycki, A. R. (2008). Relations among mindfulness, well-being, and sleep. Personality and Individual Differences, 45(8), 773–777. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2008.08.005