Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Women - Happy in marriage but dreaming of divorce!!

It seems women seem to be living their lives based on the above motto!! Here is at least one woman's opinion in CNN. Now I wonder if this is universal. I also wonder what an appropriate response would be from a man. In this day and age when it is now accepted wisdom that most problems in marriages are caused by immature men, I wonder if it is even political correct to rebut. More to the point what would it do to my marriage? So I guess I will leave my thoughts where they belong - in my brain.

Monday, September 08, 2008

Sleep eight hours a day and lose weight

I like to sleep. From childhood till now, it has been my favorite activity or as some would say favorite inactivity.

My parents did not take kindly to my sleeping habits. They tried to reform me. They gave me adages like "The early bird catches the worm". I wanted to tell them - nice way to motivate someone who is a vegetarian!!

My school punished me whenever I was late. They make you stand in a line and all the kids grade 1 through 12 would know who the late comers were. It is is pretty demeaning. My college expected me to be in class by 8:00AM which meant I had to be up at an insane 5:30AM everyday (in case you are wondering why I need 2.5 hours - get ready, eat breakfast, catch the 6:40AM University special for an hour long commute). The problem only got worse after my marriage since my better half is an early riser. Now I have a job with employees in US and India which means I now have no defined working hours!!

Now do not be under the impression that I share a curse with Kumbakarna. All I need is 8 hours of sleep during weekdays and 9 hours on weekends. During all these years, I almost had no ammunition to fight my foes namely, parents, school, college, and dear wife. It was clear that working is better and sleeping is a waste of time. All I could say lamely was - if God intended man to work 24 hours he would not have created sleep. This argument carried less weight since I am an atheist.

Recently I read a very nice article on the need for adequate sleep which is defined by at least 7 hours and lists some of the dangers of sleep deprivation such as the obvious one - poor decision making ability and adds weight gain, diabetes, and even a link to cancer this list.

Now you can tell your other half - if only you had slept an hour more everyday, you would have easily taken off those 5 lbs you so badly wanted to!!