Wednesday, August 30, 2023

Still Alive and Naps

 Back when I blogged regularly, and missed a few days, I would title a blogpost, Still Alive...". I did the same when travelling and sent, by air-snail mail (uh, snail-air mail?). I guess that might be morbid.

Anyway, I am working in long term care, making and planning activities and I find it quite similar teaching ESL in Korea. I use a lot of activities from my ESL days with my dementia clients.

So, well, see you again in 7 weeks (when I prepare for Nanowrimo) and then again in a few years, or something.

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From Scientific American: Are Naps good for you? (my bolding):

Several studies find that a well-timed nap can provide a short-term boost in brainpower. For example, scientists reviewed past research that focused on healthy participants with regular sleep cycles. That review, published in 2009 in the Journal of Sleep Research, showed that napping improved factors ranging from reaction time to alertness to memory performance. A brief nap can also light the spark of creativity, a 2021 study in Science Advances found. In that research, participants were given math problems that could be solved with an easy shortcut that they weren’t told about. Some participants were encouraged to take a brief, dozy nap before tackling the problems. The researchers found those who napped—and spent even just 30 seconds in the first, lightest phase of sleep—were 2.7 times more likely to figure out the math shortcut than those who stayed awake. But entering a deeper sleep phase had a negative effect on this creative insight. In other words, there may be a “sweet spot” of mental relaxation that clears the way for eureka moments.


Monday, May 1, 2023

Two from Tor: and also, Still Alive!

 It's been a while! I don't feel I have been creative in an obvious way for the past few months, so I didn't post anything here.  But these two posts from Tor - the book publishing company - caught my eye.

Seven fictional writers who clearly aren't based on reality.

Apparently Stephen King's Misery is the most realistic of the bunch.

How adaptations can be their own works of art. The TV show The Magicians, which has mostly the same characters as the books but is also weirder and maybe darker than the books, gets a lot of praise.