On Mortality and Children

Today, I didn’t listen to any podcasts or audiobooks or music.  I just walked in silence.  The cemetery air was a little heavier than usual, and I got to thinking about mortality.  It only took me a few minutes of initial discomfort to come to terms with my own mortality.  It took me a little more time and discomfort to come to terms with the mortality of my wife and peers.  Then an awful thought popped into my head.  My children will die someday.  I can’t begin to explain how dreadfully this hit me.

Sleep Research Shows How Homework is Harmful

“More than 70% of high school students average less than 8 hours of sleep,” according to an October 1 research letter in JAMA Pediatrics (“Dose-Dependent Associations Between Sleep Duration and Unsafe Behaviors Among US High School Students”), “falling short of the 8 to 10 hours that adolescents need for optimal health. Insufficient sleep negatively affects learning and development and acutely alters judgment, particularly among youths.”