Hopefully not a taste of things to come

I woke up in the middle of the night last night/this morning and could not freaking fall back asleep. My mind kept drifting and fixating on recall-memory sorts of things, like the classification of vegetables. It reminded me of when I was taking a high school anatomy & physiology course, and I used to lie awake counting the bones in my body or thinking about the different components of blood. Good for when it was time to take tests, but bad for sleep. 

Normally when I can't sleep, I stomp around and get all pissed off and stuff, but last night I figured I might be better off going back to one of the guided imagery tapes I used to use when I had insomnia in college. It worked, go figure. I'd highly recommend Belleruth Nepartsek's stuff. She's great. 

Hopefully, I won't have to deal with this too often this semester, but it's nice to know I have something I can turn to. 

French No. 1 in Sleeping and Eating.

Big surprise there. According to a report published Monday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the French spend more time sleeping and eating than the inhabitants of any other "highly developed country."

The average French person gets nine hours of sleep per night, a half-hour more than the average American (I don't know too many Americans who sleep eight-and-a-half hours a night, but whatever).

When it comes to eating habits, the French devote over two hours per day to meals. That's twice the amount of time spent by Americans.

It seems to be paying off for them, as the report shows life expectancy of the country's men and women lagging behind only Japan.

I think France has the right idea, personally. I know I feel better when I'm well rested and make the time to enjoy my meals.

I get a kick out of books and articles like, "How to Eat like a French Woman" or "Live the French Life for a Month: First things first—only wash your hair once a week." I swear to god, look it up.

One thing I do wish would change though is that instead of putting out books with titles like, French Women Don't Get Fat, how about we think more in terms of "French women maintain a healthy weight?"

I guess that wouldn't sell as many copies, though. Americans are just as obsessed with FAT vs THIN as we are with the French.