"Sleep On It!""

Want to make smarter decisions?  Zzzleep On It!  by Amy M Avery

We've heard the advice, "Sleep on it and let me know in the morning."  Have you ever taken that advice and waited until the next day to make an important decision?  That extra time seems to help us think more clearly.  Is it the wait or the sleep that's so important?

Over the past decade or so, researchers have started to weigh in:  It's sleep.

"Our brains need sleep," says Jessica Payne, MA, PhD., director of the Sleep, Stress, and Memory Lab at the University of Norte Dame.  "Sleep is important for memory, learning, decision making, emotion, insight, and even creativity."

Sleep Tight
We know most adults need between eight to eight and a half hours of sleep each night.  Some need only seven hours, while others need nine.  In rare cases, people may even need more or less.

"Our research shows if you don't get enough good quality sleep, you're likely to have problems with a range of mental activities, and these can be serious."  Dr. Payne says, "Someone who is extremely sleep-deprived is as dangerous driving a car as someone who's had too much to drink."

How Sleeping On It Helps
Brain Booster - Good quality sleep is a brain booster.  In a recent study, Dr. Payne found if you sleep soon after learning something new, you're more likely to be able to remember it the next day.  Good sleep also helps you remember what you learn and use it later.
Keep Emotions In Check - Proper sleep also improves mood and relieves stress.  When you don't sleep well, your body releases hormones that stay with you during the day.  Sleeping well resets the brain each night according to Dr. Payne.  "That makes it easier to control our emotions and prepare for the next day's challenges."
The Power of Naps - Sleep experts tell us the body and brain find a way to get the amount of sleep we need, whether night owls or early birds.  If you miss out on your nighttime rest, a daytime nap can help.  "A well-timed nap can give you several extra hours of productive time," Dr. Payne says, "as well as a boot to your mood and to your ability to make good decisions."

It's easiest for many people to nap in the early afternoon, or about 8 hours after you wake up.  Limit yourself to 30-45 minutes.  Any longer, and you'll enter deeper stages of sleep - and my wake up cranky and sluggish.

The time you spend sound asleep at night or during a nap can help relieve stress; improve learning, creativity, and mood; and help you meet the challenges of daily life.  So go ahead... sleep on it!

Become a Fan of Newby Realty on Facebook	Newby Realty - Manufactured Home Sales
Newby Realty provides sales of new and used manufactured (mobile) homes throughout Florida in Bradenton, Clearwater, Debary, Edgewater, Ellenton, Fort Pierce, Hudson, Lakeland, N. Fort Myers, New Smyrna Beach, Ocala, Palmetto, Port Charlotte, Port Richey, Sarasota, Winter Springs, Zephyrhills.

Part 5 - Humor - It Helps Us as We Age - Faith and Hope

Look beyond the laughter with hope and faith

It we can create attitudes and beliefs that enable us to look beyond the sometimes unfortunate, present situation with optimism, we’re surely sailing more smoothly to the promised land.  Many call this hope.  With hope in our hearts, it is easier to laugh, even in the presence of pain, even I f we’ve lost our hair or our confidence or our friends.  As John Steinbeck puts it:  “Steal a little victory by laughing at defeat.”

Faith, as well as hope, can b e the balm of old age.  God is all the consolation we need.  But a sprightly, humorous God is surely preferable to a gloomy one!

Take heart

As you age, even if laughing is the last thing you feel like doing, life still begs you not to give up on humor.  We don’t need to belly laugh or backslap our way through old age.  Humor is perhaps at its best when it is quiet and subtle and understated.  The shy smile or sly grin may be more telling than the howl.  Irony and parody and puns and all sorts of wit are lying in wait to amuse us, divert us, drive away our demons, heal us, and make our days happier.

There is indeed room in old age for fulfillment and contentment, as Angela Macnamara notes:  “There is no period in life that does not have its own silver lining.”  The silver lining does not happen automatically.  Bit it helps to let our imaginations fly to where the sun deeps shining.  As Fred Astaire put it:  “Old age is like everything else.   To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.”

-by Michael J. Farrell

Become a Fan of Newby Realty on Facebook	Newby Realty - Manufactured Home Sales
Newby Realty provides sales of new and used manufactured (mobile) homes throughout Florida in Bradenton, Clearwater, Debary, Edgewater, Ellenton, Fort Pierce, Hudson, Lakeland, N. Fort Myers, New Smyrna Beach, Ocala, Palmetto, Port Charlotte, Port Richey, Sarasota, Winter Springs, Zephyrhills.

Part 4 - Humor - It Helps Us as We Age - Perspective

Use of humor to gain perspective

The power of humor to transform our heads and hearts as we age is no accident.  It does this by putting our lives in perspective.

Life is a tantalizing mix of tragedy and comedy, one constantly playing off against the other.  Authors and thinkers through the ages have reminded us of this, pointing out the often surprising, sometimes nonsensical, even contradictory things that happen all the time.  In other words, life is comic.  Theologian Soren Kierkegaard wrote:  “Wherever there is life there is contradiction, and wherever there is contradiction the comical is present.”

The key to cashing in on humor, then is to stand back from life once in a while and take a fresh look at it.  We will see that it’s serious, yes, but it’s also humorous in so many ways that the only logical thing to do sometimes is laugh at it, or better, with it.

We can preserve our sanity by laughing at our own silliness at times.   That’s what comedy is all about.  Awesome though we be, made in the image of God, we have to admit that we still act a little bit ridiculously sometimes, not at all as we intend to.  Once we admit this, we are able to laugh at ourselves slipping on the banana peels of live.

While we’re younger and busy striving to succeed, we’re less likely to notice all this.  But eventually, the clock catches up to us all.  Hopefully, by then we’ve cultivated a bit of wisdom, and can look with sympathy at this beautiful, crazy world.  And the healthy thing to do is laugh.

- by Michael J. Farrell

Become a Fan of Newby Realty on Facebook	Newby Realty - Manufactured Home Sales
Newby Realty provides sales of new and used manufactured (mobile) homes throughout Florida in Bradenton, Clearwater, Debary, Edgewater, Ellenton, Fort Pierce, Hudson, Lakeland, N. Fort Myers, New Smyrna Beach, Ocala, Palmetto, Port Charlotte, Port Richey, Sarasota, Winter Springs, Zephyrhills.

History of the Kentucky Derby

Pictured:  Exercise rider Jenn Patterson rides Kentucky Derby entrant "Orb" for a workout at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Ky.

The first Saturday of May hosts the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs, in Louisville, Kentucky, each year.  The 139th running of the Kentucky Derby will commence at 6:24 pm (EDT) on May 4, 2013.

More than just a horse race, the Kentucky Derby has grown into an American cultural event unlike any other since its inaugural running in 1875. Many of the traditions that will be flouted at Churchill Downs this weekend – and at Derby parties across the country – we owe to Matt Winn, who served as the face of the race from 1902 until his death in 1949. "The important, visible signs of the Derby and these romantic ideals of the old South were, if not created, at least promoted by Winn," says James C. Nicholson, author of "The Kentucky Derby: How the Run for the Roses Became America's Premier Sporting Event." Here are how some of those Derby Day traditions got their start:

The Roses. The beautiful blanket of 564 roses placed on the winning horse traces its roots to a strain of roses introduced to America in 1870s. Churchill Downs founder Meriwether Lewis Clark used them for decorations at a post-Derby party and by the 1890s, they became a prop in the post-race presentations, first as bouquet, then as a garland for the winning horse. Bill Curom, who went on to be the president of Churchill Downs, coined the term "The Run for the Roses" in 1925 when he was one of Winn's favorite sportswriters.

The Big Hats. The ornate hats worn by women to the race is a relic of the past, a popular fashion at the Derby's start and now almost a costume for today's event. "It really goes back to England, and the Kentucky Derby was patterned after a race in England, the Epsom," says Ronnie Dreistadt, a curator of education at the Kentucky Derby Museum. Nevertheless, it was tradition used by race promoters like Winn to market the Kentucky Derby to women and make it a see-and-be-seen event.
 
"My Old Kentucky Home." Stephen Collins Foster wrote the anthem in the 1850s, stirred by Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin." But it was not until the 1920s that it took off in popularity, when a mansion was thought to be identified as the song's inspiration (though no evidence exists that Foster ever actually saw the house). Within a few years Winn replaced the National Anthem with "My Old Kentucky Home" to kick off the Derby, and today it is performed by the University of Louisville Marching Band.

Gambling. A turn of the century campaign by progressive groups to abolish bookmakers at the races threatened the survival of not just the Kentucky Derby, but American horse racing as a whole. In one of his first and most important innovations, Winn embraced an alternate form of gambling, parimutuel betting, which removed the need for bookies all together (as payoffs were calculated by pooling all the bets together). The technology to do so had come from France decades earlier, but hadn't taken off in the states. So Winn had to scramble across the country to find the machines and introduce them at Churchill Downs.

Mint Juleps. The Kentucky whiskey and mint concoction was a popular drink at the Derby from its start. It became a staple, the legend goes, when a famous Polish actress, Helena Modjeska, ordered the drink at a pre-Derby breakfast at the track and loved it. Churchill Downs began serving it in its current souvenir glasses in the late 1930s, in part, because clubhouse patrons were stealing their regular glasses.

Become a Fan of Newby Realty on Facebook	Newby Realty - Manufactured Home Sales
Newby Realty provides sales of new and used manufactured (mobile) homes throughout Florida in Bradenton, Clearwater, Debary, Edgewater, Ellenton, Fort Pierce, Hudson, Lakeland, N. Fort Myers, New Smyrna Beach, Ocala, Palmetto, Port Charlotte, Port Richey, Sarasota, Winter Springs, Zephyrhills.

National Day of Prayer, Thursday, May 2nd

In times of great crisis, this nation turns its collective heart to prayer for guidance, answers, and hope.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan asserted, "While never willing to bow to a tyrant, our forefathers were always willing to get on their knees before God." He called on all Americans to "join with [him] in giving thanks to Almighty God for the blessings He’s bestowed on this land and the protection He affords us as a people." Seven years later, he signed a law declaring that the first Thursday each May be set aside as the National Day of Prayer.
Started in 1952 by an act of Congress, the National Day of Prayer is an annual event for Americans to take time to pray for our country and its leaders. Praying for the U.S., however, has roots in the very origins of the country itself. In 1775 during the first Continental Congress, citizens were asked to pray for God’s guidance in the formation of this new nation. In 1863, Abraham Lincoln called for a day to be set aside each year for specific prayer for the needs of the nation.
Throughout our history, many trials have brought us to our knees: the Civil War; the First and Second World Wars; the Great Depression; September 11, 2001; and more recently, the shootings at Newtown, Conn. In times of great crisis, this nation turns its collective heart to prayer for guidance, answers, and hope.
The theme for 2013 is "Pray for America," which emphasizes the need for all citizens "to place their faith in the unfailing character of their Creator, who is sovereign over all governments, authorities, and men," said John Bornschein, vice chairman of the National Day of Prayer Task Force. The Scripture reference for all events is Matthew 12:21: "The nations will put their hope in His name." Pastor Greg Laurie, this year’s honorary chairman, has written a special prayer that will be read nationwide at noon (EDT).

by Stacey Owens                                                                

Become a Fan of Newby Realty on Facebook	Newby Realty - Manufactured Home Sales
Newby Realty provides sales of new and used manufactured (mobile) homes throughout Florida in Bradenton, Clearwater, Debary, Edgewater, Ellenton, Fort Pierce, Hudson, Lakeland, N. Fort Myers, New Smyrna Beach, Ocala, Palmetto, Port Charlotte, Port Richey, Sarasota, Winter Springs, Zephyrhills.

Part 3 - Humor - It Helps Us as We Age - Feel Good

Feel free to feel good

Countless studies have examined the influence of humor on our well-being.   Nobody is saying humor can directly cure physical or mental illness.  Instead, it generally works by stealth.  It enters by the back door, and when we’re paying attention, makes new persons of us.

The old person we have become with the years may be grumpy and unhappy, depressed and despairing, lonely, scared, embarrassed, or stressed.  We may be stiff and sore, or maybe there’s cancer or a failing heart.  This is not the person we want to be.  We want our lives to blossom and our old age to be a triumph.

And it can be, regardless of circumstances.  Such a triumph seldom happens overnight.  Yet, the research into humor therapy reveals amazing transformations.  They key is that body and soul are a unit, and each influences the other.

We know that stress saps our immune systems:  The mental takes its toll on the physical.  Likewise, laughter is not only an abstract flight of the imagination, it has a physical side, too, and does subtle but positive things to the body.  These bodily changes are observable and measurable.  Among other things, laughter releases endorphins, chemicals in the brain which help control pain.  This in turn allows us to stop worrying, too become mellow.

“Feelings are chemical; they can kill or cure,” writes Dr. Bernie Siegel.  Our emotions are the motor that moves us.  Humor is a shortcut to emotional health.  If we are able to laugh at ourselves at the every time we are being poked and prodded, for example, the body will pay less attention to the discomfort and start to feel better.

by - Michael J. Farrell

Become a Fan of Newby Realty on Facebook	Newby Realty - Manufactured Home Sales
Newby Realty provides sales of new and used manufactured (mobile) homes throughout Florida in Bradenton, Clearwater, Debary, Edgewater, Ellenton, Fort Pierce, Hudson, Lakeland, N. Fort Myers, New Smyrna Beach, Ocala, Palmetto, Port Charlotte, Port Richey, Sarasota, Winter Springs, Zephyrhills.

Part 2 - Humor - It Helps Us as We Age - Healing

Use humor to help you heal

Humor and its first cousin comedy are good for our health, physical and emotional.  For the majority of us, a certain number of ailments await us down the road, if they are not already at hand.   Some of us, sadly, give up and simply hunker down to wait for the bitter end.  Others fight back.  The poet W. B. Yeats said an old person is like “a tatter coat upon a stick,” unless he or she responds to aging with clapping and singing.  Celebration life is what humor is all about.  Be of good cheer!

Norman Cousins used humor to heal.  In the 1960’s, he contracted a rare and painful point disease.  Instead of giving up, however, he went on a humor binge, watching old movies such as the Marx Brothers, and the “Candid Camera” television series.  He soon found that ten minutes of hearty laughter would win him two pain-free hours.

In a matter of months, Cousins regained the motion in his joints.  Before long the pain disappeared, and eventually he made an almost complete recovery from this supposedly terminal disease.   Cousins’ boo, Anatomy of an Illness, created a revolution.   The cornerstone of this theory of humor is the power of the mind – or the soul- to influence the body.

– by Michael J. Farrell

Become a Fan of Newby Realty on Facebook	Newby Realty - Manufactured Home Sales
Newby Realty provides sales of new and used manufactured (mobile) homes throughout Florida in Bradenton, Clearwater, Debary, Edgewater, Ellenton, Fort Pierce, Hudson, Lakeland, N. Fort Myers, New Smyrna Beach, Ocala, Palmetto, Port Charlotte, Port Richey, Sarasota, Winter Springs, Zephyrhills.