1. The overall topic of the even that I attended was about sleep.

It talked about how sleep

can affect how we function, how well we remember things, and how well we perform in
school and life. They had stations that talked about sleep, and stations that were
dedicated to ways that sleep could be made more useful and effective.
2. SLCC learning outcomes
1. Students develop the attitudes and skills for lifelong wellness.
-Sleep is going to pay a huge part in lifetime wellness. It’s difficult to maintain a
healthy lifestyle if you don’t take the time to sleep enough. Sleep can affect the
nourishment and energy that we get in our bodies and have sustained
throughout the day.
I think one of the biggest things that I took from this was meditation. They had a
stations set up and dedicated to meditation and how it relates to sleep. I learned
some amazing things about meditation. Probably the coolest for me was that
those who learn how to meditate and spend enough time practicing and getting
good at meditation actually begin to sleep more efficiently. This allows them to
sleep for shorter durations of time, while still getting the same benefits of those
who sleep longer without practicing meditation. So I decided to focus on
dropping non-essential activities at 10 30 at night in order to help myself get to
bed earlier, and I also tried to practice meditation to see if doing so helped me to
feel more rested.
2. Students think critically and creatively.
-These relate because sleep deprivation causes lack of creative thought. If you
want your mind to be as powerful as you want it to be then you must take care
of it. Sleeping enough and between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am is the best way
to get the rest needed to help develop the right side of your brain to work
properly. The point of sleeping enough is not just for physical health, but also for
mental health.
3. On page 968, ’10 Steps to Happiness’ it states that one of the 10 steps to achieve
happiness is to get adequate rest and plan your life. “A very important step to ensure
better productivity”. I think it’s such a simple thing that we often overlook the profound
impact that it can have on our life. Obviously one or two days, even a week of bad sleep
will not affect us long term, but over the course of months or years, it can get us into a
habit of being tired and less energized, and before we know it we are half of the person
that we could potentially be if we were getting enough sleep.
4. I think it did. As I mentioned above meditation can actually relate to how useful our
sleep is. I tried meditating and discovered a few things.
 Meditating in the morning is very difficult for me because I will probably just fall back
asleep within 10 minutes. Meditating in the evening was helpful though because it helped
me to fee more refreshed and it seemed to aid in preparing for sleep since the mind is more
relaxed and ready to rest.
When I am able to meditate I am much more energized. Mid-afternoon to evening
would be a great time to meditate because that is when I usually spend time with the
people I care about. So meditating is a great way for me to keep myself energized and
creative in relationships. This is not a huge society factor of course. No great organizations
will be founded based on my meditation. But I think that the small things are what can help
us to do bigger things. The best way to build up society and create healthy communities is
to start with ourselves and our close circles, meditation is a great way to ensure that our
relationships are healthy and positive, and then ideally things spiderweb outward.

5. I would go to another sleep lesson to learn more about how it can have an impact on
our lives. I think it’s useful to give yourself frequent reminders about what we can do to
keep incorporating these kinds of things into our lives. It gets easy to get caught up in
the everyday rut where we just go through life surviving and getting done only what we
need to. But I think that things like meditation allow us to more fully connect with
ourselves. Instead of getting caught up, we can maintain a sense of purpose and beauty
when we give ourselves time to release, reflect, and figure out what is really important
to us in our days.
6. When I planned to go to this little sleep fair I was not expecting to see anything like
meditation. I thought we would go, hear a talk about how our brain shrinks when we
don’t sleep, and then we would all carry on with our lives, determined to sleep more,
until then next time a good movie came on or a friend invited us to go out. Instead there
were stations and they talked about detailed things, meditation, methods to relax the
body to sleep more like aromatherapy and essential oils. It was a lot more engaging and
interactive than I expected when I showed up. I was glad I invested the time from my
day.