Perhaps even more important, says NIN sleep scientist Eus van Someren, interrupted REM is strongly linked to disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and anxiety. If two people experience the same level of trauma, a good sleeper is probably less likely to develop PTSD than someone with disturbed sleep, he says. Those with disturbed s

Adolescents who never learn to control their consciousness grow up to be adults without a “discipline.” They lack the complex skills that will help them survive in a competitive, information-intensive environment. And what is even more important, they never learn how to enjoy living. They do not acquire the habit of finding challenges that bring ou

The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.

Research shows that when people are resistant to change, it helps to reinforce what will stay the same. Visions for change are more compelling when they include visions of continuity. Although our strategy might evolve, our identity will endure.

Third, the universal networked library of all books will cultivate a new sense of authority. If you can truly incorporate all texts—past and present in all languages—on a particular subject, then you can have a clearer sense of what we as a civilization, a species, do and don’t know. The empty white spaces of our collective ignorance are highlighte

The internet is no omniscient library, but the parallels between Borges’ story are apparent. The web is a boundless compendium of information and data scattered across billions of pages—content, as we’ve loathed to call it. In this virtual information library, Google may be the closest thing we have to a librarian.