• A NASA study found that a 26-minute nap improved a pilot’s performance by 34%.
• Another study found that a 45-min nap boosted cognitive performance for more than 6 hours.
• Students given a series of math problems and shown one of the many ways to solve them were then given 12 hours before being asked to solve them again.  After 12 hours, 20% had found a shortcut to the problems.  But, if in those 12 hours the students were allowed about 8 hours of sleep, 60% had discovered a shortcut.  No matter how many times the experiment is run, the sleep group consistently outperforms the non-sleep group 3:1.

So there really is something to the phrase “sleep on it!”

Again though, I couldn’t put my child on a traditional mattress, full of petrochemicals and flame retardants, off-gassing formaldehyde all around him for 10+ hours a day.  So we did what we did before–we bought cheaper furniture and splurged on the mattress.  The full 6″ natural talalay latex mattress made by a local company without any chemicals cost $1400.  The organic wool mattress protector was $150.  My son already has a nice natural latex pillow.  We’re topping the bed with an organic cotton blanket, which will work for now until we need something warmer.  The best thing about splurging on a natural latex mattress is that it will last 20 years–and so does the warranty.  That means something to me when I have 3 kids that will likely use this mattress and when I’m already noticing that my personal 4 year old innerspring mattress is sagging.

And here comes the irony.  After spending all this time and money finding the cleanest mattress and bedding possibly, the furniture arrives.  While it’s solid wood (no particle board, glued together with chemicals that off-gas), the varnish on the wood is clearly not low-VOC.  In fact, it stinks!  I thought about returning it and buying something else.  But until you actually get wood furniture in your home, how would you know if the varnish used contains lots of VOCs?  And we can’t afford really expensive furniture.  I thought about buying used, but I really wanted a matching set, which is hard to find used. What would you do?