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February 28 is National Public Sleeping Day

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Today is National Public Sleeping Day, not to be confused with Festival of Sleep Day on January 3rd.

Cats are known for taking short naps and waking quickly to flee a predator or pounce on prey. Those who have cats can attest to the fact that cats sleep a lot, an average of 15 hours per day, according to petMD. They are most active at night so, when the bipedal world is getting up, they’re settling in for a snooze.

We can approximate a catnap with the “power nap.” According to sleep expert Sara C. Mednick, Ph.D., author of Take a Nap! Change Your Life, “You can get incredible benefits from 15 to 20 minutes of napping. You reset the system and get a burst of alertness and increased motor performance. That’s what most people really need to stave off sleepiness and get an energy boost.”

Longer naps have benefits, too, but don’t lend themselves to public situations. For instance, you might miss your stop on the train or bus, sleep through getting fired for sleeping at work or come to on a park bench having unwittingly donated your watch, wallet and shoes while you slumbered.

Sleep architecture researchers define the power nap as stage 2 sleep. Most of us are familiar with Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep; this very short sleep cycle is classified as Non-Rapid Eye Movement (NREM). According to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study:

An individual in stage 2 sleep requires more intense stimuli than in stage 1 to awaken. Brain activity on an EEG shows relatively low-voltage, mixed-frequency activity characterized by the presence of sleep spindles and K-complexes. It is hypothesized that sleep spindles are important for memory consolidation.

K-complexes appear to prevent interruption of sleep due to touch, sound and other stimuli judged by the sleeping brain to present no threat. They also aid in information processing, help to synchronize NREM activity in the thalamus and promote a slow-wave sleep state. (More science here.)

While the effects of caffeine are researched, debated and studied some more—the NIH lists 72 open clinical trials involving caffeine—everyone agrees that a little shut-eye will do you a lot of good. Keep in mind that our circadian biological clock rhythms tend to make us most sleepy between 1 pm to 3 pm.

Naps longer than 30 minutes can paradoxically make you feel groggy. This effect is called “sleep inertia” and happens when you awaken quickly from deep sleep. Psychological and motor skills are impaired for minutes or longer, especially if you’ve had insufficient sleep the night before.

Dark surroundings will help you fall asleep more quickly and get more out of your downtime. If there’s nowhere at work to turn off the lights and close the door or it’s too cold, hot, rainy or snowy to go outside and lounge with a TPS report over your face, check out the Ostrich Pillow.

national public sleeping dayThere’s no better way to let your cubicle mates know they should come back later, get everyone to come look at you, post a photo companywide, worldwide, to the International Space Station, start a therapy fund…or all of the above!

A nap can’t replace a good night’s sleep, but it can sharpen your senses and keep you going until quitting time. Unless you’re a cat. Then it’s always quitting time.

Happy National Public Sleeping Day!

Copyright © 2019 Worldwide Weird Holidays

February 26 is Levi Strauss Day

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Levi Strauss dayToday is Levi Strauss Day. It celebrates the birthday on February 26, 1829, of the man who invented blue jeans with a little help from his friends.

Strauss, born Löb Strauß, grew up in Bavaria, Germany, where he, his family and his community faced discrimination because they were Jewish. They paid extra taxes and were only allowed to live in certain areas.

In 1847, after his father died of tuberculosis, 18-year-old Strauss and his mother and two sisters traveled to the U.S. and joined his two older brothers in New York City, where they had opened a dry goods business. He worked there through 1852.

He moved to San Francisco in 1853 to capitalize on the influx of miners hoping to strike it rich. The California Gold Rush, begun in 1849 after a nugget was found during construction of Sutter’s Mill, was in full swing. Levi Strauss & Company became a thriving business, selling fabric, clothing and other goods.

In 1872, Strauss received a letter from Jacob Davis, a tailor who had found a way to make pants constructed from Strauss’ sturdy cloth even more durable, by affixing metal rivets on the pockets and the fly seam. He couldn’t afford the patent application fee. Strauss covered it and they received the patent the following year.levi strauss day

Strauss never doubted their “waist overalls” would be a huge success. They offered two options: pants made of heavy “duck” canvas or blue denim. By 1911, the company phased out canvas altogether.

Why did miners overwhelmingly choose what would come to be known as blue jeans? According to Jude Stewart, author of ROY G. BIV: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color, it has a lot to do with the dye process.She posted on Slate, “Unlike most natural dyes that, when heated, penetrate cloth fibers directly, indigo binds externally to the cloth’s threads, coaxed by a chemical agent called a mordant.

“With each washing some of these dye molecules are stripped away, taking bits of the threads with them. The process softens rough fabrics and individualizes the color. This extreme customization––plus the fact that jeans could be ‘shrunk to fit’––made every pair a second skin.”

Historian Lynn Downey added: “Once someone had worn a pair of denim pants, experiencing its strength…and how the denim became more comfortable with every washing…he never wanted to wear duck again; because with cotton duck, you always feel like you’re wearing a tent.”

Strauss helped finance the first synagogue in San Francisco and contributed to various charities, especially those benefitting orphans. As his company grew more successful, Strauss was able to expand his generosity even further by funding many scholarships for students applying to the University of California.

Strauss brought his nephews into the company—he had no children—and groomed them to take over for him. He stayed on as president until his death on September 26, 1902, at the age of 73. The basic jeans that bear his name have changed little since.*

*You may have noticed the rivet beneath the fly is gone. According to legend, cowboys squatting near campfires got crotch burns when the metal overheated. In reality, it was eliminated due to the World War II mandate to conserve metal. The back pocket rivets were removed in the 1950s after complaints they scratched furniture.

Levi’s are arguably the most famous pants on the planet. Happy Levi Strauss Day, everybody!

Copyright © 2017 Worldwide Weird Holidays

 

Single Tasking Day

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Today is Single Tasking Day. Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to do just one thing at a time, without participating in the sham called multitasking.

single tasking day

Unlike computers, humans are not wired to work on many complex problems at once. Switching focus quickly from one thing to another can make us perceive that we’re managing multiple streams of information simultaneously, but each shift requires energy.

Our overall processing power becomes less efficient, even when dealing with things we do habitually—like scanning our phones, texting and going through emails—that don’t seem to require much attention but are, in fact, tying up the executive functions of our brains.

A study at Gresham College in London found that multitasking caused subjects’ problem-solving performance to drop by the equivalent of 10 IQ points. MIT neuroscientist Earl Miller says our brains aren’t wired to multitask. “When people think they’re multitasking, they’re actually just switching from one task to another very rapidly. And every time they do, there’s a cognitive cost.”

Per McGill University professor Daniel Levitin, “Asking the brain to shift attention from one activity to another causes the prefrontal cortex and striatum to burn up oxygenated glucose, the same fuel they need to stay on task. And the kind of rapid, continual shifting we do with multitasking causes the brain to burn through fuel so quickly that we feel exhausted and disoriented after even a short time. We’ve literally depleted the nutrients in our brain.”

So feed your brain; just do it slowly so you don’t get a cramp. And have a happy Single Tasking Day!

Copyright © 2017 Worldwide Weird Holidays

National Handcuff Day

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national handcuff dayToday is National Handcuff Day. On February 20, 1912, George A. Carney was awarded U.S. patent number 1,017,955 for his “swinging bow ratchet-type” adjustable handcuff.

Prior to Carney’s invention, there was no standard style and handcuffs were heavy and awkward to use. His lightweight design features a freely swinging arm that enables law enforcement officers to secure cuffs on a suspect quickly and easily, with one hand. More than 100 years later, most handcuffs still use the same swing-through structure, with some minor modifications.

James Milton Gill purchased the patent, founded the Peerless Handcuff Company, and in 1914 began to sell the first model based on Carney’s configuration.  The company has been innovating and improving cuff design ever since. In 1932, Peerless introduced the barrel-style key which quickly became the universal standard for all handcuffs.

National Handcuff Day was created in 2010 to honor Carney’s invention. Each year, Peerless and Handcuff Warehouse: The Ultimate Source for Restraints sponsor a contest in which the prize is a free set of cuffs. In 2016, they awarded a pair to the entrant who most closely guessed the weight of this pile. Give it a whirl then read on to find the answer.

If you guessed 49.5, it’s a shame you didn’t enter. You’d have won a shiny new pair of handcuffs. (Sheri Barber took the prize with her guess of 49.)

The contest has since returned to its usual quiz format. Click here to enter this year’s competition. (You could use the internet to help answer the questions. Only you, your flexible ethical standards and your Google search history will know for sure.) Please note that we cannot control any ads you may see or email lists you may be added to as a result of your actions.

Have a happy National Handcuff Day!

Copyright © 2017 Worldwide Weird Holidays