Stress

I know I write about sleep a lot, really a lot, but I can't help myself. I am almost always sleep-deprived for a variety of reasons: jet lag, worries about work or my family, too much caffeine too late in the day, the noise from my upstairs neighbors.

Are you finding it harder and harder to stay on task? When you start a chore, do you suddenly start thinking about a million other things? Researchers at Concordia University in Montreal have an answer: spring clean your brain.

For a study published in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, the Canadian researchers looked at 60 people: half were an average of 23 and the other half was about 67. Each participant was asked to perform a "working memory" task, which means the task required the participants to both retain and process information.

Once again, we're getting confusing news about hormone therapy at menopause. The most recent study says that estrogen may have some benefits for women who've had hysterectomies. But that's not the majority of women. The rest of us face complex choices as we struggle with hot flashes, the most common and distressing symptom of menopause.  More than 75 percent of American women suffer from hot flashes during this transition.  And they often come on at the most inconvenient times, especially when you're in the office.

It has become a badge of honor in our work-obsessed society to talk about how little sleep you need. A former boss of mine used to claim that he got by on fewer than four hours a night and his 2 a.m. emails seemed to confirm that claim. One of my current colleagues says she only sleeps a couple of hours at a time and wakes up in the middle of the night to read for a few hours before falling back to sleep again. She is well-read but…