I like to sift the good articles from the dross and share the good stuff with friends and coworkers. That’s the purpose of this column, incidentally. I read stuff, find things that are both informative and interesting to working professionals, and offer it for your consumption.

Get enough sleep or die – Mashable
The topic of sleep is always close to the fore here at Leggett & Platt, so a lot of us pay attention to every bit of news we get about it. So, here’s a short piece about it. By the way, have you noticed how much attention has been given to sleep lately? It seems as if you can’t go a day without hearing about the importance of sleep, and how you’re basically a nonfunctioning troglodyte if you don’t get the recommended eight hours. Does this article shed any new light on the subject? A little, at least for me. And that is: the cells in our body produce waste product, which needs to be cleaned up. The best conditions for that cleanup exist while we’re sleeping.

Buddhism in the workplace – The Economist
If the Protestant work ethic gave rise to capitalism, is the Buddhist ethic keeping it going? This article details the prominent examples of “mindfulness” in today’s corporate world, and it might surprise a lot of people that the meditation trend isn’t limited to places like Silicon Valley. Mindfulness, to condense its meaning a bit, is the practice of “disconnecting to connect.” Or, to strip the philosophy of its pretension, it’s simply the act of turning off your smartphone and ignoring e-mail for a while, with meditation optional. Some might suggest, as happens in this article, that a walk in nature (the Ruby Jack Trail behind Leggett’s corporate office?) is just as good in recharging batteries and maintaining vitality. 

For dog lovers – The Economist
I’m going to stray from the usual subject matter for this link. (See what happened there? I used the word “stray” in writing a story about dogs, just like someone might write that a struggling airline is experiencing “turbulence.” Words can be so much fun!) Everyone loves dogs, and everyone has spent some time thinking about dogs’ domestication and their love for humans. It’s fascinating. This article doesn’t have all the answers about when and how humans and dogs got together, but it’s interesting nonetheless. And there’s a great photo of Australian dingoes, which are called the “largely unchanged descendants of the first pooches.”