My new, not-exactly-original resolution is to go to sleep when I feel sleepy, instead of staying up to read, work, watch The Sopranos on TiVO, pay bills, whatever.

Before I learned the counter-intuitive—but true—rule that well-rested children sleep better than sleep-deprived children, I’d made critical errors like thinking that if my children stayed up late, they’d sleep later in the morning. Nope. They wake up earlier. Sleep begets sleep.

And this rule is true for adults, too. Now that I get more sleep, I sleep better but I also need more sleep. That’s healthy, sure, but I miss having that time awake.

But maybe my new sleepiness isn’t linked to getting more sleep, but just the level of sleep-deprivation we all suffer. I’ve heard that “sleep is the new sex,” and I was at a dinner party where everyone literally went around the table detailing the best nap they’d ever had.

From 2006 through 2014, as she wrote The Happiness Project and Happier at Home, Gretchen chronicled her thoughts, observations, and discoveries on The Happiness Project Blog.