Mood News.

Byline: Lois B. Morris

Stress Over Sleep

People don't get enough sleep, reports say. But a British survey of nearly 11,000 people raises the question of whether people really want more sleep or less stress. Half of those polled wished they could sleep longer, and nearly 20 percent of them reported "excessive" daytime sleepiness, say Clare Anderson and James A. Horne of the Sleep Research Centre at Loughborough University. But given a hypothetical extra hour in the day, only 23.4 percent of women opted to sleep. (Most said they would relax, read, or watch TV; 25 percent would exercise or socialize.) Perceived lack of sleep, which was unrelated to daytime sleepiness, correlated with a stressful lifestyle. In many cases, a desire for more sleep may "reflect a need for more time out,'" the researchers say.

The Power of Stereotypes

Women can perform well in math--until they are reminded of the stereotype that men are better at it. At Dartmouth College, researchers led by psychologist Anne C. Krendl studied 28 college women who strongly agreed that it was important to them to be good at math. All had their brains scanned while they completed a variety of tasks, including two sets of difficult math problems. Before the second test, the investigators noted to some of the women that "research has shown gender differences in math ability and performance." The subjects who had ...