Sleeping

Whether by necessity or choice, a quarter of Americans take at least one vacation by themselves each year. Some solo travelers are single. Some have partners who dislike travel or have different interests or can't get away. Some just crave freedom. But all face the same question: What's the best trip for the person traveling alone? "The key is to know yourself," said Beth Whitman, author of a guide for women traveling alone and founder of Wanderlustandlipstick.com , a website devoted to advice and tours for women on the go. "There are times when you just need to get away, to recuperate.

The links between sleep and cancer are now so many, you could build a chain. A new study has found that for men who suffer insomnia and unwelcome wakefulness, the risk of prostate cancer is greater than for those whose sleep is undisrupted. That research expands on a growing body of evidence that men and women whose sleep is short, broken or of poor quality are at higher risk of developing a wide range of cancers. Research has long linked overnight shift work -- and the circadian rhythm disruptions that are common with it -- as a risk factor for breast cancer and endometrial cancers in women.

Re "Judges Reject Appeal in 'Sleeping Attorney' Case," Oct. 28: The recent ruling by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals highlights the inherent unfairness of the death penalty apparatus in this country. Only indigent defendants are in danger of being subjected to dozing, disinterested trial counsel; those with access to money can purchase the wakefulness of their attorneys. JERRY WEIL Seal Beach A modest proposal regarding sleeping attorneys: Now that capital trials may proceed even when lawyers are asleep, we could do a lot more trials at night and reduce the backlog.

After more than two days of combating flames and hacking away at brush with axes and chain saws, hundreds of exhausted firefighters tried to steal a few minutes' sleep on Saturday morning in a makeshift city that sprouted almost overnight along a rural road in Camarillo. Then, with flames hopscotching along nearby ridgelines, the firefighters from as far away as Oregon, Idaho and Arizona geared up once again to protect lives and property from the devastating wildfire. The mini-city known as the Springs Fire Incident Command Post is equipped to serve three meals a day - along with providing medical supplies, shower and laundry facilities and tents to catnap in - to the 1,865 firefighters deployed to Ventura County over the last three days.

Re "Data on Homes Cause Jitters," Sept. 26 I hope most of the 30% of adults in America who rent and missed out on the recent real estate run-up will appreciate sleeping well and having an absence of stress over the next few years as the housing market takes its toll. RICH LOCASSO Huntington Beach

Re: "Sleep, Baby. But ... Where?" [Sept. 18]: You forgot one very important tip for your readers. The infant should be up next to your head where there is no way you could roll over on him. Use a small, firm pillow (firm foam is great) for yourself only on your side of the bed. You can slide baby down to nurse and then stay awake enough to slide him back up afterward. The photo in your article shows baby next to the woman's torso, which is not smart. There are covers over him and a soft pillow not far from his head.

The world's most-prescribed sleeping pill can cause temporary memory loss but, because there is no evidence that it endangers public health, it should not be banned, a federal advisory panel said Friday. The Food and Drug Administration's advisory committee unanimously recommended that the agency change the label on Upjohn Co.'s sleeping pill--called Halcion--to warn doctors that the drug may be more likely to cause amnesia than similar medications.

Los Angeles police are trying to find an ambulance driver who ran over and killed a man who was sleeping in a driveway. Police asked for the public's help Wednesday to track down the driver involved in the March 26 incident. A witness told police that 45-year-old David Ronald Bork was sleeping in the rear driveway of a business when a private ambulance struck him. Bork died at the scene of extensive head trauma. Police say there might have been a passenger in the ambulance.

Twenty-four police officers on the night shift in the Bronx were transferred or retired for routinely sleeping on duty, officials said Friday, but they denied reports that some were caught in their pajamas. The 24 Bronx Central Booking officers--including an inspector, two captains, a lieutenant and eight sergeants--assigned to the midnight-to-8 a.m. shift were caught napping, Chief Daniel Sullivan said.

It happened almost without my knowing. I have more than 10 years of higher education, once owned a two-story, four-bedroom house with a three-car garage, have traveled around the world, am over 40 with two teen-age children, and I was virtually homeless. As I settled in to spend the night in my truck, I was hurt, angry and perplexed. No one ever thinks this can happen to him. A writer and consultant by profession, without recent work, I had gambled on a commission job to pay some bills.

The profane book for adults written in the form of a children's book, "Go the F--  to Sleep," may soon be coming to a multiplex near you. The husband-and-wife writing team, actors Ken Marino and Erica Oyama, have signed on to adapt the book for the screen. Marino was one of the stars of the cult hit "Party Down. " More recently, he's directed and starred in the spoof of "The Bachelor"-style shows, "Burning Love," a Yahoo Internet series coming to the cable channel E. Oyama is the series' writer and creator.

Prescription sleep medications can be balm for the insomniac, but for many who take medications marketed as Ambien, Restoril and Lunesta, they can come with a cost: fogginess that can last into the next day. An experimental medication may help induce sleep without the hangover of impaired attention, memory and learning that is common with so-called hypnotic sedatives now available to consumers. The investigational drug works on receptors in a region of the brain that's key for allowing us to fall into slumber: the lateral hypothalamus, where molecules called orexins are released throughout the day to keep us alert and awake.

The tall stalk of pale, Scottish androgyny known as Tilda Swinton has brought her 1995 performance-art piece "The Maybe" to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The piece, which requires the Oscar-winning actress to lie inside a transparent box for hours at a stretch, is expected to be performed periodically during the year, according to reports. MoMA didn't publicize Swinton's project, nor has it provided a schedule of her appearances. News of the actress' arrival to the museum came Saturday from the website Gothamist, which has  photos of Swinton lying in a state of repose as museum visitors look on.  Swinton's "The Maybe" has prompted a number of amused Tweets from cultural VIPs and other observers.

SACRAMENTO - For the first five games of the CIF state basketball championships played Friday at Sleep Train Arena, shooters were off target. Again and again. Four of the 10 teams didn't make it out of the 20s in shooting percentage. And Southern California teams won every game. By the final game of the night, the Division I championship, hometown favorite Elk Grove Pleasant Grove finally gave Northern California fans something to cheer about. With senior guards Matthew Hayes and Malik Thames scoring from outside and an ailing Jordan Mathews failing to reach any kind of comfort zone, Pleasant Grove was able to dominate Santa Monica en route to a 73-57 victory to gain the school's first state championship.

CIF state basketball championships Friday at Sleep Train Arena, Sacramento Girls Division V: Chatsworth Sierra Canyon (23-9) vs. Los Altos Hills Pinewood (23-7), 10 a.m. - Sierra Canyon sophomores Kennedy Burke (6 feet 1) and Cheyanne Wallace (5 feet 10) scored 28 and 20 points, respectively, in the regional final. The Trailblazers are making their first state championship appearance. Pinewood is seeking its seventh state title. The pick: Sierra Canyon. Girls Division III: Mission Hills Alemany (31-5)

Listening in on the electrical currents of teenagers' brains during sleep, scientists have begun to hear the sound of growing maturity. It happens most intensively between the ages of 12 and 16 1/2: After years of frenzied fluctuation, the brain's electrical output during the deepest phase of sleep -- the delta, or slow-wave phase, when a child's brain is undergoing its most restorative rest -- becomes practically steady. That reduced fluctuation in electroencephalogram signals during delta-phase sleep appears to coincide with what neuroscientists have described as major architectural changes in the brain that pave the way for cognitive maturity.

If you find yourself fighting the urge to catch 40 winks in the middle of the day, maybe it's time to start snoozing and stop worrying about what your boss will think. You might be surprised by how many of your co-workers will join you. Thirty-four percent of Americans take a nap on a typical day, according to the latest Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey. For men older than 50, the prevalence of napping rises to 41%.

There's something about reading nearly 500 pages of sexual fantasy that throws the doors of perception a bit off their hinges. Just knowing that 90% of humanity is out there running some kind of porn film in their heads, makes the lunch crowd at, say, a Fuddrucker's more interesting to observe. Does that waitress serving chili fries dream of being wrapped in cellophane and spanked? Does the busboy want to be licked by Keanu Reeves? Does that businessman chipmunking on his Blackberry dream of being cavity searched by terrorists?

Doctors know that being chronically sleep-deprived can be hazardous to your health. Night-shift workers, college crammers and all the rest of us who get less than our fair share of zzz's are more likely to be obese and to suffer cardiovascular woes than people who get a consistent, healthful eight hours. Now scientists have some new clues about how lack of sleep translates into disease. After subjecting 26 volunteers to seven nights of insufficient shut-eye followed by a marathon all-nighter, researchers detected changes in the way hundreds of genes were expressed in their bodies.

TEMPE, Ariz. - The words "free agency" had barely left a reporter's mouth before Jered Weaver shot back. "I don't give a . . . " Weaver said. "You can quote me on that. " Actually, you can't, at least not in a family newspaper. Weaver wanted no part of any of the questions - whether he enjoyed a winter without the hassles of free agency, whether he had any second thoughts about his decision to pass up free agency, whether he might have thought differently had he known the Dodgers would emerge from bankruptcy as baseball's biggest ATM. Weaver would have been a free agent last winter had he not signed a five-year, $85-million extension with the Angels in 2011.