When I tell you that I was absolutely joyous for most of my nine-day Christmas vacation, don't think for a moment that my high spirits had anything to do with getting a break from teaching seventh graders language arts. For the record, I'm in the midst of one of my most satisfying years in a 31-year career, and I leave for school nearly every morning with a spring in my step.

My euphoria was solely a product of feeling so good riding a bicycle.In April of 2009, I suffered a severe fracture of the right femur in a bicycle race. Obsessive rehabilitation got me to the point where I felt normal again, and by August of 2011 I had won four races in a row. Unfortunately that November, I couldn't avoid a fallen rider on a training ride, fell myself, and fractured my collarbone and pelvis.Though a far less severe break than the femur, the pelvis fracture affected my cycling far more. From that day until this year's Christmas break, I experienced anywhere from a dull ache to a debilitating pain on every single serious training ride.I guess you know the gift that I valued most this Christmas.How I finally became pain free is rather elaborate and not the essence of this article. How important it is to feel good, really good, during a typical day is.So when I found research about a simple thing you could do to make yourself feel better every single day, I wanted to pass it along. The simple thing when done at the right time and in the right amount is something you may take for granted.Sleep.Research led by Jacob Nota and Meredith Coles at Binghamton University in New York and published in the journal Cognitive Therapy and Research linked time and length of sleep with the production of negative thoughts and the ability to handle them.The researchers had 100 college-age subjects fill out questionnaires and then perform two computerized tasks. From this, the researchers determined the degree to which the subjects worried, obsessed, or engaged in negative thinking. The subjects were then questioned on their sleep habits, especially whether they were early birds or night owls.A correlation between the amount of time, when sleep began, and thought pattern emerged. Those who slept fewer hours and went to bed later subjects who saw themselves as night owls tended to have more negative thoughts.Nota said this to Medical News Today about the research: "Making sure sleep is obtained at the right times of day may be an inexpensive and easily [disseminated] intervention for individuals who are bothered by intrusive thoughts." In other words, those who may see themselves as not having the greatest outlook in the world about the world or themselves may experience a positive change by going to bed earlier and sleeping longer.But the Binghamton University study isn't the only recent research to link the proper amount of sleep with an improved quality of life.By checking a national registry of sick days from 2000 to 2008 and a national survey of over 3,500 men and women from 2000, researchers at the Finnish Institute of Occupational Health in Helsinki found a parallel between the amount of sleep and the frequency of missed work days. Tea Lallukka, the lead author of the article said, that while previous studies demonstrated associations between insomnia and sick days, this one showed that the subjects sleeping between seven and eight hours a night had the fewest number of sick days per year.This study also found that optimal sleep time for males was 7 hours 46 minutes per night and that females required eight fewer minutes.On a related note, research performed at Brigham Women's Hospital in Boston suggests that the light emanating from many electronic devices adversely affects the quality of sleep.Researchers there had six adults read from an iPad for four hours each night before bedtime for five nights in a row while another six adults read a book in dimly lit conditions for the same amount of time and nights. Later, the groups switched tasks.Researchers found that on the nights the subjects read from an iPad the subjects produced less melatonin, a hormone that induces sleepiness. Additionally, they also needed more time to fall asleep, and when they did sleep, it was less restorative than on the nights they read from books.The blue-light emission created by an iPad is also created by many other electronic devices, like smartphones, laptops, and LED monitors.In a Washington Post article chronicling this study, Charles Czeisler, director of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, discussed the ease with which we allow new technology to enter the marketplace. He said, "We introduce these devices that have medical and biological effects without requiring any health studies. . . . I think it's time we rethink that."