One restless night, when sleep seemed to elude me with every stroke of the clock, I found myself staring at my cat Parker. I felt a slight pang of jealousy at how easily sleep came to him.
A house cat can average over 16 hours of sleep a day. There’s a reason why we call them “cat naps” and not “dog naps.”
Here are some things Parker, my personal sleep guru, has taught me over the years.
This one’s a no brainer. I thought I knew this until I realized that I wasn’t prioritizing my sleep enough. I was letting trivial things get in the way.
Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle once said, “I have lived with many Zen masters, all of them cats.” Cats always seem to be in a perpetual state of meditation.
It’s all too easy to get bogged down by to-do lists and the chaos of everyday life. Our pets remind us to give ourselves permission to press pause.