March 2025
Friends and Clients,
I love sharing things that have changed my life for the better. Healthy Wealthy Wise provides applicable and to-the-point info to educate you on your health and finances and inspire your heart and mind. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for following along!
Jon
Healthy
Don’t Feel Guilty About Napping
I don’t think anyone these days needs convincing that good sleep is important. But what about naps?
This month, I want to tell you: don’t feel guilty about napping. For years, I wore it like a badge of honor to power through the day.
In my 20s, I was working as a trainer, often on a split shift—early mornings and late afternoons. That meant going from 5 a.m. to 7 or 8 p.m. most days. I trained hard, worked long hours, and those midday naps? They were survival.
These days, my work schedule isn’t as long, but my time being "on" is. I’m up early getting kids off to school, working in a cognitively demanding field, squeezing in workouts 4–5 days a week, and then clocking in for my second shift: dinner, bath, bedtime routines 🙂. Every day is FULL. And if I’ve had a rough night of sleep my brain feels scrambled, and everything takes more effort.
But I’ve learned that a 20–30 minute nap—the light kind where your mind drifts off and your body relaxes—can totally reset the day. I’m not talking about the kind of nap where you black out into full REM sleep and wake up in a daze. I’m talking about just enough rest to take the edge off. It’s like your brain lets go for a bit, then wakes back up clearer and sharper.
If I try to just push through or over-caffeinate, I end up spinning my wheels—doing tasks that should take a minute but end up taking ten. That nap can be the reset that puts everything back in rhythm. And while this is my anecdotal experience, the science backs it up.
What the Research Says
Cognitive Performance:A NASA study examined the effectiveness of planned cockpit rest periods on pilots during long-haul flights. In this study, the "Rest Group" of pilots was allowed a 40-minute rest period during the low-workload cruise phase, while the "No-Rest Group" maintained usual flight activities. The findings revealed that pilots in the Rest Group fell asleep within an average of 5.6 minutes and slept for approximately 25.8 minutes. This brief nap was associated with improved physiological alertness and performance, with benefits extending through critical phases such as descent and landing. Importantly, the nap did not affect subsequent layover sleep or contribute to cumulative sleep debt, and its implementation caused minimal disruption to flight operations without raising safety concerns. (source)
Stress Reduction: In a random control trial, six sessions of Yoga Nidra (a practice similar to NSDR) significantly reduced perceived stress and physical fatigue in psychiatric nurses (source).
Immune Support: Another study found that even short naps after sleep deprivation helped restore immune markers like interleukin-6 and norepinephrine—key parts of your body’s defense system (source) & (source 2)
Brain Detoxification: Deep rest states, especially during slow-wave sleep, allow the brain’s glymphatic system to clear out waste like beta-amyloid—proteins linked to cognitive decline in diseases like Alzheimers. While naps haven’t been studied as extensively in this context, early findings suggest even short rest could help support this brain-cleaning process (NIH source).
The takeaway? Naps aren’t laziness—they’re maintenance. Even a short session of rest can reboot your energy, focus, and emotional clarity. So if you’ve been dragging and your schedule allows for a little downtime, take it. Your brain—and your future self—will thank you.
Wealthy
Why I Bought Life Insurance for My Kids
Insurance is one of the few things you buy, hoping you’ll never use. But as my wife and I began growing our family and I started a business, I wanted to cover the risks that could crush us financially while we were still trying to get ourselves established. You hate to think only of the worst-case scenarios, but I also created this strategy to build long-term financial security in small, intentional ways.
We bought permanent, cash-building life insurance for our kids to provide a layer of protection and a tool for saving. There were a few specific reasons that made this decision feel smart and practical for our family:
Protecting their future insurability. If one of our kids was ever diagnosed with a condition later in life that made it hard or impossible to qualify for life insurance, this policy locks it in while they're healthy.
Built-in access to funds for critical illness. The policies we chose allow us to access part of the face value early if they were ever diagnosed with a critical illness like cancer or a disability. Medical insurance doesn’t cover everything. So, these funds could help us afford treatments or care we’d otherwise struggle to pay for.
Final expenses if the unthinkable happened. God forbid anyone lose a child, but in my family, we did. My older brother died in a car accident, so these things are a reality to me. Rather than have to scramble to put together funds, a GO FUND ME Page, or drain a savings account after a horrible event like that, we’d be able to just move forward with arrangements for a service. Beyond that, we’d want to honor their memory with something meaningful like a donation or gift to a school, church, or cause in their name. These policies could help us do that.
A long-term gift for the kids at any age we chose. On the brighter side, these policies grow cash value over time. We can transfer them to our kids whenever we feel they’re ready—no age restriction, no gift tax issues. It could be seed money for a business, a down payment on a house, or for college, or just a financial head start.
It’s not something a lot of people talk about, but it’s worth considering—not just as insurance but as a flexible financial tool for your family’s future.
Wise
Can you take 90 seconds to reframe your perception of events in your life? Read this Ancient Chinese Parable interpreted by the late philosopher, Alan Watts.
"The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad - because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune."
~ Alan Watts
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Got laid off from your job? Got sick or injured? Lost relationship that was important to you? Are these “Bad” things? …… “Maybe”
Alan Watts has been on my radar since high school, but it wasn’t until my late 30s that I really dove into his work. His take on Eastern philosophy is translated into relevant insights for anyone living life in the Western world. He is incredibly articulate, yet he states things simply. He can extract and unpack the deep truths of various forms, from parables to something as complex as quantum physics.
"A Chinese Farmer Story" ~ Alan Watts
Music
Over a decade ago I recorded an album with some of the best friends and musicians I know. Life happened and the tracks sat unheard for years. But with some renewed focus and inspiration, I finally got them finished and I would love for you to hear them! Click the link to presave the album on Spotify and get notice when it’s released on 4/10!
