When I sit still in the middle of the day, I fall asleep. I'm not sure if it's a side effect of cancer or of life in general, but as a result, I keep myself moving at all times.

I'm always doing something -- writing, emptying the dishwasher, packing a school lunch, reorganizing cabinets and closets and drawers. There's always something to fiddle with, something to keep my body from crashing into a deep sleep.

My little boys have been playing with Lego all afternoon. For hours they have been content and happy and full of imagination. They've built flying boats and castles and pirate contraptions. My wish: to just sit and watch them, to absorb their words, their sound effects, their interactions.

I tried to just sit and watch, tried to hone my quiet observation skills. And then I fell sleep.

It's a dozing-off kind of sleep that creeps up on me and for brief moments, I am lost to the world, sometimes even dreaming for short periods of time. So I find I am more alert and productive in the study of my children when my mind is busy with some sort of task. It's not my ideal scenario. But I figure it's better to be awake and bonding with my boys -- even if it means I'm multitasking -- than sleeping through their special moments.

My boys are still building -- they are making flags for their ships -- and I'm awake. And writing and preparing dinner too.

What a gift it would be if it were possible to sleep through cancer, literally sleep through the entire experience -- from diagnosis through the end of treatment -- and wake up on the other end of the bad dream. Unfortunately, this isn't possible. We must be alert and aware and active in our own plans for survival. All we are typically permitted are now-and-then naps and nighttime sleep -- if we can manage to actually sleep at night.

My sleep was never disturbed during my cancer journey. Night after night, just after my head hit my pillow, my body drifted right to sleep -- only waking for brief trips to the bathroom and to get out of bed the next day. I might have had an occasional sleepless night. But for the most part, I count myself as one lucky cancer patient, blessed with restful and regular sleep.

Not all cancer patients are privileged sleepers. And with all I was enduring during my own cancer ordeal -- emotions, hospitalizations, treatments, side effects, and pain -- it's a wonder I was able to manage so well in the sleep department.

Sleep is critical for maintaining strength and energy while fighting cancer -- while living life in general really. When nighttime sleep is disrupted, interrupted, or downright impossible, normal functioning and healing are compromised. So the quest for good, quality sleep should make its way to the top of your cancer to-do list. And if you are not sure just how to begin such a quest, consider these seven strategies for sleeping through cancer -- compliments of Marie-Helene Savard, doctoral student in psychology, and Dr. Josee Savard, associate professor and researcher of psychology at Laval University Cancer Research Center in Quebec, Canada.

• Set aside at least one hour to relax before going to bed.
• Go to bed only when you feel sleepy -- which is not the same as fatigue.
• If you can't fall asleep or can't go back to sleep after 20 or 30 minutes, get out of bed and leave the bedroom. Do something else -- and only go back to bed when you feel sleepy again. Repeat as necessary.
• Get up at the same time every day -- regardless of how much sleep you got. Use an alarm clock to wake.
• Use your bedroom only for sleep and sexual activities. Avoid reading, working, watching TV, or listening to the radio in the bedroom.
• Avoid napping. If you must take a nap, do so before 3:00 PM and for less than one hour.
• Keep realistic expectations about sleep -- avoid worrying about the amount of sleep you should have or the amount of time it takes you to fall asleep -- and try to become tolerant of your lack of sleep.

Sweet dreams.

In Letting it all out might increase chances of cancer survivorship, we shared that finding techniques to minimize stress is an effective way to better health. Our focus in that post was journaling and talk therapy as a means to expressing thoughts and feelings, rather than stuffing your emotions and keeping it all inside. According to the experts featured in that post, "It's about the link between the mind and the body and how your mind state can affect the disease state in the body."

In addition to journaling and talk therapy, cancer centers are offering cancer patients and caregivers self hypnosis techniques to help reduce stress as a part of an overall cancer treatment program. M.D. Anderson Cancer Center's social work supervisor Aida Molano, who has taught hypnosis and self-hypnosis classes at the center for the last 16 years, is offering a 30-minute self-hypnosis CD online as a free download.

According to Molano, hypnosis can help patients and caregivers offset sleeping difficulties, fear of medical procedures, problems concentrating, pain and fatigue using hypnosis techniques. If interested, by clicking on this link, you can download the free 30-minute self-hypnosis CD.

Cancer has helped me slow down -- a little. I am more patient in the moment without racing to the next task I think is waiting for me. I can better manage my priorities and can offer the most important things the majority of my time. I am better at passing on opportunities that are low on my wish list. And I can typically say "no" if I don't have the time or energy to devote to a request. I know that I have to be healthy and happy and fulfilled in order to operate effectively and joyfully in this world. So I try to enjoy peaceful moments and put priorities first and not overextend myself and slow down. I'm not completely there -- yet. But I plan to keep practicing. And I'm going to try these seven strategies -- offered by a freelance writer, wife, mother of two, and reformed over-committer -- in an article I stumbled across in a local family magazine I picked up this week.

Let's say you do not work in the scientific or medical fields but someone told you that you just might be the one to find a cure for cancer -- would you say -- no way! It's possible. From the comfort of your own home, while you are cooking, or sleeping, or taking a shower, a cure for cancer could be found because of you. If you have a computer, Internet access and a willingness to share your unused time online, a project called Rosetta@home, can use it for biomedical research.

Rosetta@home is working to determine the 3-dimensional shapes of proteins in research that might ultimately lead to finding cures for some major human diseases, including cancer. According to Rosetta@home, by running the Rosetta program on your computer while you don't need it you will help them speed up and extend research in ways they cannot possibly attempt without you. In a process called distributed computing, the project takes a massive calculation, break it into chunks, and send the chunks across the Internet to be processed by tens of thousands of personal computers. Then all the bits and pieces are retrieved and the information reconstructed at a central computer. For more information on becoming a part of this innovative project, visit Rosetta@home.