Letters to Health

Melissa Healy’s Aug. 30 article “Minding the Gaps” brings refreshing insight to the complexity of the brain’s ability to be quite busy solving problems while it is “idling.” I think Franz Kafka knew this when he wrote:

“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.”

Gerald Schnitzer

Laguna Woods

I am a clinical psychiatrist and found your articles about the default mode network fascinating, intriguing and thought-provoking. Although I am not a neuroscientist, it opened a new field of exploration for me. Thanks very much.

R. William Barron, M.D.

La Jolla

Please keep reporting on the brain, idle and otherwise. It is quite fascinating.

A long time ago, I read a book called “Leisure, the Basis of Culture” by Josef Pieper. Your article made me think back about that book. It seems that the vagaries, reveries and apparent vacancies of the mind are important to sanity and identity, and to creativity as well. I would like to see a follow-up article on creativity, especially, and how artists and poets tap into their inner resources.

Are we unraveling the mysteries of the mind, or are the mysteries revealing themselves to us through neuroscience?

Keep up the exquisite journalism,

Bob Doud

Glendale

Fruit, not fruity

Thanks to Elena Conis and the L.A. Times for what looks like a rather depressing update (only because little has changed) to Prevention Institute’s 2007 study, “Where’s the Fruit” [“Stick With Real Fruit,” Aug 23]. Our study found that “over half of the most aggressively marketed children’s foods advertising fruit on the packaging actually contained no fruit ingredients.”

And spelling it “froot” does not cover your butt, in my humble opinion.

Ann Whidden, communications manager, Prevention Institute

Oakland

Go ahead, sleep in

Thank you so much for the excellent Aug. 23 article on sleep-deprived kids [“Later School Start Times and Zzzs to A’s.”] As a former teacher and high school administrator for more than 30 years, I’ve seen the start of the school day creep up from 8:45 to 7:45. This one-hour change wipes out the kids, but teachers love it. They would start even earlier if they could.

Maybe your article will finally open some eyes and get this important discussion started. Probably not.

Linda Jensen

Oceanside

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