If your work or working hours are coming between you and a good night\u2019s sleep, you\u2019re doing yourself no favours<\/p>\n
Corporate life is not short of high-profile examples \u2013 of people who don\u2019t need a lot of sleep. Donald Trump (three to four hours), Richard Branson (five to six hours) and Elon Musk (six hours) all fall into this category, but they are the exception, not the rule.<\/p>\n
It is rare to find people who function well on less than six hours a night and only between 1 and 3 per cent of the world\u2019s population have the so-called \u201cThatcher genome\u201d (Mrs T slept just four hours a night) which is a genetic mutation that makes it possible to survive on minimal shut-eye. The eight hours slept by Bill Gates is much more the norm while Albert Einstein needed 10 and poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson advised humans to \u201cfinish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two\u201d.<\/p>\n
“Humans can function without food for far longer than they can live without sleep, yet sleep is one of the first things to take a hit when we decide we need more time in our day<\/strong><\/p>\n Organisations are good at measuring things. Profits, sales, customer satisfaction, employee engagement, efficiency and return on investment all get added up under the banner of performance metrics. But one number that rarely gets crunched is how many hours of sleep employees get despite the fact that even small amounts of deprivation can have an impact on productivity, cognition and mood.<\/p>\n Humans can function without food for far longer than they can live without sleep, yet sleep is one of the first things to take a hit when we decide we need more time in our day. Poor decision-making and impaired concentration are some of byproducts of dysfunctional sleep that make their way into the workplace, yet sleep doesn\u2019t headline in employee wellness programmes the way exercise, nutrition or mental health do even though corporate culture plays a role in how well a workforce sleeps.<\/p>\n Sleep experts say we should stop working at least three to four hours before going to bed. However, if it\u2019s accepted practice within an organisation to send work texts and emails out of hours with the expectation of a response then that unwinding time is jeopardised, and disturbed sleep may follow especially if the message content is unsettling.<\/p>\n Respecting people\u2019s switch-off point should be a given, yet employees constantly complain about their phones pinging at night and weekends with messages about things that could have waited.<\/p>\n Sleep is not an indulgence. It\u2019s not like going from economy class to business. If you don\u2019t sleep, you don\u2019t fly \u2014 Dr Mary Flaherty<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Up to a decade ago, researchers thought sleep was important for reasons ranging from boosting the immune system to regulating metabolism. Then researchers discovered the brain is \u201ccleaned\u201d during sleep and offloads toxic byproducts such as the amyloid data implicated in the development of Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n \u201cSleep is not an indulgence. It\u2019s not like going from economy class to business. If you don\u2019t sleep, you don\u2019t fly,\u201d says psychologist Dr Mary Flaherty, author of the recently-released Keys to a Contented Life, a self-help book which Flaherty says was inspired by \u201cscience, monks and my mother\u201d and aims to provide readers with advice about making the \u201cbest of the bad lot which is the human condition\u201d.<\/p>\n Any behaviour that puts sleep schedules out of whack with normal daylight exposure can cause a problem, she says.<\/p>\n \u201cHumans are diurnal. We\u2019re designed to be awake when it\u2019s light out and asleep when it\u2019s dark. The problem is that these days, all of us act like shift workers,\u201d Flaherty says. \u201cWe keep irregular schedules, go to bed long after the sun has set, follow different bedtime schedules on weekdays and weekends and often look at bright screens at night.<\/p>\n \u201cStaying up for 20 to 25 hours affects our performance more than if we were legally drunk. Even simple activities, like having a conversation, become difficult. When we sleep consistently for five or less hours, we also increase our chances of obesity by 50 per cent.\u201d<\/p>\n The good news is that working from home is an ideal opportunity to break bad sleep patterns and establish a work routine that aligns with the body\u2019s circadian rhythm.<\/p>\n \u201cAs light is the most powerful influence on circadian rhythms, we can take advantage of this when working from home by going outside right after we wake up to get daylight even if it is overcast. Exposure to natural light, especially early in the day, helps reinforce the strongest circadian cue, which among other things boosts our immunity,\u201d Flaherty says.<\/p>\n If possible, I\u2019d also encourage those working from home to take a nap in the early afternoon when performance begins to drop<\/p>\n\n