Here’s a quick productivity tip to help you get more done this week — get more sleep! I know, it seems counter-intuitive. There are only 24 hours in the day, and you want to use more of them for unproductive sleep instead of productive activities? But the truth is, sleep — in moderation — is actually very productive.
Health benefits of sleep
What is your body doing while you sleep? According to the National Sleep Foundation, while you are sleeping, your body is:
- repairing muscles
- consolidating memories
- releasing hormones to regulate appetite
- releasing hormones to regulate growth and cell regeneration
In other words, there’s a lot happening inside you while you’re asleep!
If you want to be alert, able to learn and remember what you learn, and able to make good decisions, you need your sleep.
Lack of sleep is a health risk
What if you don’t get the recommended 7 – 9 hours of sleep? For one or two nights, you may be able to fake your body into thinking it is well rested by gulping down some caffeine in the morning. The rush from the caffeine is similar to the natural hormonal change produced by your body when you’ve had enough sleep. But inside, the toxins building up in your muscles and brain will begin to take their toll, and your hormones will begin to get out of control, prompting you to eat more. According to researchers at Johns Hopkins, even a single night of missed sleep can trigger pre-diabetic changes in your body.
I pulled many all-nighters in college (not all, or even most, related to my studies), and there were many times as an adult that I was so engrossed in a good book that I didn’t realize I’d read through the night until I heard the birds coming out around 4am. I’m now diabetic, and forced to keep to a more healthy sleep schedule by my blood sugar monitoring. Could I have saved myself from diabetes by following my mother’s advice to always get to bed before midnight?
Other diseases and conditions linked by the Johns Hopkins researchers to sleep deprivation include:
- increased depression symptoms
- increased occurrence or severity of seizures
- increased occurrence or severity of migraines
- rising high blood pressure
- compromised immunity
- increased risk of cancer
Productivity and sleep
So, we’ve established that getting enough sleep is a good thing. But what does that have to do with productivity?
Being productive means that you are able to quickly make good decisions, then implement those decisions with a well-reasoned plan that produces the greatest results with the least effort.
If your brain is struggling from lack of sleep, you will not be making good decisions. You may forget crucial details. Or you may be responding to the rising hormone levels in your body by triggering your brain to be on the lookout for danger, resulting in overestimating the likelihood of bad outcomes and underestimating the potential of good outcomes. In extreme cases, you may be unable to make a decision at all.
If your body is struggling from lack of sleep, it will take more effort to get things done. Your muscles will be less efficient, and more prone to injury, forcing you to move more slowly to avoid accidents. And if you don’t move more slowly, the resulting accident will sap your productivity even more.
Overwhelm and sleep
I’ve mentioned all along that you need to get “enough” rest. But what if you’re getting too much of the wrong kind? For many people facing overwhelm, a retreat into unconsciousness is a common escape from the pressure. (The “fight or flight response” actually has four potential responses: fight, flight, faint, or freeze. An intense, sometimes uncontrollable need to sleep counts as “faint”.)
In those cases, the small naps and micro-rests throughout the day can prevent full sleep cycles at night. So you may be getting enough sleep in terms of the total hours you get. But you’re not getting enough of the stage 3, regenerative sleep, leading to many of the same problems as people who didn’t get any rest at all.
To be your most productive, you need to stay awake during the day, and have 7 – 9 hours of uninterrupted sleep at night.
Sleep suggestions
Here is a quick recap of the suggestions from the National Sleep Foundation and Johns Hopkins for better sleep.
- Stay awake during the day, and sleep at night.
- Sleep in a darkened room, with no visible light, to get the deepest rest.
- Sleep for 7 – 9 hours if you are an adult, longer if you are younger.
- Perform moderate aerobic exercise, at least 2 hours before bedtime.
- Turn down the temperature at night.
- Turn off television and other electronic devices at least half an hour before bed.
- Keep the same hours for bedtime and waking every day, or vary them by no more than an hour.
