Society as a whole doesn’t put enough weight on the significance of a good night’s sleep. Today’s hectic and high-tech lifestyle is not geared towards allowing people to get enough healthy and restful sleep. Gruelling 60-hour work weeks, 24-hour shopping and exercise facilities, and incessant access to television and the internet make getting sufficient sleep a challenge.
Physical and emotional illnesses, relationship difficulties, loss of work-based productivity, accidents, drug and/or alcohol dependence are often linked to sleep deprivation. Here, I will talk about the causal effect of good sleeping habits and high work productivity.
A December 2010 ‘Workplace Power Outage’ Sleep Survey’ commissioned by Philips Consumer Lifestyle, revealed that most American office workers don’t consistently get good sleep, which is affecting their on-the-job performance. The highlights of the study were:
- 85 percent of office workers admit that if they slept more, they would be more productive while on the job
- Two-thirds (64%) of office workers surveyed believe that lack of sleep means their day begins on a low note
- Two-thirds (64%) of employees do not wake up before their alarm goes off
Dr. Piotr Wozniak, a sleep expert warned us that by cutting down on sleep, we learn less, we develop less, we are less bright, we make worse decisions, we accomplish less, we are less productive, we are prone to errors, and we undermine our true intellectual potential. Scary at it may sound, but we may not always realize that our lack of sleep can probably be affecting our performance at work, and can seriously affect our attitude towards our jobs.
Here are some tips of Sherry Harris, author of the successful e-book “101 Amazingly Simple Ways to Beat Insomnia”, to make us feel ready to start the day at work:
- Avoid the caffeine fix. You will feel burnt out after a few hours. Your mind will be stimulated without having that attention span, which only a good night of sleep can bring.
- Be vigilant with self-medication. In the long run, you can become highly addicted to the chemicals. They will lose their efficiency, leaving you restless.
- Avoid extreme physical activity right before bedtime. This will get your adrenaline going and will allow your body to be on the go, taking it longer to shut down.
- Cut out the midnight snacking. The digestion process will take a longer time. A full stomach can make for an uncomfortable night and can surely cause trouble sleeping.
- Remove the power naps during the day. This is very puzzling to the mind, because it disrupts the natural sleep cycle, keeping you alert later at night.
- Change the attitude you have about your bedroom. You should train yourself to think of it only as a place where you sleep. If you constantly do your work or eat in bed, it is confusing to the subconscious mind when you finally do want to lie down at bedtime.
Go rest now. Sweet dreams.