Bad day at the office? Blame your sleeping patterns

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks for me with exciting work projects taking me between Joburg, Cape Town and Durban. Something had to give and it this case that meant sacrificing on sleep. It seemed like a good short term strategy at the time, but reflecting on it now I realise that it’s not wise in the long run. Herewith a reminder of why we need to care of ourselves, even more so when the pressure is on. I would love to hear about how you manage to “get it all done” and get enough sleep (is this possible?).

You’d be forgiven for thinking that work and a good night’s sleep don’t go hand in hand with highly successful CEOs like Richard Branson, Martha Stewart and Jeffrey Immelt (CEO of General Electric Co) all admitting to getting only 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night (the recommended amount of sleep is around 8 hours per night).

The fact is that insufficient research has been done on the effect of too little sleep or bad sleep (i.e bad sleeping patterns) in organizations. Christopher M. Barnes (I’ll sleep when I’m dead: Managing those too busy to sleep and Working in our sleep: Sleep and self-regulation in organizations) and William D.S. Killgore (Sleep deprivation reduces perceived emotional intelligence and constructive thinking skills) have attempted to breach the gap and their results call for a radical change in the way we view the role of sleep in the workplace.

Sleep, who needs it?

It turns out that we all do. Barnes cites a number of disturbing facts about a lack of sleep:

  • Sleeping 5 hours per night for four consecutive days has an effect on performance similar to a blood alcohol concentration of 0.6%. According to the University of Rochester a blood alcohol level of 0.6% is the tipping point towards “sluggishness, fatigue, sloppiness, lack of balance and coordination as well as slurred speech”.
  • A study found that a decrement of as little as 40 minutes of sleep led to a 5.6% increase in work injuries.
  • Sleep deprivation is said to account for 7.8% of all US Air Force Class A accidents (each costing $1 million or more)

The price you’re paying for too little sleep

  • It has been shown to impair:

decision-making,
innovation,
attention control,
memory and
motivation

  • A lack of emotion intelligence; Killgore notes declines in self-reports of intra-personal awareness, interpersonal functioning, stress management, and behavioural coping skills.
  • An increased propensity to be distracted by emotional stimuli
  • Less self-regulation

Taking the above into account it’s little wonder that a night of too little sleep will have a negative impact on your work life the next morning. The question then becomes whether that all-nighter is really worth it?

Learn more about how sleep impacts on your brain biology in my next post – How sleep fixes your brain.

 

 

 

 

 

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