Many years ago while on vacation, instead of chocolates on my pillow the first night I found a little card with this inscription – “Bless the Man who Invented Sleep!”  It was a great line, and being on vacation I was actually able to act on it.

Unfortunately when workers are at work they’re not on vacation and so it is very hard to act on that advice. Trying to turn off the concerns of the day and the following day, disconnecting ourselves from the technology we are addicted to and the drive to accomplish more in the 17-hour period that we’re not typically in bed is extremely difficult. And of course it can affect your health and your work performance.

Have we reached a crisis level?  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention claim that one-third of American adults are not getting the recommended eight hours of sleep per night. A recent Harvard Business Review study found that almost half of the 180 business leaders surveyed are not getting the needed sleep four out of seven days per week.  Combine that with modern brain studies that show while many parts of the brain can do fine without sleep, the frontal neocortex is not one of them. This is significant because the frontal neocortex controls sensory perception, motor commands and language. Losing control of those functions is crippling for anyone.

McKinsey says that long days with minimal sleep can be as detrimental as a blood alcohol level of .05. “Legally drunk” for driving purposes starts at .08. Would any responsible leader show up for work legally drunk? And yet they—we—routinely go without the necessary amount sleep and think we can function effectively. The bottom line is if you’re not getting enough sleep you cannot expect to be an effective leader.

Also concerning is that fact that many people assume they can go hard for all of the 16-17 hours they are awake, and then get restful sleep for all of the remaining 6-7 hours. But studies have shown that the blue wavelength light from LED-based devices (phones, tablets, and computers) increases the release of cortisol in the brain, which inhibits the production of melatonin and thus makes us more alert. But melatonin is what you need to fall asleep. This means that unless you are among the truly blessed people who can go from fully awake to fully asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow, you are not getting the 6-8 hours of sleep that you think you are getting if you are going hard for the other 16-18 hours of the day. That is why the National Sleep Foundation recommends that you turn off all your devices at least an hour before going to bed.

What are some employers doing to help employees break the habit of not getting enough sleep?

•   Adding healthy sleep habits to their wellness program priorities, right up there with exercise and proper nutrition
• One unidentified European company is cutting of access to email from 7:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. for non-management employees.
• Another company ties the need to take vacations and unwind from work to their employees’ performance goals and bonus results.
•  Encouraging their employees to turn off their devices at least an hour before bedtime.
  
  

Are you a fan of Don Quixote, the Man of La Mancha? Consider the words of his creator, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra:

All I know is that while I’m asleep, I’m never afraid, and I have no hopes, no struggles, no glories — and bless the man who invented sleep, a cloak over all human thought, food that drives away hunger, water that banishes thirst, fire that heats up cold, chill that moderates passion, and, finally, universal currency with which all things can be bought, weight and balance that brings the shepherd and the king, the fool and the wise, to the same level. There is only one bad thing about sleep, as far as I’ve ever heard, and that is that it resembles death, since there’s very little difference between a sleeping man and a corpse.

Sources: Yahoo Finance, Association for Talent Development, Harvard Business Review