I spent a short stint in recruitment with a rather eccentric colleague a number of years ago. This guy would come into the office and proudly declare the limited number of hours sleep he’d had the night before – sometimes as little as two or three hours – and then go on to smash his way through a 50-60 hour week. As products of our environment, I must have absorbed some of this energy because I found myself struggling to sleep in this particular role. I ended up drinking upwards of 15 coffees per day, taking naps in the waiting room during my lunch break, and getting stressed to the point where I had so many mouth ulcers I couldn’t make calls properly. Spoiler alert – I didn’t last.
We are living in a perpetually sleep-deprived world. According to the Sleep Health Foundation, 60% of Australians report at least one sleep symptom three or more time per week (Lyons, 2019). In his brilliant work Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, Daniel Amen outlines the consequences of this in no uncertain terms:
“Chronic insomnia triples your risk of death from all causes and is associated with cognitive decline. Getting less than six hours of sleep at night has been associated with lower overall blood flow to the brain, and hurts your mood, focus and memory for days after… The negative effects of sleep deprivation are so great that people who are drunk outperform those lacking sleep” (1998, p. 81).
Driver fatigue is related to more fatalities on our roads than drink-driving (Transport for NSW, 2017) and South Korea even passed a law in 2011 banning people under the age of 16 from playing video games between midnight and 6am due the disastrous consequences on young developing minds called the “Cinderella Law”. Meanwhile, research from the Harvard Business Review shows that a lack of sleep impacts job performance, productivity, career progression, and increases absenteeism and counterproductive work (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2020). By contrast, when we get quality and consistent sleep, we have decreased stress, improved learning and memory, and enhanced problem-solving (Clifton & Harter, 1998, p. 66).
With this in mind, here are some tips for getting better quality sleep:
1. Have a sleep schedule and stick to it
The body and the brain love routine and rhythm, and especially when it comes to sleep. Going to bed and getting up at the same time each day, even on weekends, is one of the best ways to ensure a stable sleeping routine. If you do have naps during the day, keep them to less than 30 minutes.
2. Turn your insomnia into a meditation
A lot of sleep experts suggest that if you can’t get to sleep within 20 minutes, or you wake up and can’t get back to sleep, to get up and do something else. This might work for some, but I’ve found that relaxing in bed and focusing on the breath can help leave the body and mind much more rested than tossing and turning or getting in and out of bed over and over again.
3. Bring cardiovascular exercise into your routine (preferably mornings)
I get it. You’re sleep deprived, and the last thing you want to do is exercise. But we weren’t designed to sit down in front of screens for upwards of 8-10 hours a day then come home and sit down in front of another screen for the remainder of the evening. The body needs to move – to the best of your ability, get the heart rate up on a regular basis. If you can do this first thing in the morning, you’ll reduce your need for caffeine which will allow you to get better rest in the evening.
4. Get rid of devices before bed
The last thing your brain needs before going to bed is a million browsers open with fifty Facebook stories per minute running through your mind. This stuff is addictive, dopamine-targeting noise that is designed by the same minds who create poker machines. Turn it off at least half an hour before bed and do something else, anything else, to unwind. While you’re at it, put the phone out of arm’s reach. If you “need” your phone as an alarm, try buying a real alarm clock.
5. Create a sleep-friendly environment
Darken the room, cool the room, and block out any unnecessary noise. I love using a fan to create white noise - even in winter. If you’re particular about your carbon footprint and this makes you uncomfortable, get some earplugs. For the past twelve years, I’ve never travelled without blu-tac, which I’ve found to be the very best earplugs you can find. It’s cheap, it’s effective, you can mold them to the size and shape of your ears, and it doesn’t fall out*.
Entire books have been written on getting better sleep, and these are just a few tips on how you can improve yours. This works for me – what works for you?
*(Exceptions to “not falling out” may include the human propensity to unconsciously remove foreign objects from our bodies and throw them on the floor during the night. You may then run the risk of waking up with blu-tac on the floor, which can then get stuck to the bottom of your shoe, which can then prompt your eccentric & sleep-deprived colleague to ask you why you have blu-tac stuck to the bottom of your shoe as you lie back on the company lounge and try to catch up on sleep).
References
1. Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2020). How much is bad sleep hurting your career? Harvard Business Review. 27th July. https://hbr.org/2020/07/how-much-is-bad-sleep-hurting-your-career
2. Clifton, J. & Harter, J. (2021). Wellbeing at work: how to build resilient and thriving teams. Gallup Press.
3. Lyons, A. (2019). High proportion of Australians struggling with sleep. NewsGP. Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. 25th November. https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/high-proportion-of-australians-struggling-with-sle
4. Transport for NSW. (2017). Fatigued and distracted driver trauma trends. NSW Government. https://roadsafety.transport.nsw.gov.au/downloads/trauma-trends-fatigued-distracted-driving.pdf
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