What is going on? Happy Labor Day!
I am curious if maybe you’ve heard somebody brag like this: “Oh you know, that new baby, I’m only getting like two hours of sleep a night.” Or maybe this one, “I’m doing great, man, I only sleep six hours a week.”
What I’ve learned is that when we start bragging about the lack of sleep that we get, like it’s a measure of our awesomeness and effectiveness, and yet we keep pushing ourselves and we keep thinking that we’re going to perform, the more I’m learning that is just not the case.
Our bodies need sleep. If you’re one of those people that are bragging you don’t need sleep and you can just keep going and keep functioning at 100%, I hate to tell you this, but you’re lying to yourself, you’ve deceived yourself.
It has been scientifically proven that your body needs sleep. The average adult human needs between 7-9 hours of sleep a night. So if you’re getting 8, you’re doing good. If you’re getting 6, you’re a little on the low end. If you’re getting like 6 a week, or about an hour a night, brother you need some help, you need to get some more sleep.
Why Is Sleep Important?
I was recently reading a 2006 article from the Harvard Business Review, which was directed to managers. What it was saying is that expecting that you can operate at high efficiency with sleep deprivation is stupid; expecting that your people can operate at high efficiency while getting too little sleep is even worse. People have to get sleep.
So what that means is we have to support our bodies in a way that we are allowing ourselves to get enough sleep. That’s giving ourselves enough time, that’s doing the things that’s going to help get the best quality sleep we can get.
And remember, this isn’t just me saying this, but this is coming from the Harvard Business Review, a pretty reputable publication, that says you need some sleep.
When the body goes without sleep, a lot of things start happening. Just take the number of hours you’re awake. When you get to about 18 hours, you are functioning at the same impairment level as someone who is legally drunk. When you get to 20 hours without sleep, you’re functioning at about the same level as someone who blows a 0.1 blood alcohol level, remember the legal limit is 0.08. Don’t believe me? I don’t blame you! Check out the data for yourself at the CDC website.
Simply put, your body needs sleep.
How Do You Get The Right Amount Of Sleep?
There’s a ton of ways to ensure you’re getting the right amount of sleep. First, remember that you don’t have to get all your sleep in one go. It’s better if you can, allowing your body to get into a better rhythm.
However, if that’s not possible for you, if you can do it in two sets, that’s better than just going without. Maybe you get 5-6 hours in one set and 2-3 hours in another set. Great, you can absolutely do that.
The important thing is to get on a schedule and do the same thing consistently. There’s a lot of other things you can do and look at that might be hindering your sleep.
0 Comments