Out of all our reset buttons, could sleep be
the most magically restorative? At the
very least, its absence is an effective indicator that we need to reset and resource.
As Sleep Revolution author, Arianna
Huffington said "I can tell you
with authority that when I'm exhausted, when I'm running on empty, I'm the
worst version of myself. I'm more reactive. I'm less empathetic. I'm less
creative. And all of us can testify to that."
Yep Arianna, I can. I am known in my family as someone who needs
their sleep. As a child, whenever I got
grumpy, mum would send me off to bed.
Now as an adult, I am clearer about whether I need to actually ‘process
some emotions’ shall we say or indeed go for that siesta. Whenever my niece and nephew come for a
sleepover it makes me wonder how many parents must be sleep walking around this
earth. So it is no surprise that sleep has
been identified as 'an issue the
corporate world cannot ignore' with research indicating a majority of managers
across the board are getting less sleep than the recommended minimum. This is
showing to have a real impact on manager’s health, social and emotional lives,
and is having a negative impact on their performance in managing complex tasks
and displaying effective behaviours. In The Business of Sleep, Professor Vicky Culpin goes on to say, “having
approximately 1.5 hours less sleep a night than you need means that you are
about one-third less alert the next day. If you have three people working for
you, this is the equivalent of paying for one person to be asleep all day!”.
Certainly when we get
leaders talking about how they can look after their well-being more effectively,
the majority will talk about needing to
improve the quantity and quality of their sleep. The irony is not lost, that after this
meaningful walk and talk, we stick them in a mountain hut to sleep in bunk
beds. If you want a mini case study in the correlation between happiness and
sleep quality, there it is.
Sleep – it is a natural phenomena. We all need it. We all do
it. And as natural and common as it is, we must give
it the attention it deserves. From the perspective of being our common reset
button to feel resourceful and rejuvenated, here are six sleep reflections…
Share: Professor Culpin recommends we put ‘sleep on
the agenda’ – and in business where sleep deprivation seems to be carried
around like a badge of honour, this is particularly important. We need to have conversations about it to share
how different ways sleep loss
can affect us and share tips on how we overcome it.
Maybe don’t share! By its very nature, sleep is a very individual thing – and - can be so
dependent on others. I remember how
unromantic and sad I thought it was that my grandparents had single beds. Now I
get it. Maybe a sign of age, but friends are expressing a desire to have
separate bedrooms and even sleeping rooms from their partner. This is a delicate topic to raise and one too
important not to have.
Tune in (with or without technology): And so we take control of what we can, to
enhance our sleep. Which requires that we
tune into what our mind, body and soul needs, test and try out what works for
us from the plethora of sleep advice tips out there, and make choices
accordingly. Some friends have found
wearing a Fitbit useful for the data it provides – helping them to dispel their
own sleeping myths and to create some new patterns.
Let go: Surely to sleep is our most
regular lesson in letting go. In order
to sleep, we truly need to relax and surrender. As Professor Tom Rath, author of Eat Move Sleep, who advocates focusing on
small choices which lead to big changes says, “at the end of a lousy day,
before you make a small stressor into something bigger, give sleep a chance to
do some repair work overnight”. The magic
of a sleep to put things in perspective is literally mind-blowing isn’t it? How
much sleep we need is individual – ex British Prime Minister was known to sleep
only 4 hours a night. Arguably she
should have had more.
If not you, who?: So yes, if you find it easier
to do things for others rather than yourself, think of the wider impact of your
sleep habits. Culpin brings in the time when in 2007, President Bill Clinton
was interviewed on the US TV programme Daily Show and discussed his theory on
how the relationship between sleep and mood shows up in US politics – "You have
no idea how many Republican and Democratic members of the House and Senate are
chronically sleep deprived because of this system. I know this is an unusual
theory but I do believe sleep deprivation has a lot to do with some of the edginess
of Washington today". Suffice to say, we
owe it an individual and societal level to get enough sleep.
Dream gifts: For
sleep not only resets us physically, but emotionally and is a chance to delve
into our resourcefulness at a subconscious level. I see sleep as one of the best personal development workshops around. In Wild Courage, Elle Harrison explicitly
encourages us to start noticing our dreams as a fundamental way to develop our
intuition, which is so integral to our creativity, innovation and decision
making capabilities as a leader.
Sleep – all going well, it occupies about a
third of our life. Something to be
treasured indeed.
Notes:
photo own of my nephew’s creation of putting
his toy parrot Steve to bed!
Links to books referenced:
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