In our society, we reward people who work 60+ hours a week and sleep less than 6 hours a night. More and more ‘9 to 5’ jobs are becoming ‘9 to 9’. We’ve become so accustomed to this lifestyle that we don’t realize how damaging it is for our health, both physically and mentally.
Given that we typically need to spend about a third of our lifetime sleeping (8 hours every night), I thought it would be important to list the reasons why it’s not a ‘waste’ of time.
The importance of getting good quality sleep cannot be overstated. Here are some of the benefits.
Sleep Boosts Our Immune System
When our body is well rested, the immune cells in our body also get the rest they need and are able to fight off whatever comes their way much easier.
Not getting enough sleep drastically increases the chances of diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. This is especially prominent as we get older.
Sleep Improves Mood
Great quality sleep allows us to have higher energy levels throughout the day. This enables us to deal with the challenges of life without them getting on our nerves. We’re more level-headed and make less impulsive decisions.
If sleeping well makes us happier, you can guess the negative consequences of not getting enough sleep. We increase our chances of developing mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. Our brains become cluttered with irrational thoughts making us more susceptible to panic attacks and mental breakdowns.
Sleep Makes Us More Productive
When we sleep more, our efficiency at work improves significantly. This is because adequate sleep leads to higher cognitive function and better concentration. So when you put off sleep to ‘grind’ out more work, you’re essentially burning yourself out and are preparing yourself to get less work done the next day. Getting less work done during the day means you need to spend more hours after work to finish your work and the cycle repeats.
More hours of work doesn’t mean more output. In many cases, a well-rested person finishes their work in nearly a third of the time compared to a sleep-deprived person. For some reason, this is really hard for many people to understand, especially bosses and managers.
So the next time you’re feeling tired but really need to finish work, it’s more productive to take a nap or sleep than to force your tired brain to work. You’ll be way more efficient when you start your work again.
Sleep Improves Memory
When our body is asleep, our mind processes all the memories of the day and tries to store all the important events. When we get an inadequate amount of sleep, we tend to forget information much faster and even create false memories. Sleeping is a crucial part of how well we remember things.
There has been a lot of research done that has linked the importance of deep sleep in reducing the chances of getting Alzheimer’s.
For more information on the importance of sleep, I recommend reading “Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker. If you don’t have time to read the whole book, you can also listen to his appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast or Lex Fridman podcast.
- Sal