No sleep.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ll sleep when I\u2019m dead.\u201d \u201cSleep is for the weak.\u201d I often see motivational statements like these hashtagged on social media.
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\nThe idea is to spur high-achievers on to work harder for better results. But what if that\u2019s exactly backwards? What if our willingness to shortchange our sleep is actually sabotaging our success?
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I have argued for years<\/a> that adequate rest is vital to our focus and our success. Sleep expert Shawn Stevenson recently reminded me<\/a> just how true this is. Stevenson has nothing against success. Far from it. He just knows from painful personal experience and from helping others how important good sleep is to getting good results in our lives. The best sleep is low-tech with the sounds and lights and electricity of apps and devices well away. Turn it all off, to the greatest extent that you can. We have routines for many things throughout the day and often have routines for how to put our children to bed. But too many of us don\u2019t have our own routines for how to shut down. We just flop into bed and hope that it happens. One way to battle \u201cinner chatter,\u201d Stevenson says, is to play the same song or set of songs every night at bedtime. He was able to get a son to sleep through the night, every night, starting at six weeks, by playing the same music. Many people drink a glass of water before bed and then have to get up to go to the bathroom. Staying hydrated is important, but Stevenson says it\u2019s best to do so throughout the day, often starting in the morning.
\nCase in point: In the past doctors trained with very little sleep. That\u2019s slowly changing in part because of an alarming study Stevenson shared with my audience, and a larger body of medical evidence of just how bad sleep deprivation is for you.
\nThe Lancet studied<\/a> doctors who went without sleep for twenty-four hours. Physicians in that restless state were 20 percent more likely to make mistakes and took 14 percent longer to do routine tasks. The effects of sleeplessness were similar to what you\u2019d see if the doctors had been drunk.
\nWhat\u2019s true for doctors is true for all highly motivated people, Stevenson said. Folks may think it\u2019s smart to skimp on sleep but \u201cin reality, most of the people who are buying into that are not successful\u2014they\u2019re not even close to successful.\u201d While a few \u201canomalies\u201d might pull it off, most of eventually \u201cfizzle out.\u201d
\nAnd unfortunately, says Stevenson, these stubborn #NoSleepers often \u201ccreate massive problems in their metabolism, in their endocrine system. They just really hurt themselves physically while they\u2019re chasing the almighty dollar.\u201d<\/p>\n4 Ways to Ace Your Zzzzs<\/h3>\n
\nWhen we face time crunches, sleep is often the first thing to get cut. It may seem efficient and even smart at the time, but it\u2019s not. \u201cIn reality, you getting that optimal sleep is going to enable you to wake up and do the job to the best of your ability,\u201d Stevenson says.
\nHe\u2019s written a very helpful book on sleep titled Sleep Smarter<\/a><\/em>. I\u2019ve read it twice and continue to benefit from it. I encourage my readers to buy and read the book for themselves.
\nStevenson\u2019s message is not about prescribing an exact amount of time we should sleep. It\u2019s more like a sliding scale. \u201cOur sleep cycles are between 75 minutes and 120 minutes on average,\u201d he says. \u201cWe need four to six of those per night.\u201d
\nTo get the most from those sleep cycles, the quality of our sleep really matters. Here are four strategies to get better sleep so we don\u2019t, as Stevenson says, \u201cwake up feeling like a pi\u00f1ata after the party.\u201d<\/p>\n1. Put away the Gadgets and Smart Phones<\/h3>\n
\nRight now that\u2019s not happening. Too many people today\u2014and especially young people\u2014are \u201csleeping with their cell phones literally next to their head on their pillows\u201d and keeping all of the notifications on, inviting the outside world to mess with their sleep.
\nThey could actually use be using technology to help them tune this out: iPhones, for instance, allow us to shut down all notices and to screen out all calls except from close friends and family so they can reach us in the event of a genuine emergency.<\/p>\n2. Get Ready for Bed<\/h3>\n
\nAn optimized bed-time ritual can automate this process for us, allowing our brains and bodies to downshift so we\u2019re not up hours longer than we want.<\/p>\n3. Consider Music<\/h3>\n
\nThough we now have a different bedtime ritual<\/a>, I used to listen to the same four songs every night while falling asleep with Gail.<\/p>\n4. Be Careful What You Eat and Drink<\/h3>\n
\nIf possible, it\u2019s best not to eat anything for a few hours before going to bed. If you get must eat something, it\u2019s best to avoid things that are too sugary or starchy. For better sleep, the best bet for a late night snack is probably a few nuts.
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