“Tired minds don’t plan well. Sleep first, plan later.” Walter Reisch

Today I would like to talk to you about the link between success and sleeping enough.

Or to put it another way, the link between sleep deprivation and lack of success.

Sleep related fatigue has been linked to chronic disease, poor mental health, poor academic performance, accidents, reduced ability to generate income over your life, obesity, diabetes, and even early death.

To quote Tim Roth…

“Sleep is an investment in the energy you need to be effective tomorrow.” 

Is Sleep Important For Success?

Given that I’ve taken the time and effort to write this article, you would be right in thinking my answer is yes.

Let’s face it, if I was feeling tired, I probably would not be sitting here writing this.

There’s no doubt in my mind that fatigue directly impacts my productivity and my creativity.

When I’m tired, I tend to leave things for the next day, when I’m more well-rested.  Something I’m sure most people will agree with.

But don’t just take my word for it, keep reading for the evidence.

How Much Sleep Do We Need

It is generally recommended that you should get at least 7h every 24h. 

Although I would highly recommend you definitely need to learn to listen to your body.

I personally need at least 8h, more like 9h.  If I don’t get 9h a few times a week I can really feel it.

However my boyfriend is one of those rare high functioning individuals who can do with 6h a night.  I did recently suggest to him that if he could get more sleep, he might be able to achieve even more than he already has.  In other words, it’s possible with more sleep he would be even more successful than he already is.

The Importance Of Rest And Sleep

Sleep is when your body resets and does all the little tasks it can’t do during the day as it’s too busy making sure enough nutrients or oxygen is provided to your muscles and organs, not to mention your brain.

It’s a bit like important road works, maintenance or cleaning that takes place during the night, because during the day the roads are too busy to do it.

The body needs downtime, and it needs it at least once every 24h.

After that your focus, physical and mental health, ability to memorize new information or life experiences, and other cognitive functions start to decline.

In fact, you can actually die if you go too long without sleep.

The Benefits Of Getting Enough Sleep

1. Sleep Is Important For Good Health And For Your Immune System

Sleep is important not only for injury recovery, but it’s also good for your immune system. 

There’s a reason the phrase “burning the candle at both ends” has a negative connotation.

Lack of sleep has also been linked to obesity, diabetes, chronic disease, cardiovascular disease and even mental health issues like depression and anxiety.

2. Sleep Makes You Smarter

According to Dr Robert Stickgold at Harvard University, the quantity and quality of our sleep has a direct impact on our ability to learn and remember.

Sleep-deprived people cannot focus that well on a task, and that also impacts their ability to consolidate something to memory. Not to mention that sleep itself plays an important role in how long term memory is formed.

So if you don’t get enough sleep and you feel tired, that lack of focus and lack of storing new events in memory, will have the same net effect of making you dumber.

From personal experience I can attest that when I’m well rested, eat well and stay away from alcohol, it’s like my IQ jumps 20 points. 

I’m quicker with an answer, have a better memory recall, understand complex problems faster and better, and can think of creative solutions quicker.

In short, I’m more present and accountable.

3. Sleep Makes You More Successful

Success is the achievement of a goal or a dream, and more often the end result of years of taking small steps toward that dream.

But it’s easy to give up when you are tired, just ask a marathon runner.

Fatigue will make you give up instead of continuing and keeping up your momentum.

Whether that’s trying to run a mile, a marathon, lose weight for a beach holiday, take on extra work in the office for that promotion 6 months from now, or making good choices like saying no to that 2nd bottle of wine, what matters is that you KEEP GOING, every day a little bit.

There’s a great quote (I’m struggling to find the source) about how “You work hard for years and years only to become an overnight success”.

Because success always appears to be quick and overnight from the outside, but we seldom realize how long that person has been slogging away in anonymity.

As Tim Cook, CEO of Apple put it…

“If you look at iPod, iPod wasn’t viewed as a success, but today it’s viewed as an overnight success. The iPhone was the same way. People were writing about there’s no physical keyboard. Obviously nobody would want it.”

Success takes time and effort. And if you want to be capable of putting in that time and effort instead of giving up, you’ll need grit and perseverance.

It’s pretty darn difficult to have grit and perseverance if you are too tired to keep your eyes open.

Not to mention the mental aspect of it all.

Being tired not only makes every task seem so much harder, it’s also more difficult to believe in yourself.

From personal experience I can say fatigue has made me feel more anxious and depressed than I would have done otherwise. 

I remember being so tired at work once I started crying at my desk, and then I wrote a resignation letter.  

By pure luck my boss decided to visit me that day and thank me for all my hard work over the past few months (I was doing 12h shifts almost every day for weeks on end), and after that I couldn’t bring myself to quit. 

But I really came close that day.

Why Is It Important To Get Enough Sleep?

1. Lack Of Sleep Leads To Unnecessary Mistakes and Accidents

Of course, there are other side effects to not being able to focus with that much attention.

According to the Bedtime Specialist, almost 20% of all serious car crash injuries can be linked to driver sleepiness, and where car crashes are reported to be due to the driver falling asleep, 1.4% resulted in fatalities.

But staying off the road and being at work is just as dangerous if you don’t sleep enough.

In the workplace, highly fatigued workers were 70% more likely to be involved in an accident, not to mention a 20 year study in Sweden that found that those workers who reported to have disturbed sleep, were nearly twice as likely to die in a work-related incident.

Those might be scary statistics and it’s possible they don’t apply to you.

So let’s look at it from a more personal angle.

Even small mistakes, ones that don’t lead to accidents or death, has a profound impact on how you are viewed by those around you.

If you make repeated mistakes, I can tell you that it doesn’t matter what your IQ number is, other people will assume you are that intelligent.

It doesn’t matter if this is at work or at home, the same principle applies.  More mistakes will make you appear less intelligent.

2. Lack Of Sleep Can Impact Your Salary and Income

PUtting aside for a moment what you think success means, I think we can all agree that the more money you earn, the more you associate that with success.

It’s pretty hard to think of yourself as successful in life (as opposed to achieving success in a specific goal) if you are still earning the same salary as 10 years ago.

Whether you want to be a millionaire or not, we do all want our salaries to increase during our careers and as we get older, and not just to keep up with inflation, but increase enough to have a more relaxed and luxurious lifestyle than we did fresh out of college.

But sleep has been linked to earning potential, directly and indirectly.

Let’s examine this in more detail.

2.1. Mistakes Due To Sleep Related Fatigue 

We’ve already discussed how lack of sleep leads to more mistakes.

The more mistakes you make at work, the more distracted you are, the less productive you are, are all things that will impact your next performance review at work.

A bad performance review will not only impact any year end bonus your company pays, but it can prevent you getting a promotion years later, as that record of poor performance will remain on your employee file.

All of which means a lower annual income.

2.2. Accidents Due To Sleep Related Fatigue 

Earlier in this article I mentioned that almost 20% of all serious car crash injuries can be linked to driver sleepiness.

This holds true even if you are NOT the driver.

Once you are involved in a serious accident, you will most certainly have to take some time off work.

Too many days off ill and it will…again… impact your next performance review.

For anyone in a contracting position, that’s paid by day/week, you know better than me that if you can’t work, you don’t get paid.

Also consider what it means if someone like a doctor or a nurse makes a mistake. You might be the patient that is impacted by that mistake, which in turn might mean more time in the hospital and more time of work.

2.3. The Link Between Sleep Disorders And Money

A study found that people with Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) are 3 times more likely to divorce than people without OSA.

Anyone who’s been through a divorce, even an amicable divorce, will tell you they cost money.

Another study found that men with OSA earn a lower salary than their counterparts, not to mention that men and women with OSA are more likely to take sick leave.

Having to take more sick leave than your colleagues can impact either your weekly paycheck or your chances of future bonuses or promotions.

Medical expenses for people with sleep disorders also rise disproportionately compared to those people without a sleep disorder.

Even if you yourself don’t have to pay those medical bills out of your own pocket, I can assure you the cost will be passed on to you via higher medical insurance premiums, or if you are in a country with free healthcare, higher taxes.

3. Lack Of Sleep Can Prevent Weight Loss Or Lead To Weight Gain

Lack of sleep makes you eat more, store more of that as fat than you normally would, makes you feel more hungry than you are, prevents you from feeling full so you end up eating more, and can eventually lead to obesity or diabetes.

All because of the hormones that control those urges or body processes, ghrelin, leptin, insulin and cortisol.

Lack of sleep directly affects your body’s ability to regulate those hormones, which in turn disrupts the body’s metabolism and ability to store or burn fat and sugar and provide appetite control.

Sleep for Success

I hope I’ve convinced you of the importance of getting enough sleep if you want to be successful, no matter what the meaning of success holds for you.

So what should you do to sleep better and be more successful?

It should be obvious by now…you need more sleep, and you need that to be quality sleep.

I might be able to fall asleep in front of the TV, but it is not restful, it will keep waking me up regularly.

The same for having too much wine. Or martinis.

The quality of my sleep is just not that great and I need a second night to really recover.

But telling you to “just sleep more” is obviously not very helpful.  Not when you consider that 50 to 70 million adults in the USA suffer from a chronic sleep or wakefulness disorder.

So How Can I Improve My Sleep?

Have a look at this guide for some great tips on the best night’s sleep.

Personally I try to ensure I have less stress and worries by working on my mental health, because I find a relaxed body and mind allows me to fall asleep faster, and I’m less likely to wake up in the middle of the night with racing thoughts of impending doom and catastrophe.

Learn to listen to your body and your mind.

And always take care of yourself first.

Whatever you do, do not give up sleep so you can “get more done”.

It’s a false economy. 

You’ll simply end up spinning your wheels the next day without really accomplishing anything of real value.

As always, all of my love.  I believe in you.
Lynette
After learning how and changing my own mindset, it is my mission in life to help others become their best self, positive, confident, happy and successful! 💕