Why we all need more sleep

Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, reveals how an accident forced her to re-evaluate the critical importance of sleep in an accelerated life. Four years ago, I learnt the value of sleep – the hard way. I’d just returned home after a week of taking my daughter on a tour of colleges.

Why do so many of us fail to make use of such a simple way to improve our lives? Indeed, why do we deliberately do just the opposite and make a fetish of not getting enough sleep, in the mistaken, and costly, belief that success results from the amount of time we put into work, instead of the kind of time we put into work – and the direct correlation between quality of time and time out? The truth is, lack of sleep has become a sort of virility symbol. I once had dinner with a man who bragged to me that he’d only had four hours of sleep the previous night.

There’s practically no aspect of life that’s not improved by sleep and, accordingly, diminished by lack of sleep. Within the past fortnight, researchers from the University of California, Berkeley have revealed that couples who regularly get a full night’s sleep are more likely to have positive, successful relationships. Meanwhile, a skin care company reported that women who get a poor night’s sleep on a Monday (a third of women, according to the study), reach a low point by Wednesday when they will look their oldest, have the lowest energy levels and feel the most stressed. Creativity, ingenuity, confidence, leadership, decision-making; all of these can be enhanced simply by sleeping more.

And lack of sleep can have a significant impact on our inner lives as well. As the Great British Sleep Survey found last year, poor sleepers are seven times more likely to feel helpless and five times more likely to feel alone – consequences that can affect everything from our relationships to our productivity. While the Churchill nap routine may not be realistic for most of us, the sentiment behind it is perfect.

And sleep is linked to one of the most destructive forces in our lives: stress. In fact, work stress keeps 46 per cent of Americans up at night, according to one 2012 study, and stress in general causes 65 per cent of people to lose sleep. Professor Anne-Marie Slaughter put it this way in The Atlantic magazine: “The culture of 'time macho’ – a relentless competition to work harder, stay later, pull more all-nighters and bill the extra hours that the international dateline affords you – remains astonishingly prevalent among professionals today.”

This is especially true for women. One recent study by professors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston found that women in highly stressful jobs have a nearly 40 per cent increased risk of heart disease and heart attacks compared with their less-stressed colleagues.

Another study found that women with demanding jobs have a 60 per cent greater risk for type 2 diabetes than their less-stressed peers. And research has shown that stress and pressure from high-powered careers can be a factor in the resurgence of eating disorders in women aged 35 to 60.

So, to change that conventional wisdom, and prevent more bloody wake-up calls like the one I experienced, it’s going to take a movement. The good news is that what’s going to bring more joy, gratitude, and effectiveness to our lives and be the best for our own careers, is also what is best for the world. It’s time to shut our eyes and discover the great ideas that lie inside us, to shut our engines and discover the power of sleep. And to remember the words of John Steinbeck, who said, “A problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.”

Дата добавления: 2015-10-23