As only 16 minutes of sleep deprivation hurt your productivity

Wrong sleep can seriously interfere with the professional activity: you misjudge the problem, they are focusing on bad and think not about that. But, speaking about the lack of sleep, we usually mean extra one or two hours of wakefulness. Scientists have found out what happens if you sleep only 16 minutes less than usual.

What happens if you do not get enough sleep

It is difficult to concentrate

Researchers from the University of South Florida conducted an experimentBidirectional associations of sleep with cognitive interference in employees' work days. Participants are asked questions like, "How often do you have today visited the different thoughts that interfere with your work?" These are called cognitive interference.

For responses used a scale from 0 (never) to 4 (very often), and after the withdrawal of the average value. It turned out that in those days, before which the workers slept less cognitive interference was greater.

Scientists have proved that even 16 minutes nedosypa hinder good concentration.

Only slightly neglecting sleep, you are setting yourself up for decreased mental activity, slow decision-making and operational error.

Participants in the study confirmed that having slept less than usual, they often distracted by non-work related thoughts, and could not focus. As a result, in the evening after a mental struggle they felt tired and went to bed early.

Communication was evident on weekdays between sleep quality and the ability to focus. Perhaps the fact that in everyday life very few people have the opportunity to take a nap after lunch, and the need to strain your brain is much more than a weekend.

You become more sensitive to stress

For the study, the researchers chose the employees in the IT sector with high incomes and serious skills. Such people tend to work long hours, and they greatly blurred the boundaries between work and personal life. Delays in the office of the phone calls outside office hours, emails late at night and early business meetings become causes sleep disturbance regime.

All this impliesWork-Family Conflict and Employee Sleep: Evidence from IT Workers in the Work, Family and Health Study in a decrease in productivity and distracted attention. This, in turn, increases the influence of stress factors and occurrence of external and internal conflicts. For example, the sleepy study participants admitted that they were more difficult find a balance between family and work. They did not have enough time for themselves, and they have paid little attention to their children.

It is a vicious circle: the less you sleep, the more nervous. The more experience the stress, the more affected your sleep.

What to do

Scientists point out that employers should encourage good sleep, or at least not cause a breach. It is necessary to create and maintain a culture that minimizes everything that hinders employees to get enough sleep and, therefore, more productive. Calls during off-hours, the duty to respond to emails in the evenings and a meeting early in the morning should be excluded.

Themselves as employees must establish a clear sleeping mode and follow it every day. You must turn off the phone and ignore email after nine in the evening. This is in order to relax after work, tune in to sleep and stay in bed for at least seven hours.

Regular exercise is also helpful for a good sleep. However, most workers believe that they have much more important affairs and sports do not have time. But the vicious circle of "bad dream - inefficient work" must be broken. If enough sleep every day, have to pay dearly in productivity and, most importantly, health.