Sleep as a competitive advantage
Tips / / December 19, 2019
Very often, when we have urgent business, we kradom time to carry them out in our "sleepy" hours, naively believing that the result will remain in the win. However, the author of this article is convinced that only a full sleep (not the lack of it) will help us to successfully cope with the tasks.
We all know from childhood on sleep benefits. But in adulthood, for some reason we forget this simple truth and begin to inadvertently neglect it. We suggest you read the story of Tony Schwartz, an American journalist and writer, the founder and head of The Energy Project, which is convinced that restful sleep gives weighty advantages.
At 6 pm on Friday, I sat on the plane to Bangalore (the largest city in India). On Tuesday, I went back to New York after several days of business meetings and a 34-hour journey through nine time zones.
I will not wish such a large number of business trips, including myself. However, it has one advantage: I have not experienced virtually no inconvenience in connection with the change of time zones - my biorhythms were OK. Unlike many leaders with whom I met in India: they were clearly on the wane after their long flights and, assuming they are even more exhausted by the time he came back home.
The paradox is that I need to spend more hours of sleep than the average person. But due to the fact that I am so dependent on sleep, I learned to fall asleep almost anywhere, anytime. As a result, I rarely feel tired and exhausted, but my life is made up of the permanent missions, it requires me great physical and psychological costs.
For example, on the way to India, I slept nine hours, and the same number - at the time of the way home. I have two ways to help sleep:
- Write down all the thoughts swirling in my head (this way you free yourself from the day of doom, you nothing else is eating, and you can get a good sleep).
- Take a deep breath (it is necessary to saturate the brain is starved of oxygen) and start to count from one and up to (and here everyone has their own number, I usually get to a six).
My circadian rhythms are clearly defy the journey to India. In Bangalore, I spent two days if I felt that I was sleepy, I just went to my room and I dozed for several hours. When I arrived back in New York at noon on Tuesday, I felt great and the rest of the day spent at work.
Most of the leaders I spoke with in India, very little sleep. Moreover, they consider it their advantage, for them it is something like a test of strength. Remember, as postulated by the notorious vocalist of the band?
I am going to live while I'm alive. I'll sleep when I'm dead.
Bon Jovi
Here's my version: "As long as I'm alive, I'm going to prosper, so I'm going to sleep well."
Many of us continue to believe in the myth that if we'll sleep an hour less, then spend that hour with the greatest benefit. In fact, every "I am stolen" from the hour of sleep not only makes us feel tired, but also detrimental to everything that we do. The less time we spend on the dream, the more we are distracted, inattentive, we can not focus on the task, our performance decreases.
research It shows that most of us need seven to eight hours of sleep to feel refreshed throughout the day, and only a small percentage of people for normal rest sufficiently less than seven hours Sleep. According to the researchers, people who have enough sleep, even can not imagine what the damage they do to your own body. Most of them have forgotten how it is - to feel sleep.
I believe that eight hours of sleep - is the key to our performance. The more tasks you put on the job, the more time to sleep and rest you need. Instead, most of us received exactly the opposite: the more we work, the less time we sleep, naively believing that this will have time anymore.
At Stanford University conducted a study. Stanford basketball team was asked to sleep for 10 hours a day for seven weeks. Almost at the very beginning of the experiment team members indicated that they get enough sleepI feel a surge of vitality and good mood throughout the day. Coach said that the success of his charges is also very increased in the sport.
Throughout my life, I sleep eight hours a day. Sometimes this figure increased to eight and a half or nine hours, depending on how many urgent matters in my work.
Restful sleep gives an advantage not only in your professional activity, but also in his personal life, and it is invaluable to your health. Prioritize correctly.