For the vast majority of my career, my alarm was set with a number 4 or 3 at the beginning. During the summer, it’s lovely – you get to see the day starting, the world waking up. In the winter, though, it’s hellish – some days I didn’t even experience natural sunlight.
Anyway, the reason I mention the early mornings is that it meant I became a little obsessed with sleep. Getting enough of it, making sure it was quality sleep; the right mattress, the right pillow; what not to do before sleep etc etc etc.
I used to work on two chunks of sleep. Overnight, I’d get about 4 or 5 hours, then have a siesta in the afternoon for about 2 hours. I know now that I wasn’t getting enough – and a lack of sleep is something that adversely affected my mental health.
That’s the thing about sleep, though – people don’t give it the due consideration that it deserves. I’ll commonly hear people say things like ‘Oh, I’ll catch up at the weekend’ or ‘I’ll sleep more when I’m older”. No no no no no no. Don’t neglect sleep – it’s far more important than you imagine.
One of the facts that I mention a lot when I talk about sleep is that you will die quicker from lack of sleep than you would lack of food or water. The reason for that is because the heart can’t keep up your waking activity – it’s just too much for it. When you sleep, everything slows down – your breathing, your heart rate, your brain activity. Whilst scientists are still working out the full range of reasons that we sleep, they do know that it gives the body some time to repair itself, build up energy and generally recuperate.
The amount of time that we need for sleep differs from person to person. The average amount is about 7 or 8 hours. Some people, though, can get by and feel no ill effects on 4 or 5, whilst others need 10 or 11 hours sleep a night.
Either way, your body needs it – and you should give it some rest and some sleep on a regular basis. Regular is the word too, you need a proper routine. If you get up at about 6 Monday – Friday, I’m sorry to say that the best thing you can do for your body is to get up at roughly the same time at the weekend too. It’s a routine that your body is used to, and disrupting it with a lie-in on a Sunday morning can be damaging.
Okay – let me just expand on that one word “damage” a little bit. How can sleep, or the lack of it, damage you? Well, as I’ve mentioned already, it’ll kill you pretty quickly if you don’t get any at all, but a lack of sleep has also been proven to raise stress levels, risk of high blood pressure, heart problems and anxiety. It will also lower your attention levels, but raise irritation and feelings of anger.
Also – and many of you will already be aware of this – your phone, tablet, laptop, TV; they’re not doing you any favours. The light that they emit disrupts your brain and makes it think that it’s still daytime. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use them in bed (even though you shouldn’t), but try not to use them for an hour or so before you bed down for the night. Same goes for booze. You might think that having a cheeky snifter of something before bed helps – but it doesn’t. It may help in the short term, but it will rouse you after a couple of hours.
You might be reading this and thinking ‘but Pete, I drink before bed and I watch the TV in bed, whilst checking my phone and I sleep fine’. True, there are always exceptions and you might be one of those – but it’s unlikely. Your sleep is probably being disturbed every night, you’re just not aware of it. There are several levels of sleep, and you can be almost awake and not even remember it. Similarly, the first stage of sleep is so slight that you would swear that you were still awake. It’s not all about closing your eyes, you know!
So – here’s what you should do. Pay due respect to sleep. Make sure that you get enough at night, and don’t sneer at the idea of a siesta every now and again. Your family, friends and your business deserves you at your best. And sleep is one way to achieve that.
Obviously, if you are finding that you are struggling with fatigue, or that your sleep is constantly disturbed – consult your doctor.
Sweet dreams.
