by Tony Wilson

Sleep’s Performance Impact:

In your most hectic times, do you know how much your lack of quality sleep and sustained chaos affects your performance?  Maintaining your hectic schedule to get more done, could actually prove to be a false economy, substantially affecting decision making, energy, concentration, cognitive speed and memory.  How do you maximise your productivity during your busiest work and travel schedules?

Athletes in particular know the importance of rest as a tool to make sure that their training and competition performances are of the best quality; this can also be applied to corporate performance.

Many studies have been done regarding sleep deprivation and the results are fairly compelling: Stay awake longer than 18 consecutive hours and reaction speed, memory, problem solving, cognitive speed and spatial orientation all start to suffer.  People that have been working for 24 hours straight are 61% more likely to make mistakes on routine tasks and 460% more likely to have a near-miss accident while driving home.

But this doesn’t apply to you, right?  Except for maybe the odd all-nighter getting that report in, or the Friday/Saturday night bender, you are never really in sleep deficit – or are you?

Are you Getting Enough (Sleep, that is):

Research from Harvard Medical School shows that when you sleep less than eight hours a night for several days, sleep deficit starts to kick in; if you average four hours of sleep a night for four to five days, you develop the same level of deficit as if you have been awake for a period of 24 hours.  The level of cognitive impairment that arises from being awake for 24 hours is the same as having a blood alcohol level of .05!

The crazy thing is that we probably get the least sleep when we travel and yet this is often when we need to function at our best; deliver that great presentation, impress the clients, make vital decisions that impact strategy etc etc.

How can you Combat Sleep Deficit?

The key is obviously getting a longer night’s sleep, or at least being able to break the cycle of continuously working around the clock.  There are also implications for travel and scheduling:

1.    Have a work-free night at home 2-3 nights a week minimum (Monday to Friday that is).  You might be amazed at how this makes you prioritise your working hours and fires up your productivity.  I am sure you will also be amazed at the impact this will have on your home-life.  Get to bed earlier on these nights

2.    Remove all electronic devices from your bedroom, so that you are not interrupted.

3.    Avoid caffeine from six hours before you aim to go to bed

4.    Avoid taking red-eye flights where possible, especially if you are expected to perform at the destination immediately

5.    When traveling internationally, try to take a day to adapt to the interrupted sleep from the flight as well as the new time zone before scheduling important business

I know that these strategies might sound like they are eating into your schedule, but I firmly believe that the increases in productivity will be well worth it.

What about when you simply HAVE to Perform on little or No Sleep?

There are a number of short-term solutions that you can implement to get you going when you simply have to perform, but have had little sleep.

Caffeine is the most widely used strategy to perk up performance, and while this is a good short-term fix, you need to avoid the ‘down-cycle’ that this creates also (incidentally, caffeine is the second most widely sold commodity in the world next to oil)

Exposure to sunlight is one of the major drivers of our natural sleep/wake patterns, so this is a great source of ‘fooling’ our body clock into thinking we are supposed to be awake.

Exercise is also a good way of ‘waking up’, especially if you are used to doing this first thing in the morning.  Even a good walk outside can help your energy levels greatly.

Take a nap.  This can also be effective in sustaining performance for a short time.  However, keep these to less than half an hour so that the ‘grogginess’ effect is minimised.

Summary:

You can only perform your best when you are properly rested - the impact of fatigue on performance can be drastic, and this extends to your attitude and moods.  The notion that many high performers get limited sleep is getting less applicable in today’s society, and is definitely the exception rather than the rule.

Tony Wilson is the founder of Teamcorp Australia, and has spent over a decade working with elite performers in business and in sport.  His ability to help athletes reach their potential and maintain motivation has been a large factor in their success, and many corporate leaders throughout Australia now also apply Tony’s philosophies with outstanding results.  Tony’s practical background, coupled with an MBA, give him a unique perspective on personal and team performance.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 24th, 2008 at 7:18 pm and is filed under body. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.