Sleep is the first step to greatness
We often hear people say that sleep is for the weak. Which we tend to agree with because, after all, nothing is produced during that moment of our lives — Vincent van Gogh’s “Star Night”, George Orwell’s “1984”, Kendrick’s “To Pimp a Butterfly”, the walk to school with your nephew, and the trip to Barcelona with your loving one — none of those great things were done while asleep.
Besides that, we hear that amazing people as Bill Clinton, Madonna, Margarett Thatcher, Marissa Mayer, and Jack Dorsey, are all said to be short sleepers (4h-6h of sleep per night).
This gives emphasis to the saying that if you want to be great at life you must sleep short. Because people who sleep long are lazy, and consequently low achievers.
But that’s not actually true. Lets look at some facts.
You probably need a 7h-9h night sleep
Only an estimated 1% of world population are real short sleepers. The rest of the population tends to need between 7h and 9h of sleep, depending on the individual. You probably are in the later group. [1]
If you’re asking why then there aren’t more amazing people who are long-sleepers, that’s simply because that fact doesn’t make headlines — they do exist.
What I mean is that there are a lot of other high achievers who proclaim to need a 7h-9h night sleep to perform well. Some of them are: Bill Gates, Jennifer Lopez, Jeff Bezos, Matthew McConaughey, and Warren Buffet. They all mentioned to make a 7h-9h night sleep as one of their priorities.
Note: Sleep quantity is not the same as sleep quality. Even if you sleep for 9h, various factors can effect your sleep’s quality. For this blog post we’re only discussing the former.
The consequences of sleep deprivation are huge
A few research studies have shown that the western population is under-slept. For example, a study from 2013 mentions that 40% of Americans sleep below 7h/night, with 43% of them recognising that they would benefit from more sleep. [2]
A good night’s sleep has a huge impact in your days. You should sleep enough, because being sleep deprived [3]:
- Lowers your IQ
- Makes you feeling bad and tired
- Makes you less productive
- Makes you less patient, leading to frustration and arguments
- Decreases your short-term memory, leading then to chronic memory loss
- Decreases your sex drive (yep…)
- Impairs judgment. Consequently you’ll take more emotional decisions. (Eg: even if it wasn’t your plan, you’ll definitely choose the pizza over the salmon with veggies.)
- Leads to premature ageing
- Increases the risk of depression
- Increases your chance of accidents
- Increases your chance of heart strokes, infections, and even diabetes
Even if you don’t feel it, the impact of sleep deprivation is actually appearing in front of us every day:
- People who sleep six to seven hours a night are twice as likely to be involved in a car crash as those sleeping 8 hours or more. [4]
- World accidents as Chernobyl, Three Miles Island, and Challenger have been linked with sleep deprived workers. [5]
- Look at the people around you, and you may notice people who are giving signals of depression and tiredness, in part because they aren’t able to rest enough.
Are you sleeping enough?
Part of the facts I mentioned look like numbers, and numbers are hard to resonate with — it’s naturally hard to see the impact that the sleep deprivation is having in your diabetes of course. But bear with me, because I will help you realize if you are, or not, sleeping enough.
Before we get there I want to tell you that, ironically, sleep deprivation makes people unable to notice that they’re… sleep deprived. They’re unable to identify why they are feeling bad, making bad decisions, and being less productive.
“Studies show that over time, people who are getting six hours of sleep, instead of seven or eight, begin to feel that they’ve adapted to that sleep deprivation — they’ve gotten used to it. But if you look at how they actually do on tests of mental alertness and performance, they continue to go downhill. So there’s a point in sleep deprivation when we lose touch with how impaired we are.” [3]
So you must pay good attention to your day, and notice some important signs to help realize if you are, or not, sleeping enough:
- How do you feel 1 hour after waking up? Do you still feel sleepy and having a hard time processing what’s happening around you (reading, working, studying)?
- Do you keep yawning during the day?
- Do you oversleep during the weekends when compared to week days? (Ex: 1h more.)
- Do you feel like frequently forgetting recent events, or missing words when speaking?
- Are you having difficulties reading at a fast pace without missing the information thus needing to read it again?
- Do you feel tired various hours before your bedtime?
If you are answering yes to any of these questions, that may be a signal that you’re not sleeping enough.
Find your sweet spot
Now that you know the huge importance of sleep, and you realised that you may need more than you’re currently getting, I recommend you to experiment.
Experiment by incrementally increasing your sleep duration, and see how it impacts your day. For example: During one or two weeks, increase your sleep duration for 30min, and then ask yourself the questions above. If a “yes” persists, increase your sleep duration for more 30min on the next weeks. And so on.
There are several other tips that will help you improve your night’s sleep (in this case, with emphasis on sleep quality, not quantity). For that, I’ll recommend you see these references:
- Sleep Hacks: How to Sleep Better, by Scott Britton
- Tim Ferriss’ Guide To Sleep
Sleep is your most important asset
We all have busy lives, which makes those extra 1h or 2h wake hours tremendously useful. But the truth is that those are fake hours — sleeping less will actually make you do less. Will also make you do badly, be unhealthier, grumpy, and feel worse.
A lot of people only realize the importance of sleep when the shit hits the fan. This was my case — I only realised that I had to sleep more when I had a big burnout.
I’ve since then known about several people to whom the same happened, and I can frequently spot it when it’s coming for someone else. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s hard to convince those people the importance of sleep until they feel it in it’s worst form.
So I’m serious when I say that sleep is your most important asset — it’s hard to make things go right if your sleep goes wrong.
So I deeply recommend you to find the right sleep duration for you, and protect it. Because sleep is not for weak, sleep is actually the first step to greatness.
I’m Daniel, from Whitesmith. I started blogging on Medium recently, but have many other posts on my website. If you would like to receive more stories like these, feel free to subscribe to the newsletter here. If you liked this post, don’t forget to show the love by clicking on the sweet green heart.
