Tell me whether you relate to the story of an imaginary character called Amit in this article.
Amit works for an organization that employs more than 300 people.
The company conducts training sessions to upgrade the skills of its employees.
The training sessions are conducted at the company’s head office in Mumbai.
Amit works at the company’s branch office based in Delhi and has been asked to attend a ‘Two-Day training programme’ in Mumbai.
He gets a train ticket to Mumbai, which is an overnight journey.
His training programme starts on the day he reaches Mumbai.
So, that means Amit will not get a sound night’s sleep to feel fresh and get energized for the training programme.
The training programme starts sharp at 10 am and will end at 6 pm.
After the training programme ends, he will have to stay back at the head office for some more time to socialize with his colleagues, whom he will be meeting after months.
So, it is going to be a very tiring and long day for Amit.
The most important point to note in all of this is that “Will Amit have the mental and physical energy to sit through the long training session?”
If Amit will not have the adequate energy for the first day of this important skill up-gradation training programme, then will his presence in this training programme do justice to the entire process of training conducted by his employing organization?
If you relate to Amit’s story, then you would agree that a very small change on the part of the company can help Amit to be at his best to get the best out of the training programme.
If the training programme is scheduled in such a way that Amit is able to get a sound night’s sleep then he can give his best on the first day of the training programme.
The sessions of the training programme are inter-related, so you need to give your best on the first day itself.
When the company decides to spend so much to upgrade its employees’ skills through such classroom-based training sessions, then the team in the company organizing such an event also needs to ensure that the participants give their best to get the maximum out of such training programmes.
A sound night’s sleep helps you to focus on your work better, which helps you to perform better.
If you are not sleeping for seven to eight hours every night then you are putting your health at risk.
There are many benefits of sleep, which we will discuss in detail in the later part of this article but at this point of the article just know that proper sleep is needed every night to repair your body at the molecular level and without proper night’s sleep, your body and mind will not be able to rejuvenate in order to help you give your best to your work the next day.
Through this article, I wish to focus the attention of everyone who thinks burning night oil and working hard at the cost of night’s sleep can boost your performance. In fact, it is exactly the opposite.
You must have attended or heard about training programmes to help you reduce stress at work and in your personal life. This kind of training programme will be of no use if it does not help you have a sound sleep every night because without a sound sleep every night, you can no way reduce your anxiety and stress.
The situation of the imaginary character Amit that we have discussed in this article is only an example of many such situations that disturb your night’s sleep and stop you from giving your best the next day.
Just take a few days off and give your best to analyze your lifestyle and think of ways that will help you to get rid of the habits that stop you from having a healthy night’s sleep.
Before you even start analyzing your lifestyle, let me request you to first analyze the way you use your smart mobile phone.
The majority of the people think that their mobile phone will help them to fall asleep at night but in the process, they lose a substantial amount of sleep time, and the consequence is that they do not get a minimum of 7-8 hours of night’s sleep, which is mandatory for the body to help it recover from the whole day’s stress, which ultimately leads them towards a more stressful life full of anxiety and restlessness.
If you are an employer or the head of a company, who wants to enhance the performance of the employees and as well as their quality of life, then here is the biggest tip that you have got in this article. “Ensure that your employees get 7-8 hours of sound sleep every night”.
This will not only enhance their performance and the quality of their life, but it will also help you to cut down the attrition rate.
When the employees of an organization realize that the organization cares for the quality of their life and also helps them to improve their performance in easy and comfortable ways to advance in their career, they will automatically care for the organization. Attrition rate in such an organization will always be low.
The objective of this article is to focus your attention on the need for night’s sleep in order to improve the quality of your life and to enhance your performance at work.
To understand what sleep is and why it is compulsory for your body, you will need to know complex terms associated with medical science and biology.
But in this article, I have done my best to explain different aspects of sleep in a layman language in order to make you enjoy reading this article without getting stressed because of complex terms.
To understand sleep, compare your body with a machine.
Like a machine, your body needs fuel in the form of food and water, processes it to get the required energy to operate and also generates waste products.
The difference between a machine and your body is that your body is run by a biological clock, whereas there is no biological clock in a machine.
This means that you can run a machine as and when you need it, but you cannot do the same in the case of your body, as it is run by a biological clock.
In medical science, the biological clock of your body is known as ‘Circadian Clock’ which uses your brain and the external environment to create an internal day-night rhythm and exerts constant influence on your body.
At night, the brain signals the release of ‘Melatonin’ hormone which is responsible for synchronizing your body’s biological clock with the external environment and helps in facilitating sleepiness.
Even at your lowest activity level when you are awake, the brain consumes 20% of your body’s energy and whereas, when you are asleep, the energy consumed by the brain falls significantly.
The most noticeable effect of sleep takes place in the brain.
When you are awake, the brain generates end-products that cause damage to the brain cells, and when you are asleep, these end-products decrease, enabling the restoration of the brain cells.
Hence, you can say that sleep is of the brain, by the brain, and for the brain.
Sleep is divided broadly into two distinct modes, that is, ‘Rapid eye movement’ (REM) sleep and ‘Non-rapid eye movement’ (NREM) sleep.
During sleep, your body alternates between these two modes.
NREM sleep occurs first.
During NREM sleep, your body temperature and heart rate fall and the brain uses less energy. You get into deep sleep during this sleep mode.
Whereas, REM sleep which represents a smaller portion of the total sleep time, is the occasion for dreams. This sleep mode is also associated with fast brain waves, eye movements and virtual paralysis of the body.
The sleep cycle of alternate NREM and REM sleep takes an average of 90 minutes, occurring 4-6 times in a good night’s sleep.
In 2015, after a two-year study, the ‘National Sleep Foundation’ in the US recommended the number of hours of sleep every day for each age group as shown in the table below:
| Age & Condition | Sleep needed every day |
| Newborns (0-3 months) | 14 to 17 hours |
| Infants (4-11 months) | 12 to 15 hours |
| Toddlers (1-2 years) | 11 to 14 hours |
| Preschoolers (3-4 years) | 10 to 13 hours |
| School-age children (5-12 years) | 9 to 11 hours |
| Teenagers (13-17 years) | 8 to 10 hours |
| Adults (18-64 years) | 7 to 9 hours |
| Older Adults (65 years and over) | 7 to 8 hours |
If you have reached this point of the article, then you know it very well now, how to defend your sleeping time when someone like your boss, teacher or parent wants you to work or study at the cost of it.
You may still have some more queries related to sleep like broken sleep and how to overcome it, so keep reading this article till the end. All your queries will get answered in this article.
Effects of Unhealthy Sleep
- Unhealthy Life
When you do not sleep well, your brain does not get proper rest in order to recover from the wear and tear it went through during your daytime activities.
The consequences of an unrested brain are not only on your body but also on life.
Body’s immune system gets affected and it gets prone to various diseases. Catching the common cold is just one of such many diseases.
You get tired very easily.
You experience memory loss.
You get irritated very easily.
The list of harmful effects due to lack of proper sleep is too large to be discussed in just one article.
In short, you can say that if you have unhealthy sleep then you will have an unhealthy life.
- Performance Inefficiency
People nowadays become a part of the rat race even without their own knowledge. They ignore the basic sleep requirements and also urge others to do the same. The consequence is that they become inefficient and also make others inefficient.
Always remember that sleep is of the brain, by the brain, and for the brain.
So, unhealthy sleep makes your brain unhealthy.
When the brain becomes unhealthy, it seizes to perform even at its minimum level.
The brain controls the whole body like the ‘Chief Executive Officer’ of an organization or like the ‘Principal’ of a school.
The way the ‘Chief Executive Officer’ of an organization or the ‘Principal’ of a school is responsible for a healthy work culture in the organization, the same way the brain is also responsible for a healthy body.
The brain controls each and every organ of the body, so think, what effect an unhealthy brain can have on your body because of an unhealthy sleep or lack of sleep.
You simply cannot give your best without getting a proper night’s sleep.
Lack of sleep or unhealthy sleep will only make you inefficient at work.
During ‘World War II’, the USA which emerged as a world superpower, encouraged its soldiers to have a good night’s sleep, so that they could give their best shot.
I have tried to connect lack of proper sleep or unhealthy sleep with work performance because most people either ignore or avoid talking about the need for proper sleep because of the fear of getting branded as ‘Lazy’.
Hope you will not have any inhibitions to talk about the need for proper sleep from now on.
Benefits of good night’s sleep
- Healthy and Prosperous life
Think, what you can achieve when you always have enormous amount of patience to face any kind of situation.
Think, what you can achieve when you are always relaxed and feel stress-free.
Think, what you can achieve when you are always focused on things that you do.
Think, what you can achieve when you always have great health.
Think, what you can achieve when you control your brain, which ultimately controls your body and your body language.
You can have phenomenal achievements, from building great relationships to coaching and inspiring people both in your personal and professional life.
You start doing things effortlessly, which seem to be challenging for others.
It all can start with one good habit and that is, proper sleep every night.
How to sleep well every night
Will it be okay for you to eat properly only once in 2 days?!
Will it be okay for you to brush and clean your mouth only once in 2 days?!
If your answer is ‘No’, then how do you think it is okay for you to make up for your lost sleep only during the weekends?!
Recall the statement every time when you think of ignoring your sleep even for one night, “Sleep is of the brain, by the brain, and for the brain”.
And you need to care for your brain every day and every night, and not just on weekends.
If you do night shifts or travel at night frequently for work, then find enough time during the day to recover from the sleep debt.
Remember the following tips which will help you to have a proper sleep every night.
- Make up your mind
It all starts with your mind that what kind of life you want to live.
So, first, make up your mind that you need to have proper sleep every night.
Ensure that you free your mind from any kind of extreme thoughts.
Feelings of extreme hatred and extreme happiness will disturb your brain and will not let you fall asleep.
So, it is this time before you go to sleep at night that you need to forget and forgive everybody and focus only on one thing, that is, resting your brain.
You need to empty your mind before you go to sleep, so that you help your brain to rest even before you fall asleep.
After a proper sleep and with a well-rested brain, who knows you may wake up a changed person and find your foes to be your friends and friends as the greatest gift of life!
- Type of food and time of eating
When you have a large meal or highly fatty food or very spicy food, you are going to have ‘Acid Reflux’, that is, the food contents in your stomach start to flow back to your throat, which is certainly going to irritate you and disturb your sleep.
So, when you feel like losing control of yourself and give in to that tasty delicious food in a very large quantity, then just think of your sleep at night, which is linked to the enormous prosperity in your life.
When you have a late-night heavy meal, you do not give enough time to your stomach to digest it, which leads to acid reflux and ultimately disturbs your sleep.
This is the reason that many communities like the ‘Jains’ and ‘Buddhists’ follow the practice of having dinner before the sunset and drink enough water to keep the body hydrated and not feel hungry at night.
- Clean the body properly
When you go on a long journey like a train journey of 6-7 hours, won’t you like to clean your mouth properly and have a nice bath before embarking on the journey, in order to feel relaxed during the entire journey?
Sleep is the journey of your body that relaxes your brain and body, and you need to prepare your body well before embarking on this crucial journey every night.
By maintaining proper oral hygiene, that is, cleaning your teeth and tongue properly every day and every night, you will enable your respiratory organs like nose, throat and lungs to help you breathe well during the entire sleeping period, adding to the quality of your sleep.
- Avoid light
Sleep is for your brain, and when there is light inside your sleeping area, either because of your mobile phone, television or any other source, it is going to disturb your brain through your optic nerves and disrupt the release of ‘Melatonin’ hormone which aids in facilitating sleepiness.
So, keep your mobile phone and other sources of light away when you go to sleep.
- Sleeping position
Sleep in a position, which can help you sleep comfortably during the entire sleeping period.
You may find it comfortable to sleep on your abdomen at the beginning of the sleeping period but after some time, it may start to hurt you and result in a broken sleep.
Sleeping on your back or sideways with your head properly rested, can help you sleep for a longer time in the same position.
Sleeping sideway on your left is most advisable.
When you sleep sideway on your left, all the toxins of your body are drawn towards the anus through the large intestine. This will help you digest food better and detoxify your body.
- Overcome broken sleep
Now it is time for you to talk about the most important challenge while sleeping, that is, ‘Broken sleep’.
When you have to wake up from the middle of a nice sleep under compulsion, either because of the need to go to the washroom to relieve yourself or because of any other reason, you face broken sleep.
It is not possible to avoid broken sleep but it is possible to overcome the challenge of broken sleep and fall back asleep comfortably.
When you face broken sleep, the normal tendency is to check your mobile phone with the hope that it will help you to fall back asleep. But the truth is that when you use the mobile phone, the light coming out of it strains your optic nerves and disturbs the brain.
So, once your sleep breaks because of any reason, the easiest way to fall back asleep is to make the sleeping area as dark as possible and make your mind as calm as possible which is possible by making it as thoughtless as possible. By doing this, you allow your brain to continue in the resting mode, leading you to falling asleep.
The objective of this article is to sensitize you to the importance of sleep in your life and I hope you give due respect to sleep every night from now on and will not trade it for anything else, as there is nothing more important than a good sleep every night.
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