Episode 114
Prioritising Sleep For Career Success
In this episode of The Career Confidence Podcast, we are talking about the crucial role that sleep plays in our career success.
Key Takeaways:
- Sleep isn't a nice to have; it plays a fundamental role in cognitive function and emotional regulation.
- Sleep deprivation negatively impacts our productivity and decision-making abilities in the workplace.
- By prioritising sleep, we can significantly improve our mood, creativity, and problem-solving skills, which are essential for career success.
- Actionable strategies to enhance sleep quality, including establishing a consistent bedtime routine and minimising blue light exposure.
About Nicola Semple
I help people to build their career confidence and achieve their career goals.
You can book a free no-obligation chat about how I can support you to achieve your career goals: https://nicolasemple.com/chat
You can get my free guide "Back Yourself: Your 7 Step Plan to Build Confidence and Achieve Your Career Goals": https://nicolasemple.com/backyourself
You can buy my book The Career Confidence Toolkit: Take Control of Your Career and Fulfil Your Potential: https://nicolasemple.com/book
Connect with me on Linked In to carry on the conversation: https://linkedin.com/in/iamnicolasemple
A new episode of The Career Confidence Podcast is released every second Friday. Hit the subscribe button and you will be the first to know when a new episode goes live.
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker B:Hello and welcome to the Career Confidence Podcast where we explore how you can build your career with confidence in this ever changing world.
Speaker B:I'm your host Nicholas Semple, a career and confidence coach and author of the Career Confidence Toolkit.
Speaker B:Welcome back to the second of our summer sessions.
Speaker B:This is where we give you the opportunity to listen to some gold dust from the Career Confidence content archives and I have a much needed break from recording over the holiday period.
Speaker B:The second of our summer sessions is all about sleep.
Speaker B:Now you might be wondering why I'm talking about sleep on a career related podcast, but making sure we get enough sleep and also that we get good quality sleep is an absolute foundational underpinning of our health and well being.
Speaker B:It allows us to focus, it allows us to be more productive, more creative and better able to solve problems.
Speaker B:So while we might think it's better to burn the candle at both ends, put in more hours, work harder, what we actually need is to be in the best state possible so that we can tackle our work and tackle it in the most productive, creative and energetic way.
Speaker B:And that means we need sleep and plenty of it.
Speaker B:So in this episode I'm going to be sharing some background on the importance of sleep and also some tips to help you improve your quality of sleep.
Speaker B:Have a listen for yourself and feel free to drop me an email@nicolaikolasemple.com to let me know which of these tips you're going to take on board and implement for yourself.
Speaker A:Today I want to have a slight diversion and cover what on first appearance might seem like a completely non career related topic and that is sleep.
Speaker A:However, while it might seem to be an unrelated topic, sleep is such a fundamental part of our well being and we covered how important weaving our wellbeing parachute is In a previous episode, I wanted to devote some specific time to talking about sleep.
Speaker A:I'll caveat this episode by saying I am not a sleep expert, but I have done a lot of research over the last few years on the importance and the power of sleep which I would love to share with you to get you to think about it in the context of your career and being the best version of yourself.
Speaker A:So so that you can bring all of your skills, all of your passions, all of your abilities to your career.
Speaker A:Now sleep.
Speaker A:I love sleep.
Speaker A:Sleep is so important it can have a huge impact on our mood.
Speaker A:If I don't get enough sleep, I am really grumpy, I'm short tempered, I'm not particularly nice to be around and that impacts on my relationships with my family and while I do my best not to show outwardly, I don't feel like I can be at the best for my clients.
Speaker A:If I've not had enough sleep, it's just not pleasant for me.
Speaker A:Waking up in the morning and feeling refreshed is very high on my priority list.
Speaker A:And I quite often make decisions that will prioritize sleep over other things.
Speaker A:But sleep does more than impact our mood.
Speaker A:When we go to sleep, it allows our body to do magical things.
Speaker A:It gives our body the opportunity to actively recover.
Speaker A:There's been a lot of research over the past few years that has found that when we go to sleep, our brain cells regenerate and we also get an opportunity to process our thoughts from the day.
Speaker A:If you think about our brains as an electrical circuit, if we put too much onto the electrical circuit, it overloads.
Speaker A:The same thing happens with our brain.
Speaker A:Our brain needs that rest period at night to sort and store the information that has been received that day.
Speaker A:If you've ever been studying for an exam and doing your revision in the evenings, thinking, this is just not going in, I'm not remembering anything, then you go off to bed and you have a good night's sleep.
Speaker A:And when you get up the next day, lo and behold, you remember so much more than you did the night before.
Speaker A:That's because your brain has had the opportunity to organize your memories and store them away so that you can retrieve them at the point which you need to do that.
Speaker A:Also, when we have a good night's sleep, we boost our immune system.
Speaker A:We've got higher energy levels and we're better able to concentrate and take in information in an effective way.
Speaker A:Now this is where you can really start to see the relevance of talking about sleep in the context of our career.
Speaker A:We're learning that to be able to best perform in the workplace, we need to look after ourselves both physically and mentally.
Speaker A:And one very important way we can look after ourselves is to get enough rest and sleep.
Speaker A:We'll be much better able to make quality decisions if our circuits aren't overloaded.
Speaker A:If we're giving our brains the chance to rest and regenerate, and giving ourselves the time and space we need to replenish ourselves rationally.
Speaker A:I don't think anybody would disagree with what I've just said.
Speaker A:However, when it comes to the reality of day to day working life, often we burn the candle at both ends.
Speaker A:When the work's piling up, we're choosing to power on through and sacrifice our sleep, thinking that it's the right thing.
Speaker A:To do.
Speaker A:Sleep expert Professor Matthew Walker, the director of the center for Human Science, believes that we are in the middle of a catastrophic sleep loss epidemic.
Speaker A:He says that deprivation of sleep is affecting every single aspect of our lives and it's having a hugely detrimental impact on those that aren't getting enough sleep.
Speaker A:Walker says we need to take action immediately to make sure that as a society we're getting the rest recuperation and restoration that we need.
Speaker A:A recent study by the University of Oxford found that we're sleeping on average one to two hours less than we did 60 years ago.
Speaker A:When you hear it like that, one to two hours doesn't sound like a huge amount.
Speaker A:But if you think in the context of an eight hour sleep cycle, which is traditionally acknowledged as the amount of sleep an adult needs on a daily basis, it's a much more significant amount.
Speaker A:If we're sleeping one to two hours less than we did 60 years ago, that's between 12.5 and 25% less.
Speaker A:So when you think about the numbers in those terms, it sounds much more jarring.
Speaker A:And there's lots of reasons why we're sleeping less.
Speaker A:First of all, we've got electric lights.
Speaker A:At one point in the past, people didn't have an option.
Speaker A:It'd get dark at night, they went to sleep because there was nothing else to do.
Speaker A:Now we've got TVs and phones and computers that keep us distracted and keep us awake.
Speaker A:People also have longer commutes than we used to.
Speaker A:For many people, this is changing as a result of the pandemic and working from home.
Speaker A:But again, 60 years ago, not many people would commute for long distances and would have to factor travel time into their day.
Speaker A:Adding the commuting time into the day means there's less time for leisure and relaxation, which is eating into a lot of people's sleeping time.
Speaker A:And then speaking about the pandemic and working from home, there's much more of a blurring between work and personal time, with people spending more and more time working from home.
Speaker A:And all of these things add up.
Speaker A:I mean, that people are spending less time sleeping and this is having a real detrimental impact on our health.
Speaker A:And in the context of our career, our, our ability to concentrate and to produce quality work and be able to make good decisions.
Speaker A:It's thought that sleep deprivation is costing the UK economy between 30 and 40 billion pounds a year.
Speaker A:And there's increasing evidence that shows a very strong link between sleep deprivation and conditions such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, obesity, and also a very strong link to mental health issues.
Speaker A:I do believe that there's an increased awareness on the importance and the power of sleep as a society, and we are starting to shift in the right direction.
Speaker A:But I also think there's still a lot of stigma attached to sleep, and in many quarters the idea of working hard and playing hard still prevails.
Speaker A:I want to encourage you to prioritize sleep and to think about how much sleep you get and the quality of that sleep.
Speaker A:You might find it helpful to keep a sleep record so that you can assess how much sleep you're getting on a daily basis.
Speaker A:You might even already have a device such as a fitness tracker that helps you to do this.
Speaker A:In addition to thinking about the number of hours you sleep, we also need to think about the quality of our sleep.
Speaker A:How are you feeling when you wake up?
Speaker A:Do you wake up roughly at the same time?
Speaker A:Do you need an alarm to wake you up?
Speaker A:When that alarm's going off, how are you feeling?
Speaker A:Also thinking about how long does it take to get to sleep?
Speaker A:And then once you're asleep, are you able to stay asleep?
Speaker A:Asking yourself these questions over an extended period of time can be really valuable to help you build up a picture of what your sleep pattern looks like, you can then understand if there are things you need to do and adjustments you need to make so that you get the best quality sleep possible.
Speaker A:Once you start to understand your current sleep patterns, you can then think about healthy sleep habits that you can incorporate into your life.
Speaker A:We all have our own circadian rhythm.
Speaker A:This is our natural body clock and it allows our body to know when it's daytime and when it's nighttime.
Speaker A:The more you can expose yourself to light during the day so that your body knows that it is daytime, then when it comes to nighttime, it can be signaling you that it's time to rest and go to sleep.
Speaker A:If you can work with your circadian rhythms, then your body will be better able to respond when you're ready to go to bed and go to sleep.
Speaker A:I know that aligning our body clock was something many people found difficult in the pandemic when they were working from home, possibly not even venturing outside.
Speaker A:But whether you're working from home or back in the office, take some time at lunchtime for a walk around the block.
Speaker A:Get that exposure to natural daylight and remind your body it is in fact daytime.
Speaker A:This can make a big difference to your overall quality of sleep come the evening.
Speaker A:Also, think about your caffeine intake.
Speaker A:Caffeine affects different people in different ways and to be perfectly Honest, I could drink a double espresso before I go to bed and go straight to sleep.
Speaker A:It doesn't seem to have much of an impact on me, but I know that it does for a lot of people.
Speaker A:It's just for you working out the point in the day to stop having caffeine so that it's not going to impact you right into the evening.
Speaker A:The other thing that's an issue for many of us is blue light.
Speaker A:By blue light I mean the light that comes from our devices.
Speaker A:In an ideal world, you'd minimize your exposure to blue light in the evening so you're not going to be overstimulated and therefore you'll find it more difficult to go to sleep.
Speaker A:As you move into the evening, think about the food that you're eating.
Speaker A:As you move into the evening, think about the food that you're eating and try not to eat too late.
Speaker A:When you're digesting food, your body's working and you might not be consciously aware of this, but there's a lot of work going on in your body that's potentially not putting you in the best position to relax and switch off.
Speaker A:And then finally, it's also worth thinking about your bedtime routine.
Speaker A:Coming up with a simple routine that you do every single night that's a signal to your body and your brain that it's time for sleep.
Speaker A:Deciding the time you'll go to bed and get into that rhythm and routine.
Speaker A:Even at weekends, which I know can be tricky, but if you can get a consistent pattern for your sleep, it will make it much easier for you to fall asleep and for you to wake up at the same time.
Speaker A:Keep your devices as far away from the bedroom as you can.
Speaker A:Invest in an alarm clock, an old fashioned alarm clock so that you aren't tempted to have the phone beside your bed and think about what you'll do directly before you try and fall asleep.
Speaker A:It might be some meditation or deep breathing or even listening to some gentle relaxing music or whatever is going to work for you to help you relax and switch off your mind, switch off your body and prepare yourself for a good night's sleep.
Speaker A:I'd love to hear about your sleep habits and the impact that getting a good night's sleep has on your ability to perform at work.
Speaker A:Come and find me on LinkedIn by searching for Nicholas Semple and we can carry on the conversation there.
Speaker A:That's all for this week.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for listening.
Speaker A:If you've enjoyed the episode, make sure you subscribe, share with your friends and anyone that you think could do with a good night's sleep to help them be able to perform better within their work and within their career.
Speaker A:I'd love if you could leave a review of the podcast on your podcast app of choice.
Speaker A:It only takes two minutes and I'd appreciate it so much.
Speaker A:Thank you again for listening and I'll talk to you again next week.
Speaker A:Bye for now.
Speaker A:It.
