Let's get straight to it. Does eight hours of sleep make a difference? According to the research, yes. Do it as much as you can, according to UC Berkeley professor Matthew Walker, author of the best-seller 'Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams.'
Sleep promotes a healthy hormonal balance and allows the brain to make new memories. Dream sleep also enhances your ability to solve-next day problems. A 2017 study published in the Annals of Neurology found that shorting ourselves on sleep may lead to making riskier decisions — and we may not even realize we’re doing it, according to Walker.
As executives plagued with multi time-zone conference calls, lack of sleep can also get in the way of our productivity, particular if we're taking more sick days off. Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night demolishes your immune system, more than doubling your risk of cancer, cites Walker in his book. Okay, that's a lot more severe than just taking sick days once in a while but another independent study also showed that people sleeping 5 hours per night were 32% more likely to catch the common cold.
Jeff Bezos, a notorious believer in the eight-hour rule cites a more cognitive benefit to sleep. “So let’s go crazy and say I slept four hours a day. I’d get four so-called productive hours back. So before I had, say, 12 hours of productive time during any waking day, now all of a sudden I have 12 plus four — I have 16 productive hours," Bezos remarked in a recent interview with the Economic Club in Washington.
“But is that really worth it if the quality of those decisions might be lower because you’re tired or grouchy or any number of things? Probably not,” he said.
There's a health benefit with direct ramifications for your wardrobe. Sleep also helps us regulate our appetite and make healthier food choices. A lack of sleep increases levels of a hormone named ghrelin that makes us feel hungry, while lowering levels of the hormone leptin that makes us feel full. A study by the University of Chicago found that humans who were restricted to four to five hours of sleep ate an average of 300 more calories daily. That's about a 5 kilogram gain of weight in a year. It's a compound effect too. More weight gain mean's you'll need to replace your bespoke shirts and pants with a new set (and worse, if you own bespoke suits).
So what's the best way to start?
Firstly, get healthy. There are plenty of supplements that help you wind down for a better night of sleep. Magnesium tablets and Ashwaganda pills are among those recommended by many experts. The most prescribed are simple dairy products like milk. Studies have shown a strong correlation between drinking milk prior to bed and its subsequent positive effects on sleep.
Secondly, get your mood ready. Set up a dimmable light lamp to lull your mind into a gradual winding-down mood. The Casper Glow Light and the Philips Hue lamps are great examples in aiding this, creating a gradual fade that lulls the body into a readiness for sleep. They are granularly controllable either via a dedicated app or through Apple's own Home app.
Thirdly, forgo all devices in the last one hour of your night-time routine. It's the perfect time to incorporate some reading and help you fall asleep as your lamp light dims. Studies have shown that watching video creates stimulation that persists after the lights are out and you're trying to sleep. A book does the opposite.
If you're interested in know more about mastering sleep, get a copy of Matthew Walker's book right here. Stay tuned for his book review in The Boardroom soon.
Meanwhile, to help you get more sleep you can buy the Casper Glow Light here.