SINGAPORE: Mark Tan, a driven 40-year-old, was a competitive athlete in school. Academic success egged on by like-minded classmates took him to an elite university where it was a badge of honour to sacrifice sleep for grades and activities.
While there appears to be genuine recognition that something needs to change about how we sleep, the needle hasn’t moved much on a societal or policy level. Health and wellness magazines have a penchant for advising on “sleep hacks” – quick fixes that in my opinion, do not get to the root of the problem.
It pays to hold your ground and to negotiate for more sleep-friendly times for such calls. There is a health cost to doing late-night conference calls and the organiser should be made aware.Draw boundaries on evening networking events. Not winding down before sleeping can result in one staying awake, unable to fall asleep from thinking about work involuntarily, or waking up in the middle of the night riddled with thoughts about work or issues surrounding work.
My colleague Dr Stijn Massar has shown that sleep deprivation leads to a higher reward being required before we choose to put in the same level of mental effort as compared to performing the same task when well-rested.5. PUSH FOR SOCIETY-WIDE CHANGES If anything, keeping longer waking hours has diminishing, even negative returns. In both in the US and China, studies have found that later sleep time is associated with lower economic productivity.
Sleep is rest afforded by peace.