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The amount of sleep required by the average person is five minutes more. “
Wilson Mizener
We all seem to be working longer and harder with health, productivity, and mood being directly affected.
Research by Sylvia Ann-Hewlett and Carolyn Luce shows that 62% of high-earning individuals work more than 50 hours per week, 35% work more than 60 hours a week and 10% work more than 80 hours ((Hewlett, A. & Luce, C. (2006). Extreme jobs. The dangerous allure of the 70-hour workweek. Harvard Business Review, December 2006, pp. 1-12)). Their findings suggest that more than 70% of professionals reported not getting enough sleep.
Leaders and others know that the sleep-deprived are typically moody, miserable, and just not much fun to be around. New research from UC Berkeley using MRI technology helps explain why for the first time.
The study is the first to show exactly what areas of the brain are affected by sleep deprivation ((Yoo, S., Gujar,N., Hu,P., Jolesz, F., & and Walker, M. (2007) )). The human emotional brain without sleep — a prefrontal amygdala disconnect. ((Current Biology. Vol 17, R877-R878, 23 October 2007) )).
In the UC Berkeley study of 26 young adults, half of the subjects were kept awake for 35 hours straight and the other half were allowed a normal night’s sleep in that same time period. Then all of the subjects were hooked up to an MRI and shown a number of images while the researchers monitored what happened in their brains as each image was shown.
The sleep-deprived subjects showed significant activity in the amygdala (the section of the brain that puts the body on alert to protect itself and control emotions), and simultaneously, showed slowed activity in the prefrontal cortex (which controls logical reasoning). On the other hand, subjects who got a full night of sleep showed normal brain activity. As a result, the ability to manage emotions and curb self-control would appear to be compromised to some extent just due to lack of sleep.
Americans are among the most sleep-deprived people in the world with 40% of Americans getting less than seven hours of sleep a night, according to a poll conducted by the National Sleep Foundation. Additionally, 75% of Americans reported having some sort of sleep disorder one or two nights a week ((http://www.sleepfoundation.org/)).
Our own research with our stress/resilience assessment StressScan shows significant sleep impairment in working adults (www.getlifehub.com/stress_scan). In this assessment we have a Sleep/Rest scale and some of our questions explore receiving less sleep than one requires for various reasons.
In a sample of 1,326 working adults we found that 35.7 percent reported “often” or “always” receiving less sleep than required because of staying up too late or getting up too early. Almost 22 percent reported being tired during the day due to poor quality sleep (either falling asleep took too long or unable to stay asleep). Slightly more than 8 percent reported missing an entire night or large proportion of sleep because of work or play activities in the last 30 days.
If you are interested in finding out the quality of your own sleep (as well as your coping, stress and lifestyle habits), just contact me at ken@envisiaonline for a free trial of StressScan.
What this means for most people is that a sleepless night or very poor quality of sleep can cause employees to overreact to emotional challenges that they would otherwise be able to tolerate without any trouble.
And if you have sleep-deprived talent and leaders who lack emotional intelligence — look out — their social competence is already compromised….I think I will stop now and take a short nap (optimum naps are less than 10 minutes in length and best in the early afternoon to coincide with our dip in circadian alertness cycle)…..Be well…
Ken Nowack
Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)
