ANALYSIS | Health & Wellbeing
Sleeping Programme:
The Key Insights
less. After just four nights of 25% less
sleep (e.g. 8hrs to 6hrs) cognitive and
emotional performance was significantly
reduced in the performance of the
managers with 38% showing a decrease
in problem solving skills, 29% with worse
communication and 28% experiencing a
decrease in memory recall. The biggest
impact however, was on the managers’
moods, with a collective 281% increase
in negative mood.
Sunday night insomnia, the battle
Sleep and stress – they are more
connected than you think
The intimate connection between sleep
and stress is not widely understood.
Although it is obvious that the stress of
the day is likely to keep you awake at
night, it is also the case that if you sleep
less you will feel and act more stressed.
This means a vicious cycle of stress and
sleeplessness can easily take hold, with
employees not realising that if they
break this and get some sleep they will
have a stronger emotional resilience to
daytime stressors. Companies spending
thousands in solutions for employee
stress often see immediate benefits
when their workforce is getting sufficient
sleep at night.
‘Always on’ means you can’t turn off
time in the amygdala, the primitive
threat detecting part of our brain. The net
result is that we tend to view ourselves,
others and the world around us in a more
negative light, something which results in
us overreacting to emotional events and
experiencing more negative emotions.
For savvy HRs, the critical
connection between sleep and daytime
performance, as well as how well we
handle stress, is clear. Employees who
make their sleep a priority will perform
better at work and it is something which
can be improved relatively simply with
the right know-how and departmental
analysis. HRs looking to make a big
difference to their company’s bottom
line could do worse than investing in
some team shut-eye – it could prove to
be the business’ biggest asset. Q
dofonline.co.uk
One of the practical skills we give
employees on our programme is the
capacity to fall asleep more quickly and
easily. Key to this is setting boundaries
around using work phones or logging
onto laptops too close to bedtime.
Blue light emitted from screens mimics
daylight, tricking our brains into a state
of alertness and blocking our body’s
natural signals to get ready for sleep
with the onset of night.
which can be won by not trying
Sunday night is by far the most
common evening for people to struggle
with insomnia. This is largely due to the
pressures and worries which mount up
for the week ahead and the thought
that you ‘must’ sleep so you can cope
with work in the morning. This can
result in a big struggle during the night
to get off to sleep, and the more you
fight not sleeping, the less likely you
will be able to fall asleep. On Sleep To
Perform, employees are given practical
insights into how to overcome this
deadlock, allowing them to drop-off
easily, even when the pressure to get off
to sleep is at its most strong e.g. before
a big presentation or during a period of
increased pressure. Q
For more information, or to book a
Sleep To Perform programme, visit:
www.sleeptoperform.uk
You might survive on five hours
sleep but you won’t perform or feel
at your best
In a sleep deprivation study, 480 store
managers from Bensons for Beds were
challenged to work at their best when
they were deliberately forced to sleep
DIRECTOR OF FINANCE
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