As you might recognize form your body, there are days when you are waking up with a bunch of energy and days, when you feel like you were hit by some heavy truck while sleeping. Now, I do not mean that if you’ve been having some good night out with your friends and you are waking up with well-known headache called hangover, after this “funny night”.

I mean the cases, when you are tired just by waking up caused by lack of sleep. Many ambitious do sacrifice their sleep in preference to be productive. Are you as well fighting the fight sleep vs productivity? Can we avoid the fight, by finding the right balance? Why is sleep so important for our productivity? Are you struggling to find the right time to spend in bed?

If you are as well searching for answer on these questions, or if you are just searching for some tips for some quality sleep, or if you have any other question related to influence your sleeping might have to your productivity, I will try to help you within this blog post.

How many hours of sleep do one need?

Let us begin with the first common question. So, how many hours are needed in order to have a good sleep?

Different sources are stating different suggestions. The important are here, as well as everywhere, the facts. Let’s stay with the facts.

While for decades there was a phenomenon of having 8 hrs of sleep, lately new researches and studies are stating that the minimum sleeping time is 7 hrs. Maybe you have heard some public person saying, there is a need just 6 hrs of sleeping.

But where is the truth?

I like the information experts from tuck.com sharing on their website, mentioning the required minimum sleeping time being between 6-9 hrs. That is thus standard.

They are also mentioning that the amount of sleep each person needs depends on many factors, including age, health, recent physical exertion, and mental activity. There is genetic influence, too. Some people just need more sleep than others and this runs in families.

You can find the article with some detailed studies here How much sleeping time do I need?

If you are falling into those time ranges, so between 6-9 hrs you should be fine in relation of your health. In relation of your productivity can the time vary. Very important is to observe your body after your sleep. Our body reacts differently.

Each body is different. So for someone can be necessary to have his or her 8 hrs, while for someone else is 6 enough. I won’t be afraid if you need 8 hrs. Obviously, if you would like to have more time during the day, it would be much more convenient if you can adapt to 6 hrs regime.

In case you’d like make your nights shorten, maybe some testing can help. Your body will tell you afterwards if it is possible. What I mean by that, for example if you are drowsy during the day, even during boring periods, you haven’t had enough sleep the previous night. Or on the other side you are energetic for entire day.

Personal Tip: At the end of this paragraph I would like to share one tip out of my personal experience. I feel much more energetic, react on time, and have higher decision-making ability, when I did sleep countable hours, so 4,6,8, while I feel drowsy, tired and moody while have slept uncountable hours, so 5,7,9.

Why is sleeping important for my productivity?

That is very good question. As already mentioned, when you don’t sleep long enough you do feel tired and moody. Your ability to make decisions is rapidly lower and lack of your sleep can negatively affect your cognitive skills.

It makes sense, right? How can you deliver the best out of you if you are tired? Therefore it is very important to be well rested if you would like deliver some quality article or some physical performance.

There is another importance of good quality night sleep and that is our mental health. Website called positive routines.com During the night sleep our internal “hardware” is being cleaned. In other words night sleep is important for your MEMORY and for mind recovery.

Scott Trimble from website www.positive routines.com provided an interesting case study made through U.S. national institution on flashing out toxins during the night sleep.

The other spectrum of population to those who need to stay fit “mentally” during their working time, like from web-developer to teacher, are athletes. They need to stay fit mostly physically.

For athletes on all level is having enough sleep crucial for delivering right performance.

Personal tip: As being soccer player on decent level, I am considering myself being into the group of athletes as well. Before every game I am sleeping 8 hrs with a short “nap” together with positive images in my head as close to the performance as possible.

The power of the nap.

Another big time and productivity safer is in my opinion well-known power nap. In short description, it is short, light sleep less than an hour during the day.

It shouldn’t replace your missing night sleep, but it should help you stay tuned within longer working day. The benefits of nap are numerous. In short, they are improving your mental performance, learning, PRODUCTIVITY and lowering risk of cardiovascular diseases. 

According this report found in the Annals of Internal Medicine  mentioned by experts from tuck.com, persons having 3 times a week half an hour nap were 37% less likely to die from heart disease.Occasion nappers 12% reduction.

Personal Tip: I am using nap quite often, and see benefits of it in my daily life. From my experience and in case you work from home or you can decide your working time by yourself, after every 4 hours block of work, half an hour nap, is improving rapidly YOUR PRODUCTIVITY.

Tips for better sleep.

For the purpose of improving your night sleep I allowed myself to share with you some tips for healthy sleeping habits, provided by American Academy of Sleep Medicine :

• Keep a consistent sleep schedule. Get up at the same time every day, even on weekends or during vacations.
• Set a bedtime that is early enough for you to get at least 7 hours of sleep. Earlier in my post you see that it can be less.
• Don’t go to bed unless you are sleepy.
• If you don’t fall asleep after 20 minutes, get out of bed.
• Establish a relaxing bedtime routine.
• Use your bed only for sleep and sex.
• Make your bedroom quiet and relaxing. Keep the room at a comfortable, cool temperature.
• Limit exposure to bright light in the evenings.
• Turn off electronic devices at least 30 minutes before bedtime.
• Don’t eat a large meal before bedtime. If you are hungry at night, eat a light, healthy snack.
• Exercise regularly and maintain a healthy diet.
• Avoid consuming caffeine in the late afternoon or evening.
• Avoid consuming alcohol before bedtime.
• Reduce your fluid intake before bedtime

Personal tip:Make sure your bedroom smells nice, after relaxing oils for example.

Sleep vs Productivity.

I wrote this article mainly in order to help those, who are trying to sacrifice some sleep in order to gain more time on next day. Mostly ambitious people who’d like to achieve as much as possible. And have the feeling that sleeping is stopping them achieve great things.

I am some of them, so it is crucial as well for me to know the fact that more than a sleeping time(considered the minimum required time is met), matters on the quality our sleep is having.

We all have to learn that our health, supported with good and quality sleep is very important. The missing night hours can be replaced with caffeine forever.

On the other hand, as there were many misleading information lately, basically every information channel was stating different required time for sufficient sleep, I hope I showed you here within my blog post, that you don’t need necessary the 8 hours of sleep.

I know it can be challenging for many of you guys, to fins the right balance, between time spend in bed and time spend actively working on your projects. I hope I could give you some insights within my post. Hopefully, you will experience less sleep vs productivity issues.

Please if you find the information here helpful, share it with your friends, colleagues, or even managers( maybe you will receive an extra time for your nap-;) and spread the word. As well, if you have your own tips or experiences or any question, related to the topic, please share them below.

Best luck towards your dreamed life!