More Sleep Please

Can we talk about sleep for a second?  Well, actually, let’s not start with sleep.  Let’s start with being tired. Pretty much all the time.

All of us in the nonprofit sector are dealing with complex issues and facing constant challenges. Too little sleep limits our ability to respond to the challenges we face every day.

Neuroscientists have found that not enough sleep impacts the brain’s ability to accomplish the very things needed for effective leadership: cognitive reasoning, problem solving, planning, and decision making.

Research has also shown that sleep-deprived brains lose the ability to make accurate judgments, are less productive, aren’t able to concentrate, have fewer creative ideas, and zap our ability to be patient and thoughtful.

Tony Schwartz over at the Energy Project gets right to the point, “We continue to live by a remarkably durable myth: Sleeping one hour less will give us one more hour of productivity. In reality, the research suggests that even small amounts of sleep deprivation take a significant toll on our health, our mood, our cognitive capacity and our productivity.”

Sleep is not a luxury.  It’s essential to our ability to be a leader and to create the impact we are trying to make in our communities.

Are you inspired to get more sleep tonight?