How your (lack of) sleep is killing your productivity | Weaver & Loom [E089]

In my early twenties, I looked at leaders around me who, so I thought, only needed four to six hours of sleep per night. I envied them, so I decided to give it a try.

After a week of getting only six hours of sleep a night, I wound up sick, and it took a week or two before I returned to my normal level of productivity. But that was only the beginning of my experimentations with sleep.

As a result of my failures, I resented myself, and my body, for needing up to nine hours of sleep to feel rested and to function properly.

I fought my “weakness” with all my strength. I dreamed of how amazing it would be to need only six hours of sleep.

I fantasized about how much more I could accomplish if only my body would cooperate.

I was an ignorant fool.

Here is the study mentioned in the episode:

Van Dongen HP, Mullington JM, Dinges DF. “The cumulative cost of additional wakefulness: dose-response effects on neurobehavioral functions and sleep physiology from chronic sleep restriction and total sleep deprivation.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12683469

If you want to take action even more and live a focus life to achieve your dreams and fulfill your destiny–get my book Anchored the Discipline to Stop Drifting.