Sleep

You can have the best laid plans, but they can go absolutely awry if you don't get enough sleep. Yesterday was a great example of how significant sleep can be (or lack thereof) in creating a barrier to productivity. I wear a CPAP because I have sleep apnea. For the last two days I didn't wear my CPAP mask because I was trying to determine if the new mask I was using was actually working. Turns out, it was. I had not worn the mask on Saturday night or Sunday night, so when Monday morning came around I was useless. I woke up and began my morning routine and promptly fell asleep on the couch downstairs while I was trying to drink a cup of coffee. It did not get better from there. Sleep is often the first thing we sacrifice if we have things we're trying to accomplish in a given day. Maybe it is business travel for which we end up having to get up at the crack of dawn. When I travel I like to take early flights so I can get to where I'm going and have some time to myself to enjoy for the remainder of the day. I get up anywhere between 3:30 and 5am for these early flights. Granted, I'm able to recover some of my missed sleep during the flights, but not often. I don't sleep well on planes. So I spend the first day being sleep deprived. The same goes for pushing back the time we usually go to bed. Perhaps there's a project that demands a few extra evening hours. We don't give a second thought to staying up later to get things done, but then the morning comes and we still have to abide by our predetermined routine. We get through the day at sub-optimal levels of performance, but we're able to survive and get things done so we're reassured that (once in a while) we can do this and get away with it. There comes a point, though, when we can't get away with this. When we're so significantly sleep deprived that we can't function, even at a sub-optimal level. For me this was yesterday. I had an open calendar, a rarity for a Monday, but I had a number of projects I needed to make progress on. I had to choose the least thought-intensive of the projects and slog through it as best I could, but I didn't get done with what I had set out to do. Not even close. Why is it that health and wellness is something we sacrifice? If we are to be truly productive, health and wellness should be a non-negotiable. Not only non-negotiable, but a priority. If we are healthy, we're more functional. We're more productive. We're less likely to be in sub-optimal condition, and we're better positioned to get things done.

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