Sleep is for the Weak!
I can’t count how many times I’ve heard the following phrase, “I worked day-in and day-out to build my business/career/life, didn’t sleep at all, and that’s why I was able to become successful. SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK!” It sounds almost aspirational. It makes you think, “Am I not working hard enough?”. In reality, sleep is not a hindrance to success, it is actually a tool. Let me rewind a bit. In 2018-19, I worked for a startup marketing firm, as one of the first team members to join the company. When I joined, the workload was minimal. I was able to maintain a healthy work/life balance while also wearing all of the hats that come with working with a startup. However, the workload would not stay minimal for long, and soon enough, I had more work than I was equipped to handle. But it was all okay because, Sleep is for the weak!One sleepless night became two, then four, then a week, and so on and so forth. Eventually, I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open during important meetings and supplementing myself with energy drinks infused with enough caffeine to power a medium-sized passenger plane. As you may have guessed, I burnt out pretty quickly. My performance began to decline. I would wake up nervous and full of anxiety every morning. I would make careless mistakes. Worst of all, my physical health drastically declined as well. While some of this can be charged to having a larger workload, most of it was brought on myself by a belief in a false notion: "Sleep is for the weak!”Now let’s fast forward.“Great Asmir, thanks for sharing a story about how you epically failed to keep yourself awake at work. I’m not you, I don’t need sleep.”Fine, don’t believe me. But there have been countless studies to back up the fact that not getting enough sleep is actually a hindrance to optimal performance in and outside of work. In fact, I’ll let you take your pick:A study observing on 512 Pakistani Medical Students with poor sleep quality show signs of decreased academic, learning, and memory performance. - View StudyAn article from News in Health outlining the different benefits of getting a good night’s sleep, including increases in productivity, academic performance, and more. - View ArticleA study observing the performance of athletes (male and female) showing decreased performance and ability after sleep deprivation. - View Study
Hate reading? How about videos?Harvard Medical School - “Why Sleep Matters”Institute of Human Anatomy - “Why Sleep is Important”TED - “Sleep is your superpower.”
Cool, now you’re educated on why sleep is important. “But Asmir, why do YOU care so much?”Recently, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand my mind and body. I believe that the only thing in this world that you can control is your reaction. For me, that means I am constantly looking to understand why I react to certain situations in certain ways and if there is/was a better way to react in those scenarios (try saying that 3x fast). That being said, when I moved away from this belief that sacrificing sleep is just part of the journey to having a successful business/career/life and actually started getting to bed at a reasonable time, I found myself to be more productive, efficient, and sound-minded when it came time to react in general and even high-stress situations.Here are some tips to help regulate your sleep:-
Cut out all screens 2-3 hours before you go to bed.
Your devices emit blue light and blue light tricks your brain into thinking it is day time, hence leading to blockage of melatonin release (a hormone that regulates sleep).
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Remember how as kids, we all had bed times?
Well, turns out, our parents were on to something.
Going to bed every night and waking up at the same time trains your brain to predict when you’ll be active and when it’s time to wind-down for bed.
As time goes on, you’ll find your struggles to sleep or wake up to be a worry of the past!
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This is a personal tip and something that I use every night.
3 hours before sleeping - STOP EATING!
Food is energy, and the last thing you need before trying to sleep is your body getting a random spike of energy.
2 hours before sleeping - PUT THE PHONE AWAY!
As we mentioned before, blue light can get in the way of your sleep. But for me, it’s more than that. Social media, emails, candy crush, etc. It’s all meant to distract you from meaningful work and thought.
When you’re going to bed, it’s time to really wind-down and give yourself a break from the outside world. Because trust me, it’ll be there when you wake up.
That brings me to the final hour of 3-2-1.
1 hour - THEN SLEEP!
If 3 and 2 are the openers, 1 is the main event.
This hour is your “Wind-Down” period. For me, this looks like the following:
20 Minutes of Meditation
20 Minutes of Journaling
20 Minutes of Reading
For me, meditation is a way to clear my head of all of the “day’s noise” (work, school, conversations, etc.). When I get outside of that realm of thought however, it’s still impossible for me to completely clear my head. I’m still left with some thoughts that I wasn’t able to get out of my brain simply through sitting cross-legged on the floor and breathing slowly with my eyes closed.
That’s where journaling comes in. Journaling helps me articulate the most complex thoughts in my brain and gets them out into the world. Pro-tip, NEVER WRITE WITH A PROMPT. Prompts put you in a box, and journaling is supposed to reflect your thoughts, emotions, goals, secrets, etc. And also, this is supposed to wind you down, not make you feel like you’re writing a thesis for freshman literature. Write whatever you feel like writing about, get all of those emotions on paper, and then close your journal.
After doing so, pick up a book. After being in your head about your deepest thoughts and emotions for the last 40 minutes, you don’t want to sleep with all of that weight on your shoulders. I prefer non-fiction, but any book should work!
Lastly, and here’s the most important part, SLEEP. Put away your book, turn off all of the lights in your room to make it as dark as possible, get in bed, and close your eyes. If in 30 minutes, you are not able to sleep, try the entire hour again. It’ll get you the second time for sure.
Anyways, my point is, GET SOME SLEEP. Stop believing every entrepreneur on social media telling you to “grind, grind, grind” until you’re magically a business tycoon. Your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing matters most, and sleep helps regulate all three. So the next time someone tells you that “sleep is for the weak”, drop this blog post in their inbox with the subject line, “Sleep is NOT for the Weak.”