Sleep, nutrition and exercise have a significant function on the brain and body. With some simple lifestyle hacks, you can boost your earnings, save money and live better.
These have a critical role in maximising our productivity, decision making and mental clarity, which translates into helping you save or make money. For example, this can be the difference between making healthy choices or being at the mercy of cravings throughout the day.
Improving your wellbeing can also increase your income, for example, one study has also shown that just a 1-hour increase in sleep can increase earnings by 4.9% in the long run. This study found that in areas where the sun sets earlier, people sleep for longer – and this translates into higher earnings.
Quality Over Quantity Of Work
This goes against conventional economics. Each extra hour of sleep should take away from working time. So how can sleeping earn you extra money? The simplest answer is productivity.
Sleep has an incredible impact on employee performance, safety, health, attitudes and interpersonal relationships. All of which can translate into better compensation packages and pay.
If just a one hour increase in sleep can boost earnings by 5%, then this is probably understating the monetary value of sleep when you factor in the quality of your sleep too.
Sleep Can Make You 100x Better Or 100x Worse
Sleep is not just the absence of wakefulness, it is a complex neurological behaviour. Sleep detoxifies the brain, distributes and embeds information around the brain and problem solves.
Sleep is also a force multiplier, it can either make things 100x better or 100x worse. A good night’s sleep seems to help resolve any problem, dissolve stress or help you come up with a creative solution.
On the other hand, poor sleep or not getting enough sleep can make even the easiest of tasks become unmanageable, simple requests become annoying and relationships suffer. Even just one night of sleep deprivation can have a detrimental impact on task performance.
This is because it has a detrimental impact on executive brain function which influences things such as our ability to receive, interpret or recall information to our short term memory. Also to be able to understand and interpret information around us. This is because getting enough sleep is essential for the REM and Non-Rem sleep associated with maintaining the following functions:
- creative thinking
- procedural memory
- long-term memory
- memory processing
There are also a number of physical benefits including the following:
- Better skin health and more healthful appearance.
- Decreased risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease.
- Lower levels of inflammation.
- Enhanced immune function, including cancer-fighting natural killer cells.
- Hormonal balance.
- A faster rate of weight loss.
- Decreased pain.
- Stronger bones.
- Lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline.
- Longevity.
Extreme Sleep Deprivation
Depriving your brain of the sleep it requires, either by staying awake for a long period of time or chronically over time, will cause mental deterioration. For example, once you get past 20 hours of being awake, your mental capacity is comparable to someone who is legally drunk behind the wheel of a car!
Chronic Sleep Deprivation
You may think that this is fine, that you never go 20 hours without sleep. However, you may still be sleep deprived. Now that a significant amount of research has been conducted, many leaders in this field argue that humans need 8 hours of sleep a day.
According to Matthew Walker, author of Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams.After 10 days of just seven hours of sleep, the brain is as dysfunctional as it would be without 24 hours. It then requires three full nights to restore performance, that’s more than the average person’s weekend.
Lack Of Sleep Will Increase Your Food Bill
Sleep can also have a strong influence on your ability to control what you eat. A lack of sleep can result in overeating and increases the overconsumption of junk food. This is because there are two hormones that are inextricably linked to sleep; ghrelin and leptin.
They both sound like mythic creatures from the Scottish highlands but both are very real. Ghrelin stimulates appetite, whereas leptin decreases it. When the body is sleep-deprived the level of ghrelin spikes leading to hunger and cravings.
…By Up To 300 Calories More Per Day
People who are sleep deprived are more likely to eat up to 300 calories more per day. Participants in the sleep-deprived condition of one study were more likely to spend more money on food items despite all participants having similar hunger ratings after fasting.
If you want to resist the urge to stop buying croissants or bacon sandwiches on the way to work, eating out for lunch every day, or buying sugary snacks from the local Tesco Metro while you are working, the answer is simple … sleep more.
You Need Enough Sleep To Make Good Decisions
The work week can feel like a constant battle sometimes so having that extra sleep can give you the extra energy or ability to forward plan to save you money. For example, if you are tired you are less likely to be inclined to pre-commit to health and money-saving behaviours such as preparing your lunch the night before.
There is also the added value of being able to concentrate on tedious decisions, like which energy supplier to switch to. It can be easy when you’re tired to let these things slip by when they can save you hundreds of pounds or dollars over the year.
Deep Sleep & Neurodegenerative Diseases
Researchers have also come to understand that without enough deep sleep, amyloid plaques and tau build up in the brain, especially in the deep sleep regions which get degraded, causing further loss of non-REM sleep which creates a vicious circle of non-REM sleep degeneration and greater amyloid deposition. It’s this amyloid build up that is associated with conditions such as dementia and Alzheimers.
How To Improve The Quality Of Your Sleep
The first thing I should probably say to really hammer home the point I’ve already made is that you should aim to get 8 hours of good quality sleep. The next thing is to focus on the quality of sleep, here are some ways to do this.
1. The Caffeine Curfew
The golden principle that is crucial for a great night of sleep is to have a caffeine curfew. People are often surprised to hear that caffeine has an average half-life of up to seven hours, maybe even eight hours depending on a person’s individual sensitivity. If you have a coffee at, say 7.30 pm, this means that by 1.30 am, over 50% of the caffeine will still be circulating in your brain.
People may say that they still manage to get to sleep without any issue, this may be true. However, what people are often unaware of is that the non-REM (deep sleep) part of the sleep cycle is significantly reduced. By contrast, wakefulness and sleep disturbance is increased, resulting in decreased cognitive performance the next day, with daytime sleepiness also being a factor.
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14 Other Research-Based Tips To Help You Sleep Better:
2. Exercise, and do this in the morning if possible. As this has a greater impact on the amount of deep sleep than exercise at other times of the day.
3. Allow your brain time to wind down from the day before going to sleep.
4. Reduce the amount of live technology in your bedroom (e.g. phones, tablets).
5. Turn off all screens or blue light at least 30mins before you go to sleep.
6. Find sleep-inducing plants for your room such as lavender or peace lilies.
7. Keep your room as dark as possible. Even the smallest amount of light can be disruptive, so buy some black-out blinds
8. Don’t consume too much sugar or food before going to bed.
9. Keep your room at around 18 degrees if possible. If your room is too hot this can disrupt your sleep and even induce bad dreams.
10. With this in mind, you can take a bath or shower before bed to allow your body to cool off. Maybe, even just wash your hands and face.
11. Aim for 8 hours of sleep. Cutting this time will reduce the amount of REM sleep towards the end of your sleep.
12. Keep to a sleep schedule.
13. Avoid alcohol before bed
14. Don’t nap afer 3pm
Sleep Is A Simple Productivity Hack
I hope this post has highlighted the critical importance of sleep. Not sleeping enough can cost you your health, especially if healthcare comes at a price in your country. There is also lost earnings to consider if you cannot work.
On the flip side, getting enough sleep can improve your performance, allowing you to be more productive and earn more money. You could increase your earnings by up 5% or more, by improving just one aspect of your life.
You are also less likely to experience cravings or at least being able to resist them, especially when it comes to buying food-related items. You will also be more able to make effective decisions, which can ultimately save you money.
Most importantly, we all want to lead successful and happy lives. Sleep is a critical tool towards this and I hope you will join me in the next post when I talk about how exercise can further multiply your success, and help you to save money and increase your financial freedom.
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