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Have you ever woken up with
the answer to a problem that
nagged you the night before?
It’s like your brain worked on
it while you were sleeping or
something! Guess what – it
did!
Many people – especially
ambitious, successful people -
subscribe to the false belief that
if they sleep less theywill achieve
more. Yet there is a growing
body of research proving that a
good night’s sleep is essential to
a productive day.
While sleep is often associated
with giving rest to the body,
recent research shows that
sleep is really more about the
brain! While we sleep our brains
are hard at work encoding
and restructuring information.
Therefore, when we wake up
our brains may have made new
neural connections, thereby
opening up a broader range of
solutions to a problem, literally
overnight!
In a fascinating TED MED Talk,
Jeff Iliff tells us how, while we
are asleep - and only then -
the brain, in a process totally
different from the rest of the
body, actually clears away all the
toxins that have accumulated in
it during the day while it was
hard at work. I posted the link
to this incredible TED Talk on
the Resources page of my web
site for those of you who are
interested in learning more.
In a Harvard Business Review
article, called “Sleep Deficit: The
Performance Killer”, Professor
Charles Czeisler explains how
sleep-deprivation undermines
high performance. Professor
Czeisler states that pulling an
all-nighter or having a week
of just 4-5 hours of sleep a
night “induces an impairment
equivalent to a blood alcohol
level of .1%.” Think about that!
We would never say “This person
is a great worker! He’s drunk all
the time!”
Some good news for the early
birds and night owls among
Sleep-DeprivationMayBe
Undermining Your Performance
By Joan Washburn
SOAR TO SUCCESS
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O
ctober
2016
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Personal Growth Strategies