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How Much Does Sleep Affect Productivity?

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Medically reviewed by
Dacelin St Martin, MD
Triple board-certified in Sleep Medicine,
Internal Medicine, and Pediatrics.

 

 
What’s the Science Behind Sleep and Productivity? | What’s The Impact of Sleep on Workplace Productivity? | What are Sleep Improvement Strategies? 
What’s the Number-One Productivity Hack?

 

Overview

We’ve all been there: whacking the snooze button at 07:22 AM, stumbling to break the record for your shortest shower yet, all while regretting your late-night movie binge from the night before. 

But, you persevere. You make it to work, have your second coffee of the morning, and then face the horrific wave of demotivating that inevitably falls upon you.

So it’s fair to say that how long and how well you sleep affects your productivity in some way. But how exactly does sleep affect productivity? Keep reading to find out.

 

What’s the Science Behind Sleep and Productivity?

The necessity of sleep isn’t a foreign concept to any of us. Sleep is essential for our bodies to function properly.[1] As we sleep, our brain goes through various stages, each serving a different purpose.[2] During deep sleep, stage 3 or delta sleep, our bodies repair and regenerate tissues. During rapid eye movement (REM) sleep – the most active stage of sleep – we consolidate memories and learning.[3] If we don’t get enough sleep, both in the REM and deep sleep stages, our body and brain will be unable to perform at their peak.

The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults 65 years or younger get around 7-8 hours of sleep per night.[4] However, despite the health consequences of poor sleep being widely recognized, the CDC has stated that around 30 million working-age adults sleep for less than 6 hours per day.[5] 

As studies continue to demonstrate the significant correlation between sleep and productivity, it becomes essential for employers to focus on their employees’ sleep habits and work on ways to enhance sleep efficiency. 

Notwithstanding, work-sleep habits are interconnected, whereby certain occupational factors can interact with various sleep processes, preventing an individual from getting the sleep they need.[6] 

Unsurprisingly, work-related sleep disorders are common, and why the loss of productivity costs nearly $2000 per employee per year.[7]

 

What’s The Impact of Sleep on Workplace Productivity?

Not getting enough sleep can diminish the functioning of several essential cognitive processes, including attention, memory, decision-making, and learning, arguably key factors to workplace productivity.[8] 

When workers are sleep deprived, they find it more challenging to stay alert and attentive, experience more lapses in concentration and judgment, and ultimately end up making errors that can prove to be costly to the business. 

Likewise, sleep deprivation can heighten stress response, making sleep-deprived workers more irritable when dealing with various negative situations.[9] This irritability can be carried beyond the worker’s workday, making their home life somewhat tougher and increasing the risk of more serious mental health conditions that can further add to the productivity burden at work. 

 

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What are Sleep Improvement Strategies?

Therefore, getting good sleep is crucial for personal growth, happiness, workplace productivity, and success. By prioritizing sleep as a vital component of our daily routine, we rejuvenate our cognitive performance, better our work, and make those once far-reaching goals seem far more achievable. There are some strategies an individual can put in place to help improve the quality of their sleep, including:

 

1) Make Sleep a Habit: Set sleep times that you’ll strictly abide by. You’ll eventually get in the habit of sleeping and waking at the same time every day and notice the duration and quality of sleep improve over time.[10]

2) Curb Cravings: Avoiding stimulants such as coffee and alcohol before sleep and reducing consumption quantity can prevent sleep fragmentation.[11]

3) Limiting Blue Light: We’re all guilty of a late-night scroll through social media. We can improve sleep quality by applying blue light filters or doing one better and avoiding using our phones at least one hour before bed.[12]

4) Exercise: By carrying out around 150 minutes of moderate-intense exercise a week, you can bypass some of the consequences of poor sleep and gear your body up to tackle the day.[13]

5) Seeking Help: There’s no shame in contacting a healthcare professional if you struggle with poor sleep. If you suffer from any signs of a sleep disorder, finding a sleep specialist can help you find the treatment you need to manage your symptoms. 

 

What’s the Number-One Productivity Hack?

There is no gray area when it comes to relating sleep to productivity: good sleep equals good productivity, and good productivity equals good sleep. We understand that positive changes to your sleep routine won’t happen overnight, but with patience and by being strict with yourself, you’ll soon be met by a wave of energy that enables you to take the world face on.

 

References:

  1. Ishibashi, Y., & Shimura, A. (2020). Association between work productivity and sleep health: A cross-sectional study in Japan. Sleep Health, 6(3), 270–276. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2020.02.016
  2. Colten, H. R. (2006b). Sleep Physiology. Sleep Disorders and Sleep Deprivation – NCBI Bookshelf. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK19956/
  3. Peever, J. H., & Fuller, P. M. (2016). Neuroscience: A Distributed Neural Network Controls REM Sleep. Current Biology, 26(1), R34–R35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2015.11.011
  4. Hirshkowitz, M., Whiton, K., Albert, S. M., Alessi, C. A., Bruni, O., DonCarlos, L. L., Hazen, N., Herman, J. B., Katz, E. S., Kheirandish-Gozal, L., Neubauer, D., O’Donnell, A., Ohayon, M. M., Peever, J. H., Rawding, R., Sachdeva, R., Setters, B., Vitiello, M. V., Ware, J. S., & Hillard, P. J. A. (2015). National Sleep Foundation’s sleep time duration recommendations: methodology and results summary. Sleep Health, 1(1), 40–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleh.2014.12.010
  5.      Short Sleep Duration Among Workers — United States, 2010. (2012, April 27). https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6116a2.htm
  6. Borbély, A. A., Daan, S., Wirz-Justice, A., & Deboer, T. (2016). The two-process model of sleep regulation: a reappraisal. Journal of Sleep Research, 25(2), 131–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12371
  7. Rosekind, M. R., Gregory, K. B., Mallis, M. M., Brandt, S. L., Seal, B. S., & Lerner, D. (2010). The Cost of Poor Sleep: Workplace Productivity Loss and Associated Costs. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 52(1), 91–98. https://doi.org/10.1097/jom.0b013e3181c78c30
  8. Diekelmann, S. (2014). Sleep for cognitive enhancement. Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnsys.2014.00046
  9. Morales, J., Yáñez, A., Fernández-González, L., Montesinos-Magraner, L., Marco-Ahulló, A., Solana-Tramunt, M., & Calvete, E. (2019). Stress and autonomic response to sleep deprivation in medical residents: A comparative cross-sectional study. PLOS ONE, 14(4), e0214858. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0214858
  10. Irish, L. A., Kline, C. E., Gunn, H. E., Buysse, D. J., & Hall, M. H. (2015). The role of sleep hygiene in promoting public health: A review of empirical evidence. Sleep Medicine Reviews, 22, 23–36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2014.10.001
  11. Spadola, C. E., Guo, N., Johnson, D. A., Sofer, T., Bertisch, S. M., Jackson, C. L., Rueschman, M., Mittleman, M. A., Wilson, J. F., & Redline, S. (2019). Evening intake of alcohol, caffeine, and nicotine: night-to-night associations with sleep duration and continuity among African Americans in the Jackson Heart Sleep Study. Sleep, 42(11). https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsz136
  12. He, J., Tu, Z., Xiao, L., Su, T., & Tang, Y. (2020). Effect of restricting bedtime mobile phone use on sleep, arousal, mood, and working memory: A randomized pilot trial. PLOS ONE, 15(2), e0228756. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0228756
  13. Liang, Y. Y., Feng, H., Chen, Y., Jin, X., Xue, H., Zhou, M., Ma, H., Ai, S., Wing, Y. K., Geng, Q., & Zhang, J. (2023b). Joint association of physical activity and sleep duration with risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality: a population-based cohort study using accelerometry. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurjpc/zwad060
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