Good sleep can be challenging to come by when we’re busy and surrounded by all of our electronic devices.
With long hours at the office and our obsession with scrolling social media, we all face problems falling asleep some nights. Interfering with our natural sleep cycles can do us more harm than good. While staying up late to finish work every now and then may help you get ahead, staying up late every night can affect your overall health.
Not only do we feel tired throughout the day after we don’t get a good night’s rest, but our overall brain function is negatively impacted, causing us to make mistakes we wouldn’t normally make. Not getting enough sleep can also make you want to eat more for energy, which can result in larger meals that actually make you feel more tired. Being tired at work can have negative consequences on your performance, ultimately impacting your overall success.
Why Is Sleep Critical for Career Success?
Sleep is crucial for career success because all of the aspects that go along with success can be impacted by sleep. Let’s take a closer look at why falling asleep and staying asleep through the night is important for our careers.
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Sleep Improves Confidence
Confidence is key when you want to be successful in your career. When it comes to getting a promotion or a big raise, you need to have confidence in order to sell yourself to your higher-ups. Confidence also impacts performance. Getting a good night’s rest is key for maintaining and even boosting your confidence.
First of all, quality sleep can help you maintain or lose weight. If you’re sleep-deprived, you’re likely hungrier than you should be, which can cause you to eat large, unhealthy meals throughout the day. Getting enough sleep is imperative for your overall appearance because it impacts your skin as well.
Getting too little sleep can also leave dark circles or bags under your eyes that take away your confidence when you’re in front of supervisors. Quality sleep, however, can improve your skin with a healthy glow.
While the way you look at work should have nothing to do with getting a promotion, your performance should. You’ll perform your duties better when you feel confident in yourself and your skills.
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Sleep Promotes Creativity
Even if you don’t work in a more creative industry, most jobs require critical thinking and creativity. Creative solutions to problems can help make you stand apart from your coworkers when it’s time to get a promotion. By getting the proper amount of sleep, you’ll be more likely to think quickly and creatively when problems arise.
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Sleep Improves Memory and Focus
Consider the last time you went to work on little sleep. The odds are that you had a hard time remembering things that were just said to you, or you had difficulty focusing on tasks. When you sleep, your brain solidifies memories so that you can take the skills you learned one day and apply them the next. When you sleep enough and get quality sleep, you’ll be able to pick up skills more quickly because you’ll be more focused.
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Sleep Will Make You Feel Better at Work
No one likes feeling ill at work. Feeling unhealthy at your desk can make you associate work with illness, which can destroy your motivation when it comes to your career. Sleep decreases inflammation that’s linked to health conditions like heart disease, so that you’ll feel better at work and be able to perform your duties better.
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Sleep Can Help You Cope With Stress
Getting more sleep can also help you cope with stress better, making you feel mentally healthier while you’re at work. While everyone feels stress on the job at some point or another, chronic stress can wreak havoc on your career. Getting quality sleep every night can help you better cope with stress and lower your blood pressure.
Grab your favorite body pillow because when you sleep well, you’ll be able to handle stress with ease at work, allowing you to think more clearly under pressure, so that you can solve problems efficiently.
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Sleep Improves Collaboration
When you’re at work, you’re likely not sitting alone at your desk all day, every day. You likely have to collaborate with other people and teams to reach goals. When you’re sleep-deprived, you might feel cranky and not want to socialize with others. You may even be irritable, which can make your coworkers not want to collaborate with you, either. It may even earn you a bad reputation within the company.
On the other hand, getting proper sleep can help you achieve a better mood so that you’re in a better mental space to collaborate with others and provide constructive feedback. One thing that many supervisors look for when they’re considering employees is how well regarded they are among their coworkers, so it’s important to keep your mood up and keep your emotions in check by getting quality sleep.
How to Sleep Better
Now that you know the key to career success is getting some shuteye, it’s time to get better sleep. Here are some tips and tricks to help you fall asleep and stay asleep.
Stick to a schedule
A sleep schedule can help you train your brain into knowing when it’s time to go to bed and wake up. Going to sleep at the same time every night and waking up at the same time every day (yes, even on weekends) can help you sleep better and feel healthier and less groggy when you wake up.
Avoid caffeine at night
Caffeine can get your heart pumping and cause anxiety, but it can also keep you up at night if you have a sensitivity to it or you drink it too late in the day. While an afternoon boost can help you power through a busy day, consider how it might be affecting your sleep at night.
Change your environment
Anything from the amount of light or the temperature in your sleeping environment can impact sleep. Experiment to find what temperature, bedding, and other features of your bedroom work best to help you fall asleep.
Wrapping Up
Sleep is essential for living a healthy waking life. Sleep deprivation can have some serious consequences on your overall health, such as a weakened immune system, poor mental function, and irritable mood—all of which can affect your performance at work. To bring your A-game every day you clock in, make sure you invest in sleep. Doing so can help you collaborate better, become confident, and work your way up the ranks.
