The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Better Sleep
The importance of sleep can not be overstated. Why do you think it is something that everyone shares, regardless of age, geography, culture, or socioeconomic status? We all need it to thrive. Sleep is necessary for the maintenance of a healthy immune system, metabolism, and memory.
It’s hard to imagine anything more life-altering than not getting enough sleep. Perhaps the best approach to emphasize the importance of adequate rest is to show what happens when you don’t get enough shuteye. The most famous example of this is when 16-year-old Randy Gardner broke a world record in 1965 by staying awake for 11 days
So, tonight you will get less sleep than is recommended. All that will happen is that you may be sluggish the next day, right? Wrong. According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, prolonged lack of sleep increases your risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.
As an entrepreneur, you can’t afford to have a week of poor performance. You’re in charge of your company’s success. It’s easy to believe that cutting sleep is a good idea because you may have convinced yourself that you can do just fine on fewer hours. That isn’t what scientific research suggests, however.
Consider the 1979 nuclear accident at Three Mile Island or the 1986 nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, both of which occurred while people were sleeping; investigators concluded that sleep deprivation had a significant role in both incidents.
While most mistakes will not result in as much harm, it’s impossible to ignore the fact that people perform at their best when they get enough sleep. As business owners, we have a responsibility to ourselves, our employees, and our customers to operate responsibly, and that includes getting enough sleep to make sound judgments. How can we increase the number of hours?
How to Get a Healthy Night’s Sleep Every Single Night
The topic of good sleeping habits interests me as both an entrepreneur and a poor sleeper. For roughly 40 days in 2016, I made it a point to wind down at 9 p.m., get into bed by 11 p.m., and keep my smartphone outside the bedroom while I slept (rather than having it within reach, as usual).
Let’s take a deeper look at some healthy sleeping habits and other suggestions I’d want to follow.
1. Make a ‘No-Phone Zone’ in Your Bedroom
Do you ever lie in bed, your phone illuminated by the darkness, checking a few emails before going to sleep? How many mornings do you reach for your phone just as soon as you hit the alarm clock? I’m ashamed to say that I am guilty of this. According to statistics from the National Sleep Foundation, 95 percent of individuals use electronic gadgets before sleep.
The disadvantage of having such a common practice is that research indicates that carrying your phone with you while you sleep might decrease your sleep quality and cause it to take longer to fall asleep.
What’s the solution? Keep the phone (and, for that matter, the laptop!) outside of your bedroom. The goal is to establish physical locations dedicated to individual operations. The kitchen is for eating, the living room is for watching TV, the workplace desk is for working, and the bed is for sleeping. This helps us transition between work and sleep mode.
Let’s say you’re a freelance writer who works by the hour. You can personally 2.communicate your work unavailability at night by using these.
One of the most significant challenges I’ve faced as a digital entrepreneur is the speediness with which my apps are used in my workflow. Slack, Google Hangouts, and even Skype’s chat feature all provide a sense of urgency to every communication received. The best method for me to deal with this has been to be straightforward upfront with everyone I work with.
In addition, if you’re using Slack, it’s critical to put your status to Do Not Disturb mode so that people don’t expect an immediate response.
Here’s how to create a Do Not Disturb schedule in Slack so you don’t get disturbed during your downtime.
To begin, open Slack and hunt for the notifications icon on the upper left.
To do that, go to Settings > Do Not Disturb and then “Do Not Disturb schedule.”
Last but not least, scroll down to “Do not disturb” on the next page and set the time period during which you don’t want to be disturbed by Slack. Check that your time zone is correct as well.
Even while you’re in Do Not Disturb mode in Slack, your team may still send a notification through to you if it’s an emergency.
3. Create an evening “wind down” routine
Today I’m going to talk about an excellent evening routine that may assist you wind down for sleep, not the perfect morning procedure that can help you get up and get working. Let’s not forget about a necessary nighttime ritual that helps us unwind before bedtime! Few of us are capable of switching from a busy day at work to a peaceful good night.
Why? Blue light (the type that comes from our laptops, smartphones, and certain e-readers) has been shown to decrease sleep quality and quantity. It suppresses melatonin, delays our circadian clock, and impairs our alertness the next morning, among other effects.
- If you can’t put the screen out before going to bed, there are a couple of things you can do to lower the amount of blue light your eyes are exposed to. Flux software – This free software adjusts the color temperature of your computer display dependent on time of day, location, and sleep schedule. It keeps the computer screen in its right mode.
- Computer glasses with blue light-blocking properties – The same idea applies here, with the exception of blue light instead of UV radiation.
My winding down would start at 9 p.m. I’d tidy up the kitchen and do the dishes. Then I’d make a hot cup of herbal tea, read, pray, reflect on the day, put my phone outside my bedroom, and go to bed. It was initially tough for me not to check out social media on my phone when sleeping.
4. Hire a Virtual Assistant to Help You With Your Late-night Tasks
You don’t have to accomplish everything on your own. One of the main advantages of outsourcing duties is that you can allocate jobs to your workers or contractors while you sleep. This works particularly well if you opt for a virtual assistant who are in a different time zone. Hiring a virtual assistant who is based in the United States, for example, allows work to continue while you sleep.
One of my biggest bedtime agonies is realizing that I forgot to reply to a work email as I wake up with a start. (I’m sorry.) I’ve recently hired a virtual assistant to handle my inbox. She answers the ones she can manage, and if something needs my attention, she reminds me.
The goal is to arrive at a point where you don’t become frantic because you worry an emergency may surface when you should be sleeping. While you sleep, a company emergency seldom happens, but if you’re concerned about it, set up a procedure that allows your staff to handle any situations that might arise at any time.
Where to Look for a Virtual Assistant
Reach out to your network. I discovered my virtual assistant after posting an announcement on my company’s social media. I was able to discover a trustworthy VA who had been following my business for years and worked evenings.
- Fancy Hands is a service that matches U.S.-based assistants to customers who need help with a specific number of requests every month.
5.Sleep is a major factor in how your body manages energy.
You’ve undoubtedly heard the old marketing axiom, “You can’t improve what you don’t measure.” We track metrics such as revenue, cost, profit margins, user growth, and more as business owners. I’d want to apply the same logic to my sleep. While you don’t have to be too systematic about it, keeping a sleep diary.
Apple Watches and Fitbits track your sleep for you if you don’t want to think too much about it. You may also use free apps like Sleep Cycle to monitor your sleeping habits.
The coolest thing about Sleep Cycle is that once it’s set up, you can put your smartphone on the nightstand and have it analyze your movements while you sleep.
The app uses your sleep patterns to determine the optimum time to wake you up, which is when you’re sleeping the lightest. The idea is that if your deep sleep is interrupted, you’ll get up feeling much worse than if you were woken at a more optimal time. So with Sleep Cycle, you may set your waking time.
Sleep cycle uses these data to determine when you should be woken up, which is the time when you are sleeping the least. The aim is that if your deep sleep is disturbed, you will get up feeling considerably worse than if you had been awakened at a more suitable hour. So, with Sleep Cycle, you may set your wakeup time.
Now, I’m guessing you’re wondering what happened to your earlier idea of making your bedroom a “no phone zone.” For the purpose of gaining from Sleep Cycle’s sleep pattern analysis, I’d still recommend using the software for a short amount of time. The app has graphs displaying how long you spent in bed and deep sleep.
So, for one week before you start practicing new sleep habits, you might use Sleep Cycle to get a baseline. Then, after you’ve established your new healthy sleeping routines, use the program again for another seven days to see if anything changes. The bottom line is that it’s a handy tool as long as it doesn’t encourage you to check your phone.
Do You Have Good Sleep Regularity?
Entrepreneurs must reject the idea that missing sleep is a reasonable sacrifice. As you saw in Arianna Huffington’s situation, working late to enhance your business can have harmful physical consequences and, subsequently, your company’s health. And we should never be willing to pay that price. You’ll be able to get better quality sleep by practicing these healthy sleep habits:
- Get rid of all of your electronics in your bedroom.
- Create an evening ritual to help you wind down. Let people know that you’re not available for work at night.
- Outsource nighttime duties to save money.
- Keep track of how much sleep you get every night.
This may be the most extreme piece of advice you’ve come across yet: That’s enough work for today; go get some decent rest.
Is it possible that lack of sleep is affecting how you run your company? Please share any adjustments you’re making to improve your sleeping habits and, as a result, enhance productivity!
Read More about sleep
https://www.redonline.co.uk/sleep-revolution/a522338/how-i-finally-learned-to-sleep/
https://foundr.com/articles/leadership/personal-growth/healthy-sleep-habits-entrepreneur