Does How Well You Sleep Affect Your Productivity At Work?

Did you know March is National Bed Month? Since 1990, The Sleep Council have been running an annual campaign to raise awareness and remind everyone how important it is to get a good nights’ sleep and how a good bed can help to achieve that. I’ve also discovered that The Sleep Council are so passionate about promoting a good nights’ sleep, that they run other campaigns throughout the year.

It was my boss who mentioned National Bed Month to me (not sure if it was because it was apparent I’d got out of my bed the wrong side that morning!), but it got me thinking………does how well you sleep affect your productivity at work?

There are many reasons why we may not sleep well. This can be anything from the quality of the bed we sleep in, external interruptions in our sleep, baby waking up for example, right through to health problems such as depression and worries and stresses caused by personal and work issues.

The odd bad night’s sleep doesn’t present too many issues but research has shown, and it’s obvious for those of us who don’t sleep all that well that lack of sleep on a regular basis, can affect many aspects and have a huge impact on our day to day lives. Long term sleep deprivation may lead to mood changes, it can affect our appetite making us more likely to eat less healthy options. Energy and concentration levels may be adversely affected and your motivation and function ability decreases. Lack of sleep may also have long term effects on our general health.

For those of us who have family to take care of and have a lot of work responsibilities to balance, feeling tired from lack of a decent nights’ sleep can make these tasks seem even more overpowering.

So, it’s clear, that the symptoms of sleep deprivation can most definitely have a negative effect on our ability to carry out our duties at work. It can have a detrimental effect on our relationships with our work colleagues and lead us to becoming less engaged at work, something employers can’t afford to have happen.

Now I’m not saying employers should rush out and buy their employees new beds, or even enquire into their night-time activities, but perhaps as part of a health and well-being strategy, make their employees aware of the benefits to their general health of a good nights’ sleep.

By promoting and perhaps arranging their own internal campaign for good sleep, either by posters on notice boards, e-mails with links to organisations such as The Sleep Council, organisations can go some way to helping those employees with a sleep disorder overcome it and help prevent them becoming less productive and more engaged at work.

If you would like more information about employee engagement and employee well-being, then give us a call on +44 (0) 1255 850051 or complete our web contact form.