“I just don’t sleep enough. But I’ve never met someone very successful who, at the end of their life, says: ‘I wish I slept more.'”
Robert Herjavec—entrepreneur and shark on ABC’s Shark Tank
Why brag about not taking care of yourself? Going around tired, showing poor judgment, having less energy than you would if you had only slept enough. That’s acting stupid.
Yet, Herjavec isn’t a stupid man. Nobody who’s stupid sells a computer security firm for millions of dollars is stupid. No stupid person starts multiple companies. No, Herjavec is far from stupid. What this is, is sleep bashing. People sometimes say things to make themselves sound like a certain type of person. They want to sound cool.
A high school friend of mine was admitted to Yale. He had said many times, “Oh, I never study.” Yet, when you called him up to do something, he was always studying. He thought studying didn’t make him sound cool. So he lied about not studying. Or he denied to himself how much he studied.
Naive people believe these people.
The truth about the value of sleep
Probably no successful person goes and says they wish they had slept more. Herjavec is right about that.
There’s not a direct relationship that’s immediately clear to everyone between sleep and health.
People get tired and feel like they must sleep. It’s that simple.
But…
If the person has their judgment affected by a lack of sleep and makes stupid decisions because of it.
If they get into traffic accidents because they’re too tired, or, say, drive into their garage door because their reflexes are impaired.
Or if they doze off in an important meeting as illustrated above.
Sometimes the relationship between a lack of sleep and bad outcomes isn’t as clear. If they develop some form of cancer, Alzheimer’s, or some other illness that’s related to a lack of sleep—if they develop some kind of health condition that’s related to a chronic lack of sleep, that has a way of sucking up and rendering useless any great material gain that they might make in their life.
Your health, after all, is one of the most important possessions that you can have in your life.
You might not directly make the connection between sleep and health, but it’s there.
As we’ve advocated on this blog, one doesn’t necessarily sleep for sleep’s sake. An achievement-minded person should focus on sleeping efficiently.
On being young and achievement-minded
“Your twenties are for finding what drags you out of bed at 4 AM. Lock in that obsession now—someone else is already grinding those hours. That relentless drive is what makes winners.”
Robert Herjavec
Everyone needs different amounts of sleep. The amount that they need depends on their stage of life, whether they’re fighting off an illness, and their genetic makeup. It does no good to, say, tell yourself that I’m going to get up at 4 a.m. because that’s what they say that I have to do in order to be a success. If you need seven hours of sleep a night, that means, if you get to be asleep by 9 p.m.
Sleep efficiently. That’s the answer. Don’t get suckered by anyone who tells you that sleep isn’t important.
Also on the blog:
James Cobb, RN, MSN, is an emergency department nurse and the founder of the Dream Recovery System. His goal is to provide his readers with simple, actionable ways to improve their health and maximize their quality of life.
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