6 Ways Sleep Deprivation Is Killing You and Your Career
Sleep helps the body and mind regenerate. While sleeping, your body also regenerates, and your mind prepares for the upcoming day. Failure to get enough sleep will put you in a sleep-deprived mode. When you suffer from sleep deprivation, you put yourself at several risks – increasing the likelihood of experiencing certain mental health concerns and damaging your physiological health too.
One study found that the prevalence of sleep deprivation in adult populations ranges between 63.2% and 85.9% in some areas. While the focus is often placed on the impact of sleep deprivation on your personal health, you should also take note of how insufficient sleep may be killing your career too. We’ll share six ways that sleep deprivation might have an adverse effect on your health and career.
- Higher Risks Of Accidents
Studies have previously reported that people who are sleep deprived have a significantly higher risk of being involved in car crashes. Even if you do not take a car to work, you are still at great risk of an accident. The term “accident” in this case does not only refer to car crashes.
Depending on your work, there may be a chance that you could cause an accident. Consider a career where you work with heavy machinery. Spilling a cup of coffee on an electronic device can lead to disastrous consequences. While operating the heavy machinery, just a simple mistake could cause significant damage to the property – or even injury some of your co-workers.
- Poor Productivity
Productivity is crucial for anyone who wants to succeed and even grow in the career that they find themselves in. Unfortunately, not getting enough sleep is also going to rob you of your productivity. It is important to understand that your mind needs to rest in order to get ready for the next day.
If you find yourself tired all the time due to sleep deficiency, you are more likely to find that your mind is not working along. This may lead to a reduction in productivity. Whether this is due to the general cognitive dysfunction associated with sleep deprivation or the fact that you are constantly finding yourself making serious mistakes in the workplace.
- Higher Chance of Errors
There is also a higher risk of making serious errors while you work. When you are tired, your brain will not process information like it usually does. Picking up on problems in the workplace can become difficult – as your mind may also work slower than usual.
When these problems are present while you are at the workplace, it puts you at risk of making errors. Even those simple errors – like giving the wrong information to your manager or supervisor, or perhaps not providing a client with the full experience they expect, could put your career in jeopardy. The more sleep-deprived you are, the higher the risk of consistent errors during the workday.
- Mood Problems
Sleep has a big impact on your mental health. In addition to making you feel tired and causing cognitive dysfunction, sleep deficiency can also lead to serious mood problems. You may find yourself in a bad mood during the entire day after you suffered from sleep deficiency for a night. Now, once your sleep deficiency becomes a chronic problem, so can your mood-related issues.
When you are always in a bad mood, your colleagues will not enjoy working with you anymore. This may not only cause an issue with your co-workers but may become a problem with the upper management staff too. They may find your mood problems inappropriate for the workplace, especially if you are expected to work with clients during the day.
- Decline In Memory Function
Memory is a critical part of our day-to-day lives. You rely on your memory to remember what you need to do. You also consider your memory important to help you get to work, go back home, remember the most important phone numbers, and to ensure you do not miss that important meeting.
While memory loss is often associated with Alzheimer’s and old age, sleep deprivation can cause poor memory function in younger people too. When you fail to sleep enough, you will find that remembering even simple things eventually becomes a problem. This can, of course, become a problem with your career. You may forget about important meetings or to give messages to the upper management, for example.
- A Weak Immune Function
The immune system is an important part of your body. It helps to protect you from disease – ranging from the simple cold and flu to more serious conditions that could require weeks or even months of recovery time.
When your immune system is weak, it means you may need to take off from work frequently. In turn, this would ultimately affect your performance and the impression that people at work have of you. Sleep deprivation is known to cause the immune system to become weaker. With this in mind, you become at risk of suffering from illnesses more frequently.
The effects that insufficient sleep has on your general health can also reflect on your career. It is important to recognize these effects and prioritize sleep to help reduce the impact inconsistent sleep patterns may have on your professional life.
This guest post was contributed by Chris Nguyen, the Founder & Chief Editor at Sleep Standards – A health blog all about sleep health. He aims to inspire better sleep and make the world of sleep easy to understand for everyday people. Check out SleepStandards.com to find out more about Chris and his work. You can also find him on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.
