What we do with 33,3% of our lives that we will always keep doing.

You might have heard the stats that we spend a third of our lives asleep. And, being in the entrepreneurial world, you may have also heard a lot of people romanticising and glorifying exhaustion, the notion of ‘sleep is for the weak’ or ‘I can sleep when I’m dead.’ 

Or maybe you’ve heard talk in the biohacking spheres of ‘I can train myself and my children to need less sleep,’ or ‘I can keep myself awake with coffee and determination.’ We know how appealing this may sound, and some of us at Abundance Global have fallen for it ourselves over the years! The notion that you can hack your body’s need for sleep and train yourself to function just as efficiently on less. We’re here to say something perhaps controversial… and that’s simply that no, you can not hack sleep. 

You might know someone who often brags about how little sleep they can work off. We had a client recently, an amazing entrepreneur and a semi-professional athlete, telling us how she can work just fine on only four hours sleep. And by all accounts, the work she was putting out was great! But you’ve got to ask yourself, how sustainable is that really? 

We at Abundance Global are strong believers that sleep is one of the biggest factors in really growing your business. Why? Because you’ve got to have a clear mind and the necessary brain power to help you make the tough decisions. You’ve got to be able to handle the emotional overload that can often kick into gear when you’re working with suppliers, clients, team members, you name it. The incredible Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon himself, has said that his having eight hours of sleep a night is good for shareholders! And he is bang on the money there. They’ve done the studies. There are decades and decades of research looking at the psychological, neurochemical and biological data surrounding sleep, and what we know without a doubt is that seven to nine hours of quality sleep is critical for every single person. 

Without that, the studies show damage both immediately and long-term. It’s been found that sleep deprivation, even if it’s just a couple hours a night, leads to lower response times, more incorrect responses and an increase in attentional lapses.

Think about how this translates to your decision-making as a business owner! What’s even wilder is the study that compared performance of people who had been deprived of sleep with people of various high alcohol blood levels. They found that performance after 17 hours of being awake is equivalent to people with 0.05% blood alcohol (which is the legal limit to drive in Australia!). You wouldn’t drive a car drunk, so why would you operate your business in that state?  

This isn’t even to mention the future health risks you’re making yourself susceptible to. If you think you can work just find on four hours sleep now, you might be thinking ‘I’m saving time. I’m making more money because I can work more.’ You might be right for the moment. You might make more money now, but you’ll be paying all that money out in medical bills later. When you need specialists to help you with all the medical ails that poor sleep has been linked to. For all the pills you’ll need to take because your body isn’t functioning the way that you want because it’s been deprived for all those years. 

Here in Australia, there’s been a parliamentary enquiry that discovered poor sleep hygiene is potentially the number one health risk in the country! And think about those impaired decision-making skills... it’s pretty clear it’s also a major health risk to your business and your success.

So if you know someone, whether in your family, your friend group, or your team, that’s boasting about how little sleep they have/need… please share this with them. It is unbelievably important that they hear it.

And if you would like more great tips and tricks to help you manage your business success so that you can sleep soundly at night, get your free copy of 'Bullet Proof Business' by David Dugan. It’s full of smart strategies to protect, maximise and accelerate your business without sacrificing your sleep. It's the ultimate guide for any serious business owner. Click here- to download your copy today - https://bit.ly/bulletproof-business

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, if you’re currently reading this and it's past 10:00 PM at night, or your eyes are feeling tired from not sleeping well enough last night. Do us one last favour. Close this page. Turn your computer off. Turn off your phone, your iPad, your TV. And get yourself some sleep.