Your Health Is Your Wealth: Sleep, Hustle and Health

As the year comes to a close filled with networking events, festive parties and various gatherings I want to take a moment to emphasize something crucial: be mindful of your health. As the old saying goes, "your health is your wealth." While achieving success in our careers and passions it's important we gotta remember that it’s impossible to enjoy that success if we neglect our health (or well being). Personally, I aspire to live longer than my career... I'll put it like this, I want to live a life where my health outlasts my career because no level of success is worth sacrificing the ability to enjoy it. ˉ\_(ツ)_/ˉ

It’s easy for entrepreneurs and go getters to put health on the back burner, prioritizing passion over rest. I say eating well & getting enough sleep should be treated as non-negotiable. I remember a comment rapper 50 Cent made in the early 2010's stating "Sleep is for broke people." Me being a young whipper snapper, I took that literally Sacrificing sleep felt like a badge of honor back then but I’ve learned it’s more like skipping oil changes for your car it might save time now, but it costs much more later. I recall waking up after only three hours (if that) of sleep, groggy and irritable. I had no energy to focus, yet I convinced myself it was all part of the hustle. Looking back, I see how much my health suffered from that mindset If I had gotten seriously ill during that time, all that effort would have come to a screeching halt. Simply put, it wasn’t worth the risk.

Sleep is to your body what defragmenting is to a hard drive which is a necessary reset that improves efficiency. Just like a car needs regular tune-ups to run smoothly, our bodies rely on rest to function at their best. it’s the foundation of good health... I think you get the point. Despite our fast-paced, productivity driven culture treating sleep as a luxury rather than a necessity. I’ve realized how essential it is as I’ve grown older. Now remember that 50 cent quote I mentioned? 50 Cent has walked back his infamous quote in his 2020 book Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter. He shared that role models like Bill Gates & Robert Greene prioritize sleep, aiming for 8 hours a night. This revelation by 50 highlights how youthful bravado often gives way to wisdom as we mature. This also raises questions about the influence others can have on the younger generation, a topic for another discussion but I’ll leave it at that for now.

If I'm honest, the challenge lies in how we perceive time as a western society. I see it like this, If we only have 24 hours in a day then 8 of those to sleep can feel like a loss. Entrepreneurs, like a young 50 and myself, often view sleep as the enemy of productivity because I certainly did. I armed myself with energy drinks to fight sleep, thinking it was the right thing to do. But it wasn’t.

According to TCM theory, the liver oversees emotions. During insomnia, one has a lot of liver heat, leading to a bad temper. Studies in Italy published in the Journal of Sleep Research have also confirmed that lack of sleep may cause people to have a negative emotional bias. This means that people who get less sleep are likelier to feel and think negatively. - epochhealth

Science has proven that our bodies follow circadian rhythms, a biological clock that governs our sleep-wake cycles. Research on circadian rhythms, led by Nobel Prize-winning scientists, shows that our bodies thrive on regular sleep patterns. These rhythms not only improve mood and mental clarity but can also increase lifespan. This was also documented 2,500 years ago in Chinese medicine as Zi Wu Liu Zhu (Midnight-noon and ebb-flow doctrine) highlighting the deep connection between sleep and overall health. This comes by way of TheEpochtimes.

By neglecting sleep, we do ourselves a disservice. I’d hate to achieve my life’s goals only to realize my health is compromised due to years of bad habits. I’m convinced that the damage we inflict on our bodies during our hustle years like attending late night events, pushing through deadlines or chugging coffee by the gallons will catch up with us in our In our 40s and beyond. These habits can manifest as serious health issues like heart disease, kidney problems, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, obesity and even depression. Nas, one of my go to rappers wisely said "Do your body right an' it loves you back, You only get one life" I’ve adopted a similar idea moving forward.

To all my fellow hustlers out there: take sleep seriously. It’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity. Don’t sleep on sleep (pun intended). Take care of yourselves and finish the year strong. Your future self will thank you. Peace.