Stress is something we all face in our working lives, and the busy leader can often feel overcome by it. When we’re stressed our reserves get depleted and we often make poor decisions, lash out at colleagues and are generally a long way from our best.
A natural response to stressful situations is to eat badly. Not only does a lack of time make that takeaway look really tempting, but our lack of energy means our ability to resist temptation is diminished.
Sleep is the answer
Alas it’s also kind of in keeping with the kind of environment within which we get stressed in the first place. Busy lives require quick fixes. A recent study from Michigan State University suggests a much healthier response is to slow it down and get some top quality sleep.
“We found that employees who have a stressful workday tend to bring their negative feelings from the workplace to the dinner table, as manifested in eating more than usual and opting for more junk food instead of healthy food,” the authors say.
The study tracked hundreds of workers, and highlighted how stress impacts our mood and productivity whilst at work, and then subsequently our eating patterns when we get home.
“First, eating is sometimes used as an activity to relieve and regulate one’s negative mood, because individuals instinctually avoid aversive feelings and approach desire feelings,” the author says. “Second, unhealthy eating can also be a consequence of diminished self-control. When feeling stressed out by work, individuals usually experience inadequacy in exerting effective control over their cognitions and behaviors to be aligned with personal goals and social norms.”
Resting our way to success
This should really come as no surprise. For instance, a recent study highlighted the importance of a good night sleep to our ability to learn effectively. It showed that when we sleep after learning, our brain is encouraged to create connections between brain cells. These dendritic spines enable the flow of information across synapses.
The thing is, sleep is something that is often underappreciated, not least by employees themselves. A Cornell University study revealed that most workers would rather have a pay-rise than more sleep.
They asked more than 2,600 people to consider whether being paid $150,000 with long hours (just 6 hours sleep) would make them happier than an $80,000 job that allowed them 7.5 hours sleep. Framed in that way it’s perhaps not surprising that people would gladly trade $70,000 extra per year for an hours less sleep per night.
If you do want to improve your sleep however, there are a number of things you can do to help. For tech lovers out there, you could use a device such as Vigo. The device, which underwent a successful crowdfunding campaign a few years ago to get off the ground, monitors the blinking patterns of the user, which it then uses to determine alertness. This data is then transmitted to the app that accompanies the device, with customization notifications available so you can be told when you’re getting excessively drowsy.
For those favoring a more low-tech solution, a recent study suggests our perceptions can also help. The paper, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, suggests that how we perceive the sleep we had the night before matters as much as the actual sleep we had. In other words, if we think we had a great nights sleep, then we’ll act as though we really did.
Whatever approach you take, try and make sure you get enough sleep to ward off the stresses of your work day.
