Friday, September 12, 2008

We Should All Sleep Alone

In my web wanderings I came across an interesting article about sleeping. Namely it was an extract about an Austrian report that found that sleeping with someone else makes you more tired the day after. Well, duh!

Read the article here.

As someone who is often coaching younger professionals in the more fringe aspects of professional consulting, the topic of getting enough rest comes up often enough. From advising them to curtail the drinking the night before a big presentation, to reminding them that showing up for a meeting still flushed from a morning run can also be bad for business. The art of presenting a reliable, trustworthy, and professional image is certainly a mixed bag and everyone has their opinion. Every situation and client is different, and the techniques and approaches to deal with them are varied. One thing they all agree on is that being well-rested is certainly a key.

I led with that article sort of tongue-in-cheek, but in reality the points you can extrapolate from it are very real. You may be just fine sleeping with your partner, but are you taking the other time you need to recharge and focus on yourself? For many people, their only down time is while they are sleeping. If that time is interrupted, they'll naturally find themselves completely missing out on personal recoup altogether.

Remus, if you're reading this, I'm sure the gender of the person you sleep with isn't relevant, and besides the sleeping thing was just a teaser for my personal-time talking points anyway.