Always remember the value of your sleep. You will perform better, make better decisions, and have a better body when you get the sleep you require. Sleep is not an obstacle we need to go around, it’s a natural state your body requires to boost your hormone function, heal your muscles, tissues and organs, and make your mind work at its optimal level. The shortcut to success is not made by bypassing dreamland. You will factually work better, be more efficient, and get more stuff done when you’re properly rested. - Shawn Stevenson

Using sleep to enhance design

Trying to design anything without being well-rested is like trying to drive a car with square tires, it is possible but incredibly ineffective. We must protect our sleep and see it as the source and fuel of all our creativity and energy not a barrier to be overcome. During the early design process in the discovery phase when you are trying to generates lots of new ideas sleep becomes even more crucial to success. An tired mind will struggle to be creative. But what steps can we take to improve our sleep?

Sleep Smarter

In Brian Johnson's summary of Shawn Stevenson's great book "Sleep Smarter" we learn "Proven Tips to Sleep Your Way To a Better Body, Better Health and Bigger Success". Sleep has been shown to influence cognitive abilities that support creative thinking. Good sleep supports learning, memory, and executive functions (Pesoli et al., 2021), whereas poor sleep impairs cognitive performance (Krause et al., 2017). The value of our sleep cannot be over stated especially when doing creative work.

Sleep is the secret sauce
‍"There isn’t one facet of your mental, emotional, or physical performance that’s not affected by the quality of your sleep. The big challenge is that in our fast-paced world today, millions of people are chronically sleep deprived and suffering the deleterious effects of getting low quality sleep. The consequences of sleep deprivation aren’t pretty either. Try immune system failure, diabetes, cancer, obesity, depression, and memory loss just to name a few. Most people don’t realize that their continuous sleep problems are also a catalyst for the diseases and appearance issues they’re struggling with. Studies have shown that just one night of sleep deprivation can make you as insulin resistant as a type-2 diabetic. This translates directly to aging faster, decreased libido, and storing more body fat than you want (say it ain’t so!). Now stretch that over weeks, months, even years, and you can start to see why lack of sleep can be such a huge problem.

Remember the value of your sleep
‍Always remember the value of your sleep. You will perform better, make better decisions, and have a better body when you get the sleep you require. Sleep is not an obstacle we need to go around, it’s a natural state your body requires to boost your hormone function, heal your muscles, tissues and organs, and make your mind work at its optimal level. The shortcut to success is not made by bypassing dreamland. You will factually work better, be more efficient, and get more stuff done when you’re properly rested.

There’s a big difference between ‘working’ and actually being effective. By sacrificing your sleep, you can definitely do more work but the quality and effectiveness of your work will be sacrificed. A physician study published in The Lancet proved that sleep-deprived individuals took 14 percent longer to complete a task, and made 20 percent more errors than individuals who were well rested. Structure your time to get more sleep first and you’ll be able to get your work done faster and more effectively than if you zombie walked your way through it.” - Shaw Stevenson

Practically here are some things we can do to improve sleep quality

• Avoid screens before bedtime
• Caffeine curfew - Put as much time as possible between your last cup as coffee and bed time. 8 hours is a good starting point.
• Sleep in a cool room between 60 and 68 degrees
• Ground yourself during the day - Touch the earth. "We run on electromagnetic energy. So does the earth. “Bottom line: You may not be able to see it, but you are highly conductive. You give off and receive energy every second of every day. The misuse and misunderstanding of your body’s electrical system is a catalyst for chronic health problems.” - Shawn Stevenson
• Meditate in the morning
• Create a bedtime ritual

Let's ensure that we get the rest we need to effectively serve our users and help them achieve their goals.

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