There’s a modern myth about productivity that says:
The more hours you work, the more you can accomplish.
If you want to be successful in school, you need to study 16 hours a day and sacrifice a few hours of sleep each night.
And if you want to succeed in your career, you should probably only sleep a few hours a night, so you can put in as many work hours as possible.
But new scientific studies are finally putting this myth to bed.
In fact, recent studies done by sleep researcher Matthew Walker have found that sacrificing sleep for productivity doesn’t only destroy your ability to think creatively, work effectively, and get things done efficiently…
…It can actually lead to dementia and an early death.
One study even found that people who get a full 8 hours of sleep each night are way more effective at problem solving to get more done in less time.
Test participants were given a series of puzzles to solve and a set of instructions for solving them.
Participants following the instructions required hours to complete the puzzles.
But a few test participants discovered an obvious shortcut, not included in the instructions, that allowed them to solve all the puzzles in a few minutes.
The participants were split into two groups.
One group slept for 8 hours the night before.
The other half only slept for 4 hours.
So how much better did the group with 8 hours of sleep perform?
Did 20% more participants discover the shortcut? 50% more?
Nope.
3 times as many.
The group that got a full night’s sleep tripled their overall creative problem solving ability.
And this was just one study focused on the effects of sleep on creativity.
Other studies focused on memory, immune function, cancer and even Alzheimer’s revealed even more shocking evidence for why sacrificing sleep is a terrible idea.
It turns out that the easiest, fastest way to boost your overall brain power, be more creative, and get more done in less time is…
Sleep 8 hours a night, every night.
So if you’ve been struggling to get more work done by cutting into your sleep time, I’d suggest you stop and get some sleep.
Your waking hours will be more productive, and you’ll soon discover that you don’t need nearly as much time to knock out your to-do list if your brain is well rested and running on all cylinders.