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Work has changed to fit the post-pandemic mould, and people are having difficulty adjusting to major changes in their life. A common result is that people sacrifice hours of their sleep. Find out how you can strike a work life balance.

The 40-hour, five-day workweek was only popularised in 1926 when Henry Ford wanted a more balanced schedule for his assembly line of workers in his manufacturing plants. The idea was supposed to help employees get more rest, allowing them to become more efficient during the day. Decades into the 21st century, this 9-to-5 workday doesn't seem to work for the young professional anymore.

With our increased connectivity, the 9-to-5 workweek has evolved into something more malleable. Most people can work wherever they want, effectively blurring the line between working in the office and being at home. This can be detrimental as chronic sleeplessness is already a problem in the workplace. In America, about 25% of working adults suffer from insomnia, with about the same number who agree that they also experience excessive bouts of sleepiness. Without proper boundaries between your work life and your home life, you're more likely to sacrifice personal time to complete more tasks. And when people become busier, it's then more difficult to psychologically detach from work, even after clocking off. Even in a pre-pandemic setting, doctors, on-call professionals, and work-from-home employees often work in high-demand situations, so it is difficult to be unreachable during non-work hours. People who take graveyard shifts such as industrial workers, nurses, pilots, and security patrol often work at times when they are supposed to be asleep.

It is no wonder then that many professionals suffer from sleep deprivation and other related disorders. Not only does your productivity decrease, but sleep deprivation is also linked to workplace accidents. These are the same people who, when they have the chance to sleep, experience sleep disturbances throughout the night. Your mood is affected, affecting your overall career progression and satisfaction, eventually leading to forgetfulness, clumsiness, and absenteeism. When continued, these bouts of sleeplessness also increase the risk for cancer, depression, and heart problems.

And this is a worldwide phenomenon. In Japan, the metros are notoriously known for having office workers fall asleep in subway stations from exhaustion. In a CNBC report, 1 out of 4 Japanese companies expects their employees to render about 80 hours of overtime a month. 15-hour work shifts are a norm, not giving employees enough time for rest or sleep. It is no surprise that the country ranks first for the shortest average sleep at 442 minutes (7.3 hours) per night.

A tired woman dozes off on the Subway.

In the UK, 66% of office workers are overworking at an average of 6.3 hours per week, with around 20% expected to be on-call and 43% admitting that they didn't take their full annual leave. This can only mean a vulnerable immune system and severe burnout. In a survey last 2021, 36% of working adults admit to struggling to sleep every week, with insomnia a common problem among adults.

During the height of the pandemic, employees in the US were sleeping for around seven hours, and healthcare workers only got five to six hours a night. There were also significant changes in sleeping time for 16 countries in Europe. Stress was at an all-time high, inhibiting people from resting properly.

With such a global problem, there are both collective and individual differences in the quantity and quality of sleep that people get, similar to how each of us has different psychological traits, mannerisms and behaviours. However, this means that while people may get seven hours in for the night and perform worse at work than a person who got six hours of sleep that same evening. This is because all of our biological configurations are different. Many people have famously claimed to have slept for around four or three hours per day, such as Indra Nooyi and Tom Ford.

Factors that contribute to sleeplessness

Sleeplessness shouldn't be taken lightly, and the factors that lead to it. 

Pandemic

During the pandemic, there was not only a shift in work habits but the overall shift in everyone's individualised experience of their normal life was taken away from them. This stress of dealing with a new kind of life, where people had to constantly sanitise their homes, their hands, and their surroundings was a stressful experience. What used to be a normal trip to the grocery had to be done with extra vigilance and care, not only for the people in our households but also for the people we may come across. While the pandemic is slowly coming into control, this vigilance, this healthcare crisis has affected us in deep ways.

Many people reported feeling burnt out, despite having the same or a lessened amount of work. They had a harder time sleeping, and fractions of the global population suffered from acute, or short-term, insomnia, where people would have a hard time falling asleep, staying asleep or waking up too early. Everyone's quality of life has put everyone in a different kind of survival mode, and we can still see the effects today. Now that the world is opening back up, the stress of socialising, overstimulation and even unemployment have caused more instances of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and insomnia among the public.

Office

More generally, working in the office will give people the opportunity to meet various types of people. In a survey done by the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, most employees answered that these four factors contribute the most to stress at work:

• Conflict in the workplace
• Lack of control over job decisions
• Excessive job demands
• Lack of support from leaders
  
  

Mental Health

As discussed earlier, having mental health issues can also prevent people from achieving healthy sleep hygiene. Having a healthy mind can enable you to think better, learn faster and retain information more effectively. Studies have shown that people suffering from depression exhibit symptoms of insomnia, reinforcing the emotional and mental distress of both illnesses. The restlessness of people who experience anxiety, as well, go through a harrowing cycle of sleeplessness, which often increases the chances of a nervous breakdown. With them feeling exhausted, this will eventually affect or numb down how they perceive their well-being, like how they perceive pain or discomfort.

Seasonal Changes

Sometimes, the changes in season and the reduced amount of sunlight do affect people's internal biological clock and cause changes in their sleep cycles. This is more common in countries in the northern hemisphere where there is less daylight during fall and winter. Similar to how some animals go into hibernation, people tend to sleep too much or too little, depending on how comfortable they feel during colder seasons.

Illnesses & Medications

People who suffer from certain illnesses and take medications can affect sleeping patterns. The following medical illnesses can experience sleep deprivation as a common symptom:

• Head injuries & headache
• Hyperthyroidism
• Asthma
• Hypertension
• Coronary artery disease
• Arthritis
• Fibromyalgia
• Low back pain
• Seizures
• Parkinson's disease
• Alzheimer's disease
• Kidney issues
• Thyroid dysfunction

Taking the following medications and drugs can also cause sleeping disruptions as a side effect:

• Amphetamines
• Caffeine
• Reserpine
• Clonidine
• Certain antidepressants & steroids
• L-dopa
• Theophylline
• Substances such as alcohol, narcotics & nicotine
• Withdrawal from benzodiazepines, barbiturates, and alcohol
  
  
  

Sleep disorders & poor sleep habits

Aside from constant work stress, sometimes people's problem is their sleeping habits. They may nap or sleep at irregular times, making it impossible to sleep during the evening. If these habits are continued, it's easy to develop phase delay sleep disorders, sleep state misperception and nightmares. Some people also suffer from sleep apnea and nocturnal myoclonus, which can affect their circadian rhythms.

While it can be difficult for people to control their working environment or to find a better job, it's still important to psychologically (and physically, sometimes) detach yourself from work. First, it's important to acknowledge that people's sleep problems stem from poor sleeping habits during school and university years and also from what you were taught at home. If you were the type of student who valued educational attainment, then you're more likely to suffer from sleeping problems whether done intentionally (e.g. staying up late to study for an exam) or unintentionally (e.g. insomnia from anxiety). Once you have acknowledged that you don't prioritise resting or sleeping, then it's easier to accept the benefits of taking a break.

Taking a break not only improves your performance in the office but also how you engage with your colleagues. Though your company can put money into improving the office designs, adding more food options in the cafeteria, and finding the best tools to support your growth, there is no better way to boost your competence in the office than by getting enough hours of sleep at night.

Taking a timeout enhances not just to your work efficiency but also how you engage with your coworkers.

Just imagine two people: Sam and Haley. Sam needs about 7 hours of sleep every night to function properly during office hours. Meanwhile, Haley needs 8 hours of sleep but is only able to get 7. As the two of them are preparing separate pitch presentations for their respective clients, Sam decides to use the rest of the night to rest and sleep early. Her report is nearly done, but she needs to get some sleep for her brain to function at its fullest tomorrow.

On the other hand, Haley decides to pull an all-nighter for her deck. It's nearly finished, but she wants everything to be perfect.

The next morning as the two of them make the final preparations for their presentations, Sam is not as frazzled and nervous as Haley is. It doesn't come as a surprise, then, that Haley makes a few mistakes during her pitch and, though she gets to the end with some hiccups, the clients sign a deal with her company. For Sam, however, because she was able to get enough sleep the previous night, she was able to field her clients' questions easily and secured a bigger deal for her company.

While it's important to aim for a perfect pitch deck, it can be difficult to ensure that your brain is working at its fullest capacity when you're sleep-deprived. Of course, we would recommend first that you don't cram any of your deliverables. So, in the next section, we'll walk through some practical tips to work smart and rest smarter.

How to strike a balance

How do you take care of yourself and become more disciplined with your sleeping patterns and work schedule?

Improve Sleep Hygiene

Sleep hygiene is all about planning good habits that promote rest. We recommend creating an optimal bedroom environment where:

• The room can be close to pitch black when you're about to sleep
• You have an electric blanket to induce sleepiness and maintain your temperature throughout the
          night
• Your phone can be stationed away from your bed and out of reach

Assess Personal Goals

It's common for professionals (especially older ones) to sacrifice sleep just to get work done. However, this even extends to recreational or social activities. It's time to reassess why you stay up past bedtime and deliberate if the activities you're doing are worth giving up sleep for. If you're regularly sacrificing sleep just to prioritise other activities, we recommend drawing stricter boundaries between your work or play time and rest time.

Be Realistic

Introducing new habits to your body can be a jarring experience, and you're more likely to only confuse your original circadian rhythms if you decide to sleep two or three hours earlier than you used to. We recommend starting with introducing one habit at a time. You can start with putting your phone away 30 minutes before you plan to sleep or drinking warm tea to relax your body for bedtime. You can also use a soothing heating pad to slow down your tempo. Taking care of your body also means that you don't overwhelm it with too many plans and health goals.

Slow down your breathing and allow the warmth energy to fill every cell in your body.

Pursue a healthy holistic lifestyle

It's common for people to experience sleep disruption because of work stress. This means that you aren't alone in your journey as you take steps to improve your sleep hygiene and your work-life balance. Learning how to acknowledge your stressors, communicate them to the right people and commit to your own stress management goals can help you get a good night's rest. Even if you're working from home, your bedroom can become a place of rest at the end of a long day.

Our 4WD DWF technology has been extensively helpful in sleep regulation and improving environmental conditions to set the tone for a restful sleep at night.