After 3 weeks, Toby my favourite Guest Blogger has returned!  His own blog is still under construction, but if you love his posts, check out his other guest posts on my blog! 

Toby shares his frustration on how work has taken away his private time, and shares his attitude towards why we need more sleep.  

Hope you enjoy!

Anna x

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In my last guest blog, I wrote about how work has taken away my private time. Unfortunately that has become worse and now I sleep less because I had to work overtime … having said that, I still keep up with my ‘work-life-balance‘ attitude and choose to work at home after spending that (increasingly) precious personal time. Sadly I am a victim of sleep deprivation – I slept at 2:30am on Thursday because of work… and I have to stress that I had to work overtime because others have been late in passing their work to me… ugh!

My lack of sleep (enough sleep is 8 hours for me!) has started to take its toll. I started to get dark eye circles, spots on my face, and I generally feel really tired in the day. I even fell asleep during the software training session at work on Friday (so did almost every other colleague). This image I came across on facebook really speaks for me right now:

According to an article in TIME magazine, people do tend to sleep less nowadays than they used to. People stay up late doing all sorts of things because there are simply too many distractions! Gaming, watching TV, just out and about… and of course there is work (ugh). But it is shocking to know that some people actually prefers to sleep less! They think by sleeping less they spend more time awake and can accomplish more. They think sleep is a waste of time.

This attitude has to change and here I am standing for more sleep! Sleep is a fundamental need for the human body. It is the time for our to brain rest after a long day of work. Our muscles and bones heal, our skin repairs and we digest better (and therefore contributes to keeping fit). And of course, a restful night also ensures our concentration the next day. Work will be more productive. We yawn less and nap less. What is there to not celebrate about sleeping?!

Sometimes I really want to explain to everyone in the office that it is a vicious cycle to work overtime and not have enough sleep. What is the point of not having proper sleep, taxing on productivity the next day, which then results in the need to work overtime because work couldn’t be finished in the day because efficiency was low? Please someone explain the logic…

Okay enough ranting from me (clearly I am frustrated lol). Any thoughts? Will you, or at least try to, sleep more from now on?

Further reading: “The Power of Sleep”, Time Magazine
http://time.com/3326565/the-power-of-sleep/