Find Your Inner Spider!

So, did you burn the midnight oil again last night?

You’ve stayed up until 1:00am working on that report, becoming less effective with each passing minute and now you sit at your desk and realise that your efforts were wasted. What do you do?

While you worked late, another was also at work… a spider, who unknowingly wove its intricate web across your front door, only to see it cruelly brushed aside as you made a rushed exit to begin your early morning commute! What does the Spider do?

We’ve all done it, but why do we work so long and late, when there are so many reasons that we know it is such a bad idea?

A lack of sleep causes us to lose focus, to become irritable and to crave sugar. In fact, we are more likely to leave ourselves open to a host of health problems, suffer a reduced sex drive and even age more quickly!  How often have you commented on how tired someone looks, especially that person in the mirror!

Well it’s true, there is evidence that shows how the hormones produced to keep our skin looking smooth and supple, as well as those responsible for repairing our bodies from injuries, are released during periods of deep and un-interrupted sleep.  So, it becomes very visible to others when you are tired!

Sleep deprivation stimulates appetite and therefore makes us prone to weight gain.  Especially as those emergency sugar and carb loaded biscuits and snacks are the easiest and quickest way for our misfiring brain to satisfy our need for energy.  “The diet can begin tomorrow” we tell ourselves, as our natural resilience heads for the door!

What’s more, scientific research has also shown that, if you are sleepy, you really do become more forgetful!  Your brain struggles to consolidate memories and they lose their way on route to the neocortex of the brain, where long-term memories are stored.

And what are the implications for work?

We are all aware that the speed of change and how we operate in life and work is increasingly fast paced. We are online 24/7 and therefore it is easy to see how this continuous availability can become an expectation! In many ways a lack of sleep has become a badge of honour.  It is even aspired to by some!

A lack of sleep can affect our ability to view challenges and interpret situations. This makes it difficult for us to make sound judgments because our ability to think and act appropriately is impaired across all areas of our life.  Consider how important this becomes in a role or profession where quick thinking and good judgement are critical!

Understanding this, we can appreciate the essential role that enough high-quality sleep plays, in positive thinking and effective learning! A lack of sleep clearly hinders our cognitive processes as it weakens our attention, alertness, concentration, reasoning, and problem solving.  So, it becomes far more difficult to learn efficiently.  On top of this, if we don’t get enough sleep, we reduce our ability to remember what we learned and experienced during the day!

We can see how a lack of sleep can seep into all our daily activities and impact our attitude.  We are more likely to revert to old engrained habits, which are frequently unhelpful and then our behaviours become less constructive.  We become more irritable, less tolerant, unable to focus and lose our ability to resist those tempting treats.  Our resilience is fundamentally compromised!

So, back to that urgent report!

Imagine the impact that your late night will have today. Then imagine the cumulative effect that many late nights will have on their tomorrows!  It’s not good in terms of your productiveness, nor your likely reactions to challenges, is it?

In fact, it may sound depressing… but it is not at all when you think about it, because …

All of this is largely within your control!

So, before you settle in front of your laptop to finish another report this evening, ask yourself… Is it going to add real value? Is it really needed tomorrow? In fact, is it needed at all?

If the answer is no, then stop!  Don’t give yourself a hard time, treat yourself to an early night!

If the answer is yes, then make your choice to change!  Change your daily prioritisation, change your approach and change your attitude.

But, first you need to change some habitual behaviours that even allowed you to think it was a good idea at all!  The sort of behaviours that ‘work’ and ‘pressure’ and ‘stress’ nurture in all of us, if we are not careful. Businesses benefit enormously from having less resistance and more resilience. 

At In-toto Interactive, we prioritise resilience, to enable individuals to improve their effectiveness and find a more comfortable place, where there is less tension and the whole team can operate more like our industrious spider.

Take time to watch a spider one day and you will clearly observe how his intricate weaving is dedicated to his purpose.  He will do this time and time again, extremely efficiently.  Each web is a new project, marvellously executed and only taking an hour to complete! Things change, the web gets broken, but there is no stress, the spider is focussed and just starts again!

Wow… if we only had the resilience and focus of a spider! At In-toto Interactive we can help and you to grow exactly that.

In the meantime, prioritise sleep!  You owe it to yourself, and it will give you a great place to start!

Author: Sue Barnes, 13thJune 2018