“Sleep is the best meditation.” -Dalai Lama

As much as we want to work for hours on end, sleep is equally as important as hard work. If we don’t get the proper amount of sleep our bodies will shut down.

We won’t be able to function at a high level. Eventually it will catch up to you. As much as we would all like to say we have stayed up till 4am and woken up at 8am everyday this week, it will start negatively affecting you and your life. 

Your mind and body need rest to recover. That’s why we sleep, to recharge ourselves. We need sleep to survive. You can’t work on 2 hours of sleep forever. When you start to see your performance slip and you begin snapping at people you probably just need a few hours of deep sleep to recharge. 

It doesn’t have to be anything crazy. Just deep sleep. Some people can function really well on 5-6 hours of sleep. Others need the full 8 hours or longer. Test it out. 

See how you work when you get more hours of sleep. Check at what point your performance begins to fall off. If you can test this well enough, you should hit a point where you know if you get 6 hours of sleep you’ll perform well throughout the day. On the other hand, if you get 5 hours of sleep, your work and mental state begins to slip. 

Now you can focus on getting the proper number of hours per night to be highly productive and effective the next day. Don’t try to grind out 2 to 3 hours of sleep everyday of every week. Your body will break down at some point. Instead, focus on getting good quality sleep and making sure you’re getting the correct amount of hours you need every night. 

You’ll feel better mentally and physically. Focus on sleeping.