Sleeping may seem like something that has no bearing on the corporate world (after all, you sleep at home and you must be wide awake in the office!) but research is now suggesting that more employers should be talking to their employees about the wellness benefits of getting a good night’s sleep.
Evidence also suggests that the wellbeing and associated sleep of employees is often adversely affected by work-related stress. New data is emerging which suggests that whilst many people are in bed for the recommended period of between seven and nine hours, many of them are wasting much of that time worrying about work-related problems, meaning that they often only get about five hours of actual rest. This suggests that employers need to go some way towards reducing work stress and helping employees to get a good night’s sleep, if they want them to be healthy and productive.
In a recent survey, which showed that many Americans spend far fewer hours sleeping than they spend actually in bed, showing that people are either lying awake worrying or doing vacuum activities such as reading, playing games or watching television.
Whilst stress varies from job to job, the one that that most people seem to have in common is that any job stress seems to spill over and manifest itself during sleeping time. On the flip side of this, sleeping has been shown to improve significantly after retirement.
A poll by the National Sleep Foundation shows that more than 50 percent of people questioned have suffered from some of the symptoms of insomnia, several nights of the week. Symptoms include waking up in the morning not feeling refreshed, waking up too early in the morning and waking up regularly throughout the night.