Have you ever noticed how hard it is to be productive at work when you haven’t gotten enough sleep?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has joined the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the National Safety Council and the Sleep Research Society to improve education and awareness about the importance of sleep.
These groups have established the “National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project.” The initiative focuses not only on getting employers to encourage their employees to develop better sleep habits, but also on high-school students, who generally get far less sleep than their still-developing bodies need.
Getting enough sleep is not always an option, especially in work cultures that view long work days and minimal sleep as a sign of commitment. The statistics are eye-opening:
- One survey shows that 37 percent of today’s workers are sleep-deprived, which increases both the risk and incidence of employee accidents, vehicle crashes and other severe consequences.
- According to the National Safety Council, fatigued workers cost employers about $1,200 to $3,100 per employee in declining job performance each year, while sleepy workers are estimated to cost employers $136 billion a year in health-related lost productivity. Check out the organization’s Cost of Fatigue calculator.
- Driving to and from work can be dangerous for the over-tired. Projections from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety indicate that drowsy driving causes an average of 328,000 motor vehicle accidents in the U.S. each year, including 6,400 fatal crashes.
Perhaps you’ve even worked with colleagues who brag about chronic sleeplessness and overwork. We need to turn the tables and instead start boasting about how much sleep we get and how well-rested we feel!
