I’ve written before about how athletes use sleep as a secret weapon. But can the rest of us learn from them? Any worker or entrepreneur needs to think about performance in the same way. Athletes use sleep to recover and cement new skills. And we should use sleep to boost our work performance too.

Work culture loves to glorify the grind. Up late, up early, inbox cleared before 7 am. But can it be self-sabotage if it means losing sleep?

THE HIDDEN COST OF LOST SLEEP

Sleep-deprived employees are often more of a liability than heroes. How bad is the problem?

• 1 in 4 adults get less then six hours.
• 1 in 3 adults get less than seven hours.
• 3 in 4 adults get less than eight hours.
• 38% of workers say they have felt fatigued at work in the last two weeks.
• Loss of sleep costs the UK about £40 billion and the US around $136 billion each year. This loss comes from reduced productivity, absenteeism, and presenteeism.

That’s a lot of creativity, discipline, and opportunity going up in smoke.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU SKIMP ON SLEEP?

Each day in a high-performing workplace, you must learn, adapt, communicate, and execute. Sleep is the foundation that supports them all.

Without enough sleep, here are some ways that it can show up at work:

• MOOD SWINGS: Sleep is one of the primary systems that balance your emotions. When tired, you’re quicker to snap, overreact, and lose patience. That can damage trust as much as it damages outcomes.
• MEMORY AND LEARNING STALL: We get most of our REM sleep in the last third of the night. We lose huge chunks of it when we cut back on sleep for 'productivity'. REM sleep locks in what we have learned during the day. It also helps us process emotions, including stress.
• WILLPOWER TANKS: Self-control goes first. You procrastinate, avoid hard work, and get sucked into distractions.
• ERRORS CREEP IN: Missed details, slower reactions in the moment, and more mistakes.
• LEADERSHIP SUFFERS: Fatigued leaders lose patience. Emotional intelligence dips, strategy calls falter, and teams feel the strain. Over time, this damages culture and motivation.
• CREATIVITY DROPS: Tired brains default to routine thinking. Innovation suffers, and problem-solving slows across the organisation.
• STRESS COMPOUNDS: Lack of sleep spikes cortisol, leaving you reactive and less resilient. To compound this, the added stress makes it harder to sleep the next night. This creates a cycle that lowers focus and performance.

HOW TO WORK SMARTER AFTER A BAD NIGHT'S SLEEP

Not every night will be perfect. Worry, kids, deadlines. Life happens. But you can still set yourself up to win.

• FRONT-LOAD YOUR DAY: Do high-focus work early; save admin and lighter tasks for later.
• CHANGE YOUR MINDSET: Believe that you can replenish your willpower. Studies show that people who do, perform better even when they are tired.
• STICK TO YOUR SLEEP ROUTINE: Same bedtime, same wake time, even on weekends. Your body loves rhythm. If you’ve had a poor night's sleep, the best thing to do is nothing. Keep to your regular bedtime.
• MOVE YOUR BODY: Physical activity today sets you up for deeper sleep tonight.
• MANAGE STRESS: Write a to-do list before bed, and be rigorous with your prioritisation. That should help ease some stress. As we know, stress is the number one sleep killer.

THE BOTTOM LINE FOR LYNN

We all want to make progress. It’s a core human drive. Even for lawyers like Lynn. But progress doesn’t come from hacking hours out of your sleep. It comes from having the energy, clarity, and discipline to execute, day after day.

Sleep is an investment. In sharper decisions. In steadier leadership. In the career you’re building. Undermine your sleep, and you undermine your ability to make progress.

Sleep better. Perform better. It’s that simple.

*Job, Walton, Bernecker, & Dweck (2010, Psychological Science): This study found that people’s beliefs about willpower determine how they perform under fatigue. Those who believed willpower is a limited resource showed worse self-control after demanding tasks, while those who believed it’s renewable did not show the same drop-off.