Translator: Rhonda Jacobs Reviewer: Cihan Ekmekçi
I'm going to start by asking you one relatively simple question.
What does it take for us to really flourish?
To be the best that we can be?
To survive? No. To thrive? Yes.
We need to have good memory -
not just remember who we are as an individual,
but enable us to learn so that we can become different
if we want to grow, if we want to develop.
We need to have our health; we need to be able to make good decisions;
we need to be creative; we need to be innovative;
we need to solve problems.
Whether that's at work; whether that's with our families;
whether it's in building relationships - national, international level.
These are all things that are fundamental to making us human
and fundamental to enabling us to be better
at whatever it is that we choose to focus on.
Now, let me offer you the opportunity to take a drug.
Taking this one drug might possibly add another hour,
another hour and a half to your day, possibly,
but the disadvantages, the side effects of this drug
are your memory becomes poorer,
you make poorer quality decisions,
you can't regulate your mood anymore,
you cry more, you anger more quickly.
You make poor problem-solving decisions;
your communication skils fall down.
Would you take this drug?
An hour more time a day?
An hour more time a day to be worse at communication skills?
To be worse at decision making?
To be worse at problem solving?
Probably not.
The benefits aren't that great.
Now let's try a different type of drug.
Wine.
So, in the name of science, obviously.
(Laughter)
Just bear with me.
(Laughter)
Okay.
(Laughter)
Is it okay?
Let's go for a second.
(Laughter)
How uncomfortable does that make you feel?
It makes me feel quite uncomfortable.
How likely is it now that given what you've seen,
you're going to let me drive your children to school?
Or operate on a loved one?
Or drive a truck delivering bread to the supermarket?
Or teach your children?
Or lead your team at work?
If we think about the wake-up call here:
what does it take to flourish?
would you take that drug?
Would you drink that wine?
Of course, the point is, you wouldn't.
So what if I said to you
that not getting enough sleep a night,
not getting an hour to an hour and a half sleep a night than you need,
has the same effect as that drug?
It reduces your ability to learn, your memory, your decision making,
your communication skills, your physical health,
your mental health.
What if I said that 17 hours of wakefulness - just a long day -
is the equivalent on your behaviour,
your alertness,
as a reading, a blood alcohol level of 0.05 percent.
In context, that is the equivalent of being over the limit with alcohol
in 98 countries around the world.
How often do we get behind the wheel of a car?
How often are we at work?
How often are we interacting with our loved ones,
behaving like that?
If we want to flourish, we need to think about things differently.
And of course, for those of you who are slightly worried,
I should say, that wasn't red wine, that was blackcurrant juice.
(Laughter)
About 15 years ago, I started working in the field of sleep,
and myself and a colleague were looking at the impact of poor sleep
in a young offender institution, in individuals who were very vulnerable,
and looking at the relationship of poor sleep and anger, hostility
and aggression.
And now, for a living, I do the similar kind of thing,
but with business leaders around the world.
But this isn't just about vulnerable adults, vulnerable children
or business leaders,
it's about you, and it's about me.
It's about human-to-human connection.
Poor sleep is endemic across the world.
And we know so much now about the impact of it.
We can't deny that we [know] how it affects us.
So how does it affect us?
Let me give you a couple of examples.
Poor sleep, so for example, sleeping less than six hours a night,
increases - according to research - increases your risk of mortality
by 13 percent.
Let me say that again.
At any point in time,
if you are consistently sleeping for less than six hours a night,
your risk of dying increases by 13 percent.
For those of you feeling a little smug, such as myself,
because I might get a little more than six hours,
then seven hours a night, less than seven hours,
between six and seven hours,
it still increases your mortality risk by seven percent.
You're three to four more times more likely to get cold and flu.
You're more likely to get some types of cancer,
particularly during shift work
if you do shift work for long periods of time.
It reduces job satisfaction.
It increases presenteeism and absenteeism,
increases workplace accidents.
It increases cardiovascular disease.
One night of poor sleep
and your systolic blood pressure can increase.
You can see, then, if this continues time over time over time over time,
how that relates to cardiovascular disease,
heart attacks and strokes.
But we know this!
We see this in the media, in the press, on TV;
there are books out there,
so why don't we do something about it?
Why aren't we making those changes?
What is that cost?
A piece of research in 2016
found the economic cost of poor sleep
was 36 billion pounds a year to the UK economy.
For individuals of working age in the UK,
if they're not sleeping between 7-9 hours a night,
it is costing the UK economy 36 billion pounds.
If you don't care about your own physical health or mental health
or cognitive functioning, or your ability to interact with others,
this is the financial cost.
And let's put this in some context,
because 36 billion, what does that actually mean?
In 2012, the University of Oxford did a piece of research,
and they found that the cost of cancer to the UK in that year
was about 15.8 billion.
And in 2014, the Alzheimer's Society published a piece of research that said
that the cost of Alzheimer's disease was around about 26 billion.
Very serious issues, very serious diseases
that have, rightly, lots of support, lots of media behind them,
as well as a huge amount of research.
And yet we are saying, according to the 2016 research,
that the cost of poor sleep is nearly the same as both of these two together.
How many times do you turn the TV on and see an advert for sleeping more?
Probably not that often, if ever.
So what's going on? Why aren't we doing anything about it?
Well, the reason, I think, is something that I've called
'The Mokita Effect'.
It's very simple.
'Mokita' is a word that the Trobriand islands use.
And it's a word that is very simple;
it means the truth that everybody knows and nobody's talking about.
And I think this is absolutely the issue with poor sleep.
We all sleep, or don't,
so we all know how we feel the next morning.
We all know how it really affects us,
whether we like to deny it and push on through,
but we do have insight into this.
And so why aren't we doing something about it -
at an individual level, at an organisational level,
and also at a national or international level?
Why aren't we taking this seriously?
To be fair, if we're not taking it seriously,
then surely leaders should take this seriously ...
you'd think.
So, in 2011, at the height of the euro crisis,
President Sarkozy made these two statements.
He said,
'Never has the risk of disintegration been greater for Europe'.
And he also said,
'Never before has Europe been so necessary,
never has it been in so much danger'.
And this was said on the 9th of December, 2011.
This was the date when world leaders focusing on Europe,
so all of those European leaders came together
to talk about the future of the euro and the future of Europe.
Such was the importance of that one meeting
that on the day that they met, the Dow Jones in the US -
so this isn't even European -
the Dow Jones in the US and the French and the Italian markets
all closed down.
Such was the importance of this meeting.
So we have European leaders in a room deciding on the future of Europe.
Did they do that after breakfast?
No.
Did they do it after lunch?
No.
They started after dinner,
and they continued throughout the night.
Are they superhuman and not affected by sleep?
Of course not.
Do they practice some kind of strange behaviours
that makes them much more resilient?
Probably not.
The fact is, you, I, they are all suffering from The Mokita Effect.
We know this stuff; we know the effects.
And yet for some reason we aren't doing anything about it.
But don't get me wrong.
This isn't about leadership.
This isn't about those people at the top of organisation
or the top of countries,
this is about all of us together.
Our own research has shown
that individuals all across levels in the organisation
are as likely, if not more so, to report the effect of poor sleep.
Individuals, whatever they're doing, are equally affected.
This isn't something we can just pass to leaders,
this is something that's my responsibility and your responsibility,
and it is something that we can do something about.
That's the important point.
We don't need to make massive changes to the world here.
We don't need to invest huge amounts of money.
We don't need to invent new technology.
All we need to do is sleep for one hour more each night.
So what will it take for us to wake up?
How many more Challenger disasters, Chernobyl disasters,
Three Mile Island or Exxon Valdez oil spills does it take?
All of those human and environmental catastrophes
that have been shown explicitly or implicitly
to be put down to poor decisions as a result of poor sleep.
How many more accidents and deaths do we need
of people driving home after shift work for it to be taken seriously?
How many more increases in mortality do we need
before we take this seriously?
So I'm going to ask you all, all of us today, to do one simple thing.
Take this as our wake-up call.
Take this as an opportunity to think about how much sleep
do you actually need a night.
It may be seven hours; it may be seven and a half;
it may be eight; it may possibly be 10 if you're lucky.
But each individual is, by its nature, individual.
The first thing I challenge you all to do is to work out how much you need,
and then the second thing is make one small change,
just one small change.
Stop using technology in the bedroom.
Don't have alcohol or caffeine late at night.
Choose when you exercise, not too close to bed.
Use a blackout blind or an eye mask or ear plugs.
Go to bed just half an hour earlier a night.
One small change is all it takes.
If every single, healthy, working-age adult in the UK
made that one small change, got the right amount of sleep they need,
not only will we save the UK economy 36 billion pounds a year,
but it will enable each and every one of us
to truly flourish.
(Applause)