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Sleep is one of the most powerful pillars of
good health, and we don't think about it.
We take it for granted; we just sort of think it's like
turning off a switch.
It's critical to empower employees to recognize that it's
not just an individual personal problem that they have, but it's
something that’s shared in common across so many people.
Only 1 out of 3 Americans say that they get a sufficient
amount of sleep on a regular basis.
When your employer says, “This is important for you to do; we
recognize that,” it sends a signal to the employees, saying,
well, first of all, the employer cares about our health.
And secondly, they recognize that this is an important
priority and that we should be taking care of ourselves,
and that in doing that we're actually helping the
company as well.
I’m not sure that employers really have necessarily a
misunderstanding about sleep, it's just that it's not
necessarily on the radar of most employers.
It's not on the radar of most employees; that's why 85 percent
of people with sleep disorders are undiagnosed and untreated.
It's not even on the radar of most doctors.
We have a program here that we have developed.
We've spent about the last 10 years developing the sleep
health education and sleep disorder screening program
specifically for the workplace; educating the employees about
the importance of sleep, why we need to sleep, what impacts
sleep deprivation has on the body.
For example, we worked with firefighters, and we
administered a simple 1-hour program of sleep health
education and sleep disorder screening.
And we randomized fire houses so that half of them received the
educational program in the first year, half did not, and then we
tracked them over the course of the following year.
And those who received the program had a 24 percent lower
injury rate over the following year as compared to those who
did not receive the program.
And they also had a 46 percent reduction in
disability day usage.
And one of the things that we think is going to be very
important for the future is the notion of providing education,
and even certification, to employees who are responsible,
supervisors who are responsible for scheduling employees.
Well, sleep is important.
It's critical for the brain, so, it is during sleep that we
recover the energy stores that have been depleted
during wakefulness.
So, the brain uses more energy by far than any other organ
in the body.
It's only 2 or 3 percent of the weight of the body, and yet it
uses 20 to 30 percent of all the oxygen that we consume and all
the glucose that we consume.
We consolidate memory in the brain, so if you've been
learning a task like a new piece on the piano,
a new move in basketball, a new turn in swimming,
then it's during sleep that you rehearse that,
at high speed actually, many times the speed, during deep
slow wave sleep at the beginning of the night.
So, it's self-defeating to promote other health-related
measures without also tackling one of the key pillars of good
health, which is getting an adequate amount of sleep.
Go to the National Safety Council website at
nsc.org/tiredatwork, and to put in the numbers of their
employees and just to get an idea of what percentage of their
employees would be estimated to have sleep apnea, insomnia;
what percentage of their employees would be experiencing
presenteeism at work; how many lost days of absenteeism are
they likely to be suffering associated with sleep deficiency
and sleep disorders; and how much can they expect to gain by
implementing a sleep health education and
sleep disorders program.
Employers really have an opportunity to both benefit the
bottom line, as well as to really reduce the risk of
errors, accidents, injuries on the job, and at home, and, in
addition to that, helping their employees to be healthier.
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