How to Optimize Your Performance by Reconnecting to Your Biological Rhythms

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It is 2:22 A.M. and I am writing this article. I am not on adeadline nor did I procrastinate. I often find myself writing, reading orthinking in the wee hours of the morning.

Middle-of-the-Night Awakening is Normal

Historical research and scientific studies on sleep patternsfound that I am not an anomaly. After years of believing I was suffering from insomnia, I now learn I am normal.
As reported recently in the New York Times, ahistory professor A. Roger Ekirch noticed references to a “first sleep” and a “secondsleep” in numerous historical documents. On the scientific front, a psychiatrist,Dr. Thomas Wehr, conducted sleep experiments on subjects by depriving them of artificiallight. The subjects would settle into a new sleep pattern once they caught upon their sleep. The new / ancient sleep pattern consisted of 2 shifts of sleeppunctuated by a few hours of wakefulness.  [1]

Normal, But Sleep Deprived

Unlike my ancestors and the sleep guinea pigs, my scheduleforces me to be up at a certain time. When I get tired and am ready for mysecond shift of sleep, it is close to my “get ready for work” time. So Iusually stay up. 
My workplace is in the US; not Spain, China, India or otherlocales that sanction the nap. Given that I often get by with only my firstshift of sleep, I am sleep deprived. I function fine but not optimally, despite my low sleep by catching up on the weekends. 

The Huge Benefits of Restorative Rest

When my schedule is more flexible and I am able to sleep ornap as required, I take a short second shift and then a nap in the afternoon fora total of 3 distinct rest periods.
More frequent deep sleep is beneficial reports the previouslyreferenced New York Times article, since each session of deep sleep allows thebrain to recharge and “function at a higher level, identify patterns faster,recall information more accurately, store new learning in long-term memory, makeconnections that were hidden in a jumble of information” [1].

High-performance Organizations Are Promoting the Nap

Some organizations recognize the link between sleep and performance. The 3PM power-nap is so common in the NBA that everyone in theleague office knows not to interrupt the players’ restorative rest. [2] TheU.S. military is exploring how to monitor soldiers' sleep and enforce nap times. Google provides nap rooms. [1]

Our Culture Stigmatizes Naps

I visited Google’s offices on several occasions to review its green projects. Since workplace napping is a personal fantasy, I also asked about the nap rooms. The tour guide admitted that they were used sparingly.
That is not surprising since our broader work cultureis hostile to naps and looks down on those who nap as weak and lazy. I learnedin kindergarten that even though there was a rest period, you were not supposedto actually nap. One day I made the mistake of drifting to sleep only to awakenwith my peers surrounding me and taunting me with chants of “kindergarten baby”. 
So unless Larry and Sergey (founders of Google) are takingsome downtime in the nap pods, napping will likely be limited to the brave ordesperate. And for most of us who don’t have access to workplace sleep area, tosneaking to our car.

Why Did We Abandon Our Biological Clock

As a systems thinker, I wonder how we got off our biologicalclock and onto the man-made clock. As we shifted to the industrial age,factories were a huge capital investments. To get the most out of theseinvestments, plant owners and investors used the plant as much as possible. Relativelycheap and unskilled workers were needed to serve the machinery and keep it running. 
It is at this juncture that we started to obey the tyranny of the mechanicalclock. The mechanical clock was identified by the U.S. historian Lewis Mumford as  “the key machine of the modern industrial age.” Mumford considered the clock more important than the steam engine. [3]

We have since upgraded to a digital clock. Unfortunately our sleep habits are stuck in the machine age.   

How Can We Fix It 

Much of the economy has shifted to the knowledge and information age. Ours is an age where plant capital is lesscostly than highly skilled human capital.
As Thomas Kuhn discovered in his analysis of the history ofscience, it is common for practices to lag thirty or more years when newtechnologies are introduced. [4] Such is the case of our needlessly clinging tothe rigid work schedules introduced by the machine age.
If we want to maximize our human capital we need to adjust ourpractices to biological rhythms and stop the unnatural and grueling machine pace.The good news is the digital tools can be harnessed to serve us and allow moreflexible schedules. We can and must find ways to change attitudes and providethe rest we need to perform optimally.
And many may find as I did that the Sandman may vacate inthe wee hours of the morning to allow the creative Muse to visit and inspire.

We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.
William Shakespeare in The Tempest 

References

1. New York Times Article on napping – "Rethinking Sleep". Read more at  NYTimes >>
2. NBA Napping. Read more at NYTimes >> 3. Lewis Mumford and the clock. Read more at Wikipedia >>
4. Time lag in incorporating new discoveries into standardpractices. Read more at Wikipedia >>