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Want to Get Ahead? Sleep!

Think sleep deprivation and gallons of coffee are required for becoming a high-powered, “successful” leader or executive? Think again.

Research continues to point to the importance of a full night’s sleep for top productivity and career success. Now, new research even concludes that sleep literally pays off in money earned.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that people who sleep well are more valuable at work and better investors, too.

Sleeping too little may not noticeably impact your ability to do mundane tasks and sit in meetings, but it might hold you back from innovation and standout achievements, and therefore cost you that coveted promotion. Sleep deprivation may even explain the “herd mentality” we often see in places like Wall Street.

As this neuroscientist’s TED Talk will tell you, sleep is about more than giving your brain a break. Crucial maintenance and restoration happens while we sleep, in our minds and bodies.

Getting a full night of quality sleep helps us think faster, more clearly and more creatively. Well rested, we are able to focus better, adapt more quickly to new information, make superior decisions and judgment calls, innovate more effectively and get along better with others.

Missing a night’s sleep or equivalent sleep over several nights leaves our brains functioning like they would when legally drunk. Whoever thought that was a good idea for a highflying career?

Not only that, but new research out of the University of California actually puts numbers on this concept, concluding that those who under-sleep tend to make less money.

“A one-hour increase in long-run average sleep increases wages by 16 percent, equivalent to more than a year of schooling,” the researchers found.

Well, folks—last week we wrote about how we Americans should allow ourselves more R&R. Even economic researchers said so, pointing to the fact that we lead the world in late night and weekend work hours.

This other research seems to support that point. Sleep and success are linked. Allowing space for rest might just enable us to work smarter instead of harder…and to make more money, too.

So the takeaway here—to be sufficiently blunt—is that rest is not lazy, it is not weak and it is not holding us back. It’s actually good for us.

Revel in those truths and take a load off early tonight. Tomorrow you might just wake up before your alarm.

Sleep Tight, Urbanites!