[New Study] Poor Work Performance Associated with Insufficient Sleep

[00:00:00] James Breese: Strength Matters Media. Video. Print. Podcasts. 
[00:00:05] Josh Kennedy: Today's topic is poor work performance associated with insufficient sleep. Um, a new study has just come out on Science Daily, uh, and we thought it was a really interesting, uh, topic. And actually, on the very same day, uh, that I read this study, I got an email from OPEX, which was also talking all about sleep.
[00:00:24] Josh Kennedy: So I thought, what a great, uh, subject for a podcast. James, you've literally just, just read this. What are 
[00:00:31] James Breese: your thoughts? Oh, that's great. I think it's a fantastic study. I think it's... It's simple, and we kind of, it's like a, almost a little bit like a derp, we kind of know that sort of thing, but it just adds importance to the roles we keep telling people about this, and how it's the foundations of everything that we do.
[00:00:47] James Breese: So, WWS, Walk, Water, Sleep. 
[00:00:49] Josh Kennedy: Yeah, an extra layer of scientific data to back up everything that we always drone on about. Um, do you want to share your screen so we can have a look at the actual study while 
[00:00:57] James Breese: we... Yeah, let's do it live here. So for those [00:01:00] watching on the YouTube... 
[00:01:02] Josh Kennedy: Exactly. If you are listening in your car, I apologize.
[00:01:06] Josh Kennedy: You're not going to see this. So, 
[00:01:08] James Breese: for those who are listening in the car, I'll read it out to you. So, poor work performance among Japanese employees strongly associated with insufficient sleep. This study examined the association between work performance and lifestyle habits among Japanese employees. The results revealed that insufficient sleep was the predominant factor affecting work performance in men and women, followed by lack of regular exercise and eating late evening meals.
[00:01:32] James Breese: Furthermore, the study indicated that men were more likely to exhibit lifestyle habits that impacted work performance than women. So, great overview and summary, but... Yeah, it's, duh. I don't know what else I want to say. Like, of course. Is that how you're going to sum it up? I think, yeah, that's my summation.
[00:01:52] James Breese: Duh. There you go. How about that? But I like how it shows sleep first and [00:02:00] then it's talking about exercise afterwards. And it's kind of like, it's reinforcing what we're saying about WWS. Walk, water, sleep. They're the basics, the foundations to get in place. Then we talk about exercise. Whereas the world focuses on exercise first.
[00:02:12] James Breese: Whereas, if you're not getting enough sleep, and you're doing too much exercise, or you're exercising well and not enough sleep, it's going to add more stress to the body, and it's going to have detrimental effects. Exactly, if you 
[00:02:20] Josh Kennedy: can't, it's great exercising, of course it is, but if you can't recover from that exercise, it's, it's kind of, it's kind of pointless, in a way.
[00:02:29] Josh Kennedy: You have to, you have to have the um, recovery, the amount of, Decent amount of sleep in order to allow your body to recover and adapt to the stress is the exercise stresses You're putting on it. So it is really important and I was thinking just before we started recording. What if it obviously for anyone?
[00:02:48] Josh Kennedy: Who is a business owner? It's really good information to know, you know increase your work productivity but any trainers out there listening who are wanting to maybe do health and wellness programs with [00:03:00] Um, with businesses, something that you should immediately focus on and perhaps not something that the business owners would, would even think about, but yeah, you can save the money and increase the staff's 
[00:03:12] James Breese: productivity.
[00:03:13] James Breese: It's, I think it's a great, it's, there's so many different levels to this, but also what I just, we're reading through the study as well. And it says, I mean, again, just for those guys listening to the audio version of this. So they looked at basically the relationship between 11 lifestyle habits related to smoking, exercise, diet, alcohol consumption, and sleep, and work performance segmented by gender.
[00:03:32] James Breese: So it's quite a good bounce over to look at, right? And the findings obviously indicated that insufficient sleep was most strongly related to poor work performance of both genders. Additionally, right, this is what I find interesting. It was noted that lifestyle habits such as slow walking speed, Current smoking and skipping breakfast are associated with lower work performance in men, whereas in women, habits such as fast eating speed are influential.
[00:03:58] James Breese: Now, [00:04:00] slow walking speed. Let's just talk about this, right? Because we've talked about WS all the time. WS isn't it? Exactly. And how you want to improve speed. That just stood out to me like a, I mean, like a sore thumb then. It's like, slow walking speed? Well, that's why we do the 20 minute walk test, which we've spoken about on the podcast before.
[00:04:15] James Breese: So. Again, fascinating little study. Nothing, nothing too groundbreaking here. But it just adds data to what we're already trying to say and trying to get across to people. And for those working with people, and who are maybe suffering badly in the workplace or in life in general, start with sleep. 
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[00:05:09] James Breese: com forward slash website today. 
[00:05:12] Josh Kennedy: Yeah, exactly. Start with sleep and the, um, the skipping breakfast one, because obviously intermittent fasting is. Very, very popular, and there are, I think there are a lot of arguments out there which suggest that for, people seem to think it improves their performance, but not according to this study.
[00:05:30] Josh Kennedy: Now obviously, everyone is different, but it suggests that in men, It perhaps isn't a great idea when we're talking about performance in work Again, I find that very interesting. Who 
[00:05:41] James Breese: knows? I'll give you another compliment today josh. That's a great little study you found. So well done you oh, thank you 
[00:05:48] Josh Kennedy: It's three in two days.
[00:05:49] Josh Kennedy: Listen to the podcast. Don't know that you gave me two compliments yesterday, which is very out of the ordinary
[00:05:58] Josh Kennedy: And there was another let's go on to [00:06:00] the um If you've got your breakdown open as well, James, uh, the, the email that came through from OPEX talking all about sleep as well, which I found, uh, found really interesting. It's like, how much sleep do we need? You know, what is optimal? And obviously as a baby, you need a lot of sleep, you know, 15, 16 hour, whatever it is.
[00:06:21] Josh Kennedy: But apparently after the age of 18, it sort of plateaus and then slowly, um, declines over, over the years, which, which I find interesting. So as you get old into your old age, that's why, that's why old people get up early. They don't need as much sleep, apparently. I don't know. 
[00:06:38] James Breese: Really? Is that, is that the 
[00:06:40] Josh Kennedy: case?
[00:06:40] Josh Kennedy: That's what it, yeah, that's what it says, apparently. I mean, I think, you know, the general recommendation is still for adults, seven to nine hours, isn't it? Is a good amount. And we always tell our clients to aim for seven hours. But not only that, it's about sleep quality as well, isn't it? Yeah. How's your, [00:07:00] um, how's your sleep quality being?
[00:07:01] Josh Kennedy: Cause there are, again, there are, we're going to do a podcast about this, about, um, things that can help you improve your sleep and sleep quality as well. I thought, um, so we'll come on to that, but, uh, obviously like we know, eating late at night, as it says affects sleep, alcohol affects sleep, of course, illness affects sleep, et 
[00:07:18] James Breese: cetera.
[00:07:19] James Breese: Yeah. Well, exactly. I was, it was hence I'm wearing my Rexham beanie today. Like I've been ill, I've had the man flu all week. So I've really struggled. So my sleep quality has been awful, like literally awful and I keep waking up and it's, it's just a nightmare. So I, I, my work performance this week has completely dived in a time when I need to be working hard, like it's completely dived.
[00:07:42] James Breese: So it's, you know, but obviously illness is coming into that factor as well here. 
[00:07:47] Josh Kennedy: But also I think it's important to point out, so maybe your work performance has suffered a little bit, but we've taken you off training on purpose. We're still focused on good quality diet. Yep, we've taken the train away, which is [00:08:00] I think some people be like, oh my god, I've got a train.
[00:08:02] Josh Kennedy: I've got a train got train That's just gonna make things worse. Yeah, it's a good point. I see on the body's gonna make things worse 
[00:08:07] James Breese: It's a good point. So the exactly what I've done. So I came I was on Thursday last week So it's been a week now since I've been since I've been like this at life as my last train I thought I don't feel right here.
[00:08:17] James Breese: So I did a mixed modal session. I was like, yeah, this is hard and it should be And then Friday came up, and I was like, oh yeah, I don't feel right. And then Saturday I was in bed all day, Sunday I was in bed all day, with just the horrendous man flu. And I've been like that all week, so I just shut down. So, but the interesting thing, I weighed in this morning actually, Josh.
[00:08:34] James Breese: So I weighed in at 69. 8 kilos this morning. So I've maintained my weight all week. I've just been more conscious of how much calories I'm consuming. So I haven't fasted at all this week, because I've been doing this experiment, for those who aren't aware of what's happening. But, it's because I wanted to keep eating to help try and fight off this, but I've dropped my calories down because my energy expenditures are low down, like, Saturday, Sunday, I had like 400 steps to my name, or something [00:09:00] stupid like that.
[00:09:01] James Breese: I've had a few light walks to get out of the house and get clear my head, but nothing too much of that, so, but yeah, work. Has dipped, but it's due to illness, but also sleep. Man, I'm, I'm missing sleep right now. Yeah, 
[00:09:12] Josh Kennedy: exactly. It's all about, it's all about sleep. It's all about the WWS walking quickly, keeping up that walking speed.
[00:09:18] Josh Kennedy: Um, we will link to the study, shall we, James, in the, in the show notes so you can have a look at it, uh, for yourself. But, uh, hope you found this interesting. We will do another podcast all about sleep. Um. Habits and behaviors to help you improve your sleep, but that is it for today Please don't forget to rate review and subscribe and if you want to find out more about our system of training go to strength matters calm forward slash system