New York SBDC Research Network

From ThomasNet : Recently unveiled during the National Safety Council’s Congress and Expo this week, are findings showing how a lack of proper rest is hurting the competitive efforts of U.S. companies. The research was conducted by the National Safety Council and Brigham Health Sleep Matters Initiative. The report’s findings show that a company with 1,000 workers stands to lose $1.4 million annually due to absenteeism, diminished productivity, and healthcare costs stemming from tired employees. A key point of the survey is the growing number of these individuals with undiagnosed and untreated sleep disorders. These conditions contribute significantly to the $80 million in fatigue-related costs that can accrue on an annual basis for the average Fortune 500 company. Additional data can be obtained by utilizing an online resource correlating with the research, entitled the Fatigue Cost Calculator for Employees .

While the old adage of “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” might conjure images of a John Wayne-esque steely resolve, ignoring sleep flat out is a horrible idea. Headlines nowadays are filled with information about sleep deprivation killing everything from your productivity to your moods, and with that, the notion of sleep being for the weak has fallen out of vogue. The jury is in: Skimp on sleep, and you pay the price. But how much—and how well—do you need to sleep to feel rested, recharged, and ready to tackle all of the challenges an entrepreneur faces in everyday life? Read more at: liveplan

I’ve been feeling really tired lately. It’s that tired feeling that drags on for days and days until you finally give in and have a real rest from work (I’ve planned a week off in October). Trying to work on projects that require lots of thought, mental clarity, and—I can’t even think of the word I want, because I’m tired, which proves my point: It’s hard to do good work when you’re tired. But there’s a lot of nuance to how sleep affects our work. Read more from BPLANS

From MoneyWatch : Your alarm is set for 6 a.m., but every morning you hear it blaring and hit snooze. Nine minutes later, you hit snooze again, and again, until your back-up alarm goes off and you get out of bed a bit after 6:40, groggy and pretty sure that planned workout isn't going to happen before you need to leave the house by 7:15. Is there any way to break this cycle? Sure... The key is to realize that if you really can't pull yourself out of bed at the time you intend to get up, you're probably not getting enough sleep. So you sleep in -- but not in a way that's helpful (snooze button sleep is pretty much useless). [And evil.]

I think the reasons why so many New Year's resolutions bite the dust is a lack of energy (and not a lack of will). By the end of the work day, after the caffeine has worn off, I don't have the drive to get to the gym, nor the wherewithal to take the time to make a better meal. As I've written before , we all could use a bit more sleep - specifically, an afternoon nap. It's not an idle fantasy (except, perhaps, in the mind of Jim King). Here's a website that advocates the services of Dr. Sara Mednick, who founded a consultancy called Take a Nap as a means of spreading her belief that American work productivity can be improved by brief power naps in the afternoon. She states that companies annually lose millions of dollars in absenteeism, illness, and just plain dopiness caused by employees who are too zoned out to get things done efficiently throughout the work day. If you live in the metro New York area, you could duck out mid-day and visit Yelo . This company ...

How's your brain feeling today? Right now, at 10:30 in the morning, mine is a bit sluggish. When asked "How are you?" by coworkers first thing in the morning, "tired" is the word I've used the most. No different today. I need more sleep. A fellow named John Medina would agree. He wrote a book called Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. In it, he puts forth his 12 rules for a better brain. Most of the rules are pretty obvious: exercise more, eat better, get more sleep. However, he's built a website where he lays out the science behind each of them - how a portion of your brain is physically influenced by external factors. For instance, regular exercise stimulates a part of the brain related to the thalamus, which aids in memory. A lack of sleep hinders your attention span, promotes moodiness, and impacts your logical reasoning. Your brain will better retain new information if exposed to it repeatedly. And so...