Couple of days ago I wrote about Sleep. Couple of days ago Larry Summers fell asleep in a big meeting. Larry is the key guy in Obama's Administration and is being seen as the saviour from financial Tsunami in US.
I picked up the below from a Business Blog.
And the White House press corps snapped a battery of photos to share that news around the world. Like most everyone, I suspect, I giggled at his embarrassing moment and wondered how those in the room felt about the doze.
We've all been in meetings when someone has dozed off. It usually means the person is either deeply disengaged, or more likely exhausted. Summers is clearly the latter, presumably driving himself round the clock, sleeping minimally, to unwind this crisis.
Good for him, some might say. These are trying times that demand leaders who would forgo rest to solve our problems.
No doubt, demonstrating insane stamina on the job is some kind of alpha dog badge of honor. Part of the idolatry of that subspecies of leader known as an NFL coach, for example, comes from their preposterous work habits. And I still recall an unnerving New York Times article from 1997 about various high profile business leaders (including Disney's current CEO Robert Iger, PR guru Howard Rubenstein, and then-book publisher Judith Regan), boasting about how little sleep they needed.
Unfortunately, the myth of the tireless leader is just that--a myth. The ugly truth about sleeplessness is that it's linked to obesity, diabetes, depression and, yes, increased mortality. Forgoing sleep doesn't make you a hero. It makes you ineffective.
I make better spot decisions when I've had a good night's sleep--and better decisions still, having thought about them over a good night's sleep. And I try to manage employees guided by my own experience. I don't want the new mother dragging herself back from maternity leave at six weeks if she's exhausted. I'd rather cope without her for a few more weeks and have her back "whole" and rested. I don't want people traveling on a red eye and heading straight into a busy day just so they won't "waste" the day.
In fact, getting that rest isn't a waste at all. They'll do better work. And you'll be a better leader for having let them sleep.
As for Summers, he should be well aware of the toll of running himself ragged. Neil Rudenstine, former president of Harvard University, was forced to take a leave of absence to deal with "exhaustion." What good will Summers be for helping sort out the crisis if he's forced to take a leave or collapses on the job?
Even if he survives this all, I'd feel better if he weren't debilitated by exhaustion as he makes decisions that will affect all of us for years to come.
Maybe Summers' impromptu nap shouldn't make us giggle so much as worry.
May be some people I know, should also read this, and go to bed early.
After all - "Early to bed and early to rise, may Jack healthy, wealthy & wise."
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Why Sleep Is So Important?
Why Sleep Is So Important
Many hard-charging managers pride themselves on their ability to work long hours and get by on 5 or 6 hours of sleep. But the truth is that they're shortchanging themselves -- and their companies.
"Sleep is not a luxury," says Dr. James O'Brien, medical director of the
When you sleep, your brain catalogues the previous day's experiences, primes your memory, and triggers the release of hormones regulating energy, mood, and mental acuity. To complete its work, the brain needs 7 to 8 hours of sleep. When it gets less, your concentration, creativity, mood regulation, and productivity all take a hit.
How sleep works
To understand why the right amount of shut-eye is so important to performance, it helps to know how sleep works.
Healthy sleep is divided into four-stage cycles. As we progress through stages 1 and 2, we become increasingly unplugged from the world until we reach the deep sleep that happens in stage 3. In deep sleep, both brain and body activity drop to their lowest point during the cycle, and blood is redirected from the brain to muscles.
The fourth and final stage is named for the rapid eye movement -- REM -- that is its defining characteristic. Our brains become busily active in REM sleep, too, even more so than when we are awake. Dreaming happens during this stage.
In a full night's sleep, we experience three or four such cycles, each lasting 60 to 90 minutes.
The work sleep does
Different yet equally important restorative work happens during deep sleep (stage 3) and REM sleep (stage 4).
Deep sleep is crucial for physical renewal, hormonal regulation, and growth. Without deep sleep, you're more likely to get sick, feel depressed, and gain an unhealthy amount of weight. According to the National Sleep Foundation's 2008 Sleep in America poll, those who sleep less than 6 hours per night on workdays are significantly more likely to be obese than those who sleep 8 hours or more (41% vs. 28%).
In REM sleep -- stage 4 in the sleep cycle -- the brain processes and synthesizes memories and emotions, activity that is crucial for learning and higher-level thought. A lack of REM sleep results in slower cognitive and social processing, problems with memory, and difficulty concentrating. The same 2008 sleep poll found that people who sleep less than 6 hours per night during the workweek are twice as likely as their better-rested colleagues to report difficulty in concentrating.
A deficit in sleep leads to deficits in work performance
Performing complex tasks and navigating complicated relationships -- the heart and soul of a manager's work -- both become much harder to do when REM sleep suffers. And when you cut back on sleep, your REM sleep suffers the most.
There are two reasons for this:
- Your brain, when confronted with sleep deprivation, opts for lighter sleep and hence less REM sleep.
- Later sleep cycles tend to have longer REM periods than cycles earlier in the night. When you sleep through only one or two cycles instead of three or four, your REM sleep is disproportionately affected.
When your brain is starved of REM sleep, concentrating on a single activity is challenging. Multitasking -- an inescapable bane of managerial work -- becomes exponentially more so.
A deficit of REM sleep also makes it tougher to pick up on nuances in discussions or negotiations.
"When you're trying to understand the subtext of what someone is saying, your brain needs to use a bunch of programs at the same time," says Dr. Gandis Mazeika, head of Sleep Medicine Northwest in
In addition, recent research shows that sleep deprivation takes a toll on decision-making ability.
Getting more from the sleep you get
Given the demands facing managers today -- working in a 24/7, always-on environment is a big one -- a full night's sleep is sometimes an impossible dream. Fortunately, there are ways to get more out of the time you do manage to spend in sleep:
- Avoid caffeine. Cut out caffeinated coffee, tea, and soda ideally 1 hour before bedtime -- and chocolate, too. When you sleep, make it a commitment.
- Try to nod off quickly. To fall asleep fast, you can occasionally use a sleeping supplement. But be careful. For example, the much-prescribed Ambien is specifically for sleeping seven to eight hours. If you don't have that much time, don't use it. Although some antidepressants can help you feel drowsy enough to fall asleep, they also tend to compromise REM, says Dr. O'Brien. A more healthful approach for some is to meditate a half-hour before hitting the bed.
- Darken the room completely. Your brain creates a hormone called melatonin that senses when it's dark out and primes you for sleep. If you try to sleep amid too much light, your brain may decide you're not ready for bedtime after all. So turn off the TV, shut down the computer, turn the clock to the wall, and close the blinds tightly. Use an eye mask if you're sleeping during the daytime.
- Sleep in a restful environment. Make sure the room is quiet and your BlackBerry is out of hearing range. Sleep on a comfortable mattress; Dr. Mazeika advises you get a new one every five to 10 years.
Exploit the power of power naps
Don't forget that brief day-time naps can be helpful. If at all possible, close your office door (if you have one) and try to doze for 10 to 20 minutes.
"Power naps are real and help you feel refreshed," says Dr. O'Brien.
But keep the naps short, he warns. With a longer nap, you're likely to wake up while in deep sleep and feel worse than before. It can take up to 30 minutes to feel fully alert after awakening from deep sleep.
By keeping your nap to 10-20 minutes, you should be able to achieve stage 2 in the sleep cycle and wake up energized rather than groggy. A short power nap should provide enough of a boost to keep your performance going strong the rest of the day -- and is more effective (as well as healthier) than a cup of coffee.
Why Sleep Is So Important?
Why Sleep Is So Important
Many hard-charging managers pride themselves on their ability to work long hours and get by on 5 or 6 hours of sleep. But the truth is that they're shortchanging themselves -- and their companies.
"Sleep is not a luxury," says Dr. James O'Brien, medical director of the
When you sleep, your brain catalogues the previous day's experiences, primes your memory, and triggers the release of hormones regulating energy, mood, and mental acuity. To complete its work, the brain needs 7 to 8 hours of sleep. When it gets less, your concentration, creativity, mood regulation, and productivity all take a hit.
How sleep works
To understand why the right amount of shut-eye is so important to performance, it helps to know how sleep works.
Healthy sleep is divided into four-stage cycles. As we progress through stages 1 and 2, we become increasingly unplugged from the world until we reach the deep sleep that happens in stage 3. In deep sleep, both brain and body activity drop to their lowest point during the cycle, and blood is redirected from the brain to muscles.
The fourth and final stage is named for the rapid eye movement -- REM -- that is its defining characteristic. Our brains become busily active in REM sleep, too, even more so than when we are awake. Dreaming happens during this stage.
In a full night's sleep, we experience three or four such cycles, each lasting 60 to 90 minutes.
The work sleep does
Different yet equally important restorative work happens during deep sleep (stage 3) and REM sleep (stage 4).
Deep sleep is crucial for physical renewal, hormonal regulation, and growth. Without deep sleep, you're more likely to get sick, feel depressed, and gain an unhealthy amount of weight. According to the National Sleep Foundation's 2008 Sleep in America poll, those who sleep less than 6 hours per night on workdays are significantly more likely to be obese than those who sleep 8 hours or more (41% vs. 28%).
In REM sleep -- stage 4 in the sleep cycle -- the brain processes and synthesizes memories and emotions, activity that is crucial for learning and higher-level thought. A lack of REM sleep results in slower cognitive and social processing, problems with memory, and difficulty concentrating. The same 2008 sleep poll found that people who sleep less than 6 hours per night during the workweek are twice as likely as their better-rested colleagues to report difficulty in concentrating.
A deficit in sleep leads to deficits in work performance
Performing complex tasks and navigating complicated relationships -- the heart and soul of a manager's work -- both become much harder to do when REM sleep suffers. And when you cut back on sleep, your REM sleep suffers the most.
There are two reasons for this:
- Your brain, when confronted with sleep deprivation, opts for lighter sleep and hence less REM sleep.
- Later sleep cycles tend to have longer REM periods than cycles earlier in the night. When you sleep through only one or two cycles instead of three or four, your REM sleep is disproportionately affected.
When your brain is starved of REM sleep, concentrating on a single activity is challenging. Multitasking -- an inescapable bane of managerial work -- becomes exponentially more so.
A deficit of REM sleep also makes it tougher to pick up on nuances in discussions or negotiations.
"When you're trying to understand the subtext of what someone is saying, your brain needs to use a bunch of programs at the same time," says Dr. Gandis Mazeika, head of Sleep Medicine Northwest in
In addition, recent research shows that sleep deprivation takes a toll on decision-making ability.
Getting more from the sleep you get
Given the demands facing managers today -- working in a 24/7, always-on environment is a big one -- a full night's sleep is sometimes an impossible dream. Fortunately, there are ways to get more out of the time you do manage to spend in sleep:
- Avoid caffeine. Cut out caffeinated coffee, tea, and soda ideally 1 hour before bedtime -- and chocolate, too. When you sleep, make it a commitment.
- Try to nod off quickly. To fall asleep fast, you can occasionally use a sleeping supplement. But be careful. For example, the much-prescribed Ambien is specifically for sleeping seven to eight hours. If you don't have that much time, don't use it. Although some antidepressants can help you feel drowsy enough to fall asleep, they also tend to compromise REM, says Dr. O'Brien. A more healthful approach for some is to meditate a half-hour before hitting the bed.
- Darken the room completely. Your brain creates a hormone called melatonin that senses when it's dark out and primes you for sleep. If you try to sleep amid too much light, your brain may decide you're not ready for bedtime after all. So turn off the TV, shut down the computer, turn the clock to the wall, and close the blinds tightly. Use an eye mask if you're sleeping during the daytime.
- Sleep in a restful environment. Make sure the room is quiet and your BlackBerry is out of hearing range. Sleep on a comfortable mattress; Dr. Mazeika advises you get a new one every five to 10 years.
Exploit the power of power naps
Don't forget that brief day-time naps can be helpful. If at all possible, close your office door (if you have one) and try to doze for 10 to 20 minutes.
"Power naps are real and help you feel refreshed," says Dr. O'Brien.
But keep the naps short, he warns. With a longer nap, you're likely to wake up while in deep sleep and feel worse than before. It can take up to 30 minutes to feel fully alert after awakening from deep sleep.
By keeping your nap to 10-20 minutes, you should be able to achieve stage 2 in the sleep cycle and wake up energized rather than groggy. A short power nap should provide enough of a boost to keep your performance going strong the rest of the day -- and is more effective (as well as healthier) than a cup of coffee.
Queen of Heart
Queen Of Your Heart
I know you have lot of things to achieve,
Still I would say, “you will”, when you won’t believe.
Your scope of success is so big,
Your tensions are also realistic,
You think no one can think of how you feel,
But I feel you cannot think of how I deal,
With the feelings I have for you,
Despite of discord, your respect in my heart is always due.
You say you feel that I love you more but at times act suspicious,
How I may not protect, as for me you are so precious?
You rule my heart for being true soul and not by being smart,
But… I feel sorry for myself in failing to be ‘Queen of your heart’.
Why? Here is my reply.
My aim is to win your heart in a way that you cann’t think of being away,
Mind it, not by holding you tightly instead by being in your thoughts slightly,
Like the way you are in mine, but don’t worry I am still fine.
Yes, I am there in your mind but as a responsibility as everybody undertakes,
Not as a beloved for whom everything is done with a sense of love as all it takes.
I feel, you see the people and intuit the best in every way, as are they,
Also analyzing love philosophies of people and think of loving me in the best way.
Dear I have loved you and not them all.
Whether you succeed or you fall.
I know you are different but you don’t know it,
God will always be there for you; trust me a bit.
I know you feel free and happy when out with your friends,
Is it for the sake of friendship and enjoying life’s normal trend?
Else, is it for sparing yourself from responsibilities?
As it includes your struggles plus conflicts with me driving in more difficulties.
I wished for delightful things for us and I always keep juggling & trying,
Those moments of conflicts hurt a lot as they give sign that still you are not mine.
I would look forward for your silent promises in my lifetime,
That you are forever and ever mine.
I usually avoid telling this to you,
As again your feeling of being harassed is due,
But somehow wanted to make my heart clear,
Without fruitless arguments & shedding tears.
Just be the way you are & mark progress lines on your life chart,
And I’ll strive through life alongwith a desire to be ‘Queen of your heart’.
I know you will be you,
But that’s the way I am.
Love & Marriage
A student asks a teacher, "What is love?"The teacher said, "in order to answer your question, go to the wheat field and choose the biggest wheat and come back.
But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick."
The student went to the field, go thru first row, he saw one big wheat, but he wonders...may be there is a bigger one later.
Then he saw another bigger one... but may be there is an even bigger one waiting for him.
Later, when he finished more than half of the wheat field, he start to realize that the wheat is not as big as the previous one he saw, he know he has missed the biggest one, and he regretted.
So, he ended up went back to the teacher with empty hand.
The teacher told him, ".this is love.. you keep looking for a better one, but when later you realize, you have already miss the person...”
"What is marriage then?" the student asked.
The teacher said, "in order to answer your question, go to the corn field and choose the biggest corn and come back. But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick."
The student went to the corn field, this time he is careful not to repeat the previous mistake, when he reach the middle of the field, he has picked one medium corn that he feel satisfy, and come back to the teacher.
The teacher told him, "this time you bring back a corn... you look for one that is just nice, and you have faith and believe this is the best one you get... this is marriage."
But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick."
The student went to the field, go thru first row, he saw one big wheat, but he wonders...may be there is a bigger one later.
Then he saw another bigger one... but may be there is an even bigger one waiting for him.
Later, when he finished more than half of the wheat field, he start to realize that the wheat is not as big as the previous one he saw, he know he has missed the biggest one, and he regretted.
So, he ended up went back to the teacher with empty hand.
The teacher told him, ".this is love.. you keep looking for a better one, but when later you realize, you have already miss the person...”
"What is marriage then?" the student asked.
The teacher said, "in order to answer your question, go to the corn field and choose the biggest corn and come back. But the rule is: you can go through them only once and cannot turn back to pick."
The student went to the corn field, this time he is careful not to repeat the previous mistake, when he reach the middle of the field, he has picked one medium corn that he feel satisfy, and come back to the teacher.
The teacher told him, "this time you bring back a corn... you look for one that is just nice, and you have faith and believe this is the best one you get... this is marriage."
Friday, April 24, 2009
Relationship
One of the most difficult relationsips for a man to manage is his wife. We marry fantasies and then reach peak of fun and joy in the initial few days. Both parters are busy doing Brand Management for themselves and their respective families. Slowly the fantasies transition into realities. Difference of opinion emerge over Shopping Habits and Upbringing of children. My mother becomes better then your mother. My job becomes more important than your job. In the meanwhile children reach teenage. Now the focus shfts from finding faults in each other to our approach towards Parenting. You want to divorce but don't do it because it will have cause trauma for children.
Without even knowing you have crossed 40 years and then the next difference of opinion starts. House and Retirement. Social groups and religious beliefs.
Well this is where things become little more complex. You have attended relationship management training programs and leadership courses. None of that seems to be working in your relationship. What produces results does not work at home.
You need to unwind more often and Liquor bills start to increase.
Realtionship goes down the drain. In laws from both sides move in to provide Free of Charge (unsolicited) consultations. Children move out to Higher Studies. Home is quite. Silence is golden, but too much silence is deafening.
Now we are 55 years, have tea, lunch, walks together, but have different friends, different relegious circles, and watch different TV channels.
And then one day one of us dies, unfulfilled and incomplete. The other parter then grieves over what he/she could have done if only he/she would have lived for a few more years.
This relationship is the most complex and difficult.
I invite you to post your experinecs and comments.
Without even knowing you have crossed 40 years and then the next difference of opinion starts. House and Retirement. Social groups and religious beliefs.
Well this is where things become little more complex. You have attended relationship management training programs and leadership courses. None of that seems to be working in your relationship. What produces results does not work at home.
You need to unwind more often and Liquor bills start to increase.
Realtionship goes down the drain. In laws from both sides move in to provide Free of Charge (unsolicited) consultations. Children move out to Higher Studies. Home is quite. Silence is golden, but too much silence is deafening.
Now we are 55 years, have tea, lunch, walks together, but have different friends, different relegious circles, and watch different TV channels.
And then one day one of us dies, unfulfilled and incomplete. The other parter then grieves over what he/she could have done if only he/she would have lived for a few more years.
This relationship is the most complex and difficult.
I invite you to post your experinecs and comments.
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