According to a new study, sleep loss can affect your productivity more than you think

Do you find that your day is greatly affected by sleeping a little later than usual the night before? Well, a new study seems to show that you are not alone. According to researchers at the University of South Florida, sleep loss harms productivity the next day.

The study – which was published in Sleep health – investigated 130 middle-aged employees who work at I.T. and had at least one child currently attending school.

During eight consecutive days, participants were asked to indicate the time they went to bed, when they woke up, how long they slept and how well they slept. They were also asked how often they had thoughts distracted or distracted during the day. Answers were given on a four point scale, where zero means "never" and four means "very often".

Sleeping just 16 minutes less at night was linked to poor judgment and lower productivity. They also showed an increase in the level of stress, which led to a call to bedtime and waking up earlier. A similar amount of "cognitive interference" was also observed when respondents woke up 19 minutes earlier than usual. However, the negative impact only occurred on weekdays. At weekends, these effects were less obvious.

"These cyclical associations reflect the fact that employee sleep is vulnerable to daily cognitive stress and also contributes to cognitively stressful experiences," said Soomi Lee, lead author of the study and assistant professor at the School of Information. Aging Studies from the School of Aging Studies.

She added that the study's findings provide some evidence "of why workplaces need to do more to help their employees sleep well." Good sleepers can perform better at work. because of their greater ability to stay focused and task, with fewer mistakes and interpersonal conflicts. "

The number of hours for which you should sleep is not clear. The National Sleep Foundation states that the appropriate sleep duration varies according to age. For children of school age, it is between nine and eleven o'clock. This decreases between 8 and 10 hours for teenagers. It continues to reduce the aging you get. Young adults should sleep between seven and nine hours each night, while older adults can only take seven to eight hours.

As Healthline reports, factors such as genetics and sleep quality can affect these times. If you sleep well all night, you may feel well after six hours, for example. But if you wake up constantly, you may need more time.

To avoid feeling tired, you must make sure your body goes through the complete sleep cycle, the consultative organization The Sleep Council announced. It is divided into four stages. Slow Sleep (NREM) consists of three parts that deepen over time. The final step is paradoxical sleep; the part where you can dream.

Each part of the cycle lasts about 90 minutes. Do the math to conclude that you should be sleeping for at least six hours so that your body and mind feel revitalized in the morning.

So, next time you want to watch another episode of your favorite Netflix series, maybe come back to your decision. You will thank yourself the next day.