Most people don’t get enough sleep, often saying they have too much to do. As this article explains, getting enough sleep is essential to being productive and efficient throughout the day.

Most people in this era of too many choices and too much information, including you, are not getting the 8 hours of sleep that they need each night. So, the question is, “Can you really catch up on sleep?” The answer is yes and no. If you've been depriving yourself of sleep for three years, you can't add back the hours you missed to support the continuing need you face each day.

If you've gypped yourself of sleep for a prolonged period, devoting the next month to giving yourself all the sleep you can get will put you in fine shape. The body is forgiving. Ex-cigarette smokers know this. Even after years of abusing their lungs, once they've stopped, smokers' lungs begin to cleanse themselves. Ten years of abuse can be greatly diminished in one year. Your body reacts similarly with chronic under-sleeping.

Habit-Forming

Getting enough sleep, like engaging in any other healthy practices, is a habit. Albert Gray, a successful businessman of yesteryear once said, "Every single qualification of success is acquired through habit. Men [and women] form habits and habits form futures. If you do not deliberately form good habits, then unconsciously you will form bad ones."

Honestly, sleep deprivation is a bad habit that you've developed. I know all the excuses and rationalizations. You have a lot to do--but you'll get it done more effectively and efficiently with sufficient sleep.

Here are several suggestions to develop or perhaps redevelop the habit of getting sufficient sleep:

* Let others know about your new-found quest--family members who might otherwise impede your progress.

* One weekend day per month, linger longer in the morning before getting up. Some people call this sleeping in.

* Anytime you're traveling out of town for work, give the TV remote control to the front desk. Get sleep when you are on the road. You can't afford to be wheeling the dial at 11 or 12 at night.

* Schedule extra sleep anytime you're on vacation. An extra thirty to forty-five minutes can make all the difference.

* Recognize that, though at first you may have to force yourself to get into bed--especially if it's 9:00 or 9:30 on a weekday evening and you'd rather be up and around--the opportunity to get precious sleep is just too great.

I remember the first day I started working in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C., for a management consulting firm. At the end of the day, heading west on M Street towards the Key Bridge to get to Arlington, Virginia, there was no break in traffic. After eight solid minutes, without there being an opening for me to make a left-hand turn, I concluded that there wasn't going to be an opening--no matter how patient, respectful, or how much in need I was.

I learned a hard and fast rule--if I was going to get home, I was going to have to make my break. I had to take the initiative. You have to take the opportunity to get the rest you need. Get to bed early tonight.

Too Little Sleep and Your Effectiveness

In his book The Body in Time, author Kenneth Rose says that each part and function of your body is timed, each has its own rhythm. This includes your heartbeat, breathing, speaking, even hiccuping. If you sleep too little for too long, you disrupt well-developed cycles that took millions of years to evolve.

Rose also found that every bodily function has its own basic rhythm, which is controlled internally. Each body function is reset every 24 hours to parallel the natural light cycle of the day. You are subject to this circadian rhythm. Trying to alter your bodily rhythm for a prolonged period can be contrary to your physiology. If you stay up too late one evening, you borrow from the next day. For proper functioning, you need to get the right amount of sleep most days.

When you are sleep-deprived, you incur changes in brain waves and cannot be as effective. Your immune system and mental skills decline when you habitually get less sleep.

Moore-Ede found that there are certain times of the day in which it's important for you to be asleep. The lowest alertness in the day is between 2:00 and 5:00 a.m. Your highest alertness is between 9:00 a.m. and noon, and from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. Your alertness varies due to hours of consecutive work, hours of work in the preceding week, your regular hours, monotony on the job, the timing and duration of your naps, lighting, sound, aroma, temperature, and cumulative sleep deprivation.

Jeff Davidson is "The Work-Life Balance Expert®," is a preeminent time management authority, has written 56 mainstream books, and is an electrifying professional speaker, nearly 800 presentations since 1985 to clients such as Kaiser Permanente, IBM, American Express, Lufthansa, Swissotel, America Online, Re/Max, USAA, Worthington Steel, and the World Bank. Jeff is Executive Director of the Breathing Space? Institute; a popular speaker; and the author of numerous books, including:

• Simpler Living (Skyhorse Publishing)
• The 60 Second Innovator (Adams Media)
• Breathing Space (MasterMedia)
• Complete Idiot's Guide to Managing Your Time (Alpha/Penguin)

Jeff has been widely quoted in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, and USA Today. Cited by Sharing Ideas Magazine as a "Consummate Speaker," Jeff believes that career professionals today in all industries have a responsibility to achieve their own sense of work-life balance, and he supports that quest through his websites www.BreathingSpace.com and www.Work-LifeBalance.net and through 24 iPhone Apps at www.itunes.com/BreathingSpaceInstitute.