Co-founders are typically faced with the pressure to grow quickly above all else. This alone creates a great deal of stress, but other demands add to stress levels too:

• Critical decisions
• Time pressure
• Not enough information to make decisions
• Needing to wear multiple hats
• Needing to complete tasks you have never done before
• Being forced to choose output over perfection
• Complete more work than is humanly possible

Given the daily grind and the pressures that co-founders face on a regular basis, isn’t it essential to be as productive as possible? You are left with an important choice; work harder and longer or take care of your mind and body so that you can work smarter and be more efficient.

Total output is a product of hours worked and efficiency. It is tempting to work longer hours in order to get more done. You never know when the next meeting will be the one that makes the biggest difference and there is never enough time or resources to get everything done. Many business leaders choose to sacrifice sleep in order to expand the work day. You’ve heard it before, “You can sleep when you’re dead,” right? Elon Musk only sleeps 6 hours per night, and Tim Cook only 5 ¼ hours. Martha Stewart sleeps 4 hours per night. Robert Herjavec bragged, on his show Shark Tank, that he only sleeps 4 hours per night. Heck, President Trump is apparently so busy watching television that he only sleeps 3 to 4 hours per night. The social pressure to work harder and sleep less is inescapable. 

Sleeping less may be “cool” for CEOs and thought leaders, but at what cost? According to a UCSF study, people who sleep 6 hours or less are far less likely to build an immune response to vaccines than those who sleep at least 7 hours per night. The study also indicates that people who experience less sleep are generally at higher risk of contracting infectious disease. By the way, Warren Buffet reports getting 8 hours of sleep per night and Albert Einstein apparently needed 10 hours of sleep to function well.

Many business leaders like to say (and believe) that they are capable of less sleep without negative consequences and they don’t need the requisite 8 hours of sleep per night. In fact, genealogists have actually discovered a gene that allows some people to function well with fewer hours of sleep, called BHLHE41. The problem is, the gene is extremely rare. Dr. Thomas Roth at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit once said, “The number of people who can survive on five hours of sleep or less without any impairment, expressed as a percent of the population, and rounded to a whole number, is zero.” According to Dr. Mathew Walker in Why We Sleep, “No matter what you have heard or read in popular media, there is no scientific evidence we have suggesting that a drug, or device, or any amount of psychological willpower can replace sleep...neither naps nor caffeine can salvage more complex functions of the brain, including learning, memory, emotional stability, complex reasoning, or decision-making.”

Critical thinking and awareness is impaired
 

People don’t realize that their performance is impacted by less sleep. Sleep deprivation makes it more difficult to be fully alert and attentive, making it more difficult to receive information. We also lose our ability to access previously learned information. Our interpretation of events is also affected, making it more difficult to make good decisions and assess relevant data. Judgement becomes impaired. It would be one thing if we were aware of the ways in which we are affected by poor sleep, but unfortunately, studies have shown that we don’t realize when our performance is impaired. We believe that we are thinking, feeling, behaving, and remembering information normally. Even when we sleep less our confidence in our abilities remains the same.

Memory
 

Every founder wants to grow and learn as they step into increased responsibilities and leadership roles. Memory is highly affected by two kinds of sleep; REM (dream state), and Slow Wave (deep sleep). Researchers now know that during deep sleep we take short-term memories and process them into our long-term memory centers of the brain. Without deep sleep, we miss the opportunity to hold onto what we have learned the prior day. After only one poor night of sleep, we will no longer be able to capitalize on what was learned the day before. REM sleep helps to retain procedural memory - knowing how to do something. REM sleep also helps to extract emotion from our memories so that we aren’t overly affected by stress or mistakes that we may have made. This allows us to learn from our mistakes, without beating ourselves (or others) up. In order to get sufficient amounts of both REM and deep sleep, the National Sleep Foundation advises that healthy adults need between seven and nine hours of restful sleep, during the darkest hours of the night.

Relationships & mood
 

With all of these pressures and a strong desire to succeed, it is easy to let sleep suffer in the short-term for the hope of long-term success. Co-founders often sleep less by choice to get more done. Sometimes stress or excitement make it difficult to achieve restful and regenerative sleep. Sleep gets minimized in social contexts and the cost is often misunderstood. Sleep deprivation impacts mood even more than cognitive or motor performance. Sleep deprivation impacts our ability to control our emotional brain with our prefrontal cortex. Without that control, we often find ourselves over-reactive and emotional without the balance of logic and self-filtering. Add on the stress of launching a product or raising capital and disagreements between co-founders can quickly escalate and get out of hand. Not only does this affect our ability to collaborate with our co-founders, but it also affects our relationships with friends and romantic partners.   
 
Can you make up for lost sleep time? Can’t you just sleep in on the weekend, or sleep once the company becomes successful, or sleep when you die? When is enough enough? ...the next deal, the next cap raise, the next hire, etc. Does the pressure ever subside or does it only increase in importance as the company grows? Any short-term gains are bound to be quashed by long-term negative consequences - to the business, your co-founder relationship, and your overall health. Do yourself and your business a favor and make good quality sleep a priority for everyone in your organization.