Insights from the Priory – part 3: the importance of good sleep and why mindfulness matters

In our third and final blog following our expert briefings on mental health at the Priory last month, we look at the importance of good sleep and why mindfulness matters.

Anyone who has struggled into work after a poor night’s sleep (which is probably most of us at one time or another) will know just how debilitating it is. Aside from feeling terrible, we suffer from poor concentration, lack of focus and lapses in memory.

Generally speaking, we can recover easily enough if this is a one-off occurrence. But for people who regularly suffer from inadequate or poor quality sleep, the condition seriously affects moods and performance. In jobs where concentration is paramount for safety, insomnia can be life-threatening.

At our mental health briefing at the Priory in London, renowned sleep coach and speaker Beatrix Schmidt (pictured right) shared some background about her own personal battle with insomnia. This led to 10 years of research and the formulation of an approach she describes as The Sleep Deep Method.

The impact of insomnia

Beatrix defined insomnia as: ‘difficulty getting to sleep or staying asleep long enough to feel refreshed the next morning for a prolonged period of time.’

The consequences of this at work are startling (based on 2016 research).

• An estimated 200,000 working days are lost each year.
• This costs the UK economy £40bn.

What can employers do?

Managing sleep is not a simple, one-size-fits-all formula. Changes may need to happen in different areas of a person’s life, including the physical, emotional, social, intellectual, environmental, occupational and even spiritual dimensions. Finding the right combination of factors to improve sleep may be a personal discovery.

However, employers can educate their staff on basic ‘sleep hygiene’, so that they understand:

• what ‘enough sleep’ means
• how to create the right bedroom environment
• what a pre-sleep routine looks like
• that good sleep is about quality as well as quantity.

Employers can also encourage people to switch off their electronic devices as part of the switching off process, or as part of incorporating a healthy pre-sleep routine. More exercise during the day may also help to improve sleep.

Find out more with our sleep workshop.

The mindful way to wellbeing

According to Counselling Psychologist and mindfulness expert Christos Papalekas, we make a number of the unhelpful assumptions around the subject of happiness. To live and work mindfully, it might help to bust a few of these myths. For example:

• happiness is ‘normal’ and mental suffering is not – so if we’re not happy, we’re defective in some way
• we should be able to control what we think and feel
• happiness and success go hand-in-hand
• we must get rid of negative feelings.

If you relate to these ideas, then like most of us, you’re influenced by conventional thinking here in the Western world.

From a mindfulness perspective, thoughts and feelings change all the time, as do circumstances. If we try to bend our lives so they match a particular fixed idea of what they should be, far from finding happiness, we’re much more likely to create misery.

What is mindfulness?

Getting rid of the tyrannical need to be happy is, paradoxically, a much better way of generating wellbeing, and mindfulness can help. Mindfulness means paying attention to thoughts, feelings and experiences as they happen, in the present moment, without judgement. It’s a quality of consciousness characterised by acceptance of what is happening here and now.

Why does the mind find this difficult?

• We spend 70% of our time planning and organising our next step.
• We can process up to 70,000 thoughts in a 24-hour period.
• 80% of our thinking is repetitive.
• Worry is addictive.

So it takes a lot of practice to break these ingrained mental habits, but it can be done.

Mindfulness at work

During a busy working day, it can be particularly hard to be mindful. But there’s an increasing body of neuroscientific evidence nowadays which suggests that mindfulness affects the brain in ways that improve health, concentration, the ability to solve problems and manage interpersonal relationships. Far from being an esoteric fad, mindfulness training can really benefit business.

It’s not something that can be learned from a book. Training is partly theoretical, but has a strong emphasis on practical, experiential techniques. Try giving employees a taste of this important life skill and see how boosts performance.

About PES

Delivering a great employee experience is a challenge for growing organisations. At PES, it’s what we do. Our online employee benefits platform, HR support and workplace wellbeing services bring out the best in your employees – enabling your business to thrive.

Call us on 01454 808658, email us at hello@wearepes.co.uk or fill in our enquiry form.