How long can someone go without the proper amount of sleep? Sleep is essential to quality time. One can always be awake, but being alert and productive is more important. Woody Allen once said that 90 percent of success is just showing up. That’s not true. One can always be on time and never miss a day, but eventually people will demand contribution, useful contribution. Otherwise you might as well not be there because even though you are physically there you are not there.
I work at least 40 hours a week on a good week. Well a bad week. As an hourly employee the more I work the more I get. If I work over 40 hours a week I get overtime; time and a half pay for each hour of work. That’s where I want to be because I work off tips so my weekly check usually isn’t worth a trip on my off-day to pick it up. When I do 50-65 hours a week, I’ll make the trip, but that usually isn’t necessary because if I am working 50-65 hours a week I’m at my job every day.
Between school and work I don’t have much time to do anything else, even when I want to. I usually don’t want to do anything because I’m tired. That last time I didn’t have any responsibilities for the day, no school or work, I sleep and laid in the bed all day, all day. I wanted to go out and run errands, but I couldn’t my body needed a day off. Caffeine and nicotine is a short-term cure for tiredness, but the long-term cure is rest.
But when do I rest? When I have responsibilities to fulfill, when do I take time to have 8 hours of sleep? The answer is when I cannot go any longer, when my tiredness turns into exhaustion. I’m young so I have the belief that I don’t need 8 hours of sleep, and I don’t. I can do a double shift at work, get home at 1am, toss around in the bed until 2 am, and then wake up at 6am-7am and make my way to school for my 8am class. I knew that I would tired for class and subsequently at work because of my limited amount of sleep, but I never considered when I would reach exhaustion. The point when the body aches and the mind can’t focus on anything but day dreams because ultimately the mind wants to dream; being unconscious while conscious.
We all have are limits and usually we don’t know them until we reach them. I’ve awoken to my limits. The point where your health is at risk because your not taking care of yourself; drinking coffee and Redbull chain smoking cigarettes to complete a task while taking your body to task. Sometimes you need to shut down. Instead of constantly being on the go, slow down and rest. That may mean that you show up less than 90 percent of the time, but when you are there you are there: alert and productive.