IN MY OPINION ... MAKE SLEEP YOUR PRIORITY

ONE of the simplest, but most important, things we can do for our health — something we too often overlook — is to get enough sleep. Sleep is not only just as important as diet and exercise for good health, but it is also the bedrock on which the other two rest, according to Professor Matthew Walker, a leading sleep expert and neuroscientist based at the University of California.

Thanks to advances in scanning technology, our knowledge about what happens while we sleep has progressed in leaps and bounds.

And the research has given insight into the damaging effects of a lack of shut-eye, from impairing the immune system to contributing to the development of dementia and possibly depression, diabetes and infertility.

I mentioned this in passing last week, but I think it really is worth stressing again: what multiple studies have shown is that we need eight hours’ sleep a night, unimpaired by caffeine, falsified by sleeping pills or damaged by alcohol intake. In other words, it must be natural sleep.

Quite apart from its effect on mental and physical wellbeing, research has shown that reduced sleep time — perhaps not surprisingly — affects our ability to work, causing a slower work rate, lack of satisfaction at work and lower productivity. The damaging effects of too little sleep are equally evident in leaders and senior managers as on the shop floor.

Yet, in our society, we value employees who cut themselves short on sleep in order to get to work early, and who stay late beyond their contracted hours.

Anyone who believes they can cut themselves short on sleep during the working week and catch up at the weekend will be disappointed: research tells us that the damage is done by sleep deprivation at the time. Nature doesn’t allow us a sleep ‘overdraft’ to pay off a sleep debt later.

So, if there is one thing you do this year for your health, make it getting enough sleep.