What makes you productive? Is it hard work, long hours, and multiple cups of coffee to keep going? That’s doing more harm than good, says Dr. Shane Creado with the Daniel Amen clinic in Chicago.
Creado is a board-certified psychiatrist and sleep medicine physician who studies the connection between sleep and mental health. Mark Johnson, Chief Executive Officer at JPAR Real Estate, interviewed Creado for his YouTube show “Success Superstars.”
“People I talk to, they work 12 hours straight and they don’t take a break,” says Johnson, a former success coach for real estate coach Tom Ferry. “They feel like they’ve done a lot, but they’re physically exhausted for their family at night.”
That exhaustion isn’t as innocuous as dozing on the couch after dinner. Both your brain’s frontal lobes, which control personality, and the temporal lobes, which control emotions, become impaired.
“If your brain is tired or sleepy, deprived of what it needs to recover properly, your brain essentially functions the same as if you had a few alcoholic beverages,” Creado told Johnson. “The frontal lobes that help you with rational thinking, concentration, executive functioning, and processing speed, they basically shut down. Your temporal lobes, which help you with memory, new learnings, and emotional stability, also shut down.
“Your judgment is impaired, your reaction times are impaired, you can’t pick up on social cues, and you cannot articulate effectively. You’re more irritated, more frustrated, and more angry,” Creado said.
Instead, the key to peak performance is prioritizing the health of your brain with three pillars: Optimal sleep, healthy nutrition, and regular exercise.
“If your pillars of brain health work right, you work right and your brain works right,” Creado says.
Takeaways
“Your brain is like a muscle. It needs rest and recovery just like your muscles,” Creado says.
A NASA study concluded a 26-minute nap can boost your reaction times, performance, and alertness by 34 to 54 percent.
“The more mental activity or physical activity you’re doing, the more recovery time you need.”
“People who don’t take at least three weeks of vacation every year have a 37 percent increase in mortality.”
You are what you eat, right? “Gut health is intimately related to brain health,” Creado says. “The gut produces 75 percent of your neurotransmitters. If your gut is not working properly, [for example] if there’s inflammation or food sensitivities you’re not aware of, your gut is not going to be able to absorb the nutrients you need for your brain to make its neurotransmitters and its hormones.”
