Arianna Huffington talks about sleep and mental health

 

Arianna Huffington talks about sleep and mental health at the Qualtrics X4 Summit

 

 
By

 Herb Scribner @HerbScribner

 

Published: March 7, 2018 

 

 

 

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The Qualtrics X4 Summit kicked off Wednesday afternoon with a speech from Arianna Huffington, the creator of The Huffington Post.

Huffington, who launched The Huffington Post in 2005 and has since started a new company called Thrive, spoke to the summit crowd about why people need to build a better work-life balance and the dangers of too much time using technology.

Huffington said it’s important for people to get more sleep as well.

We’ve collected 21 quotes from Huffington about sleep deprivation, improving mental health and stepping away from technology:
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“Is this what success looks like? It is completely unnecessary. It actually comes from this illusion that we need to treat life in silos. And it comes from the dilution also that I am going to reduce what a good life is … and here we have reduced it to a successful life. We reduce success to two metrics: money and power/status. This is like trying to sit on a two-legged stool. Eventually, you will fall off.”
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“When we prioritize our well-being, everything else in our life gets better, including our products, including our performance at work, including our success.”
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“Right now we take better care of our smartphones than we take care of ourselves. I bet everyone here knows how much battery remains in their phones right now.”

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“Becoming perpetually tired had become the new normal.”

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“If you don’t learn to delegate as a leader, if you don’t trust your leadership team, you’re never going to have a star leadership team. No star leader is going to join you if you’re going to micromanage everything.”

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“You may say, ‘How come an entire country believes something false?’ That’s not unusual. Remember, for a long time we all believed that smoking was glamorous.”’

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“We need to stop talking about work-life balance. The two are completely integrated.”

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“We are becoming increasingly addicted to our technology devices.”

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“Right now, the cultural assumption is that you have to respond immediately, especially to text. If I don’t respond to texts immediately, I feel like someone is going to call 911. We need to change that.”

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“It’s becoming very hard to say no to all the barrage of information, the notifications. Imagine how hard it is for teenagers.”

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“Where we put our attention determines the quality of our life. It determines what we do. It determines everything.”

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“Technology has made it harder to connect with our own wisdom and to connect to a sense of wonder with the world.”

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“We can still take back our lives, take back controls.”

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“People wonder what’s going to happen with artificial intelligence. … For me the problem is not what’s happening to artificial intelligence, the problem isn’t what’s happening to augmented reality, I’m worried about what’s happening to humanity.”

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“It’s very hard to be resilient when we’re run down.”

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“Everyone talks about the importance of company cultures. But what does that really mean? It’s treating the company’s culture as a company’s immune system.”

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“One of the company’s cultures was working harder, longer and smarter. Well, longer and smarter are contradictory. There are certain diminished returns after certain hours of work.”

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“People who are burnt out are going to act out.”

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“The problem is not with stress. The problem is when stress becomes cumulative. … It leads to every disease, including diabetes.”

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“Remember what you’re grateful for, or simple consciously breathe. It will dramatically change the quality of your day.”

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“Our eulogies are made up of how we made people feel, what we added to other people’s lives, what made us laugh.”





 Link: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900012267/21-quotes-from-arianna-huffington-about-sleep-and-mental-health-from-quatrlics-x4-summit.html

Sleep deprivation hurts you–physically, emotionally, and even financially.

Arianna Huffington spoke at Dominican University of California, April 9, 2016 about her new book, The Sleep Revolution. 

In this book she delves into the life-changing new approach to sleep that is happening across the country. 

She identifies the many ways our cultural dismissal of sleep as time wasted undermines our health and decision-making.


Link: https://youtu.be/-qETsFcOXfU




06.10.16
your most productive self

Here’s Arianna Huffington’s Recipe For A Great Night Of Sleep


Sleep deprivation hurts you–physically, emotionally, and even financially. 

But it looks like we’re on the cusp of a sleep revolution. 

 
By Rina Raphael                         

The sleep deprivation crisis is real.

Arianna Huffington has been on a crusade to educate the public on the importance of sleep ever since she collapsed from exhaustion in 2007.

“The impact on our health is dramatic,” says the publisher of the Huffington Post, who is also launching a new health and wellness media startup called Thrive. 

“We have all the data now that shows how it affects every aspect of our health.” 

This includes everything from a suppressed immune system (it might be why you’re always getting a cold), hypertension (less snooze means a harder time processing stress), and obesity (the sleepy crave bad carbs and sugars).
 

“The irony is that a lot of people forego sleep in the name of productivity,” she points out. “But in fact our productivity is reduced substantially when we’re sleep deprived.”

“The irony is that a lot of people forego sleep in the name of productivity, but in fact our productivity is reduced substantially when we’re sleep deprived.”


The Case For A Good Night’s Sleep

Indeed, research shows our cognitive functions are impaired, so we are more likely to overreact. 

Our emotional intelligence is degraded, so we are more likely to be irritable–and there’s even research connecting sleep deprivation to mental health problems and depression.

“Yet the myth persists that we can do our jobs just as well on four or five or six hours of sleep as we can on seven or eight,” she stresses, calling it a modern delusion.
Your tech addiction is partially to blame.

In her new book The Sleep Revolution, Huffington traces sleep deprivation back to the Industrial Revolution, when humanity began “devaluing human beings and started depending on machines.” 

Keeping people working at all hours became normal, and now with the ubiquity of technology, it’s only become harder to separate from the office.

“It’s getting worse and worse because of our addiction to devices,” says Huffington. 

“Now with the digital revolution, we all have a hard time disconnecting from our technology and going to sleep.” That’s why many of us wake up in the middle of the night, reaching for the phone to immediately strike up a texting conversation or check the news.

“It’s getting worse and worse because of our addiction to devices.”

According to a recent study, 71% of Americans sleep next to their smartphones. “It makes it much harder to go back to sleep,” Huffington warns, since the blue light emitted acts as a stimulant. “[Our homes] are littered with beeping, vibrating, flashing screens.”

And it affects more than just our personal health. It affects the economy.

A loss of sleep not only impairs employees’ moods and diet, but also hinders productivity, creativity, and decision-making. In many fields, such as medicine or transport, sleep deprivation can mean life or death, but for most others, it generally means a subpar performance.

And a poor performance does nothing to help a company’s bottom line. 

Consider this: In the last year, the U.S. economy suffered more than 11 days in lost employee productivity, the equivalent of roughly $2,280. In total, that marks more than $63 billion due to absenteeism or presenteeism, which accounts for employees who are physically at work but mentally elsewhere. 

We are not a nation that can afford to waste more employee brain power to sleep deprivation.

 

 

The Sleep Revolution Is Upon Us


But there’s hope: We are living in “the golden age of sleep science.”

“The good news is that there’s a much greater awareness about the risks of sleep deprivation and the importance of sleep,” says Huffington, who just completed a tour about sleep across more than 300 U.S. college campuses. 

“We are seeing a huge response from millennials and people in the workplace.”

She credits a long list of multiple factors that are contributing to our increased awareness of the issue, specifically science that is taking the field more seriously. 

New findings repeatedly attest to sleep’s benefits, specifically how it maintains our brain functionality and clears toxic waste proteins that accumulate between brain cells during one’s day.
 

Add to this trove of research the popularity of sleep-tracking wearables, tech startups responding to consumer interest in sleep devices, or athletes publicly discussing how sleep improves their game. 

Employees are taking note–and our work culture is changing. Huffington recently found herself shocked when, while on a panel filled with other media executives, one declared that a chief of staff is expected to be available 24/7. 

While there are still those who boast and promote workplace exhaustion, Huffington sees the tide shifting.

But the sleep revolution is coming, starting with nap rooms, more flexible work hours, and business leaders who want to retain employees in a healthier environment.

As Huffigton sees it, sleep deprivation is “the new smoking.” 

It will soon be viewed by employers as a harm instead of a “badge of honor.” 

Like smoking, it took time for society to catch up on the science of how tobacco was killing us. 

“Now,” she says, “the perception is catching up with the science.”

She recalls one particular discussion with Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, who recently told her he now demands eight hours of rest. As he relayed to her, “If I make half of the decisions, but they’re 5% better, that’s better for Amazon.”

 

How To Sleep Like Arianna


There are steps you can take to get better sleep.

“People want an easy fix when they can’t sleep, like a pill,” explains Huffington, who doesn’t recommend pharmaceutical sleep aids. They often “lead to a lot of additional health problems.” Instead, the publisher prefers a more natural approach to the bedtime routine, stressing the importance of a dedicated transition to sleep.
 

Every night, she reserves a specific amount of time to wind down into her routine. 

First, she turns off all her devices 30 minutes prior to bedtime and escorts them outside of her bedroom. 

Next, she takes a hot bath, which “washes away the day, slows down my brain, and winds down my body.” 

She opts for dedicated pajamas instead of what she used to wear to bed–gym clothes–and only reads physical books that “have nothing to do with work” when she’s under the covers.

To top it all off, Huffington takes the time to write down three things she’s thankful for that day, giving the day a closing scene. 

Ending one’s day with positive thinking makes for better sleep, she says, and helps cut down on anxious dreams or midnight wakes.

But above all, it harkens back to her original message: 

“We need to make sleep something that’s welcoming.”

Link: https://www.fastcompany.com/3060801/heres-arianna-huffingtons-recipe-for-a-great-night-of-sleep

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