Today we officially announced our partnership with Optisom. Optisom created ProjectZ, a comprehensive digital sleep solution aimed at fighting the sleep deprivation epidemic to help employees become well rested, healthier, happier, safer and more productive in the workplace.
Here’s a post from our new partner, Optisom.
It’s Monday morning, and although you’d like to imagine that your team spent the weekend getting the rest they needed to gear up for another demanding week, the opposite is likely true. The reality is that many employees spend their weekend catching up on family responsibilities and errands, leaving them deflated and weary before the week begins.
Your inventory of the Monday morning conference table likely summons up images of bleary-eyed employees pouring a third cup of coffee to stay awake, or blotting away the cold symptoms they’ve been unable to kick.
According to the National Institutes of Health, an estimated 50 to 70 million Americans are affected by the “serious and common” problems of chronic sleep loss and sleep disorders. This affects, “morbidity, mortality, productivity, accidents and injuries, quality of life, family well-being and health care utilization.”
Daytime sleepiness is the “foremost symptom of sleep loss and most sleep disorders” and it affects performance and cognition. The NIH also notes that, “the annual direct and indirect costs of sleep problems reach well beyond $100 billion.”
We know that good sleep is essential to good health. The Sleep Research Society believes health is a multidimensional concept, based in:
- Sleep duration
- Sleep continuity (how quickly you fall asleep or get back to sleep after waking up)
- Alertness/sleepiness
- Satisfaction/quality of sleep
In the short term, sleep helps people feel focused and energized, better able to concentrate on the tasks and information at hand and creatively problem solve while at work. Rested employees feel good about themselves, have fewer problems at home, and they have stronger interpersonal relationships in the workplace with colleagues, administers and clients.
Simply put: When your employees enjoy these components, your company stands to benefit.
When you invest in your employees’ health, you help your organization stay in the game. Your employees function best when they’re well-rested. They’re sick less often and recover more quickly, they require less medical care, they’re more energetic and creative, they’re better problem solvers — and they’re happier and more able to sustain positive, meaningful relationships.
Sleep comes first, there’s no doubt about it. Whether you take a financial, organizational or philosophical viewpoint, the payoff is the same: your company benefits.