Everyone wishes they could get more done in a day, but there are extenuating circumstances, personal weaknesses, and sometimes, random factors that get in the way of us achieving our highest levels of productivity. You might experience a bit of extra stress, give in to a few extra distractions and deal with a finnicky internet connection on any given day, but there’s one factor that rises above the others in terms of its collective role in sabotaging our productivity — and it’s costing us a cumulative $411 billion in productivity losses.
SLEEP DEPRIVATION IS HURTING OUR ECONOMY
RAND Europe, a non-profit organization, realized what most of us know intrinsically—bad sleep habits have a negative impact on work performance — but researchers wanted to quantify the effects. They found that a person who, on average, sleeps less than 6 hours a night has a 13 percent higher risk of mortality than a counterpart sleeping 7 to 9 hours a night.
On top of that, they found that the United States was the global leader in economic losses from bad sleep habits, losing approximately 2.92 percent of its total GDP due to sleep deprivation. That’s a whopping $411 billion of lost productivity, or approximately 1.2 million working days per year.