Twinkle, twinkle little star

I used to be a sleep procrastinator. I would stay up several hours after my children went to bed and either watch TV, scroll on my phone or read a book. I would head to bed around 11 p.m., fall asleep close to midnight and wake up at 5:45 a.m. Everyone knows that isn’t enough sleep, and I was miserable.

According to “Real men go to sleep,” an article by Alan Derickson published in Harvard Business Review, about 30% of U.S. workers get less than 6 hours of sleep per day. In the roofing industry, this lack of sleep among your workforce could cost them their lives.

Derickson writes: “Lost sleep impairs decision-making capability, undercuts productivity and contributes to expensive adverse health effects, including elevated risks of cardiovascular and gastrointestinal conditions.”

No one wants an overtired torch applicator or safety inspector on job sites, for example. One yawn with closed eyes could result in serious injury or worse.

My guess is you and your workers could benefit from better sleep hygiene, and Harvard Medical School offers the following tips:

• Create a comfortable sleep environment, which includes keeping a room dark and cool, and consider turning on white noise
• Make a sleep schedule that allows seven to nine hours per night of sleep
• Follow a bedtime routine
• Consume your last meal of the day at least three hours before bedtime, and avoid alcohol and nicotine

Once I started improving my sleep hygiene, I realized how much better I felt during the day. I now begin my bedtime routine at 8:45 p.m. and am asleep most nights by 9:45 p.m. And I try to keep that same routine even on weekends whenever possible to make the transition back into the workweek easier.

As Tom Brady said: “Sleep is all about recovering. So if you’re not sleeping, you’re not recovering. And if you’re going to break your body down a lot, you better find ways to build it back up. And the only way to do that is get a lot of sleep.”

AMBIKA PUNIANI REID is editor of Professional Roofing and NRCA’s vice president of communications.