Sleep Is the Cheapest Performance Enhancer You Are Not Taking Seriously

I have spent ten years writing about health. The single intervention I would prescribe to almost anyone, almost always, is more sleep. It outperforms most things you can buy, supplement, or biohack. It is free. It is not glamorous. So nobody wants to talk about it.

The studies on this are ridiculous in their consistency. Eight hours of sleep versus six, in randomized trials, reliably produces measurable improvements in mood, glucose tolerance, immune function, athletic performance, cognitive performance, and emotional regulation. There is no supplement on earth with this hit rate.

The Objections

"I do fine on six hours." You think you do. The data on people who self-report being fine on short sleep shows that almost all of them are not. The cognitive deficits accumulate even when subjective alertness has stopped tracking them.

"I cannot afford eight hours." This is the real one for most people. It is also the answer: you cannot afford not to. The hour of work you sacrifice for sleep returns more than the hour of work you would have done with a sleep deficit.

What Actually Works

The sleep hygiene checklist is everywhere and most of it is correct. The two things I would emphasize that most people skip: a consistent wake time on weekends, and giving up caffeine after 11am. Both are unromantic and both work.

Try it for six weeks. Measure how you feel before and after. Almost everyone reports improvement. Almost everyone is also surprised by how reluctant they are to keep doing it.