I work in the live music business, and the cliche of sex, drugs and rock’n roll is still very common. At music conferences/festivals I hear many people bragging about the little amount of sleep they had last night. While I know for myself that I need a lot of sleep. How cool is that – NOT!
So I was very interested when I saw a Dutch article about sleep. People who don’t sleep enough, are grumpy, and also too optimistic and underestimate the dangers of their actions. Not sleeping enough for 4-5 days in a row puts you in a state comparable with drunkenness. And just as with drunkenness, you are not aware that you perform less. Than I found the BBC page that links sleep with sport. Top basketball players had to sleep for 10 (!) hours a night, for six weeks. Their shooting accuracy improved by 9% and they run faster. WOW! And another study confirms, that only 1-3% of the population has enough sleep with 5-6 hours a night. And out of 100 people who say that that’s enough sleep, it’s only true for 5 (!) of them.
7-9 hours of sleep are ‘normal’, also for people in the music business. I’ve nothing to be ashamed of, for getting enough sleep helps us to perform better, to take life in our own hands. Tonight it’s gonna get late again for me, one of my bands has their album presentation. Tomorrow I’m probably grumpy. I’ll try to treat myself with kindness and patience. And I don’t believe the bragging anymore!
Of course the rock star doesn’t need to sleep at night, when he can sleep all day :).