63 Magazine - Issue 4

We did some research with Ariana
Huffington’s book, The Sleep Revolution, and
here are a few reasons she discusses why
you should prioritize sleep:
• Sleep is a time of intense neurological
activity: a time of renewal,
memory consolidation, brain and
neurochemical cleansing and cognitive
maintenance. Huffington rightfully
calls our sleeping time as valuable a
commodity as the time we are awake.
• Sacrificing sleep doesn’t make us
more productive. Our loss of sleep
adds up to more than 11 days of lost
productivity per year per worker. Do
you have 11 days to lose?
• Lack of sleep makes us more
susceptible to all sorts of illnesses—
right now, it’s the common cold,
but with time it could be diabetes,
Alzheimer’s, heart disease, cancer and
more.
• When you’re sleep deprived, you’re
dangerous. You could fall asleep at the
wheel, make decisions with the same
impairment as a drunk person, or lose
focus right when you need it.
Stop being a martyr.
Every single campaign has martyrs. Even
if you roll your eyes at martyr tendencies
happening around you, you probably do
some of them every once in awhile too.
When you’re working on causes you care
about, trying to contribute as much as
possible to the world, you’re exhausted,
feel underappreciated, and are generally
ambitious. These things make you a little
crazy and make you want to boast about
your challenging circumstances, whether
it’s bragging about how late you worked or
constantly complaining about how you feel
more miserable than the person next to you
because you worked even harder and got
even less sleep.
It’s time to stop that behavior. It helps no
one.
Needing to sleep does not make you
weak—it makes you human. Deprioritizing
sleep does not make you more committed
to the cause—it makes you less likely to
be successful. Don’t encourage or reward
behavior that results in unnecessary
sleeplessness in yourself, your coworkers,
your interns, or your volunteers.
Sleep is key to mental health, memory
capacity, decision-making, social
competence, creativity, and relationshipbuilding
skills. Do you need those things to
be a good organizer? (YES!!)
Let’s put a few things in perspective.