The World Health Organization has declared on record that there is an epidemic raging throughout industrialized countries — the epidemic of sleep loss.

Did you know that routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night can destroy your immune system and more than double your risk of cancer? And that insufficient sleep is a key lifestyle factor that determines whether or not you will develop Alzheimer’s disease? It also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, and congestive heart failure and can further contribute to all major psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, and suicidality. Furthermore, in the U.S., driving is responsible for 1,550 fatalities and 40,000 non-fatal injuries a year.

Getting the doctor-recommended 8 hours of sleep a night is, therefore, not only crucial to your productivity and concentration but to your life span as well. That is why as a company, Profound is strongly encouraging all Profound employees (and you reading this) to have healthy sleep habits. We have thus introduced a guideline that ensures we all get enough sleep every night and in so doing mitigate the potentially deadly factor of sleep disruption.

We recommend the following for all at Profound:

• Stick to a sleep schedule (there are apps that can help with that)
  
• Don’t exercise too late in the day
  
• Avoid caffeine as much as possible
  
• Avoid late-night food trucks
  
• Avoid medications that delay or disrupt your sleep
  
• Don’t take naps after 3 PM
  
• Take a hot bath/shower before you go to sleep
  
• Keep your room dark, cool and gadget-free
  
• Make sure your curtains are not too dark, light must be able to get through so you can rise with the morning sun
  Don’t lie in bed awake. Your brain is namely very associative and it will quickly associate being in bed with being awake. So you should go to another room where the lighting is dim and just read a book — no screens, no phones. And then, only when you’re sleepy, you return to bed.

Our mission to become the best employer in the markets where we operate continues and we see this as a very important step in that direction.