The Iron Lady only took four hours of her 40 winks a night. What about Gates, Trump and Obama?
Ah, the land of nod.
Many of us crave more sleep (particularly in the mornings, right?), even as we envy those who can function on scant amounts of slumber.
But how much is too much, and how little is too little?
The National Sleep Foundation recommends seven to nine hours a night for adults, but that’s a pretty big differential.
And those of you reading who’ve had kids (or who are very hard partiers) will realise that it is in fact possible to lead your 9am pitch meeting and complete the rest of a long work day on a mere two hours of sleep chopped into little hallucinogenic fragments. Although you might perhaps not be giving the best performance of your life.
Maggie Thatcher, of course, famously lived off just four hours sleep a night. And whatever you think of her, there’s no denying that she got a fair amount done.
So is it better to starve yourself of sleep to try to cram more into each day, or to make sure you’re fully rested so you can be super-productive?
And how much does everyone else sleep, really?
The folk at Made to Measure Blinds UK have swotted up on how many zeds a range of business and political leaders have previously said they get, and created the sleep chart at the bottom of this article.
Where do you fall on the leaders sleep scale?
Jeff Bezos, founder, Amazon – 8 Hours
Arianna Huffington, founder, Huffington Post – 7-8 Hours
Rand Fishkin, co-founder, Moz – 7-8 hours
Bill Gates, founder, Microsoft – 7 Hours
Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO, VaynerMedia – 6-7 hour
Karen Blackett CEO Media.com UK – 6–7 Hours
Antonio Horta-Osorio, CEO, Lloyds Banking Group – 6–6.5 hours
Barack Obama, president, US – 6 Hours
Bret Taylor, former CTO, Facebook – 6 hours
Helena Morrissey, CEO, Newton Investment Management – 5-6 hours
Jay Leno, entertainment star – 5 Hours
Thomas Edison, inventor – 4-5 hours a night
Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister, UK – 4 Hours
Donald Trump, entrepreneur – 3-4 Hours
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor – 3-4 Hours
Silvio Berlusconi, former prime minister, Italy – 2–4 Hours
Nikola Tesla, inventor – 2 Hours
Data sourced by Made to Measure Blinds UK
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