Sleep → Wealth
Sleep deprivation doesn’t just make you tired. It makes you poorer.
The path is direct: poor sleep → impaired cognition → worse performance → lower income. And: poor sleep → impaired judgment → bad financial decisions → wealth destruction.
This isn’t soft science. The effects are measurable.
The Evidence
Cognitive Performance
One bad night drops cognitive performance 30%: equivalent to legal intoxication (Walker, 2017):
- Working memory down 20-30%
- Decision quality degrades, especially complex choices
- Creative problem-solving tanks (requires REM consolidation)
- Reaction time and accuracy measurably worse
Career Impact
Productivity: Sleep-deprived workers make more errors, move slower, have more accidents.
Promotions: Go to consistent performers. Chronic sleep debt makes consistency impossible.
High-stakes decisions: Job changes, negotiations, strategy calls: all worse when tired.
Financial Decisions
Tired brains make bad money decisions:
- More risk-taking
- More impulse purchases
- Short-term thinking over long-term planning
- Emotional reactions to market swings
The Compound Effect
| Sleep | Performance | Career | Decisions |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7-9h consistently | 100% | Growing | Rational |
| 6h chronic | -20% | Stalled | Impaired |
| <6h chronic | -40% | Declining | Impulsive |
Compound this over 30 years. The gap is enormous.
What To Do
Reframe sleep as investment, not luxury. 8 hours doesn’t cost you work time: it multiplies the value of your waking hours.
Never make big decisions tired. Investments, major purchases, job changes, negotiations: build in a sleep buffer. Decide tomorrow.
Track the connection. One month: rate sleep (1-10), rate productivity (1-10), note financial decisions. You’ll see it.
Related
- Sleep Optimization : The protocol
- Automated Investing : Removes tired-brain decisions from wealth building
Sleep isn’t competing with work time. It’s upgrading work quality.
Successful people don’t sacrifice sleep to work more. They protect sleep to work better.