I have worked in a number of fields including restaurant management, acoustical engineering, physics, hospitality consulting, and inventory management that have required sharp mental acuity on some level.

At one of the most challenging points in my career, while running 3 restaurants at once, I was burning out, working 70+ hours a week; mostly nights.  I was tired, losing focus, making mistakes, guzzling coffee, and just trying to keep up.

Around this time, I figured I had two options; give up or figure out how to fix my situation.

I am a learner and this experience piqued my curiosity, sending me on a path researching factors that affect mental acuity.  What I found is that there are four main factors that will increase our propensity to lose serious focus and make mistakes.  Today, I will start with the simplest: sleep.

If you have ever been sleep deprived, you know how dangerous it can be.  Sleep deprivation has a clear impact on judgment, reaction time, and focus.  In severe cases, people have been known to hallucinate due to lack of sleep (I did).  Compounding these effects is that many people believe that caffeine will “help them get through the day” when they are not getting enough sleep. Sorry friends, but caffeine and other stimulants cannot overcome the effects of the severe sleep deprivation and have their own negative effects that can make everything much worse (more on that later).

While this might sound really obvious, too little sleep leaves us unable to concentrate, impairs our memory and physical performance and even reduces our ability to carry out simple math calculations.  These are not my observations, this is science people…SCIENCE!

Go get some sleep – advice from your favorite hospitality coach

-Dave D

For more, including the science around sleep click here: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/brain_basics/understanding_sleep.htm