It’s the Tuesday morning after a long weekend, and we’re all struggling. After the three-day bender otherwise known as #MDW, we sit in our office chairs wishing for IVs of coffee and wondering if anyone would notice if we took a Costanza under the desk. Productivity will likely hover around a -20 for most of the workforce today, but surprisingly, it actually won’t be because of the poor food and beverage choices we made this weekend.
A new study from The University of Cambridge and Rand Europe had found that the culprit causing your bad productivity at work today isn’t that 12-pack or the four hot dogs you ate at a barbeque yesterday. In fact, the study found that alcohol consumption and over-eating will not affect your productivity at work at all, as long as you get a good night’s sleep. More than 21,000 men and women were surveyed for the study, and scientists found that the employees who slept for six hours or less per night were markedly less productive than those who got seven or eight hours of sleep.
That part’s probably not too shocking, but the fact that excessive food or alcohol consumption didn’t have any effect on productivity at all is, even for the scientists who conducted the study. “It’s something we discussed at length when we were going through the data, because we were quite surprised,” said Shaun Subel, the director of strategy at Vitality Health, a health and life insurance company in England, which commissioned the study.
Of course, not sleeping usually goes hand-in-hand with drinking your face off and going through the Taco Bell drive thru at 2 a.m., but I suppose I can make the sacrifice of going to bed at a semi-reasonable hour if it means I can still get blasted and eat an entire pizza before bedtime and not have it adversely affect my job the next day. Thanks, science! .
[via The Huffington Post UK]
Image via Shutterstock
But part of what the side effects of alcohol interacting with the neurotransmitter GABA is sleep disruption. Aka, while under its effects, you aren’t getting that sweet sweet REM.
I can see how having more sleep can improve that (you’re giving yourself more time to get over alcohols effects, so you can get the previously mentioned sweet REM), but that doesn’t change that 8 hours of alcohol-affected sleep is probably going to be closer to 5 hours of normal sleep.
TL;DR version: Shenanigans!
As a biologist (technically) I approve this message.
As a post grad with an unreasonable fondness for cheap beer & liquor and combination Pizza Hut/Taco Bells I am going to continue ignoring this message.
Ride the #MDW wave…
Participating in a study that requires you to drink excessively…for science. - TFM
Not participating in a study that requires you to drink excessively…because it doesn’t pay anything. PGP.
Participating in a study that requires you to drink excessively, and get paid for it. PGPM.
First day at the new location. They have small slips of paper hanging all over the place that say “the definition of #YOLO” followed by a Y.O.L.O acronym confirming that You do in fact Only Live Once.