Today · Sleep

Sleep when the power is off

Practical sleep for shift work, late emails and load-shedding. No perfect routine required.

Tired is not the same as lazy

5 min

Most adults need roughly seven to nine hours. Many South African workdays steal that with traffic, second shifts at home, and phones that never quite go dark.

Load-shedding makes it worse: alarms that do not ring, fans that stop, and the temptation to stay up because the power just came back.

Poor sleep shows up as irritability, mistakes and a shorter fuse with customers. It is a work issue, not only a home issue.

Nothing here replaces a clinician. Loud snoring, gasping, or sleepiness that makes driving unsafe needs a proper check.

Try this: Tonight, note the time you got into bed and the time you intended to. The gap is the habit, not your worth.

A small evening, even in stage 4

6 min

Keep the last half hour dimmer than the rest of the evening. If the lights are out, you already have dim. Use it. Do not fill it with a bright phone.

Caffeine after mid-afternoon lingers. If you rely on it to survive a deadline, move the last cup earlier before you try to cut it.

A repeating cue helps more than a perfect bedtime: wash face, set the alarm for the morning you can actually keep, same corner of the bed.

If children, caregiving or a night shift make a fixed bedtime impossible, protect one consistent sleep window across the week rather than chasing eight hours every night.

Try this: Charge the phone outside the pillow zone, or at least face down, for one night. Use a cheap alarm if you need one.

What managers can stop doing

5 min

Messages after 20:00 train a team to stay alert. If it is not a real incident, send it in the morning.

Praise people who answer at midnight and you will get more midnight answers, plus more sick days.

Shift teams need recovery written into the roster, not a poster about self-care. A micro-course cannot fix a dangerous schedule. It can make the problem visible.

In the monthly report, look at participation by team. A night desk that never opens a lesson may be exhausted, not uninterested.

Try this: Agree one quiet hour with your closest colleagues. No non-urgent messages inside it this week.

Other courses: Steady under pressure Sleep when the power is off Food that fits the week Move more, no gym required Money calm Before burnout settles in

Sample workplace figures are for a fictional team. Mood notes never appear in HR. Not medical advice.