There has to be a willingness to keep your workforce healthy. We have a right to go home not feeling shattered.
The Overlooked but Common Cause of Poor Work Performance
This man was not an air traffic controller, a bus driver, or in any other industry where you can be responsible for lives. Ahna’s client was the CEO of a business that manufactures and installs industrial equipment. We don’t know what the mistake was and this example is at the dramatic end of the spectrum. However, Ahna says it’s not uncommon for her to come across clients that have found themselves in suicidal traps or are actively contemplating ending their lives.
She argues that the business community tends to ignore the connection between lack of sleep and depression - and a poor performance in the workplace.
“There is a relationship between high-stress and no sleep. A pattern of high-stress generates the pattern of sleeplessness and then the sleeplessness itself feeds that high-stress. You get into this cycle. You’re not sleeping and then during the day you’re really stressed because you haven’t slept and you’re anticipating not sleeping … and you just feel like there’s no way out,” she says.
FROM INSOMNIAC TO SLEEP MUSE
Ahna’s inspiration for her work comes from personal experience; a ten-year battle with insomnia that started in her early teens and ended with a breakdown in her early twenties. The medical establishment at the time could only offer her pills and medication – an option to which she was opposed.
That started a personal journey that led to Ahna studying natural medicine and sleep therapy.
It opened doors to the schooling environments of Sydney’s North Shore and later she journeyed to Geneva where she opened a sleep clinic amidst the community of international and missionary organisations. Senior operatives from organisations including the United Nations and the International Labour Office soon joined her client list.
On returning to the Antipodes she found herself working with police officers and other emergency services personnel in New Zealand. Her profile and cachet increased when a high-profile client managed to kick a twenty-year sleeping pill addiction.
