This is a chapter from my book, The Personal Health Tracking Blueprint. You can view the table of contents with links to the rest here.

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In 2019, Inc. Magazine published a list of the top ten New Year’s resolutions according to a survey of 2,000 people.

They were:

Diet or eat healthier (71 percent)
Exercise more (65 percent)
Lose weight (54 percent)
Save more and spend less (32 percent)
Learn a new skill or hobby (26 percent)
Quit smoking (21 percent)
Read more (17 percent)
Find another job (16 percent)
Drink less alcohol (15 percent)
Spend more time with family and friends (13 percent)

As you’d expect, five out of these top 10 resolutions (including all of the top three) are health-related.

There is a lot of energy around setting and achieving health goals during the new year. Everyone wants to start eating healthy, join a gym, and lose weight. But when I look at this list of health-related ambitions, I see a glaring omission.

No one is trying to sleep more.

Why is that?

Is it because everyone is already getting enough sleep?

I think not.

According to the latest Gallup poll, the average American only gets 6.8 hours of sleep, and 40 percent of Americans sleep less than six hours per night, on average—far less than the seven to nine hours recommended by the National Sleep Foundation.

The reason sleep doesn’t make it into the top ten New Year’s resolutions is many people, including “health-conscious” people, still undervalue the importance of sleep. The same people who strive to eat better and exercise more aren’t giving sleep enough credit when it comes to getting healthy.

Meanwhile, health expert Shawn Stevenson says that sleep is more important for your health than diet and exercise combined. By the way, Shawn Stevenson’s book, Sleep Smarter, is an excellent read. I highly recommend it.

Why you shouldn’t “sleep when you’re dead”