Why Sleep Matters on R U OK Day: The Hidden Resource Behind Mood, Empathy and Connection
“Don't wanna close my eyes, I don't wanna fall asleep 'Cause I'd miss you, babe And I don't wanna miss a thing”
I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith (Click here for the song)
R U OK Day 2026 is this Thursday, 10th September
This year, after listening to Richard MacKinnon’s podcast on sleep and wellbeing (click here to listen), I decided to shift the focus of my R U OK Day blog. His reflections on sleep as a strategic resource prompted me to look more closely at the recent research into sleep and work. The more I read, the more I wanted to share. This week seemed like the right moment to explore whether sleep might be the silver bullet for wellbeing we so often overlook.
“Sleep isn’t just one wellbeing habit among many. Rather, it’s the foundation that determines whether everything else we do for our health and performance actually pays off.”
Richard McKinon and Dr Fiona Jane Meechin
Regular readers know that how well we sleep quietly shapes so much of how we show up at work. Many theoretical approaches describe sleep as a broadly positive contributor to work performance, but in practice it is even more interesting. When people sleep well, they carry more energy into their day and their emotional tone is steadier. Researchers have found that sleep helps regulate the emotional states people bring into their morning, which means more of the behaviours we want and fewer of the ones we do not.
“These findings suggest that prioritizing sleep can help accrue resources needed for work, shifting the perspective from sleep as a reactive restorative process to a proactive protective mechanism”.
Angela R. Grotto, Rui Sundrup, Maura J. Mills
Sleep quality and mood
Regular readers know that sleep quality predicts greater positive emotions and fewer negative emotions. Researchers have found that high-quality sleep replenishes brain functions in emotion-related regions such as the amygdala, striatum, hippocampus, and medial prefrontal cortex. These regions play a central role in how people experience and regulate emotions.
When sleep quality is high, people have more of the energy required to regulate their emotions, which increases the likelihood of experiencing positive emotions and reduces the likelihood of experiencing negative emotions. Studies also show that better sleep quality from the previous night predicts more activated positive affect the following morning. These activated states include interest, excitement, and alertness.
Sleep quality and prosocial behaviour
Researchers have found that sleep loss does more than make people feel tired. It impairs the central, brain‑driven choices involved in prosocial helping, shifting people into a more egoistic state rather than a benevolent or altruistic one. Studies have demonstrated that the decisional act to help others involves the human brain, and prosocial helping consistently engages a set of regions known as the social cognition network. When sleep is insufficient, this network becomes less effective, making it harder to read emotions, respond appropriately, and stay connected to others.
Insufficient sleep also disrupts mood, and researchers have found that lower positive mood can reduce helping by weakening empathic sensitivity to the needs or distress of others. Together, these impairments mean that not getting enough sleep, both in quantity and quality, acts as a degrading force on human helping. It influences whether people want to help and whether they actually do help through real-world acts of altruism. These effects appear within individuals, across individuals, and even at a nationwide level.
What is especially compelling is that researchers found the effect of sleep on prosocial helping is bidirectional. When sleep is deficient, helping declines. But when adequate sleep is restored, the desire to help others returns. Sleep does not just protect prosocial behaviour; it can actively rebuild it.
“Nearly a third of all Australian adults get less than the recommended seven hours of sleep, and over half of young and middle-aged adults reported three or more nights of perceived inadequate sleep. Further, young adults are the largest demographic reporting poor sleep negatively impacting their productivity.”
McConville, C., Sansom, K., Reynolds, A. C., Junge, M., Rajaratnam, S. W., Adams, R. J., & Lovato, N.
Quality vs Quantity:
There is also a growing body of research showing that sleep quality is more strongly related to emotional states than sleep quantity. It is not simply about how long someone sleeps. It is about how well they sleep. Meta-analyses also indicate that sleep quality is linked with core performance outcomes such as task performance and organisational citizenship behaviours.
The role of technology
Regular readers know that in today’s work environment, information and communication technologies such as email, mobile phones and remote meeting apps blur the boundaries between work and personal life. Nonwork hours that were once reserved for rest are now often interrupted by work-related contacts, which limits employees’ ability to detach and recover for the next day.
Domain switch theory and threaded cognition theory both suggest that interruptions create competition for limited cognitive and emotional resources. Each interruption requires employees to disengage from nonwork, re-engage in work, and then return to nonwork again. Regular readers know that this repeated switching drains existing resources and limits the generation of new ones, which can negatively affect employees when they return to work.
A 2026 study found that sufficient sleep can buffer the negative effects of work-related interruptions during personal time and help individuals remain resilient in demanding work–life contexts. This is possible because sleep provides full detachment from both domains, allowing new resources for work to be generated. The results also indicated that when sleep duration falls below a critical seven-hour threshold, individuals may lack the resource reserves needed to offset the costs of these interruptions.
For example, when people are overloaded with work but unable to catch up during personal time because of substantial responsibilities such as childcare, they often try to meet both sets of demands by sleeping less. This approach is likely to backfire and harm functioning in both areas of life. In fact, protecting sleep, especially in demanding work environments, supports sustained functioning across work and nonwork life. Researchers have proposed that sleep serves as the central third domain that stabilises the work–life interface. When protected, sleep generates resources that support well-being in the work domain without requiring additional effort to manage boundaries during personal time.
Quality vs quantity revisited:
Interestingly, the researchers found that poor sleep duration is a greater predictor of exhaustion at work above and beyond poor sleep quality. This is likely because adequate sleep is needed to cycle through the stages of sleep that contribute to high sleep quality.
“Sleep has what we might call an image problem. You can see someone eating a healthy lunch or going to the gym - it is visible, shareable, obviously virtuous. Nobody can see the repair work happening while you sleep. So it's easy to underrate something whose benefits are invisible, and easy to ignore the cost of not doing it until it shows up somewhere else entirely: a short temper, a mistake, a headache you cannot explain.”
Dr. Richard A. MacKinnon
What can be done?
Individual-level
Improving self‑awareness is central to reinforcing boundaries. Regular readers know that identifying one’s own boundary preferences and arranging logistics around them is often the most effective starting point. Researchers have found that consistent sleep routines, boundaries around technology use before bedtime, and simple strategies to minimise distractions during sleep hours all help protect sleep quality and quantity.
Where possible, individuals can also reduce switching costs by batching nonurgent responses into a planned window, such as a brief morning check, rather than repeatedly switching in and out of work. This small shift helps preserve attentional resources and reduces the cognitive load created by constant micro‑interruptions.
Organisational level
Studies have demonstrated that well-structured guidelines and transparent communication reinforce cultures that respect personal boundaries and nonwork lives.
Researchers have found that limiting unnecessary out of work contact and setting explicit expectations about availability outside contracted hours helps protect employee well-being. When availability is genuinely required, leaders can communicate the reason upfront. When leaders proudly role model these boundaries, there is a greater likelihood that employees will follow suit.
Teams can also adopt simple digital habits. Studies show that normalising delayed send features, creating team policies for when out-of-work contact is appropriate, and establishing protected periods such as quiet hours all help reduce avoidable interruptions. Because individuals differ in how much contact they can tolerate, project-specific opt-ins work better than blanket availability. IT systems can support this by allowing employees to opt in to notifications for specific projects or urgent matters rather than remaining universally reachable. Studies have demonstrated that establishing digital choice architecture such as default quiet hours, notification bundling, and urgency labels, non urgent messages are less likely to trigger repeated domain switches.
It would be remiss of me not to mention the role of workload and capacity issues in the demands placed on employees to work all the time. Regular readers know that broader work design practices such as staffing coverage models, escalation protocols, and realistic deadline planning increase the likelihood that urgency becomes the exception rather than the norm.
A Challenge for R U OK Day 2026
“One of the most useful reframes for anyone leading a team, or simply trying to justify rest to themselves, is to stop thinking of sleep and rest as a reward for having earned it and start treating them as strategic.”
Dr. Richard A. MacKinnon
As we approach R U OK Day 2026, consider what you can do to shift the image of sleep and promote a more accurate and positive view of it as a resource that strengthens connection, empathy and care for others.
Supporting Yourself and Others This R U OK Day
Your GP: a critical, under‑utilised resource
Mind–body connection: Your GP can assess whether any mind–body or biological factors are contributing to how you’re feeling, and whether they should be addressed before therapy or alongside it.
Appropriate Referral: Your GP knows you well and provides a safe place to discuss your needs and preferences. They can help you think through what matters to you and match you with a clinical psychologist who is likely to fit your requirements.
Unbiased guidance: If you’re unsure whether your therapist is the right fit, your GP is an independent professional who can help you think this through.
Medication pathways: If medication becomes part of your care plan, your GP can coordinate a referral to an appropriate psychiatrist.
Medicare rebates: Referrals from a GP allow you to access Medicare‑supported sessions with a clinical psychologist.
Final thoughts:
Whilst I’ve always known both personally and from the literature all the benefits of a good quality long night’s sleep, my research this week has reminded me that sleep should never be treated as a luxury. Culturally, we need a shift such that Sleep is perceived as a fundamental element that is critical to the success of any wellbeing, health or performance initiative.
Readers challenge
Please email me and tell me what you are going to do differently to improve the image of sleep in your workplace this R U OK Day?
Please click here if you would like to read my past leadership insights.
References:
Henderson, A. A., Barber, L. K., & Hu, X. J. (2026). Does better sleep quality always predict better work performance? A daily examination of sleep quality and task proactivity. Work & Stress, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2026.2688766
Grotto, A. R., Sundrup, R., & Mills, M. J. (2026). The protective role of sleep in tempering the impact of ICT-driven off-hour interruptions on exhaustion at work. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 99, e70152. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.70152
WorkLifePsych. (2026). Ep 221: Sleep and rest – they’re not optional! - WorkLifePsych. [online] Available at: https://www.worklifepsych.com/podcast/221/
MacKinnon, D.R.A. (2026). Sleep: the bedrock of your wellbeing. [online] WorkLifePsych News. Available at: https://www.worklifepsych.news/sleep-the-bedrock-of-your-wellbeing/
Ben Simon, E., Vallat, R., Rossi, A. and Walker, M.P. (2022) Sleep loss leads to the withdrawal of human helping across individuals, groups, and large-scale societies. PLOS Biology, 20(8), p. e3001733. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001733.
McConville, C., Sansom, K., Reynolds, A. C., Junge, M., Rajaratnam, S. W., Adams, R. J., & Lovato, N. (2026). Aussie sleep snapshot: sleep health in young adulthood in Australia. Australian Psychologist, 61(2), 186–196. https://doi.org/10.1080/00050067.2025.2601004
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