CEO of Tesla and SpaceX – billionaire Elon Musk is a real workaholic. In a recent interview with the New York Times, he said he worked up to 120 hours a week in recent weeks.
It wouldn’t matter if his body was as good as what he can do.
Musk said that since contracting malaria in 2001, he has never stopped working.
“It’s not good either,” Musk said in an interview. “Some friends have come and they are also embarrassed.”
In fact, Musk said since contracting malaria in 2001, he hasn’t stopped working. He is willing to work 90 hours a week, even pushing up to 120 hours when necessary. And with a duration of 120 hours / week, a working day of Musk lasts up to 17 hours.
“There were times when I didn’t leave the factory for three or four days,” Musk said.
Musk said he hasn’t been out of Tesla headquarters for days.
This also means that Musk only has a maximum of 7 hours of rest in a day , and obviously the time to sleep will be even lower, because he also has to eat and do other personal things.
There’s no denying what Musk has done. But not getting enough sleep can have a lot of consequences.
According to the CDC (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), an adult should sleep at least 7-8 hours a night. Sleeping more or less, you are at risk of many extremely uncomfortable diseases, including dangerous diseases such as heart attack, high blood pressure, myocardial infarction …
However, reality also shows that many people (at least in the US) are not getting enough hours of sleep.
Matthew Walker is a neurologist at the University of California (Berkeley, USA). He has long studied the effects of sleep on the human body, and here’s what he shares about Musk’s sleeping habits.
“The less you sleep, the shorter your lifespan.”
Walker says getting less than six hours of sleep a night can have relatively serious health consequences. Some cases are even so serious that it takes human life.
According to him, everyone should aim for a sleep of 7-8 hours per night. Walker himself applied the same regimen.
When you don’t get enough sleep, your body produces less lymphocytes (white blood cells). A sleep lasting only 4-5 hours / night will reduce the amount of lymphocytes by up to 70%. And that means bacteria and viruses have a greater chance of attacking you.
Lack of sleep also puts the body at many risks. Science has proven that this is linked to Alzheimer’s disease, obesity, stroke. Moreover, the ability to regulate insulin is also lower, which means it is harder for you to absorb sugar, causing diabetes.
Even your body can become a “reservoir” for cancer. Many studies have shown that less sleep is associated with colon cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer in men.
Of course, not everyone is the same. There are geniuses whose bodies are designed to sleep less than 6 hours a day and still live well. However, only about 1% of the population is lucky, because they have a gene called BHLHE41 in them.
It’s not clear if Musk has this gene, but it’s an extremely rare gene. And obviously, if you want to follow Musk, it is not a wise thing to do.