By: Lisa Bertagnoli

September 18, 2006, Crain's Chicago Business

Everyone knows they need it. They pay lip service to it. They buy expensive down featherbeds to do it on. But that doesn't mean they're getting enough.

With lack of sleep implicated in everything from bad decision-making to possibly even diabetes and obesity, most executives are aware that sleep is more than a luxury. Even if they don't get as much as they need, bragging about pulling all-nighters at the office is a thing of the past for many executives.

Laura Zimmerman, assistant vice-president of strategy and business development at Allstate Financial Services LLC in Northbrook, often loses out on sleep in late summer when she's working on strategic planning for the coming year. When she's feeling draggy, she lets her staff know.

"I say upfront, 'I'm operating a little slower today, I haven't gotten as much sleep.' " The frankness "helps adjust the conversation," Ms. Zimmerman says. "We still go forward and get things done, but I'm giving them a cue: It might take me more time to think things through, make decisions."

Despite what she calls an abundance of energy, Ms. Zimmerman occasionally hits the wall. "I'll wake up in the morning and have cereal, and put the box in the fridge," she says. Other times, she'll misread her schedule and show up for meetings an hour late.

Sleep problems are a common concern at Northwestern Memorial Hospital's Center for Partnership Medicine, an executive health program.

"I see people who chronically don't get enough sleep," says Lorrie Elliott, associate medical director of the program. "They wake up, ruminate and can't get back to sleep." Most people need the traditional seven to eight hours to be in top form, she says, but many busy professionals try to skate by on less.

"I see a lot of workaholic lawyers, working till midnight and so forth," Dr. Elliott says. "But they're not different from other business executives. A lot of people are pushing themselves to the absolute limit."

The result? Everything from less-than-stellar work performance to even car accidents. "Very few people can function on four, five, six hours," she says.

Doctors' advice and health risks aside, schedules always seem to conspire to give executives reasons to put sleep on the back burner.

3 A.M. E-MAILS

Alden Stiefel is president and CEO of Maxxsonics USA Inc., a Lake Zurich-based maker of car stereos.

"I'm a four- to five-hour sleeper, max," he says. Because the company has manufacturing plants in Germany and China, "I'm kind of on a 24-hour clock," says Mr. Stiefel, 46. "When it's 10 p.m. here, I'm on the Internet or phone with Asia and it's noon there. And at 2 a.m., it's 9 a.m. in Germany."

Mr. Stiefel's stateside colleagues "laugh because I send them e-mails at 3 a.m.," he says. "They know I don't sleep."

Some years back, he talked to a doctor about his sleep habits. "He said, 'When you get older, and when your body needs sleep, you'll sleep.'

"It is what it is," he continues. "I like to think I'm not functioning at a diminished capacity."

Mike Domek, CEO of TicketsNow Inc., a Crystal Lake-based online ticket brokerage, has resigned himself to getting less sleep than he needs or wants. The 37-year-old strives for six hours a night on weekdays and hopes for seven on weekends. "If I don't get the six hours, I'm running at about 80%," he says. "If I get four hours, it's just a disaster of a day."

That Mr. Domek has three children under the age of five compounds his sleep problem. "There's nowhere else to steal time from," he says. "You have to grab it from the middle of the night." Yet, no matter how little he's slept, he arrives at the office no later than 9 a.m. "I can't say, 'No appointments until noon so I can sleep in.' "

Dipak Jain, dean of Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, is known for keeping a long list of commitments on a short night's sleep, a lifelong habit. "My mother said the best time to study is 4 a.m. to 6 a.m.," says Mr. Jain, 49.

He stays up past midnight but rises at 5 a.m. or so, working steadily without naps or caffeine. "I don't know how I do it, but I can get off a plane at 5:30 a.m., teach at 7, and work until 9:30 p.m.," he says. "I'm always feeling as if I have had enough sleep."

Although giving up sleep seems to be one of the prices of success, the richer you are, the more — and better — sleep you get, according to a University of Chicago study.

The study's 669 respondents, all of whom live in the Chicago area, wore wrist devices that enabled researchers to tell how much time they actually slept, as opposed to merely how much time they spent in bed. Respondents with household incomes of more than $100,000 a year spent the least time in bed each night, but slept an average of 6½ hours and took the least amount of time — less than 20 minutes — to fall asleep, according to the study, published in the July issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

"We would have expected that people with higher socioeconomic status got less sleep, and we in fact found the opposite," says Diane Sperling Lauderdale, a U of C associate professor and author of the study. The reasons "are pure speculation," she says. "The beds might be better, it might be quieter, there might be fewer people in the household."

She and other researchers who previously have considered sleep as solely benefiting the mind are now looking into connections between sleep and physical health. One study showed that poor sleepers have impaired glucose metabolism, which makes them feel hungrier.

"If people are habitually sleeping less, this could be a factor in the increasing diabetes and obesity problem," Ms. Lauderdale says. Her own study is a precursor to exploring a link between lack of sleep and coronary artery disease.

EARLY RISERS

When work and life issues create a time crunch for Nina Abnee, her workout — not sleep — is the first thing she cuts from her schedule. If she's stressed or traveling, she'll take Ambien, the prescription short-term insomnia medication.

Yet Ms. Abnee, 51, an executive vice-president at Leo Burnett USA in Chicago, admits her day works best if she rises very early.

During a normal workweek, Ms. Abnee falls asleep by 10:30 p.m. She arrives home around 7, so after dinner with her husband and teenage daughter (another daughter is away at college), her evening is rather clipped. Yet the early bedtime allows her to awaken at 5 a.m. or earlier, fetch her laptop and cup of coffee and return to bed for an hour of paying bills online, writing e-mails and checking voice-mail.

"It's the most productive time I have all day," Ms. Abnee says. "I have to be up at 5 in order to get it, and I don't like the day if I don't."

Her morning voice-mails and e-mails are "a little bit of a joke" among co-workers, especially new ones. "I already had four voice-mails at 8:30 a.m.," one new employee noted to her. "A lot gets done on this account between 6 p.m. and 5 a.m.," said another.

Around the office, though, Ms. Abnee sees a more respectful attitude toward sleep needs, despite the agency realities of late-night client calls and last-minute changes to presentations. "There used to be a brag factor in pulling an all-nighter," Ms. Abnee says. "Now, it's seen as above the call of duty."

In fact, her team makes late-afternoon or evening meetings short enough to allow a colleague, Jeanie Caggiano, to be home in bed by 9 p.m. "I believe in sleep," says Ms. Caggiano, 46, executive creative director and senior vice- president at Leo Burnett. "I have to have my eight hours, no matter what, (or) it impairs my ability to function."

WORKING LATE

Ms. Zimmerman, of Allstate, has seen the corporate time schedule shift.

"When I started in business, the companies I worked for had later start times and meetings that started later," says Ms. Zimmerman, 48. Now, "it's not unusual to have 7:30 a.m. meetings. Executives by and large tend to start their day earlier." Allstate is a meeting-intensive culture, she says, and mornings are often the only time executives can squeeze in another confab.

Yet she also works late at night, sleeping from midnight to 5:30 a.m. and counting on a Starbucks run to bust her 3 p.m. slump. She refrains from e-mailing her colleagues at extreme hours so as not to be a bad influence: "That can send the wrong signal . . . that you're supposed to work this late," she says.