The Silent Productivity Killer SOCIAL JET LAG: Maybe it’s not a case of the Mondays after all. Social jet lag, the discrepancy between sleep on a workday and sleep on a weekend, is a real thing! Your chronotype — your body’s natural sleep and wake preferences — is deeply impacted when you switch up your schedule on a whim. The hustle and bustle of your busy weekends may be making your job at the office more difficult or even compromising the accuracy of your work. What can be done?
As a general rule, to avoid social jet lag, aim for at least seven hours of sleep within your normal sleep-wake window.
While you may think that one way to combat social jet lag is by catching up on sleep, it may be a stopgap fix, but it certainly does not cure the problem. Instead, you must make changes in your daily routine so that your circadian rhythm, your internal clock that keeps your sleep- wake cycle normalized, is aligned and your sleep deprivation low. You can do this by going to bed and waking up at the same time every day. If the temptation to sleep in on the days you don’t have to be at the office takes over, only allow yourself to sleep in an extra hour. This ensures that your circadian clock isn’t thrown off too much. But, if you
can resist the urge to sleep in and keep your sleep-wake schedule on track, an afternoon nap is a quick way to catch some z’s.
Because our chronotypes are mostly set in stone, it’s easier to work with them than against them. But, if you must shift it, do so gradually to allow your body time to catch up. And, most importantly, prioritize sleep. Without it, showing up at work on Monday morning with social jet lag can make it extremely difficult to get going.
WHO IS JOHN KEEFE? A TRUE MENTOR AND FRIEND
had a successful business as a consulting civil engineer with a firm of architects and engineers who had a long pedigree of designing buildings for many colleges across the country, including Notre Dame and Boston College. When his father was in his 50s, he developed a severe case of rheumatoid arthritis. John watched him struggle to continue working through the pain, forcing him to confront the limits that the disease imposed on him. John also witnessed firsthand the financial struggles from loss of income when his father could no longer work. In 1970, John graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College where he received a bachelor’s degree in psychology. He then graduated from Boston College Law School in 1974, receiving his Juris Doctor. During
law school, John married Patricia Bruni from Torrington, Connecticut. They started their family with the arrival of Patricia Mary one week before the bar exam. John and Patti’s doctor told them it was probable that Patti wouldn’t be able to have other children. But later, when it turned out the doctor was wrong, both Patti and John saw each new child as a unique and special gift. They are very grateful to have their lives enriched by six sons and five daughters. Their children are now aged 46 to 26 and all have graduated from college. John changed his practice to Social Security disability in 1994 and has been providing his services ever since. Now, John is finally ready to retire, and we helped him out by purchasing his practice. I look forward to continuing the good work he has already done and helping even more people in need.
If you read the cover for this month’s newsletter, you learned that we have purchased Keefe Disability Law and are expanding our firm. John Keefe has played an important role in my life, and I wanted to share a little more about my mentor and good friend.
John grew up in the West Roxbury section of Boston as 1 of 6 children. John’s father
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