When it comes to the sleep habits of powerful people, it’s easy to find stories of sleepless nights, shortened sleep schedules, and extreme sacrifices to mental and physical wellbeing while pursuing success. Unfortunately, there can be a kind of heroism to that kind of nonstop hustle.
This grinding culture can be especially hard on those who identify as women, given historical societal expectations of women to provide unpaid childcare, elder care, and domestic labor. These demands have not decreased as their entries into the professional world have soared. In fact, according to a 2021 UN report, the pandemic has made women’s share of unpaid household labor and care work even more demanding, which can take a toll on sleep.
But there’s a shift afoot. 19th-century writer Charlotte Brontë once said that “A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow,” and the idea behind those words is finally coming full circle in our culture. Several high-profile figures — many of them women — are pushing back on cultural and professional norms that demand that we sacrifice our wellbeing in pursuit of performance. These can include Naomi Osaka’s declining to take interviews at the French Open, and Simone Biles' withdrawing from the Olympics for her mental health. And the virality of the current self-care movement is helping reframe the conversation about sleep as vital to success.
Here are 8 influential women at the top of their fields who’ve gone on record about the benefits of a good night’s sleep.
Arianna Huffington
Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post and CEO of Thrive Global, was working in her office one day when the impact of sleep deprivation hit her. After many sleepless nights, she fainted, hit her head against her desk, and broke her cheekbone.
It was a hard way to learn that you don’t need to sacrifice sleep to be successful. But the experience alerted her to something else as well: Such a mindset can disconnect us from our bodies, making us unable to dial into our wellness over the clickety clack of our keyboards.
That incident — and the long road to recovery that followed — led her to write “The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time” and to craft a bedtime routine that helps keep her mind connected to her body. That includes gently ushering electronics out of the bedroom at least 30 minutes before sleep, lighting candles, taking a hot bath with Epsom salts, dressing in dedicated sleepwear, and reading a book.
“[I]t’s clear that if we’re going to truly thrive, we must begin with sleep. It’s the gateway through which a life of wellbeing must travel,” she wrote in Time Magazine. “I’m living proof that, once we change our minds about sleep, we can begin to change our habits.”
Michelle Obama
For Michelle Obama, getting good sleep was a way for her to be the wife and mother she wanted to be, while preserving the Michelle she always was. After the birth of their first child, she noticed that her husband’s daily exercise routine hadn’t changed a bit, while hers had been deprioritized. As someone who valued those workouts both for body and mind, she knew it was taking a toll on how she felt inside and out.
She reorganized her schedule to allow herself both the sleep she needed and the workouts she craved, all before the future First Daughter began to stir. As she told Prevention, “I am a sleeper. When you wake up at 4:30 in the morning to do a workout, you’re sleepy at 8 in the evening. So I’d put the kids down, then I’d go to bed. By 10 o’clock at the latest, I’m in bed. I even usually wake up before the alarm clock.”
Oprah Winfrey
Media mogul Oprah Winfrey is constantly dialed in, so she reserves the moments that bookend bedtime as her dedicated time to unplug, retreat from technology, and focus on being present.
“I don’t use alarm clocks. They make me agitated,” she told Fast Company. “Everything begins and ends with stillness: A conscious awareness of my presence within the greater presence of all, whether I’m paying attention to the way the sun’s rising, or whether it’s misty out in the morning on the trees. When I wake up now I have the privilege of listening to real twitter.”
Jennifer Lopez
A lifelong process of discovering herself as a performer, businessperson, and woman has helped shape JLo’s relationship with sleep. It’s pivotal enough to be cited first among the “five S’s” that she counts as critical. She told the interviewer at Elle that sleep, sunscreen, serums, supplements and vivir sano (Spanish for “living a healthy lifestyle”) keep her “youthful and timeless at every age.”
Mariah Carey
When Mariah Carey told an interviewer that she required 15 hours of sleep in a room with 20 humidifiers, many people chalked it up to celebrity culture: over the top, unnecessary, pretentious. But for her, it was not excess for excess’ sake. Legendary singer Luther Vandross once shared the importance of humidifying one’s throat to preserve vocal abilities. So sleeping in what was essentially a steam room — complete with a terry cloth bed — was less frivolity than it was an investment in her craft. “[M]y best thing is sleep,” she once told V Magazine. “Literally I’ll have twenty humidifiers around my bed.”
Bozoma Saint John
Bozoma Saint John had a meteoric rise in the tech industry, holding senior leadership roles for Apple Music, Uber, Endeavor, and now Netflix. As her responsibilities increased and her schedule became more hectic — traveling, events, meetings, and motherhood — so did her focus on sleep.
Saint John told the Thrive Global podcast that being well rested was the only way for her to avoid the burnout that comes with blazing new trails, and that she is sure to get shut eye whenever and however she can, prioritizing naps and quality rest. “I’m a great napper,” she told the interviewer during her stint at the rideshare company. “I nap in a lot of places. I nap in a car, you know, now that I take Uber everywhere. I nap on the plane a lot.”
Serena Williams
Not even the biggest or most prestigious tennis match in the world could interfere with Serena Williams’ sleep schedule. For her, part of competing at her best is being fiercely protective of the routines and practices that keep her mind sharp and body strong. Maintaining an airtight bedtime routine is essential. “My sleep schedule typically doesn’t change much even if I’m in the middle of a tournament,” she told Glamour Magazine. “I typically go to sleep around 11 p.m. or midnight so I can get my eight hours in, but it's important for me to start my nighttime routine early so I can wind down and relax [since] it’s hard for me to turn my brain off. However, I know sleep is extremely important to help the body heal, so I always try to get eight hours of sleep.”
Laverne Cox
It can be hard to maintain a routine when things around you are in flux – your environment, your schedule, and certainly your sleep space. And while actress Laverne Cox keeps some flexibility, she is adamant that prioritizing sleep is paramount, no matter where she is in the world and what is on her schedule.
“Sleep is really crucial for me,” she told Yahoo News. “I know with a lot of busy people, sleep is the first thing to go. I’m here in New York this week and everyone’s like ‘You’re in New York, let’s get coffee,’ and I’m like, ‘I’m working, I’m going to need to sleep after that. That’s probably all I’ll have time for.’”
