The Body Keeps the Books.

The psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk wrote a well-known book called The Body Keeps the Score. I borrow the image in a more ordinary, accountant’s sense. The body keeps the books. Every short night, every skipped meal, every stretch of stress without recovery is recorded somewhere. You can defer the bill for a long time. You cannot avoid it.

In naval aviation, no aircraft flies without maintenance. Every jet has a schedule of inspections, measured in flight hours. Parts are replaced before they fail, not after. Nobody would fly a jet past its inspections because the mission was important. The mission being important is exactly why you maintain the aircraft. Yet for years I flew my own body past every inspection. So do most founders I know.

The bill arrives in small debits

I saw the bill clearly after an overnight flight. I had slept perhaps two hours and went straight into a room that needed a decision from me. A member of the team raised a fair concern. I cut him off, and the room went quiet. That evening I realized he was right. I had dismissed him because I was too tired to hold one more variable. The real cost was the information I lost when a capable person decided it was not worth speaking up again.

Why nobody prices it

Investors see revenue, burn and growth. Boards see milestones. Nobody sees the founder’s sleep debt or the slow erosion of judgment.

The research now puts a number on part of it. Christopher Barnes of the University of Washington summarized his work in Harvard Business Review in 2018. A study of leaders around the world found that 42% average six hours of sleep or less. His research shows that sleep-deprived bosses are more likely to mistreat employees and create workplaces where people are less engaged. The cost does not stay with the leader. It spreads to the team.

This is not an argument against hard work. Some seasons should be intense. The problem is intensity without recovery, held so long that you forget it was ever meant to end.

Keep a maintenance schedule

1. Protect sleep like a board meetingPut a fixed bedtime on your calendar for thirty days. Move it only for a serious reason.
2. Log the debitsIn your journal, note the quality of your decisions after good nights and after poor ones. Look for the pattern.
3. Watch for silenceWhen someone stops raising concerns, ask whether you made it unsafe on a tired day.
4. Ask the long questionHow many more years do you want to do this work? Then ask whether you are running yourself like you only need to last until Friday.