The Billion-Dollar Reason You Should Get More Sleep No rest is bad for business.

By Nina Zipkin

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A team of researchers from UC Berkeley earlier this summer published a study that found not getting enough sleep led to a state they described as "viral loneliness."

"We humans are a social species. Yet sleep deprivation can turn us into social lepers," explained Matthew Walker, the study's senior author and a psychology and neuroscience professor, in a release about the findings. "The less sleep you get, the less you want to socially interact. In turn, other people perceive you as more socially repulsive, further increasing the grave social-isolation impact of sleep loss."

It makes sense that being sleep deprived leads to feeling socially adrift, but if you're still trying to convince yourself that you're not sleeping to spend more time on your business, we have some unfortunate news for you.

Related: Neurons in Your Brain Wake You Up and 16 Other Unexpected Things That Are Stealing Your Sleep

According to a recent study conducted by think tank The Rand Corporation, it turns out that the United States loses up to $411 billion a year because of a sleep-deprived workforce. The U.S. leads the pack with this figure globally, followed by Japan with $138 billion lost a year, although the study authors noted that the U.S. was out in front due in part to the size of the country's economy.

Not only that, but the U.S. also loses an equivalent of 1.23 million working days due to insufficient sleep. In terms of lost work time, the U.S. is followed by Japan with an average 604,000 working days lost annually, Germany at 209,000, the U.K. at 207,000 and Canada at 78,000.

So let that be a lesson. If you want to earn more and have a better social life, get some sleep.

Nina Zipkin

Entrepreneur Staff

Staff Writer. Covers leadership, media, technology and culture.

Nina Zipkin is a staff writer at Entrepreneur.com. She frequently covers leadership, media, tech, startups, culture and workplace trends.

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