There’s a slew of celebrities and entrepreneurs that claim they found success after dedicating every waking minute to their careers; severely limiting their time for sleep.

The natural conclusion then, is that the rest of us plebs are less successful because we sleep too much, right?

Let’s look at some well known examples:

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo CEO supposedly works as many as 130 hours some weeks and sleeps for 4-6 hours a night. Yikes.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter Founder & Square CEO, spends 8-10 hours a day at Twitter and another 8-10 hours at Square, leaving a mere 4-6 hours for sleep.

Donald Trump, Chairman of Trump Organisation & President of the United States, has famously declared that he only sleeps 3-4 hours a night. Afterall, how can someone sleeping 12-14 hours a day compete with someone sleeping 3 or 4?

Inda Nooyi, Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo, sleeps a mere 4 hours a night. Apparently she got used to this while getting her masters at Yale and moonlighting as a receptionist.

Steve Reinemund, former PepsiCo CEO, sleeps slightly more than current CEO Nooyi, averaging 5-6 hours a night. Maybe if he’d slept less he’d still be CEO!

Tom Ford, Fashion Desiger & Director apparently doesn’t believe in beauty sleep as he only sleeps for 3 hours a night. He claims to have a lot of energy…

Herb Kelleher, Co-Founder of Southwest Airlines only sleeps 4 hours a night. I really hope his pilots get more sleep.

Martha Stewart, Chair of Martha Steward Omnimedia, has an abundance of businesses she runs, from her TV show to product lines, and is only able to keep up by sleeping less than 4 hours a night.

Barack Obama, former President of the United States, barely squeezed in his preferred 6 hours sleep during his consecutive terms as President. Maybe that explains a few of those grey hairs?

Sergio Marchionne, Fiat CEO and one of the most renowned automotive executives in the world works on a mere 4 hours sleep a night, relying on coffee and cigarettes to keep him going. Healthy.

Sometimes called the “sleepless elite”, these people claim they don’t need the usual 8 hours sleep; they’re different, unique, special. They are praised for all their hard work and dedication, their success proof that we don’t really need all that sleep we’re lectured about at every well-being workshop we’ve been forced to attend. Somehow, this elite group defy all scientific evidence and their brains perfectly function on a sleep deficit. Living the dream!

But how?! What is their secret? I get toddler levels of cranky if I miss even 1 hour of my usual 8.

As it turns out, there is no secret.

Sleeping less will not lead to greater success. In fact, the opposite is often true. People sleeping less than 7 hours a night can function, yes, but do so in an impaired state. For the vast majority, 7-9 hours sleep is optimal. There is a very small portion of the population that, due to genetics, require more or less sleep, but that number is insignificant.

More than just feeling grumpy and needing an extra coffee, sleep deprivation impairs cognitive abilities, such as long & short term memory function; problem solving capabilities; creative thinking, and mood. Moreover, there are physical affects. Sleeping 6 hours per night or less results in cognitive fatigue that produces the same impairments as alcohol intoxication equivalent or worse than a blood alcohol level of 0.05%. You can’t legally drive a vehicle at that level in NSW, yet we praise those who deprive themselves of sleep and end up in a similar cognitive state…

Can you train yourself to function on less sleep?

Nope. Science says so. Brag all you want about how great you feel waking up at 5am for your morning run after getting to bed at midnight, but even if your body is getting used to functioning on less sleep, it’s still not functioning particularly well. Think of it like your computer. Sure, it’ll mostly function if you don’t switch it off for a year, but it’s not going to be processing things quickly, and you mightn’t notice that after a while because you’re used to it running slowly now.

What are you trying to say?

For those that haven’t caught on yet, what I’m saying is that depriving yourself of sleep in the name of success is not smart. Not only is it bad for your health, but it will decrease your cognitive performance, reducing your chance of success.

Besides – even if you are that small percentage of the population that can properly function on 6 hours sleep or less, or think that your amazing intellect makes up for the cognitive loss – are you really going to be productive for the entire 14 hours, or are you just going to binge the new season of Orange Is The New Black on Netflix?

I think we both know the answer.

Stop buying into the myth that less sleep equals more success. It’s untrue and unhealthy. Go take a nap, sleep in this weekend, and focus your energy on output of results rather than input of time.