B2B Inbound Marketing optimization requires constant content creation and careful analysis of data so you know where to make ongoing improvements. To keep up with it all can be exhausting.

There’s a very important measurement of success you won’t see mentioned in the hundreds of “Top Five Tips” or “Top Ten Rules” articles about Inbound Marketing. But it’s so easy, you can do it in your sleep.

It’s referred to by Arianna Huffington as “the third metric“. It’s the measurement and maintenance of your well being.

I had the pleasure of hearing Arianna Huffington give her keynote on “Fearless Leadership” live at the INBOUND 2013 event in Boston. She shared her belief that one’s well being is as much a metric of success as wealth and power, if not more so.

According to Arianna, too many of us are making sub-optimal decisions about our biggest problems. People are living in a constant fight or flight mode. Companies and business leaders work to manage creativity instead of managing for creativity.

If you look at what leaders have written about their biggest mistakes, it’s often because they were tired to the point of exhaustion.

She insists we must take time for renewal if we are to do our best work and solve our biggest problems. We have to get enough sleep and give ourselves uninterrupted renewal time.

A lifetime of feeling like you are running out of time is not a healthy lifestyle. It’s hard to be an effective leader (or a B2B inbound marketing success) when you are exhausted and feeling like you are always behind.

With the perspective and clarity you can have from rest, you can better focus on what matters and where to put your energy. You will complete more projects because you can better decide which ones are most worth your time.

Arianna even advised the cofounders of Hubspot to take naps and get more sleep. She said rest and renewal is the best way to tap into one’s own wisdom and creativity.

I thought back to Arianna’s message when I recently read another article on the benefits of more sleep in Fast Company Magazine entitled “The Huge, Hidden Benefits of an Extra Hour of Sleep“.

In this article, Drake Baer, references a report by the BBC that increasing the quantity of time spent sleeping by just an hour can upgrade the quality of your day in at least three ways:

1) YOU’LL GET MORE MEMORIES.

Deep sleep sounds restful, but that’s when our brains are actually working hard. One of the main things the brain is doing is moving memories from short-term storage into long-term storage, allowing us more short-term memory space for the next day. If you don’t get adequate deep sleep then these memories will be lost.

2) YOU’LL ACTUALLY RELAX.

For instance, in the form of shutting off noradrenalin, one of the so-called “fight-or-flight” chemicals released to deal with stressful situations. REM sleep is the only time–day or night–where this shutoff happens. That shutoff lets us keep calm while we reprocess our experiences, which makes for a less-anxious waking the next day.

3) YOUR GENES WILL HAPPILY EXPRESS THEMSELVES.

Our genes are dynamic, not static. If your body is getting lots of information saying that it needs to work hard to survive, the stress-response genes get expressed. This is good if you’re on a hunt, but over time, those fighting chemicals can become toxic.

Meditation also helps your genes express themselves more happily.

Two Ways to sleep more, improve your third metric, your creativity and your B2B inbound marketing success.

1) Don’t limit your time on creative development to hours you are awake. Sleep on it and wake with it. If you have an idea while asleep, write it down or it will evaporate like a good dream. Keep a pen and pad near the bed. If you prefer to make notes on your phone, be careful to either type or speak clearly. Autocorrect can leave you with some cryptic messages otherwise. A Good friend and marketing blogger and author, Mark Schaefer shared a funny story about this recently in a post on Facebook.

I had a big idea in the middle of the night. So I sent an email to myself in the dark so I would remember it. Here is what I wrote, which proves I need either a new system or better typing skills:

“are we ourselves. Where are you the lol? are you? Text n hull are we creating artist cast send text opi still here on the lower business or are we cdoing after our success. We are not speed back.”

2) Never underestimate the power of a good nap. I am at an age where quality naps are one of my favorite pastimes. I used to think Golf was the best thing to have on television while napping. The announcers are so soft spoken and even when something exciting happens, the light clapping gently lets me know I only have to open one eye to see the shot or the miracle putt before dozing back to dream land. Now I have a new trick. I love the History and Military channels and I’ve seen every episode of World War II in Color about 50 times. So now when I need a good nap, I look for a WWII program and almost always find one. If the English accent of the narrator wasn’t soothing enough, it helps knowing no matter how bad it gets we win in the end. Hitler and Hirohito lose, I snooze.

IN WHAT WAYS DO YOU GIVE YOURSELF TIME TO REST, RELAX AND RENEW? PLEASE SHARE YOUR COMMENT. YOU MAY BE HELPING SOMEONE ELSE’S WELLBEING. THANKS!