It’s a common complaint that seems to be swept under the blanket.
“I haven’t had enough sleep,” … “I’m always exhausted,” …. “I find it hard to get out of bed every morning.”
You’ve probably heard yourself muttering at least one of these tired mantras in the last month.
You know you need more sleep, but why? And how do you get enough?
Why is getting great sleep important for your health?
Beyond the groggy lethargy and general lack of energy that comes with poor sleep, lies a myriad of consequences for you and your health. World class strength training and nutrition expert Charles Poliquin’s explanation of the powerful correlation between sleep and health is summarised for you below.
It turns out sleep not only can keep you healthy, it can also help you get thinner, and stay that way. In fact, the growing epidemic of insomnia is thought to be related to the growing waistline of the population, and lack of sleep has been shown to be a potent hormonal disruptor on top of this. In fact, the obesity curves in the Western World countries match the sleep deprivation curves.
If you want to master your metabolism, you need to master your hormones, and sleep is one of the most important places that hormone balancing occurs. Human growth hormone is released during deep sleep. Important biochemicals are manufactured and replaced during sleep. The powerful antioxidant, anti-cancer compound melatonin is produced during sleep. But for all this to happen, you need to sleep better and you need to sleep longer.
The body goes through five stages of sleep — 4 stages plus the all-important stage known as REM, which stands for rapid eye movement. (It’s during REM sleep that all the toy soldiers come out to play and the real, reparative work of sleep gets done.)
The body cycles through these five stages several times a night, and important metabolic work gets done during this time. If sleep is too short, or interrupted, or not restful, the cycle gets broken up and your metabolism suffers.
Sleep influences weight, appetite, stress, libido, and mood. There’s almost nothing you could do that’s more important to your overall well-being and metabolic health than getting a really good night’s sleep, every single night.
So what does great sleep look like?
1.You go to bed before 11pm, ideally 10pm, and fall asleep in less than 5 minutes
2.You sleep through the night without any interruptions
3.You wake up by yourself – that means without an alarm – fresh and ready for the day between 6 and 8am
Here are three tips for how to do it.
1. Set the temperature at 20 degrees.
Most of us sleep in rooms that are too warm, which is neither healthy nor natural. The body’s temperature naturally drops during sleep (that’s why in movies and television you always see people cover up a friend who’s just fallen asleep). The body prefers this lower temperature during sleep, and if the room is too hot, you have to “work” to keep the equilibrium and that interferes with good sleep. So keep the room comfortably cool.
2. No media. None.
Take a complete media break for ½ hour before hitting the sack. This means no television, no email, no computer for one full half hour before bedtime. Remember, this is the transition time during which you prepare the body for the relaxation and slumber to come.
3. Keep it dark.
Studies show that even the slightest light in the room can measurably interfere with metrics used to measure good, restful sleep. So keep the lights off—all of them. Dark, cool, and media-free is the way to go. In addition, go to bed ½ hour early every night for one week, and then add an additional half hour the following week till you’ve hit the sweet spot of about 7 hours.
And if you think this isn’t important consider this: A study of young, healthy men found that reducing sleep to 5 hours a night resulted in a 15% drop in testosterone.
Sleep on that one!
