Sleep: The Foundation of Health
If there is one thing to address above ALL other health habits, it is sleep. If you are not regularly getting 8 hrs (7 is the bare minimum) of quality sleep at night you are undermining every other effort to improve your health. Sleep is the base that you can build all other health habits upon, but without it, those efforts will not reap the intended benefits.
Sleep & Fitness + Performance
Without proper sleep, your fitness efforts will be less effective and your performance will suffer. Muscle fibers cannot repair and grow without logging the proper hours of sleep. Human growth hormones drop, testosterone drops, and inflammation isn’t managed and your muscles simply cannot repair. Without repair, muscles cannot adapt and grow in response to a workout and performance will be impaired. It becomes a vicious cycle of poor recovery, poor performance, poor results. If you aren’t seeing the gains and fitness improvement you’re seeking, consider sleep as the foundation of fitness.
Sleep & Metabolism + Weight Management
Just one night of bad sleep leads to unstable blood sugar, increased appetite & decreased satiety. Hello sugar cravings and over-eating! There is nothing more defeating than blowing your diet plan by reaching for the quick carbs and sugar to satisfy a nagging craving, leaving you feeling like you have little control and no will-power. Consider that without proper sleep your blood sugar levels are already set off on a rollercoaster for the day and your body is put into a state of insulin resistance from the get go. You are basically trying to win the battle of making better food choices with both hands tied behind your back. Ghrelin (the hunger hormone) sky-rockets while Leptin (the satiety hormone) is no where to be seen, leaving you feeling hungrier than you really are and unable to feel satisfied by the food you are eating. If you are constantly feeling like your cravings are getting the best of you, make sure you are hitting your pillow for at least 8 quality hours per night.
Sleep & Hormone Balance
Chronic poor sleep disrupts your hormones. It increases cortisol, decreases testosterone, disrupts estrogen & progesterone and that is just to name a few of the affected hormones. These disruptions lead to a variety of issues: inability to manage stress, low libido & EDD, anxiety, irregular cycles and fertility issues, insulin resistance, and many more life-depleting issues. When we feel bad and find ourselves overwhelmed by simply navigating daily life, making healthy, life-giving, choices feels nearly impossible. Hormones are the signals that tell our body what to do when and how to respond to everyday and big life stressors. When hormones are out of whack, life is out of whack. Getting back on track first requires quality, restorative sleep. From there, all else can begin to be managed.
Sleep & Immune System Function
Sleep deprivation – that means routinely less than 7hrs/night – lowers your body’s ability to fend off infections leading to getting sick more often/more severely and taking longer to recover. Injuries happen more easily, side-lining you from your activities and making it more difficult to heal. Poor sleep habits also inhibit the body’s ability to manage inflammation leading to chronic inflammation that promotes disease (cancer, cognitive decline, heart disease, etc). While it’s difficult to consider what may lie years down the road when you feel you can “power through” with an extra cup of coffee, there really are no shortcuts.
Sleep & Mental Health + Behavior
Poor sleep worsens mental health disorders (anxiety, depression, ADHD, etc), leads to negative behaviors (ie, impulsiveness, poor focus and impaired learning) and, in the long run, sets the stage for permanent cognitive decline (ie, Alzheimer's Disease). Ever notice how you’re a little short-tempered after a particularly bad night of sleep? That is just a hint at all the upheaval not sleeping can do to our brain function. From being a root cause of depression and anxiety, to worsening or even replicating symptoms of ADHD, sleep is highly responsible for our mental performance. In the long run, getting too little sleep is highly associated with cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s Disease – a risk that is just not worth taking.
Sleep: Tips For a Good Night
Supplement with Magnesium L-Threonate & L-Theanine before bedtime.
Create a relaxing bedtime routine to cue your brain it is time to sleep – Keep it simple and even a little boring.
Lower the temperature of your sleeping space and turn out/block out ALL lights.
Avoid caffeine after 12pm and alcohol all together.
If your mind races, try a brain dump. Keep a journal next to your bed to write down your thoughts – leave it to be addressed the next day.
