Importance Of Sleep: This Blog Post Will Send You To Sleep… In A Good Way
(Written By Hannah & Rachel Burgon)
We’re all guilty of it. ‘Surely watching one more episode on Netflix wont hurt’‘I’ll just play one more game of Fifa’‘Let’s scroll Instagram for 30 mins whilst in bed’. All of the above could be leading you to the dark path of ‘lack of sleep’. Considering we are asleep for around 1/3 of our lives, sleep is an extremely under-rated topic in our busy society. Sleep has an effect on multiple factors of our life. Let’s delve into this.
Our Triad consists of Exercise, Nutrition and Mindset. We believe that all of these factors combine to a healthy lifestyle and optimal performance with your training. Sleep interacts with each of these:
Exercise:
Sleep can activate regions of the scalp that sit above the motor cortex and can result in overnight motor skill enhancement, together with reduced muscle fatigue Christova et al, 2018].Getting less than eight hours of sleep, and especially less than six hours reduces time to physical exhaustion by 10-30% whilst aerobic output is also reduced and faster rates of lactic acid build up. Milewski et al. (2014) also found a chronic lack of sleep (6 hours or less) majorly predicted higher injury risk. Sleep AFTER sports is also important as it accelerates recovery and helps replenish energy in the form of glycogen and glucose.Indeed, Usain Bolt has taken naps prior to breaking the world records (so you can too, no?). Research has consistently shown sleep benefits from those ranging from beginners to athletes, and across sports (tennis, football, rowing). This led the Olympic Committee (Bergeron et al. 2015) to publish a consensus statement, highlighting the essential need for sleep in athletic development across all sports for men and women.
Nutrition:
The less you sleep, the more likely you are to eat more.
Your body becomes unable to manage calories effectively, especially the concentration of sugar in the blood.
These two factors can increase the likelihood of weight gain and obesity.Sleep can lead us to gain weight via the following avenues:
Hormones: It reduces leptin (a hormone signalling fullness) and increases ghrelin (a hormone signalling hunger) [Taheri et al 2004;Nedeltcheva et al 2010]. Combine the two and you got it… it increases appetite and also reduces food satisfaction post- meal, so we want more… and more… and more.
Type of foods: Less sleep results in searching for them high energy foods (sugars, high carbohydrate foods and salty snacks). Researchers have found this due to an increase in activation of ‘motivation’ areas of the brain (primal deep brain structures) coupled with a decrease in ‘thoughtful judgments and controlled decisions’ (Prefrontal Cortex).
The Gut: travel South of the body and you find that sleep improves the bacterial community of the microbiome (in your gut). Insufficient sleep can result in malabsorption of food and can cause Gastrointestinal problems [Khanijow et al 2015].
Weight Loss- lean or fat?: Those who slept for just 5 ½ hours a night for two weeks had more than 70% of weight lost was from lean body mass, whilst those sleeping 8 ½ had well over 50% of weight loss from fat while preserving muscle [Nedeltcheva et al 2010].
Mindset:
Struggled to sleep last night? Now finding yourself snapping at every man, wife and their dog?
Sleep can affect our emotional regulation, leaving us irritable the next day. Indeed, this links to our brain activity. The amygdala is a key brain structure, associated with strong emotions including anger and rage, which has shown to amplify by 60% in sleep-deprived. The rational section of the brain (mentioned above- the Prefrontal Cortex) also becomes less activated, thus reducing our rational decision making. Furthermore, studies show lack of sleep leads to more emotional sensitivity [Krause et al 2017].
SO INCREASED AMYGDALA ACTIVATION + DECREASED PREFRONTAL CORTEX = IRRITABILITY
Moreover, those otherwise healthy, experienced similar neurological brain activity to those observed in psychiatric patients (Walker 2018). This highlights the importance of sleep.Finally, a meta analysis found that a lack of sleep reduced motivation and led to performance decreases (Thun et al 2015).
That’s all great but what is considered sleeping well?
This is a difficult question to answer since we are all unique.
Duration: However, it is recommended that we sleep approximately 8 hours a night, whereby 6 hours or less is commonly cited as affecting our mental and physical wellbeing.
When? As a population we differ in that some individuals can be considered, ‘night owls’ (prefer sleeping later and waking later= most productive in later hours of the day) whilst others are ‘morning larks’ (prefer sleeping earlier and waking earlier= most productive in earlier hours of the day). Think about which you may be and try and adapt your working or ‘productive hours’ around those times.
Recovery sleep: Many people talk of ‘catching up on sleep at the weekend’. Unfortunately, sleep lost is sleep lost. When we sleep, we go through multiple ‘Sleep Cycles’ (each with their bonuses). However, lose out on the early morning ‘sleep spindle’ activity by waking up too early… then you lose their benefits (which in this case is the motor skill enhancement mentioned above).
Establishing a good sleep routine
With all this being said, don’t be too harsh on yourself. Sleeping well is easier said than done. However, here are some tips to enhance your sleep:
1) Be active during the day
Spread activity throughout the day
Run/Walk
Cycling
Skipping
Sports
Workouts
Dance
2) Prepare the room [The Sleep Foundation, 2020]
Reduce the light from screens an hour before bedtime or switch to blue light mode
Night lights should ideally be red
Try and ensure there is limited noise
Ensure the bedroom temperature is comfortable
Scents: consider lavender on the pillow (believed to have a calming influence)
The bedroom becomes a trigger for alertness if other activities are done in bed (e.g. watching TV, doing work), so limit them taking place in the bedroom.
3) Have a healthy supper
Oats: contain melatonin, known for inducing sleep [Costello et al 2014]
Banana: promotes production of serotonin, which influences sleep cycles
Evening routines: e.g. warm milk and a biscuit
No caffeine/ limit caffeine consumption from 1pm onwards as it can influence your sleep from as early as 1pm
Avoid/ limit alcohol and nicotine consumption before bed
4) Get ready for bed
Establish a good, regular routine. An example may be:
7pm: tea time
8pm: relaxing activities only (e.g. crafts, colouring in, reading, relaxation exercises, stretching, yoga, meditation, Progressive Muscle Relaxation)
9.30pm/ 10pm: get ready for bed and wind down (e.g. bath with relaxing scents, putting PJs on, cleaning teeth)
10pm: Play relaxing music/ audiobook
10.15pm: Sleep
5) Get into bed
Reinforce messages to yourself such as, ‘a good nights sleep will bring more calmness and content tomorrow’
6) Sleep time
If you struggle to sleep for 30 minutes +, get out of bed, leave the bedroom and walk around the house. Return to your bedroom, thinking ‘this is a fresh start’
If you wake in the night, do not scroll on your phone or let yourself get distracted. Take a deep breath and try and sleep again.
Consider keeping a sleep diary (there are lots online) to track any patterns you may find (e.g. poor sleep on Wednesdays may be due to delivering a presentation at work every Wednesday. Why not schedule meditation Wednesdays to help calm from this?)
We hope this has been useful for you. Don’t neglect sleep- it is the cheapest medicine going for optimal wellbeing. So after reading this, if you are thinking ‘I’ll do that extra bit of gaming, TV or Instagramming?’.... DREAM ON….LITERALLY.
References
Bergeron, Michael & Mountjoy, Margo & Armstrong, Neil & Chia, Michael & Côté, Jean & Emery, Carolyn & Faigenbaum, Avery & Hall, Gary & Léglise, Michel & Malina, Robert & Pensgaard, Anne & Sanchez, Alex & Soligard, Torbjørn & Sundgot-Borgen, Jorunn & Mechelen, Willem & Weissensteiner, Juanita & Engebretsen, Lars. (2015). International Olympic Committee consensus statement on youth athletic development. British journal of sports medicine. 49. 843-51. 10.1136/bjsports-2015-094962.Christova, M., Aftenberger, H., Nardone, R., & Gallasch, E. (2018). Adult Gross Motor Learning and Sleep: Is There a Mutual Benefit?. Neural plasticity, 2018, 3076986. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/3076986Costello, R. B., Lentino, C. V., Boyd, C. C., O'Connell, M. L., Crawford, C. C., Sprengel, M. L., & Deuster, P. A. (2014). The effectiveness of melatonin for promoting healthy sleep: a rapid evidence assessment of the literature. Nutrition journal, 13, 106. https://doi.org/10.1186/1475-2891-13-106Khanijow, V., Prakash, P., Emsellem, H. A., Borum, M. L., & Doman, D. B. (2015). Sleep Dysfunction and Gastrointestinal Diseases. Gastroenterology & hepatology, 11(12), 817–825.Krause, A. J., Simon, E. B., Mander, B. A., Greer, S. M., Saletin, J. M., Goldstein-Piekarski, A. N., & Walker, M. P. (2017). The sleep-deprived human brain. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 18(7), 404–418. https://doi.org/10.1038/nrn.2017.55Milewski, Matthew D. MD*; Skaggs, David L. MD, MMM†; Bishop, Gregory A. MS‡; Pace, J. Lee MD†; Ibrahim, David A. MD†; Wren, Tishya A.L. PhD†; Barzdukas, Audrius MEd‡ Chronic Lack of Sleep is Associated With Increased Sports Injuries in Adolescent Athletes, Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics: March 2014 - Volume 34 - Issue 2 - p 129-133 doi: 10.1097/BPO.0000000000000151Nedeltcheva AV, Kilkus JM, Imperial J, et al. Insufficient Sleep Undermines Dietary Efforts to Reduce Adiposity. Ann Intern Med. 2010;153:435–441. doi: https://doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-153-7-201010050-00006Sleepfoundation.org. 2020. The Bedroom Environment | National Sleep Foundation. [online] Available at: <https://www.sleepfoundation.org/bedroom-environment> [Accessed 22 April 2020].Taheri, S., Lin, L., Austin, D., Young, T., & Mignot, E. (2004). Short sleep duration is associated with reduced leptin, elevated ghrelin, and increased body mass index. PLoS medicine, 1(3), e62. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0010062Thue, E., Bjorvatn, B., Flo E., Harris A.,Pallesen S (2015). Sleep, Circadian Rhythms and Athletic Performance,Sleep Medicine Reviews, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smrv.2014.11.003