Unlock Your Potential: 7 Game-Changing Fitness Benefits of Proper Sleep.
You've done everything right. You have smashed your exercising, nailed your macro nutrients, and have been hydrated. However, when you are regularly saving on sleep, you are sacrificing a huge part of your performance. Sleep is the unspoken companion to nutrition and training, in the quest to achieve the desired fitness; the sleep hero that helps in the realization of your physical potential.
Sleep has been long considered a passive condition, an inactive one. As a matter of fact, it is a time of high biological activity that can never be compromised in terms of muscle development, performance, and recovery. You should see your fitness process as a three-legged stool: Training is what breaks down the muscle. The building blocks are through nutrition. The body actually does the building when rest is taking place.
When you are serious about unleashing your fitness, then you need to consider the shut-eye. The following are the top seven game changers of sleep.
1.It Supercharges Growth and Recovery of Muscles.
This is the most immediate and the most important advantage of any person who wants to gain strength and muscle. When you perform exercise and more so when engaging in resistance training, you end up tearing your muscle fibers in microscopic perforations. The exercise does not make you stronger, but the process that follows.
The two most important hormones that dominate this repair process are:
Human Growth Hormone (HGH): This is the main repair hormone within the body. It is necessary to have HGH to grow muscle tissues, cells, and regenerate. Most of the HGH is discharged in pulses when one is in deep, slow-wave slumber (Stages 3 and 4 of NREM sleep). Cutting sleep by a significant percentage deprives this life-blood of your body, and leaves your muscles failing to regenerate as well as before.
Testosterone: This is another important anabolic (muscle-building) hormone. Studies have always indicated that lack of sleep considerably reduces the level of testosterone in men. A study had reported that just 5 hours of sleep per night in a period of one week decreased the amount of testosterone by the same degree as aging by 10-15 years. In the case of women, sleep also plays a crucial role in ensuring that the hormones remain healthy which promotes muscle tone and metabolism.
Your body cannot properly perform its functions without proper deep sleep and is compared to a construction team that reported to the job site without their tools. You have supplied the ingredients (food) but the construction (muscle development) just cannot occur effectively.
2.It Revitalizes the Body and improves sporting activities.
All athletes, including the amateur and the professional athlete, will perform better when they get ample sleep. The effect can be quantified in a wide variety of performance measures:
Speed and Accuracy: A research on basketball players discovered that when they increased their sleep, their sprint times were reduced and their accuracy was better on free-throws and three-point shots.
Reaction Time: The reaction time is slowed by sleep deprivation as much, or even more, than by legal alcohol intoxication. This is essential in all types of competitive sport to weightlifting that is safe.
Endurance: Sleep deprivation enhances a perceived effort- how hard a workout is. When you are fatigued, a run or a normal weight lifting session which would otherwise be considered manageable becomes exponentially harder and you run out sooner or you just lift less. It also has a detrimental effect on VO2 max (one of the important measures of aerobic endurance).
Sleep is a time that your body is trying to restore glycogen in your muscles and in the liver. The most important source of energy that is used by your body in high intensity exercise is glucose. These stores cannot be replenished well with lack of enough sleep, and when you are already running on empty before you even start your workout.
3.It sharpens the neural focus and inspiration.
Fitness is a mental game as much as it is a physical game. Taking the time to get out the door and run in the morning or make the effort to get to one more rep takes much mental strength and attention. This is an essential element that is directly assaulted by sleep deprivation.
Sleep deprivation seriously affects your brain, the prefrontal cortex, the area of your brain that does all the decision making, willpower and focus.
This will cause you to be more impulsive (poor dietary choice) and less motivated (find it easy to miss a workout).
Moreover, a fatigued brain will not control and coordinate motor control as effectively, which makes you more likely to be injured during technical lifts, such as squats, cleans, or Olympic movements.
Resting mind is a disciplined, focused and motivated mind. It is the dissimilarity between hitting the snooze button and shoelacing.
4.It Controls Eating and Aids Nutrition Objectives.
The strongest impact of sleep may be on hunger hormones perhaps, the most unexpected plus of sleep. Lack of sleep will cause a hormonal imbalance which is by no means working in your favor as far as nutrition is concerned.The hunger hormone (ghrelin) is elevated, and you get hungrier.
Your leptin (the hormone responsible for feeling full after you eat) levels become lower, and it becomes more difficult to get full.
Such a one-two punch is a storm of cravings, especially the desire to eat high-calorie, high-carbohydrate, and sugary food.
This is not a deficiency in will power, but it is a biological motivation. A sleep-deprived brain is also more needy, as they are more attracted to unhealthy food. That is why it is such a struggle to adhere to a clean diet. You can maintain this balance in terms of your caloric deficit or surplus by prioritizing sleep, which naturally triggers a lack of hunger and makes it easier to sustain the required level of caloric deficit or surplus.
5. It Strengthens Immune System.
Tedious, rigorous training is a body stressors. Although this stress is advantageous in the long-term (a phenomenon known as hormesis), it immunosuppresses in the short-term. This is the reason why sometimes athletes are more prone to common colds and infections, particularly when they are in heavy training.
It is during your sleep that your immune system works. When you sleep, your body creates and releases cytokines a kind of protein that attacks infection and inflammation. Devoid of adequate sleep, your output of these protective cytokines reduces. Being ill does not simply mean a couple of days off, it can be weeks of lost progress, a big setback in your fitness program. Sleep is your first line of natural defense against sickness and you can be able to train regularly and make gradual progress.
6. It Regulates Cortisol (Stress Hormone).
Cortisol is commonly referred to as a bad hormone, but this is a necessity in life. It assists in controlling metabolism, inflammation and blood sugar levels. But sustained high levels of cortisol are catabolic i.e. it breaks down tissues, including muscle tissue.
Normal is the increase of cortisol due to intense exercise. The issue arises when this elevation goes chronic because of the inability to recover. Cortisol is a strong cortisol regulator that is controlled by sleep. The levels automatically fall in the evening to facilitate rest including that which should be at the lowest point at midnight. When sleep deprivation occurs, the level of cortisol does not subside during the night and day after day.
This acts as an unfavorable environment to muscle growth, is conducive to the storage of fat (especially abdominal fat) and inhibits the recovery process. Poor quality of the little sleep you do get is also disturbed by high cortisol which leads to a vicious cycle of stress and poor recovery.
7. It Maximizes Co-ordination and minimizes Injury risk.
All the others are bound together by this benefit. The impaired mental clarity, lack of motor control, slow reaction times and increased cortisol levels are all factors that increase the risk of injury. You are tired and your shape is bad. It may not be the time to hold your core correctly when making a heavy lift or when you may fall in an awkward way when jumping on a box.
A study of adolescent athletes revealed that adolescents who slept less than 8 hours per night were 1.7 times more likely to have suffered an injury than those who got 8 or more hours of sleep.
Sleep provides your nervous system with a total rest and allows it to perform at its best. It translates to improved mind-muscle shortening, faster reflexes, and improved coordination- all of which are your best bet against the sprains, strains and other more devastating injuries that can bring your progress to a halt months.
How to Harness the Power of Sleep.
It is one thing to know the benefits, but differentiating between the benefits and prioritizing sleep is another thing. Some of the easy tips that can help you get better sleep hygiene are:
Be Consistent: Wake up at the same time and go to bed at the same time also in the weekends.
Practice it. Lengthen in the presence of light and read books.
Embracing Darkness: Darken your room with as much as possible. Think of blackout curtains and envelop the electronic lights.
Maximize Your Space: Have a cool room (about 65 o C or 18 o C) and no noise.
The Final Rep
No more regarding sleep as wasted time or as a burden. It is an active, powerful and necessary component of your training program. By trying to get 7-9 hours of quality sleep per night, you are not only getting a rest, you are actually constructing a stronger, faster, leaner, and healthier body. You are cashing in on all your efforts in the gym and the kitchen. Sleeping is your superpower.
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