Then after this most of us want to cherish sleep. We crave it. Thats why we hate cardio in the morning or even getting an early flight to go where we have always dreamed, because we know we feel better from more sleep. If you are an average sort of person (when it comes to sleep - not how shredded you are compared to the rest of population) you will spend 36% of your life sleeping, which means if you make it to 90 years of age you would have slept 32 years of your life. 32 years.
Lack of sleep can be detrimental to your health/motivation/relationships/recovery - both mental and physical and yet normally about 5 mornings a week we are awoken by an alarm sound ruining our sleep cycle/body clock.
Humans, Plants and Animals all have chemical clocks that are built around the environment, normally light and dark (day and night). For example it has been proven if you take a horseshoe crab out of it's environment and fly it thousands of miles away and put it in a float cage it will still move in harmony with the tide it came from all those thousands of miles away, it will do this for a sustained period of time.
I know what your thinking what does a crab have to do with my sleep?
If you take person and put them in a bunker underground, that person will go to sleep and will awake at the same time until starting to get up a little bit later each day (about 15 mins) which proves you have your own body clock and to work at optimum levels your body needs you to fulfil this day after day.
So what happens when you don't have enough sleep/enough quality sleep? Caffeine is used to wake us up (coffee in the morning normally) and sometimes alcohol (A sedative - not a sleep aid) to help us get to sleep. Which although is a short term fix is great but it does not solve anything in terms of making us work at our best.
So what happens when we do not have enough sleep?
- Higher stress levels
- Lack of cognitive recovery
- Lack of Physical recovery
- Less Motivation
- Less ability to learn a new task
- Reduced ability to recall stored information (Memory)
- Reduced Creativity
- Increased Impulsiveness
- In the 1950s people had on average 8 hours of sleep a night
- In 2013 people had on average just 6.5 hours of sleep
- But here is the staggering one. In 2013 it was common for people to have just 5 hours
In fact if you get less than 5 hours of sleep per night you have 50% chance of becoming obese and more than likely a much higher chance of weight gain which none of us want when it comes to being lean. This is because lack of sleep causes Ghrelin to rise which is the hunger hormone, Ghrelin causes the brain to crave carbohydrates but not any carbohydrates it particularly seeks out sugars (Not good if your prepping for a show).
The worst bit is we do not help ourselves in anyway, the optimum way to get sleep is to have the room as dark as you can for a good half an hour before you try to get to sleep. But what do we all do? Watch the news at 10, check the Muscle Rage Twitter, text loved ones goodnight, send late emails and of course brush our teeth with a very high wattage light bulb overhead. The next thing we need to do is make the room cool, which again is easier said than done due to the fact we all have the fire or central heating on through the winter and in the summer most of us do not have some form of air conditioning due to the lack of brilliant weather in this country - although this year has been brilliant.
Now sometimes a lack of sleep is needed or a lack of quality sleep is needed to get the job done whether thats getting up to go to business meeting or working through the night or getting an extra session of cardio or even a midnight meal in a few nights out from a show. We hear all the time 'don't go to sleep if you woke up broke' and that 'you have to be willing to give up sleep to succeed', which taking it in the context it's said makes a lot of sense and sometimes that has to be done.
However, looking at that from a well being/healthy/productive point of view doing that will probably actually make you worse at performing those tasks compared to having good 8 hours sleep. Because you wont be able to work as hard sleep deprived whether that is physical in the gym or mentally at work.
If you struggle to get that deep sleep we have shared in this article make sure you turn the lights off, have effective blinds/curtains/turn off your electronics and keep your bedroom cool. You can even take a scoop of Sleep/GH or 3 caps a Growth whilst your doing this to help you get that quality of sleep you rightfully deserve, need, crave and want.
We hope that you will mentally and physically benefit from this blog post.
Source 1. - Russell Foster - Why do we sleep - ted.com
Source 2. - Jessa Gamble - Our Natural sleep cycle - ted.com
