This week could be the most important topic of all. We are going to talk about sleep. Why sleep is important, how much you should be getting and how to make sure you are getting the best quality of sleep.
During sleep, your body undergoes repair and recovery processes, including muscle repair, tissue regeneration, and restoration of physiological functions. This is necessary to allow your body to recover from the stresses of life and physical activity. Quality sleep replenishes energy stores in your body and ensures you have the necessary fuel for your daily activities.
Sleep is important for cognitive functions such as memory, concentration, and decision-making. It contributes to mental well-being by reducing stress, anxiety, and depression. When you don’t get enough, fatigue and impaired coordination can increase your risk of accidents and injuries.
Sleep is also important for regulating hormone levels including the ones involved in metabolism, appetite regulation, and muscle growth. Disruptions in sleep patterns can negatively impact hormone production, potentially hindering muscle development and recovery. Chronic sleep deprivation can weaken immune responses, increasing susceptibility to illness and infections. It can also lead to health complications including high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, stroke, cardiovascular and kidney disease. Sufficient, quality sleep is essential for optimizing your health, fitness, and overall well-being.
We have all heard the recommendation of 8 hours of sleep and similar to the 8 glasses of water, it is not one size fits all. As we age, we require less sleep. If you compare the growth and development that occur in your first 18 years of life to the years that follow, it makes sense. Up to the age of 65, you should be aiming for 7-9 hours of sleep. No less than 6, no more than 10. Too much sleep can also be an issue. After 65 the recommendation drops to 7-8 hours, no less than 5, no more than 9. I haven’t spent much time looking into the downside of too much sleep, but I feel like that is less of an issue for most people. If you have time to sleep for more than 10 hours, please do some research on this and get back to me.
Age is not the only factor involved in how much sleep you require. Gender, activity and stress play a role as well. Women require more sleep than men due to hormonal and body composition differences. Increased activity or mental stress throughout the day can increase the amount of sleep you require each night. Your body can not tell the difference between physical stress and mental stress. This is why you may find your performance in the gym suffers when life gets stressful or after being sick.
To know how many hours you need from this recommendation depends more on your sleep cycles. This is a super interesting topic and I encourage you to explore this further. But to keep it simple, we sleep in cycles. Each cycle lasts an average of 90 minutes, they are shortest when you first fall asleep and get longer throughout the night. There are four stages in each cycle, the first two are light sleep followed by deep and then rapid eye movement (REM) sleep.
Ever have a nap that lasts under half an hour and wake up feeling pretty good? That is because you only made it to the second phase of your sleep cycle. You were able to relax but you didn’t get into the “work” that occurs while you sleep. You spend about half of your time asleep in stage 2.
Deep sleep is where the recovery and growth start to occur. This stage is longer at the beginning of your sleep and gets shorter as REM sleep increases.
REM sleep is essential for cognitive functions due to the increased brain activity that occurs during that stage. At the beginning of the night, it only lasts a few minutes but as deep sleep gets shorter, REM gets longer.
It is best to wake up after the REM phase of your sleep cycle. Ever wake up and feel like you just weren’t done? Even when you could have woken up an hour earlier and felt more alert? That’s because you are being woken up during your deep or REM sleep. There are lots of apps that can help you track your sleep and determine when the optimal time to wake up is for you. However, I don’t trust the accuracy of them enough to recommend them. If you sleep beside someone else, I don’t believe your phone can tell the difference between your breathing pattern and theirs.
My best advice for determining this is to find the time you need to wake up. Set one alarm for that time, we will get into why later. Now, go back 8-10 hours and make that your bed time. The goal is to find where you would naturally wake up before your alarm makes you wake up.
You may have already noticed that some mornings you wake up before your alarm feeling better than you do when your alarm wakes you up after getting those extra minutes of sleep. If this is hours before when you need to be awake, definitely go back to bed. But if it’s within the hour, try getting up and see if that feels better throughout your day.
Now that you have an idea of how many hours you need each night. Let’s make those hours count. Time with your eyes closed does not equal quality time asleep. I wrote an article about this last fall that gets more in depth. We are going to focus on setting your environment and routine up to optimize sleep.
Environment:
There are four environmental factors that influence the quality of your sleep. They are brightness, temperature, humidity and noise.
Brightness:
How bright your room is at night can greatly affect your sleep. This is because light affects your circadian rhythm; your body's natural 24 hour cycle. Before there was artificial light, there was sunrise and sunset and that is how our bodies knew when to be asleep and awake.
Artificial light, specifically blue light, has been shown to have a negative impact on the quality of sleep you get. There was a study done where a group of individuals were exposed to a small beam of blue light on their leg and that was enough to reduce their quality of sleep. So cover the light, not your eyes.
You want your room dark while you sleep. Remove screens and technology if possible. Most have the option of putting them on “night mode”, which lowers the blue light it gives off. I have a fan that has a little blue light when it’s on. I covered it up and my sleep improved. If you must have a tv in your room, that little light on the sensor, cover it up. I imagine by now we all know not to have your TV, laptop, or phone screen on while you’re sleeping. Okay, good.
In a perfect world, the sun would rise and set with our sleep schedule year round. Black out curtains are great for blocking out the sun for the few months it sets after you go to bed and the artificial light from streetlights. If your curtains get opened before the sunrise that can improve how you feel when you wake up too. Sunrise lights are great for creating a natural wake up with the “sun” year round.
Blue light isn’t bad, it just signals your body to be awake. I go more into light in the article I mentioned above.
Temperature:
As you fall asleep, your body temperature decreases as your heart and breathing rate drop. Your blood circulates from your core out to your limbs in order to cool your body off for sleep. By sleeping at a slightly cooler temperature, usually around 18℃, you can work with your body to cool it off for sleep.
If you have a timer on your thermostat, set the temperature to go down an hour or two before you go to sleep. If you aren’t a fan of leaving your warm bed to your cold room, set it to increase in the last hour of your sleep.
Humidity:
The optimal humidity for sleep is between 30-50%. High humidity can interfere with deep and REM phases of your sleep cycle; this isn’t overly an issue in climates like ours. Low humidity can lead to dry skin, itchy eyes and difficulty breathing.
Noise:
Noise is a personal preference, but below 30 dB is optimum. Some people need complete silence, others can benefit from having a fan or a white noise machine on. Spotify and YouTube have so many options for this.
Routine:
The best thing you can do for your sleep is to keep it consistent. Which I know is easier said than done. I am not suggesting you pull your kids out of sports and give up your social life. But how often do you stay up late just because you don’t have to be up early the next day? With a hybrid work schedule, having different tasks to accomplish each morning could lead one to have a varied sleep schedule. To the best of your abilities, go to bed and wake up at the same time every day.
Night:
What you do before you go to sleep can greatly impact your sleep quality and energy levels throughout the day.
The final few hours of your day should be set up as a way to wind down from the day. Having a night time routine can add some structure to your evenings and give you time to unwind. This could simply be brushing your teeth, letting the dog out, changing and going to bed. This could be sitting and reading for a certain amount of time, journaling, some self care, whatever works for your day.
It is best to avoid technology while you wind down; checking work emails, social media and other things that may cause you stress. There are ways to limit your notifications so only certain apps or notifications go through.
Some may find it beneficial to make a list of what you have to do the next day as a way of unloading your to-do list from your brain. I sometimes do this in the last bit of my day at work and on Fridays when I accept that there are tasks that won’t get accomplished until next week.
We have already touched on light and the night mode setting on your phone. Using these settings to reduce the amount of blue light you get in your last few hours of being awake will make it easier to fall asleep. If you are able to use red or dim lights instead of blue around your home before you go to sleep, you will find you will be able to fall asleep easier as well.
There is a lot of taboo around eating late at night and it is true that if it fits in your calories for the day, timing shouldn’t matter. However, if you are able to finish eating for the day a few hours before you go to bed, your sleep quality will be better. Better sleep quality leads to improved metabolism, muscle recovery, glucose regulation, and results in better management of body composition.
When you consume food, it takes about 2-5 hours to leave your stomach. If you have issues with reflux or heart burn, you are likely already aware of this. It also typically takes 2 hours for your blood glucose levels to return to normal after eating. While glucose levels are elevated, your blood is bringing energy (glucose) to your organs and tissues. While you are trying to fall asleep, this is not desirable. When energy isn’t needed, it gets stored for later use.
This is why going for a walk after eating helps with weight management, if you give the energy a purpose, it won’t end up being stored for later use.
You may also find that when you eat right before bed you wake up in the middle of the night, especially if it is a higher carb meal. When your glucose levels are elevated, your kidneys are working over time to get that glucose out of your system. Your kidneys act as a filter for your blood and eliminates whatever glucose isn't used or stored. Your sympathetic nervous system notices the drop in glucose levels and signals you to wake up. It doesn’t realize that the drop is simply back to normal levels, just that it is a significant enough drop to trigger a response.
It may not always be possible to have hours to prepare for bed. But by implementing even some of these, you will find you’ll be able to fall asleep faster and have a higher quality of sleep.
Morning:
What you do when you first wake up will impact your energy levels throughout your day. How you use your energy during the day will impact your sleep quality. Try to make the first hour or two of your day tech free. Starting your day with stressful emails or doom scrolling does not set your day up for success.
Starting your day with movement will also set you up for better energy levels throughout the day. Maybe you don’t have time for a full gym session but get some stretches in while you wait for your coffee to be made, walk around as much as you can, get that blood flowing.
Try to get some natural sunlight on your skin. The summer is great because you can open your blinds instead of turning on lights. If you have the time to drink your coffee or eat your breakfast outside, that works great. If you’re blessed with a dog, movement and sunlight! Even just opening your window on your drive in will get you the benefits of natural sunlight.
We have already discussed starting your day with a glass of water to rehydrate your body. It is recommended that you hold off on caffeine for the first hour of your day and that you eat before you consume it. Making sure your first meal has protein and fiber will allow you to feel full and satisfied for longer. Find what works best for you, some people have greatly benefited from fasting and it is easier for them to delay their first meal than it is to finish eating earlier in the day. There is less research on the benefits of fasting in the morning for women, so please keep that in mind.
I encourage you to prioritize sleep as part of your daily routine. Health isn't about being 100% on everything. Find one or two things that would work in your routine and try it out. If you have any questions or need further guidance on sleep strategies, feel free to reach out. Your health and fitness journey are important, and adequate sleep will undoubtedly support your efforts.
Have a great week,
Paige
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