Sleep Soundly to Move More
KEY POINTS:
1. Sleep is highly beneficial for athletic performance, and exercising regularly is highly beneficial for sleep.
2. During sleep, our hearts slow down, our blood pressure drops, and our muscles relax. This provides us with some much-needed rest so that our cardiovascular systems and muscles can repair and rebuild themselves.
3. One of the key aspects of recovery during sleep is the release of Human Growth Hormone (HGH). HGH promotes fat breakdown, increases muscle mass, and improves the body's ability to recover from the workout and prepare it for the next training session.
“Society is learning how important sleep is and how dangerous sleep deprivation is. We’re teaching our players: Sleep is a weapon.”
There is a reciprocal relationship between sleep and exercise. If you sleep properly, you will probably perform well during your next workout, and if you exercise regularly, you will be able to sleep well. It's a positive cycle and another example of the ripple effect.
Dr. Cheri Mah at Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic and Research Laboratory conducted a telling research project on the impact of increased sleep on athletic performance. Mah measured the 11 members of the Stanford University men’s varsity basketball team for a baseline period of 3 weeks, during which time they slept about 7 to 8 hours per night. Then the athletes deliberately increased their sleep by 110 minutes and tried to stay in bed for 10 hours each night. After the sleep extension phase, the athletes had faster sprint times, improved shooting accuracy (by 9% even from three-point range!), and decreased fatigue.
We know that sleeping well improves our recovery and regeneration after a workout or athletic competition, which helps us adapt to the exercise we're doing, so we get fitter and stronger faster. During sleep, our hearts slow down, our blood pressure drops, and our muscles relax. This provides us with some much-needed rest so that our cardiovascular systems and muscles can repair and rebuild themselves.
One example of a critical restorative process that occurs while you are sleeping is the release of Human Growth Hormone (HGH). HGH promotes fat breakdown and increases in muscle mass, which allows the body to recover from the physiological stresses that occur during exercise and daily life. If you are sleep deprived and have less HGH in your system, not only will you restrict your body’s ability to recover while you are sleeping, but it also appears that you will limit your ability to exercise the next day. Lower levels of HGH may decrease the amount of time you can exercise due to reduced energy stores in your muscles.
The more you can commit to getting a proper amount of sleep, the healthier and more effective you will be.
This Week’s Exercise: Be Consistent
Now that you have logged your sleep patterns for the past week, you should have a good idea of how long you sleep and when you normally go to bed and wake up. The next step is to try to be as consistent as possible! Try your best to go to bed and wake up at the same time every day and see how that impacts how you feel the next day.
You can continue using the Sleep Soundly Scorecard to track your sleep and wake times. You can fill in a new week on page 20 of The Ripple Effect Workbook.
Bonus Content
Way to go on getting to the Sleep Soundly to Move More post!
To congratulate you I wanted to share this short video I did for the Running Room on the science of how sleep enhances exercise performance!
The information and advice provided in this program is intended to assist you with improving your performance, as well as your general health. It is not intended and should not be used in place of advice from your own physician or for treatment or diagnosis of any specific health issue. By participating in this program you acknowledge that undertaking any new health, diet and/or exercise regime involves certain inherent risks, that you assume such risks, and that you release Wells Performance Inc. from any responsibility or claim relating to such participation.