Sleep is essential for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you are 10 years old or 50 and it doesn’t matter if you are a casual gym-goer or a world-class athlete. We all need sleep. How much? Well, the vast majority of people fall within the 7-9 hours per night category. In general, the older we get, the less sleep we actually need. Children and teens need more than the average because the growth of their mind and bodies require additional rest. However, there is a lot that goes into sleep and how it affects our health, performance, and even weight loss. Let’s discuss why.
First off, I will state the obvious…if you don’t get enough sleep, you will be sluggish. Yes, I know. Those of you with families and full-time jobs are saying, “yea dude, of course I’m sluggish.” But how and why does that impact our health? Well, aside from the fact that you probably don’t want to be tired and caught napping at work (lol), being tired from lack of sleep may prevent you from going to the gym. It may prevent you from putting in the extra effort to plan and pack your meals which will lead you to the closest fast food drive-thru for lunch. And it may even lead to you come home after a long day at work and not give your full attention to your family. So in summary, a lack of sleep may make you miss your workout, spend money that you did not intend to spend on fast food that you know isn’t good for you, and make you a less productive husband/wife or father/mother when you get home. That’s enough reason alone isn’t it? But if it isn’t, I have further data that may interest you.
I have been doing experiments on myself over the last four weeks. I have used a health and performance data analytics tool that I wear 24/7 called Whoop. It provides me a score from 0-100 for my Recovery which tells me how ready my body is to take on strain. (FYI, no, they are not paying me nor do I get anything for mentioning their product. I’m just a believer in this terrific tool.) Anyways, I have tracked every workout, my daily calorie expenditure and my sleep. I have found that poor quality of sleep always leads to a worse performance the following day. Seems obvious right? But there’s more to a quality night’s sleep than just quantity of hours in bed. The three basic stages of sleep are light sleep, REM sleep, and Slow-wave Sleep(SWS) aka Deep sleep. Light sleep is exactly what it sounds like, we are just barely out of consciousness but have a small amount of awareness of our surroundings. REM sleep is where our brain is highly active and is also the type of sleep where we experience dreaming. SWS or deep sleep is the most important type of sleep for those who care about performance. That is because during SWS, 95% of our growth hormone is excreted and our body goes through the majority of its recovery. SWS is so vital, that if we fall into a sleep debt, our next sleep will be used primarily to makeup our SWS before REM or light sleep. Our body needs SWS for survival. But how can we control the quality of our sleep?
I quickly realized after a few days that although the Whoop is a terrific tool it doesn’t track my daily habits that are outside of strenuous activity. So I began to track if/when I watched TV, when I ate my last meal, if/when I read before sleeping, my hydration, etc. I drew conclusive evidence over the last few weeks (and this may not shock you), that the best recovery occurred on nights in which I did not watch television or play on my phone, I read a book prior to sleep and I had proper hydration. The next item though may shock you—the earlier I ate my last meal in the evening, the better my recovery score. How can that be? I mean, if you have been around the fitness industry for awhile, we have all been told to drink casein protein or milk prior to bed to help with recovery. However, my personal data suggests otherwise. It showed a direct correlation that the earlier I ate my final meal of the day, the better my recovery score. Why? After we eat, our bodies use calories and provide blood (therefore increasing heart rate) to the major internal organs to digest food. As you can expect, the higher our heart rate, the more difficult it is to sleep at night. The lower your resting heart rate, the more relaxed your body and mind, the better you sleep! This was evident not only in my recovery scores, but also in my resting heart rate (RHR). When I first began using the Whoop, my average dinner time was between 6:00-6:30. My average RHR was about 52. Not bad. However, when I changed my habit from eating at 4:30-5:00 at night, my average RHR dropped to 47. Wow! And not only that, but I FELT better when I woke up in the morning. My mind was more clear and I felt ready to take on the day. And for those of you who are on a weight loss journey or at least care about managing your weight, quality sleep is critical for weight loss. More information on how sleep affects your metabolism can be found at https://www.sleepfoundation.org/articles/how-excessive-sleep-can-affect-your-metabolism.
I know that this experiment I did was specific to me, and my habit changes may not be possible for some of you. But I hope it encourages some of you to begin to look at your daily habits such as TV, phone-scrolling, reading, eating, hydration, etc., and you can begin to positively change your daily habits to improve your sleep, and ultimately, improve your life!
God bless you guys and Merry Christmas!
Richard Fitzgerald 