“Scientists have discovered a revolutionary new treatment that helps you live longer, it enhances your memory and makes you more creative. It makes you look more attractive. It keeps you slim and lowers food cravings. It protects you from cancer and dementia. It wards off colds and the flu. It lowers your risk of heart attacks, stroke, and diabetes. You’ll even feel happier, less depressed, and less anxious. Are you interested?”

-Why We Sleep by Dr. Matthew Walker

You guessed it, in this quote Dr. Matthew Walker (one of the leading sleep researchers in the world right now) is talking about sleep. Prioritizing good, quality sleep is one of if not the most crucial, yet often overlooked aspects of your physical and mental health. In this blog, we’ll dive into why sleep is so important and provide a few tips to “hack your sleep”. 

 

Before we dive into how to improve your sleep, it’s important to understand what exactly happens when you sleep that makes it so crucial to your recovery and performance. 

Memory Processing

During the deeper cycles of sleep (REM sleep specifically), this is where all memory processing happens and you consolidate learned skills. Without REM sleep, we are unable to learn or form new memories based on experiences we’ve had.

Hormone Production

There are a few key hormones that are produced and regulated during deeper sleep stages. One of these is human growth hormone, which facilitates repair and growth (VERY important - especially for athletes or those that workout regularly). Not only are you unable to build and repair muscle as well when you don’t get sufficient sleep, but 70% of all the weight you lose will come from muscle directly instead of fat. Your body becomes stingy in giving up its fat when it’s underslept, meaning you will actually be losing muscle - the exact opposite of what you are aiming to do with strength training! 

Also, the hormones that tell your body when you’re hungry and full are controlled during deep sleep which means that without quality sleep, you won’t be able to regulate your diet as well as this system will be off.

Immune System Strengthens

This one speaks for itself - getting consistent, quality sleep plays a role in strengthening your immune system. Studies have shown that people who don’t get enough sleep or good quality sleep are more likely to get sick after being exposed to a virus like the common cold. Lack of sleep can also affect how quickly you recover when you do get sick.

Athletic Performance

Simply put, sleep is one of the greatest hacks for athletic performance, yet it is still neglected in sport. In fact, chronic lack of sleep can significantly hinder performance in a lot of ways. There have been numerous studies looking into the relationship between sleep and injury risk and the common theme is that getting less than 6 hours of sleep can increase your risk for injury by as much as 60%. Not only does your injury risk skyrocket, but you also reach physical exhaustion much quicker, aerobic capacity as well as muscular strength and power are reduced, and there is a reduction in the amount of air your lungs can hold. These are pretty important not just for elite athletes, but ANYONE who is physically active in any capacity!

So, now that we know why sleep is so important for recovery and overall health and well-being… let’s talk about some of the ways to “hack your sleep” 

Consistency

This one - above all others - is probably the most important. Establishing consistent sleep and wake times, 7 days a week (yes, you read that right) in order to line up your Circadian Rhythm is going to be the most beneficial for getting quality sleep consistently. Let me be clear, going to bed and waking up at the same time 365 days a year is definitely not realistic for most of us, myself included. Altering your sleep cycle every now and then is NOT going to derail everything - life happens. However, being in the habit of getting 5 hours of sleep on weekdays and trying to “make up for it” on the weekends isn’t going to cut it. Being diligent about going to bed early 4 days a week but then going to bed at 2 am during the weekends also won’t be very beneficial. 

Do the best you can with establishing a consistent routine (aiming for 7-9 hours a night) for the most longevity benefits. 

Temperature

Believe it or not, research strongly supports the temperature being 60-67 degrees while you are sleeping - which is much lower than you might think. The reason for this is your core body temperature has to drop 1-3 degrees in order to fall asleep at night.

Hacks: lowering your AC, cold exposure (cold tub, short cold shower at night), chilling devices

Light

The bedroom should be as dark as possible. No lights on devices, no lights coming through the windows. There have been studies that have shown that even light the size of a quarter shining on you can prevent you from getting into deeper sleep cycles (where all that recovery and muscle rebuilding happens) for the entire night! So keep it dark - this includes lights from alarm clocks, street lights, etc.

Hacks: blackout curtains, eye masks

Breathing

You may have heard the phrase “in through the nose, out through the mouth” when trying to slow your breathing and relax - there is a reason for this. Nasal breathing (breathing through the nose) puts your body in “rest and digest” and promotes a state of relaxation. Mouth breathing, on the other hand, keeps the body in “fight or flight” mode.

Comfort

There are a few things that come into play here. The overall idea is you want to make your sleeping environment as comfortable and relaxing as possible. A few things that will help with this are washing your sheets regularly (think of how good you tend to sleep with fresh, clean sheets on your bed), minimizing disturbances (could be from roommates, your partner, or your pet), and keeping your space clean and not too messy. If you really want to go the extra mile, research most strongly supports sleeping on your side with your dominant arm on top - your body feels most protected and at ease in this position.

Caffeine

Generally speaking, you want to try to avoid caffeine in the 8 hours prior to bedtime. For a lot of us, this means cutting yourself off anywhere between 1 and 3 pm. The reason for this is caffeine spikes cortisol levels (our stress hormone) which then increases your heart rate, makes it harder to fall asleep, and prevents you from getting into those deeper sleep cycles.

Blue Light

This is probably the toughest one for most of us, regardless of age. In order to get the most restful sleep possible, try to put the screens away or limit exposure to blue light 2-3 hours or so before bed. Blue light (from phones, laptops, TV screens, video games) essentially signals our bodies and minds to wake up and delays melatonin production - again, making it harder to fall asleep and also impacting the amount of time we spend in deep sleep.

Hacks: reading, family time, etc. before bed, blue light filtering glasses, “night mode” on devices

Relationship

The last thing to touch on is the relationship you have with your bed and sleeping environment. What I mean by this is - do you watch TV in bed regularly? Work? Scroll social media? Play video games? The reason these things can be problematic is because once you are actually trying to go to sleep, your body thinks it’s time to do all these other things and is unable to relax into a restful state. You want to save your bed for sleep and sleep only.

Hopefully with all that information you have a better understanding of why sleep is SO important - not just from a recovery and athletic performance standpoint, but for overall health and wellbeing. Improving your sleep health doesn’t have to be complicated - these are all easy things you can try incorporating tonight to experience the many benefits of a good, quality night of sleep. As always, if you have specific questions don’t hesitate to contact us so we can help you feel your best and reach peak performance and longevity!