I’ll sleep when I’m dead (might be sooner than you think)
Sleep (or sleep deprivation) is a funny problem because for a lot of us we haven’t slept well in so long we barely notice what feels ‘normal’ anymore. Between screens and stimulants, we can mask fatigue, without even realizing the far-reaching consequences of being underslept.
When we’re thinking about health and fitness we tend to think about the big hitters, training, and nutrition but stats indicate the amount people are sleeping is steadily decreasing over the last 35 years.
If you’re sleeping less than 7 hrs a night (Which stats say a lot of you are), here’s something to think about.
Those sleeping less than <7 hrs a night have;
Increased obesity rates in adults and children
increased rates of diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance
Increased rates of cardiovascular disease and hypertension
Increased levels of anxiety
Increased rates of depression
Increased rates of alcohol abuse
These are just the metabolic effects without the facts it likely reduces your lifespan and reduces attention, memory, and cognition.
Particularly worth noting here are the first 3 factors – Increased weight gain, impaired blood sugars and cardiovascular disease risk. These 3 things all have feed-forward mechanisms, for e.g impaired blood sugars mean that dietary regulation is harder, your body may not be able to process carbohydrates effectively leading to increased weight gain, increased weight gain also leads to further impaired blood sugar management. Making it a potentially viscous cycle.
I’m going to give you a cliff notes version of the research so you can appreciate why this is important and how far-reaching the consequences of it can be.
Sleep loss and obesity
There’s a dose-response relationship between sleep and obesity, the shorter the sleep the greater the obesity. By age 27 those with short sleep duration (less than 6 hrs) were 7.5x more likely to be in overweight/obese BMIs
Those who slept 7.7 hrs typically have the lowest BMIs
Those who underslept typically have higher appetites through lower levels of leptin (a hormone produced by fat tissue that suppresses appetite) and higher levels of ghrelin (stimulates appetite).
Sleep may also change factors related to the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight) and hypothalamic hormone signaling (the top-down regulator of your body’s hormones).
Sleep loss and diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance
impaired glucose basically means blood sugars stay elevated higher than normal and for a longer period of time than they should and is the pre-cursor to diabetes
research suggests
adults reporting 5 hrs of sleep were 2.5x more likely to have diabetes, adults sleeping 6 hrs a night were 1.7x times more likely to have diabetes than those who got 7-8 hrs of sleep a night.
glucose clearance can be 40% slower than normal in sleep-deprived people.
Sleep loss and cardiovascular morbidity
Sleep loss is associated with an increased risk of heart attacks and stroke, a study found five hrs of sleep was associated with a 45% increase in risk of CV events.
Now that we’ve outlined some of the more important reasons sleep is important where do we go from here?
If you sleep 7-8 hrs a night and mostly sleep through the night, you probably don’t need to change much.
If you sleep less than that, then sleep’s an area to pay attention to because fixing this may very well improve your body composition irrespective of other exercise and nutrition changes.
Sleeps like anything else, It may require some study and exploration to see what works and what helps, It may involve medical diagnosis (Apneoas) and it may be a process of trial and error testing and elimination that can be annoying, particularly when your sleep has been disordered for a while.
Changing sleep can be frustrating because it inherently may take some work to fix, particularly when you’ve had disordered sleep for a while. A variety of tools and questionnaires (beliefs and attitudes, sleep diaries, pre-sleep arousal questionnaires etc) exist to diagnose and improve sleep outside of classic sleep studies performed by a medical doctor (Which can be helpful in the diagnosis of Apneoas etc).
In the meantime, here are some tips to help you improve your sleep.
Big hitters:
Regular bedtime and wake time in line with circadian preferences
Pre Sleep Routine (at least 30 mins, winding down prioritizing sleep state)
Circadian Rhythms have gained more attention over the last 10 years, the big takeaway is a regular sleep and wake time improves sleep quality
A pre-sleep routine helps build associations with this process and wind into a more parasympathetic tone, helping sleep phase transitions
Medium Hitters:
No activities in bed/bedroom other than sleep (referring to tv, phone etc)
Meditation/Mindfulness at least 15 minutes in the hour before bed.
No screen time 60 mins before bed.
Journaling in the hour before bed (thoughts, worries, to dos)
Exercised earlier in the day
These all go to reducing stimulation on the brain that holds sympathetic nervous system tone, we want to move towards a parasympathetic tone allowing the relaxation and wind down to sleep.
Little hitters:
Getting direct sunlight in the morning
Negative to positive sleep thoughts
Use blue-blocking glasses in the evening.
Turn off wifi and other EMF devices. (some people seem to be sensitive to this)
No caffeine after 1 pm (If you sleep well, you shouldn’t need to mask fatigue with coffee)
No exercise or food in the 2 hours before bed
5 mins Deep Breathing in the hour before bed
Drop temperature 1 hour before bed and dim lights.
These are small steps that improve sleep primarily by reducing stimulation or promoting parasympathetic nervous system activity.
