Go to Sleep
Posted on November 6, 2014
Someone recently asked us why sleeping is so important to our health. Read on to see trainer Richard Tardiff’s motivating evidence for why sleep is crucial to our well being.
Inadequate sleep will knock your hormones out of whack and leave you tired, depressed, fatter and may even kill you in the long run. In addition, much has been said about inadequate sleep and cognitive function. Here are some ways in which sleep deprivation can affect your physique.
This phenomenon acts thru a myriad of different pathways a few of which I’ll summarize below, each with its own article should you want to dig deeper.
- Ghrelin icreases with sleep deprivation, stimulating appetite and Carbohydrate cravings. Also, Leptin can decrease with sleep deprivation (tho some would argue that it doesn’t but rather sensitivity to leptin decreases, either way the results are the same) never allowing your body to feel fully satiated. The double whammy effect will be leaving you ravenously hungry and likely to deviate from your nutritional plan.
- Sleep deprivation decreases insulin sensitivity leading to weight gain and possibly, to type 2 diabetes. The most relevant conclusion of this study is “After four days of sleep restriction, lean individuals’ fat cells were 30% less insulin sensitive. And total is body insulin sensitivity (i.e. the ability of all tissues to use insulin properly) went down 16%.” This is rather shocking considering only 4 days have yielded this result.
- Lack of sleep and nocturnal light exposure will inhibit the proper release of melatonin, the hormone that is one of the bodies’ strongest anti-oxidant and powerful anti-cancer compounds. To paraphrase a passage from the video below “ The International Agency for Research on Cancer… put shift work in the same risk factor category as anabolic steroids, UV radiation and diesel exhaust”. This is a result of nocturnal light exposure and the suppression of melatonin. An argument to make the bedroom as dark as possible turn off the lights, turn off the TV and use F.Lux on your computer when working on the computer at night.
Other benefits of sleep include improved mood and immune function. An excerpt of lights out summarizes this point quite well.
“Sleep is the biggest immunological defense scheme we’ve come up with yet, because not only does it defend us against other organisms in our environment, it defends us against starvation by the insulin-melatonin system. Insulin is produced only when your body senses sugar or stress.”
Here are more interesting resources on sleep and health
The nature of things, Lights out (Skip to the 10th minute to see an interesting phenomenon involving light and weight gain, or watch the whole thing, it is great)
A good article adding to this topic here
Hopefully these resources have inspired you to go to sleep.
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