learn how to improve your health and body composition by enhancing your sleep.
Studies are showing that sleep is almost as important as nutrition and more important than exercise for healthy weight management and muscle building. This is when your body repairs itself, builds muscle and consolidates memories. A lack of sleep makes you crave more sugary foods and more calories the next day and also makes you more insulin resistant, so those extra calories you eat are more likely to be stored as fat.
Tips to getting better sleep:
: Go to bed and wake up at the same time each day, even on weekends in order to form a sleep pattern and habit.
: Limit exposure to bright lights and screen time for at least an hour before bed, as this reduces melatonin production which is responsible for how much deep sleep you get. Download and use blue light blocking apps on your phone and computer (such as f.lux) or wear blue-light blocking glasses. Also, dim the lights in your room an hour before bed. To get even more benefit, limit screen time and bright lighting 2 hours before bed.
: Expose yourself to some outdoor light as close to when you wake up as possible. This will help reset your body clock for the day and make you sleepy later on.
: Stretch, read or meditate before bed to relax the body and mind.
: No overly stimulating or stressful content before bed, e.g. work emails or intense thriller movies or Netflix series binges that will keep you from your sleep.
: Block out external noise and light in your bedroom: Sleep mask, blackout blinds, ear plugs, white noise machines are all cheap and effective.
: Don’t drink anything an hour before bed so you don’t wake in the middle of the night needing the toilet.
: Allow yourself enough time in bed to get your desired amount of sleep. Just because you allowed yourself 8 hours in bed, doesn’t mean that you’ll be asleep for 8 hours, so give yourself a buffer and more time in bed than the amount of sleep you’re aiming for.
: Have a warm shower and open the window in your room before you go to bed. Let yourself cool down before you get under the covers, this will cause your body temperature to drop rapidly, which ensures that you will have a better night’s sleep. Also, make sure the room you sleep in isn’t too hot; humans sleep best in a slightly cooler room. If you’re hard-core and can tolerate the cold, have a cold/lukewarm shower before bed to quickly cool down and sleep better.
: No coffee past mid-day. If you’re going to have caffeinated beverages then try to consume them as early as possible, so they’re out of your system by bedtime. Even if you have a good tolerance to coffee and can sleep soon after consuming one, your sleep will be less restorative, so try to have it in the first part of your day.
: Exercise or use the sauna daily to lower cortisol levels and exert yourself physically in the day time, as this will enhance your sleep.
: Do not do high intensity exercise or eat at least two hours before bedtime as this will stimulate your circadian rhythm (sleep/wake cycle) and increase your body temperature and negatively affect your deep sleep that night. Leaving a four or more hour gap would be optimal.
: Get more magnesium in your diet before bed, either with food or as a supplement, as this has been shown in studies to improve sleep quality.
: Taking sleeping pills or alcohol to get to sleep is not a good long-term plan and shuts your brain down instead of sending you to sleep, meaning that you do not get deep restorative sleep.
: Keep your bed (ideally your whole bedroom) free of any activities except the two S’s (sleep and sex). Whatever you do regularly will program your brain and if you usually stay in bed watching TV or reading for hours, then your mind will associate your bed with mental stimulation, instead of sleep. You want to condition your brain to associate it with sleep and this way you will nod off quicker and your mind will be less stimulated once you get into bed.
: If you always struggle to drift off to sleep as your mind is too active, then remind yourself that while you’re lying there that you are still resting and recovering and that this is more restful for the body than being up and about or at work. Just focus on your breath, follow every inhale and exhale until you fall asleep (this is very similar to mindfulness mediation). Slow inhales and exhales (longer that 7 seconds in and 7 seconds out) helps your body to get into a more relaxed parasympathetic state.
Start implementing these changes tonight and you'll be on track to better sleep and better health. I can't stress how important and under-utilised sleep is for health. Top sporting teams are using sleep specialist to get the winning edge over their competitors. There isn't a single function in the human body which isn't improved with sleep or worsened without it and the best part is....its free.
For further reading on the subject check out: "Why We Sleep" by neuroscientist and sleep researcher, Matthew Walker
References:
Abbasi, B., Kimiagar, M., Sadeghniiat, K., Shirazi, M.M., Hedayati, M. and Rashidkhani, B. (2012). The effect of magnesium supplementation on primary insomnia in elderly: A double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial. Journal of research in medical sciences : the official journal of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, [online] 17(12), pp.1161–9. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3703169/.
Blume, C., Garbazza, C. and Spitschan, M. (2019). Effects of light on human circadian rhythms, sleep and mood. Somnologie : Schlafforschung und Schlafmedizin = Somnology : sleep research and sleep medicine, [online] 23(3), pp.147–156. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6751071/.
Dolezal, B.A., Neufeld, E.V., Boland, D.M., Martin, J.L. and Cooper, C.B. (2017). Interrelationship between Sleep and Exercise: A Systematic Review. Advances in Preventive Medicine, [online] 2017, pp.1–14. Available at: https://www.hindawi.com/journals/apm/2017/1364387/.
Drake, C., Roehrs, T., Shambroom, J. and Roth, T. (2013). Caffeine Effects on Sleep Taken 0, 3, or 6 Hours before Going to Bed. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. [online] Available at: http://jcsm.aasm.org/viewabstract.aspx?pid=29198.
Obradovich, N., Migliorini, R., Mednick, S.C. and Fowler, J.H. (2017). Nighttime temperature and human sleep loss in a changing climate. Science Advances, 3(5), p.e1601555.
Rusch, H.L., Rosario, M., Levison, L.M., Olivera, A., Livingston, W.S., Wu, T. and Gill, J.M. (2018). The effect of mindfulness meditation on sleep quality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Walker, M.P. (2018). Why we sleep : unlocking the power of sleep and dreams. New York, Ny: Scribner, An Imprint Of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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