The Breakdown Of Sleep And It’s Importance In Performance
Two years ago I read a book by Matthew Walker called “Why we sleep”. Before that book if someone had asked me “Why do we sleep?” I would of answered back with something along the lines of recovery purposes. Although not wrong, there is a far greater reason as to why humans sleep. There is no doubt that sleep is the easiest and cheapest way to upgrade performance but, what happens if we don’t sleep enough? How does coffee, alcohol and melatonin have an effect on sleep? Most importantly, why do we sleep?
All will be answered below…
Different types of sleep:
As humans we have stages of sleep, 4 sub stages that are combined into 2 major stages.
Stage 1 - REM (Rapid eye movement)
REM sleep is known as our “dream sleep” and it usually is at the beginning of a 90 minute sleep cycle. It’s where we have most brain activity and our eyes dart around with rapid movement. Although this doesn’t sound very relaxing, it’s a vital part of the cycle that helps store information in the brain from the days tasks.
Stage 2 - Deep sleep
Deep sleep is our bodies opportunity to create space in the brain for new storage, cell regeneration and an opportunity to release vital growth hormones such as testosterone and oestrogen. With a chance of increased blood supply this means muscles can begin their process of recovery from any exercise completed within the day. It’s important to note that Deep sleep or NREM (Non rapid eye movement) has 3 stages but we will just compartmentalise these all into one stage for the sake of simplicity.
How do these stages work?
We have sleep cycles which average 90 minutes, they start with NREM (stages 1-3) and finish off with REM where brain activity picks up and these cycles will run in sets of 5 for an optimal sleep.
Why we should care about our sleep performance:
Memory
Sleep has proven itself time and time again as a memory aid: both before learning, to prepare your brain to make new memories and after learning , to cement those memories and prevent forgetting.
Physical performance
Research shows that obtaining less than 7 hours of sleep per night physical exhaustion can onset by 10-30% and aerobic output is significantly reduced. Further tests show peak force output on limb extension and peak height velocity test decreased as well as the bodies ability to cool itself down after exercise via sweating is impaired by sleep loss.
Creativity
A final benefit of sleep performance is the brains ability to express creativity. This doesn’t need to be an art form either, we all express creativity throughout our days whether social or business.
Health implications associated with sleep deprivation
Widening the lens of focus, there are more than twenty large scale epidemiological studies that have tracked millions over decades, all of which report the same clear relationship: the shorter you sleep, the shorter your life.
Weight gain and obesity
Short sleep will increase hunger and appetite, compromise impulse control within the brain, increase food consumption and decrease feelings of food satisfaction after eating. Poor sleep is not a straight link to weight gain but it certainly leads to poor nutrition choices which in turn can result in weight gain.
Reproductive systems
A study took a group of lean, healthy young males in their mid-twenties and limited them to 5 hours of sleep per day for 1 week. They took samples of their blood and compared to their baseline levels where they maintained natural and healthy sleep patterns. The studies showed a drop of 10-15% in testosterone levels.
Alzheimer’s
A lack of sleep is fast becoming recognised as a key lifestyle factor determining whether or not you will develop Alzheimer’s disease. Sleep performance represents a new candidate for hope on all three of these fronts: diagnosis, prevention and therapeutics.
Does alcohol help with sleep?
Unsurprisingly alcohol does not help with sleep. I’m sure we’ve all been in a position where we have had too many glasses of wine and seemingly fallen asleep with ease but alcohol is simply a sedation before sleep begins and it doesn’t improve sleep hygiene. In fact our sleep cycle is usually broken up further throughout the night when consuming alcohol breaking the vital time our REM and Deep sleep need to induce their benefits.
What is Melatonin and how does it help?
Melatonin is a hormone that is naturally produced in the body. It’s important to understand the melatonin doesn’t send you to sleep but it does release to let the body know its time for sleep which in turn helps you relax and fall asleep more easily.
Like most hormones, Melatonin can be controlled with a healthy balanced lifestyle and can be majorly decreased with smoking, caffeine consumption, shift work, ageing and too much light exposure during the night.
Research does show that melatonin supplements aid with sleep latency but does not improve sleep quality, I see it as placing a plaster over a open wound. We should aim to maintain a balanced lifestyle which in turn with maintain melatonin levels. If you are needing to supplement any hormone I would advise trying to adjust the underlying issue for the deficiency.