May 18, 2016

Need Sleep Now More than Ever

MostFit Ambassador Maurice Williams, founder of Move Well Fitness, LLC shares 3 reasons why we need more sleep in his blog. 

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Need sleep now more than ever? If you are like most of us, then you do. We need sleep now more than ever because we were not designed to be awake for 24 hrs each day. I know in today’s society, a lot of us try and are successful at staying awake for 24 hrs. However, I am sure it came with a few consequences, right?

How much coffee or Red Bull did you have to drink to do it? Any No-doze (do these still exist, lol)?

How did you feel when you finally did get some sleep?

In today’s blog, I want to highlight three reasons why we all need sleep. I hope these three things are simple enough for us to put into practice NOW!

 

Reason #1 Why We Need Sleep: Growth Hormone

There is a hormone that our bodies produce called growth hormone. Without it, we make it harder for us to get muscles. Growth hormone also helps to get rid of body fat and it helps our bones retain calcium.

Wow, sounds like pretty important stuff right? Well, if we are not getting enough sleep in general and enough quality sleep, then, our growth hormones can’t do their job.

 

Reason #2 Why We Need Sleep: Leptin

During good sleep, our bodies use something called leptin to control our hunger feelings. Well, this hormone can only do its job properly with a good night’s rest.

Leptin helps to curb our appetites and give us a satisfied feeling. However, if we are not getting 7-9 hrs. of sleep each night (ideal sleep time), then another hormone, ghrelin, will work for us. This is the hormone that gets released to let us know that we are hungry, ouch!

We want ghrelin to work for us when we are actually hungry, not because we did not get a good night’s rest. If you have woken up starving, then, it could have been from a lack of quality sleep!

 

Reason #3 Why We Need Sleep: Exercise Suffers

Yep, all that hard work we’ve been putting into exercise becomes null and void without proper sleep. One of the great benefits of lifting weights is the increase in muscle size and as a result, better metabolism that leads to weight loss.

Well, lack of sleep is an enemy to protein synthesis (how our bodies make muscle). If our muscles are not getting stronger and/or bigger, then, our metabolism is not working for us.

Also, not getting enough sleep leads to our bodies having a harder time recovering from workouts. If we cannot recover from our workouts, then we could potentially:

  1. Injure ourselves.
  2. Have less slow wave sleep (we want more of this, not less).

Conclusion

We need sleep. There is no way around this folks! Sleep really does our bodies well. I recommend we do the following to get more sleep:

  1. Go to bed one hour earlier.
  2. Shut down all electronics one hour prior to going to bed.
  3. Meditate.
  4. Drink something soothing like chamomile tea.

If you would like help with developing a sleep routine, please contact us today for help!

Maurice Williams, founder of Move Well Fitness, LLC.

http://www.webmd.com/diet/your-hunger-hormones