Importance of Sleep
ESTIMATED READING TIME: 5 MINUTES
This lesson focuses on sleep and its importance to your health and wellbeing.
Lesson 11: Importance of Sleep
Role of sleep
“Scientists have discovered a revolutionary new treatment that makes you live longer. It enhances your memory and makes you more creative. It makes you look more attractive. It keeps you slim and lowers food cravings. It protects you from cancer and dementia. It wards off colds and the flu. It lowers your risk of heart attacks and strokes, not to mention diabetes. You’ll even feel happier, less depressed, and less anxious.”
- Matthew Walker, ‘Why We Sleep’
During sleep, your body is working to support healthy brain function, protect your mental health, and maintain your physical health for quality of life and safety.
Sleep and your brain
Sleep is important for overall brain health and function. As you are sleeping, your brain is forming new pathways to help you learn and retain memories and information. Lack of sleep will impair problem solving, management of emotions, behaviour, and mood, as well as your ability to cope with change.
There are 3 stages of sleep that your brain depends on:
Light sleep
Deep sleep
REM (rapid eye movement) sleep
While these different stages provide different benefits, all are important to overall brain health.
Sleep and exercise
“Sleep improves motor skills and muscle recruitment in both pro athletes and recreational exercisers.”
- M.F. Bergeron, M. Mountjoy, N. Armstrong, M. Chia, et al., “International Olympic Committee consensus statement on youth athletic development”, British Journal of Sports Medicine 49, no. 13 (2015): 843-51.
In addition to the above, getting quality sleep after training helps improve recovery. Inflammation is reduced, muscle protein synthesis is increased, and energy stores from glucose and glycogen are rejuvenated more efficiently.
How much sleep do you need?
Recommended Amount of Sleep and Age:
Infants aged 4-12 months: 12-16 hours a day (including naps)
Children aged 1-2 years: 11-14 hours a day (including naps)
Children aged 3-5 years: 10-13 hours a day (including naps)
Children aged 6-12 years: 9-12 hours a day
Teens aged 13-18 years: 8-10 hours a day
Adults aged 18 years or older: 7–8 hours a day
Many teens and adults are reporting that they are not meeting these recommended hours of sleep.
While you can function day to day at lower hours of sleep, it is at a suboptimal level and it will compromise your mental state and physical health if sustained. People that continually lack sleep can find that this lower functioning state becomes their new accepted norm. This can eventually make it harder to recognise that their bodies are exhausted and comes with a great cost to their health.
Health consequences of poor sleep
“Struck by the weight of damning scientific evidence, the Guinness Book of World Records has stopped recognising attempts to break the sleep deprivation world record.”
- Matthew Walker, ‘Why We Sleep’
Every function of your body’s wellness is damaged and impaired by sleep loss. While some ailments occur over time from chronic lack of sleep, others can be brought on from as little as one night of limited sleep eg anxiety.
Many neurological and psychiatric conditions are linked with sleep loss that include:
Alzheimer’s
Anxiety
Depression
Suicide
Chronic pain
It also contributes to many physiological disorders that include:
Cancer
Diabetes
Cardiac failure
Infertility
Obesity
Immune deficiency
Other risks associated with a lack of sleep can be life threatening as safety is compromised, such as driving with lack of sleep
Lack of sleep and exercise
“A Chronic lack of sleep (meaning ongoing nights of less than 8 hours) can increase your chance of injury over an athletic season from 30% to 70%.”
- M.D. Milewski et al., “Chronic lack of sleep is associated with increased sports injuries in adolescent athletes”, Journal of Paediatric Orthopaedics 34, no. 2 (2014): 129 -33.
Obtaining anything less than six hours of sleep a night also significantly reduces your aerobic output and capabilities. It also makes you reach physical exhaustion 10-30% faster than a full 8 hours of quality sleep. Peak and sustained muscle strength also decreases.
Poor sleep will mean that lactate builds up faster during exercise and takes longer to clear as well.
How to improve your sleep
Better sleep starts in the day. The events that take place in your day and your attitudes towards them can impact the amount of stress that your body is under. While there are optimal levels of stress, too much of it will interfere with your quality and quantity of sleep.
Cortisol is your body’s main stress hormone and while it is essential to your body’s function, it can impair sleep if it is in excess. Sleep loss also results in the elevation of cortisol levels in the next day, which can contribute to a repeating cycle of poor sleep due to stress if you allow it to.
Strategies to improve your sleep during the day:
Practicing mindfulness - are you aware of your stresses?
Exercising during the day
Reducing caffeine intake
Avoiding alcohol in the evenings
Cooling down your room
Leaving screens outside the bedroom
Making a list of things to do the next day
Aside from these strategies, a better sleep ritual is known to drastically improve the quality of sleep as well.
A sleep ritual is what you do with your time in the hours leading up to sleep. If you can fill these hours with regular behaviours and activities that help you relax from the stresses of the day, the brain is sent better signals for improved sleep, more consistently.
Activities can include:
Writing in a diary or journal
Drawing
Reading a book
Meditation
Spending time with family
As well as activities to help you relax, it is also important to have a consistent bedtime. An alarm or notification is an easy way to set this reminder.