December 20, 2020: Recover with Sleep
My weekly Get Your Stuff Together Sunday email series gives you one actionable focus for the week that will make your life a little easier.
{Did you miss last week’s GYSTS email? No prob! Go here and scroll to the bottom for a complete archive of all GYSTS emails}
Sleep might be the most important component of a healthy lifestyle, but it’s often neglected. If you think about our bodies working all day and exerting energy, you can compare it to a cell phone that runs on battery life – at the end of the day it needs to recharge. This week, we’re going to talk about how to recharge your energy battery with sleep.
Our body's battery is our central nervous system (CNS), and it needs to recuperate each night for it to function properly. Our CNS is responsible for our pain response, reaction time, and muscle contractions. If we continue to go, go, go without adequately recharging, we can overload our CNS and become weaker, slower and less coordinated, especially in our workouts which can result in injury and prolong our recovery time.
What Happens During Sleep
Sleep is also when our endocrine system and hormones work to secrete hormones that produce muscle growth. When we aren’t getting enough sleep, our bodies become stressed, which increases the cortisol levels and can destroy all the hard work you’ve put in affecting your muscle gain and performance.
The human growth hormone is released later in the sleep cycle, but if you never reach this stage, your muscle recovery is cut down and you won’t receive the same recovery aid as someone who reaches that phase.
If You Don’t Sleep Well
When you’re awake your body is constantly using energy to function, when you sleep your body doesn’t have as many functions, outside of breathing and keeping your hormone levels balanced, the only other thing it has to do is repair your muscles. But, if you’re not getting enough sleep, it doesn’t have the energy reserve to restore the damaged tissue impacting it’s capacity to heal itself.
A lack of sleep is taxing on your body. It can cause health issues, obesity, and reverse any of the progress you’ve made inside and outside of the gym. If your muscles can’t repair, and your body isn’t able to recover, it can hinder your desire to reach your goals because you won’t have the energy to workout and your body will be too sore to want to move.
What You Can Do
Keep a journal of your sleep, when you go to bed, when you wake up, if you woke up in the middle of the night, and, if so, how many times. Once you’ve determined your sleep patterns, make an effort to change your routine:
avoid electronics
don’t sleep immediately after eating
avoid spicy foods prior to sleeping
keep the room dark
invest in a good pillow and decent sheets
Make sleep an integral part of your recovery process and healthy journey, and you’ll notice the positive impact it has on reaching your goals.
Next Sunday, we’ll talk about intermittent fasting and the pros and cons of giving it a try.
Want some expert help with reaching your health goals painlessly? Check out my programs! We’ll get everything taken care of in a way that fits into your current lifestyle so you never have to think about your health again.
Do you have a friend who could stand to G(her)ST? Feel free to forward this!
I hope you have a wonderful week,
Kelly
Kelly Morgan, Ph.D.
Tsirona - www.tsirona.com
My weekly GYSTS email give you one actionable thing to do for the week that will make you life a little easier. As "they" say, "Fail to plan; plan to fail." Get these emails (and more!) delivered right to your inbox by clicking HERE.