HealthMatters/September, 2013
7
Image courtesy of graur codrin/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/FreeDigitalPhotos.net
negatively affected by lack of sleep. So whether you are working on a presentation for college, have a deadline looming for an important project at work, or are an innovative entrepreneur looking to maximise your productivity, you NEED quality sleep.
3)Poor Athletic Performance
The concept of sleep being important for performance is not all that of a new one. We train hard so we need to get proper rest in order to recover for the next session right? Well yes, of course that’s true. But it turns out that sleep can have a much more direct impact on our performance. Researchers at Stanford University studied the effect of sleep on five of the members of the college’s swimming teams. For the first two weeks of the study, the athletes kept up their usual sleeping patterns. For the next 6-7 weeks, extended their sleep to 10 hours per night. The extended sleeping pattern allowed athletes to: swim a 15-metre sprint 0.51 seconds faster, react 0.15 seconds quicker off the blocks, improve turn time by 0.10 seconds
and increase kick strokes by 5.0 kicks. That is a HUGE improvement in performance simply by getting better sleep. Learn more HERE
How Much Sleep Do I Need?
In terms of how long we need to sleep for, this is going to vary from person to person. We all have to wake up feeling refreshed, WITHOUT the need of an alarm to wake. This will generally be a good indicator.
Three Ways To Improve Your Sleep:
1)Limit artificial light at night
Over the course of our evolution as humans, we evolved to sleep as it became dark. This is where the hormone melatonin comes in. Less light(more accurately less blue light) means more melatonin, means time to sleep. However, in the modern world houses are artificially lit up until whatever hour we
choose. Many of us stay
up late looking at
laptop screens or the
TV. Looking at an iPhone
screen in bed or even
the LEDs of the alarm
clock can mean more
light exposure. This
all plays havoc with our
genetically-programed
sleep patterns. So,
best bet is to try block out all artificial light
in your room at night, limit your time on the laptop and generally be aware of excessive blue light in the evenings. (Note: one cool tip for those of you who do use a laptop a lot is downloading this free program which blocks out the blue light from your screen at night. It’s great.)
2)Create the right sleep environment
There are 5 basic issues that I advise people to address in order to create a better sleeping environment:
•Sleep in a completely blackened room
•Have a comfortable, cool temperature there
•Pay attention to air quality and ventilation
•Reduce potential of external noise
•Give yourself a “winding-down” period
I’ve previously written about how to create the perfect sleeping environment where I discuss these 5 points in more detail. I’d advise checking that out.
3)Don’t make excuses for not getting enough
You work long hours or do shift work, you have a crying baby at home, you have a house-mate waking you as they come in at 4 a.m. (not the other way around by any chance?), et cetera, et cetera. Hey, I get it, that’s life. We can’t avoid that stuff and inevitably it’s going to happen. What we can do though is not use them as excuses for not getting better quality sleep. Make a plan of how you are going to cope with each of these. Get a routine going. Make sure you don’t give up trying to optimise your sleep. It may never be perfect but at least strive to make it the best you can.
Hopefully you found this article valuable. If you have any questions on this or any areas of nutrition and health please feel free to get in touch! You can find me at my blog or on Facebook.
slightly different requirements based on genetics. Also consider
that exercise/training, daily stress
levels, underlying health issues,
etc. will all have an impact on the
absolute number. That said, most research would suggest that the commonly mentioned figure of “8 hours of sleep a night” is actually a pretty good starting point for most of us. Some rare individuals can be fine on 6 hours/night while others will get the most benefit from 10+ hours in bed. However, on the whole if you target 8 hours (give or take a little) each night you’re probably on the right track. Monitor how you feel, self-experiment a bit, perhaps even get some blood-work done, and see what works best for you. A quick and easy test would be to see how much you generally need in order