How Lack of Sleep Can Affect Your Mind and Body

     

                                                

                 

One of the most overlooked factors of a fitness routine is sleep.  It is as important as using the right equipment or eating the right diet.  Adequate sleep while training can enhance your performance whether you are training for a sporting event or just doing your daily fitness routine.  An optimum amount of sleep each night is required if you want to improve your appearance.  According to research, extra sleep over a couple of weeks of training can increase one’s speed, mood, alertness, and accuracy.  

People in training require more sleep than they normally would, just like the way they need more calories to burn when exercising.  People need more sleep because of the stress applied to the body, and it is during the sleeping hours when the body repairs the damage that it got during the fitness routine.  When training, it is vital to get at least an extra hour of sleep each night.  This small amount can have a big impact on one’s performance.  You can do so by going to bed one hour earlier than your usual bedtime or through an afternoon nap.  

                              

Effects of Lack of Sleep  

Your energy levels are down if you don’t get enough sleep each day.  This will continue to build up if the body is not allowed to rest and recover.  The amount of sleep is connected to the body’s ability to store glycogen, glucose from food that is stored by the body and converted to energy when needed.  Lack of sleep means you have less glycogen stored in the body which also leads to less speed and stamina.

Sleep is also connected to one’s decision-making ability.  Cognitive restoration happens when a person is sleeping. The human brain can only focus for a certain period of time before it suffers from mental fatigue.  Not getting enough sleep will make decisions less accurate and can impact one’s performance.                                      

Sleep deprivation makes the levels of a stress hormone called cortisol increase. It is also during sleep when the levels of growth hormone somatropin go up.  Without sleep the levels of the growth hormone are reduced and at the same time stress hormone goes up.  Healing and repair will take much longer and the risks of injuries are higher.  Growth hormone increases your body’s calcium retention, improves fat loss, decreases fat storage, supports the immune system, and keeps the organs functioning properly.  Adequate sleep will also make the body less likely to craving for food.  There are some benefits of sleep that are subject of ongoing research, such as its effects on aging.

Quality sleep is a vital part of one’s fitness routine.  It is needed in order to help the body recover.  The bed is an important tool to maintain one’s fitness.  It is where the body’s recovery occurs, an uncomfortable bed would lead to sleepless nights as well as injuries and fatigue.  These are the reasons why sleep is required in order to maintain a healthy body and help make your fitness routine more effective. Sleep, the right diet, and proper exercise are three factors that impact the condition of one’s body.

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