You’re Not A Dolphin
Dolphins don’t need to sleep because one half of their brain goes to sleep while the other half is a awake, Humans don’t have this capability and getting our shuteye is essential. Long term sleep deprivation is extremely harmful to our health and makes achieving health and fitness goals near impossible.
Sleep Before Food
We will die from not enough sleep a long time before we die from starvation it has been suggested that we can survive for up to 3 times longer without food than we could without sleep. One experiment on this subject, found that depriving rats entirely of sleep resulted in their death, or near-dying state, within 11-32 days. However we are not rats and we are not in a controlled environment, chances of you crashing your car, getting run over or falling down stairs to give a few highly potential scenarios are all the more inevitable, so surviving 11 days without sleep is probably unlikely.
Get Fat
We are far more likely to gain weight by not sleeping enough, insufficient sleep dulls your satiety hormones and ignites your hunger hormones. It makes us feel like we need to regain lost energy, Energy we should have benefited from by getting sufficeint sleep. So our bodies seek an alternative source of energy….. food, more often than not we will chose sugary foods. On Average sleeping just one hour a night less can result in over consuming around 200kcal extra per day, this could be due to more waking hours to eat possibly out of boredom or from low energy from insufficient sleep. Short term sleep deprivation can actually increase energy used on a daily basis however there has been findings showing that long term sleep deprivation can reduce the amount of energy we burn on a daily basis, basically our metabolism can slow down, which is presumed to be a safety mechanism to conserve energy. So lets imagine due to not sleeping enough you consume 400kcal a day more than you need to maintain bodyweight, this is what most people are doing. Over the course of a year its possible that you could gain up to 40lbs of excess weight. So by just focusing on getting to bed on time life could be healthier and easier.
Never Build Muscle
It is near impossible to build muscle without enough sleep especially if your going to sleep after midnight. In order to build muscle, yes we must go to the gym and stimulate growth by lifting progressively heavier weights, but if your not getting enough sleep your muscles do not get change to recover and adapt from your training sessions and so your training is effectively a waste of time. Between 10pm and 2am is the optimal sleeping time for tissue repair, this is when we sleep the most deeply, if you go to bed later you will miss out on valuable muscle building time.
Help Your Kids Have a Better Future
It stops your kids from getting good grades and increases chances of behavioural problems. Conditions like Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is getting more and more common, one of the main causes suspected of causing ADHD is poor sleep. An often prescribed medication to help children with ADHD is ritalin, this has been found to distrubt sleep and can actually worsen the condition, but o well it shuts them up for a bit so it must be good! If you have a child that may have ADHD, here are some better options, let them go wild in a controlled environment, take them to play sport gymnastics, boxing, rugby, netball, climbing etc or go to the park let them use their energy up there. Remove artificial light at night time like video games and TV, instead let them read something they are fascinated by, play a board game or play in the garden, too much artificial light affects our circadian rhythm basically out sleep wake cycle which should be determined by natural light and darkness. When we artificially stimulate our eyes with lights, computers, TVs etc we disrupt this natural pattern. When we go through adolescence getting enough sleep is especially important, teenagers are not being lazy they literally need more sleep often between 9 and 10 hours a night so leave them alone.
Stop Getting Sick
Theres an old wife’s tale if you don’t sleep enough you will get sick, well its true you will weaken your immune system and be more vulnerable to illnesses and infections if you don’t sleep enough. During sleep, your immune system releases proteins called cytokines, some of which help promote sleep. Certain cytokines need to increase when you have an infection or inflammation, or when you’re under stress. Sleep deprivation may decrease production of these protective cytokines. In addition, infection-fighting antibodies and cells are reduced during periods when you don’t get enough sleep. So, your body needs sleep to fight infectious diseases. So how much sleep do you need to protect your immune system? Well for most adults seven to eight hours of good sleep each night is enough. For teenagers nine to 10 hours is often neccessary. Young children may need 10 or more hours of sleep.
Get Your Pecker Up
A lack of sleep will give you the sex drive of a castrated mouse. Lack of sleep can lead to low energy, fatigue, and sleepiness, this can affect libido decreasing interest in sex. For many men the lack of relaxation can stop the little man standing up and many couples find getting pregnant very hard when there is not enough time to recuperate from the pressure of modern life. Men will also most likely have a reduction in testosterone levels increasing the chances of man boobs, wide hips and a bulging gut. So if your a man with a belly like Homer Simpson and your sex drive is not what it used to be, waking up with the morning wood, then concentrating on your sleep is paramount forget about the gym for now.
Wasted Workouts, Wasted time
Insufficient sleep will make exercise a huge challenge and most likely a waste of time if not an additional stress to your already tired body. Going to the gym is purely a stimulus, whether that be to gain strength and muscle, increase your fitness levels or to purely burn energy in an attempt to lose bodyfat. If your not rested enough you are not in a state where you can challenge yourself fully or recover from the kind of workout needed to stimulate change, so yes workouts should not be at the top of your agenda if your sacrificing sleep, getting up at 6am to go to the gym if you went to bed at 1am is ludicrous.
Poor Work Performance Guaranteed
You will be working no where near optimally so despite working long hours will do less work. Often those individuals who work crazy long hours are ineffective. They work long hours but they are tired while their working. It takes an hour to do an email that should take 10 minutes, so step back and take a look at whats important, if you die from poor health due to inefficient sleep were those long hours worth it? Setting your sleep patterns before your work patterns is essential, if your employer cannot understand this them there business energy will suck, if its your own business then your the one cutting your life short.
Grumpy Always
You are more likely to be grumpy, forgetful and develop depression. We only live one short life, when your laying on your death bed will it have been worth it, sacrificing your sleep, your health and your happiness?
Now is the time for change, not tomorrow, NOW.