Athletic performance and sleep deprivation

I have found it strange that some people (athletes and/or bodybuilders) can be so meticulous with their training and nutrition, and yet so haphazard with their sleeping patterns. It is fairly clear that inadequate sleep over the long term is not a healthy state to find yourself in, especially if you are in a sport or business that is primarily results-driven (which I’m fairly sure would be, umm… all of them). Sleep deprivation causes all sorts of issues for body composition, and can alter the way your brain operates. You lose focus, lose motivation, lose coordination and take unnecessary risks. If anyone can tell me when and where this combination of side effects is beneficial I’d love to hear it.

Studies looking at sleep deprivation find a reduction in proper glucose management, a loss of motor skills, a drop in testosterone levels, reduction in protein synthesis rates, an increase in body fat and a decline in cognition. If any of that sounds even remotely appealing then I think you’re in the wrong game. I love nights out with friends but sometimes sacrifices are required if you truly want to excel and reach the goal you have put up for yourself. Just keep the frequency moderate – the old quiet drink with work colleagues until midnight on Friday, big sesh on Saturday with the lads and couples night with the Mrs on Sunday routine can’t be kept up for long.

Every single person reading this will know what it feels like to be running off a few hours sleep. That first day is not so bad when you’re younger, but it tends to catch up with you the day after. This is why you might feel fine on a Sunday after a heavy Saturday night out, but Monday at work/University is awful. I guess this is a bit like the delayed onset of muscle soreness (DOMS) for sleep! Although it has to be said, as you get older the effects tend to hit the very day after the lack of sleep.

There are always some odd outliers that will function absolutely brilliantly from an amount of sleep that others would find inadequate. I have a friend that considers four hours of shut-eye a success. He rarely gets that, but he is fine. For most people the range is 6-to-8 hours per night. But one point of contention that has yet to be settled is when these 6-8 hours of sleep are gotten. You see the body is an incredibly adaptive machine and can get used to any particular schedule, so long as it is regular. The body (I should say brain, really) likes regularity. It syncs all of its processes in a chronological order of events. There is an area of study specifically for this called chronobiology and it is fascinating. So even if you are going to bed at 4am each night and waking up at noon, keep this cycle if you want to feel somewhat normal. It is the erratic pattern of a 4am bedtime one night followed by an attempted 10pm bedtime the next night (and so on) that ultimately causes issues. And obviously be sure to get yourself out into the daylight at some point to avoid developing a vitamin D deficiency.

I want to leave this with an old saying of my grandmother’s. She would regularity attempt to drill it into me that every hour of sleep obtained before midnight was worth two after midnight. Honestly, I have absolutely no idea why exactly, but based on personal experience, she is right.