You go to the gym and do the most awesome bestest workout possible, meal prep all your
bland broccoli and chicken breast, and take all the overpriced supplements you found on
a fitness Instagram, yet even though you seem to be doing everything right, your buddy,
who started getting in shape about the same time as you, is still getting better results.
And he or she does the same workouts but hardly meal preps while eating the occasional pizza
and ice cream, and the only supplement he’s taken is a protein shake he found on sale
in the bargain bin.
So how is this possible?
Well, what you didn’t realize is that your friend is doing better at the number one most
important thing outside of exercising than you are.
While you’re binge-watching on the new hot TV series, or playing your favorite videogame
for hours, or even just staying up doing…
whatever you might be doing on the internet, your buddy is hard at work… sleeping.
If you’re the nocturnal type that gets hardly any sleep with the occasional 8 hour sleep,
chances are you’re holding yourself back from getting the best results possible.
We already know how important sleep is just for the sake of survival, after all, all animals
have to sleep some time.
When it comes to increasing your gains, sleeping is pretty darn important.
Let’s start off with the most obvious effect of not sleeping enough, and that’s the negative
impact on performance.
If you ever go to the gym feeling tired and sleepy, chances are you won't be doing half
as much work as you normally would.
Studies on sleep found that subjects chronically lacking sleep had significantly slower reaction
times on the psychomotor vigilance test.
Slower alertness means both lower mental and motor capacity.
Plus, studies found sleep deprivation increases the amount of mistakes people make, leading
to a possible increase in injuries.
And we all know, if you’re hurt, you ain’t working out to begin with.
As far as actual performance, sleep deprivation doesn't really affect your peak capabilities,
meaning you still can push heavy weights or perform at a high intensity, but... you'll
get tired quicker.
Researchers believe this is because when sleep deprived, people tend to have trouble metabolizing
glucose.
Since glucose is important for energy, not being able to break glucose down means your
energy levels will be breaking down instead.
Outside of performance, sleep plays the ever crucial role of balancing hormones.
When we sleep, your body releases high amounts of anabolic hormones such as testosterone
and IGF-1.
You’ve probably heard of testosterone before and its close relationship with building muscle.
When sleep is disrupted, however, especially when disrupting the first cycle of REM sleep,
the release of these ever-important hormones take much longer.
This can disrupt the body’s ability to repair and build muscle during sleep, and even worse,
a study found that subjects suffering from sleep apnea had lower levels of overall testosterone.
A combination that for sure will reduce your gainz.
And the effect on hormones doesn’t stop there.
One thing that sleep is also good for is bringing down the levels of muscle-"breaking" hormones,
aka catabolism.
Cortisol, the main culprit of these hormones, remain elevated whenever you don't get a good
night's rest.
And the tricky thing about this is that the time you sleep matters, too.
Even if you’re getting the proper amount of sleep, studies have found that people sleeping
in the daytime were not able to bring down cortisol levels as much as people sleeping
regular hours of the night.
This is because there is a connection between cortisol secretion and the natural clock in
which your body operates on known as the circadian rhythm.
You night owls might be losing more muscle mass than your early sleeping counterparts
cause your cortisol levels are shot.
And even if you're not shooting for gains but let’s say you're trying to lose weight
instead, sleeping doesn't necessarily help you lose more weight, but it does help you
lose the right type of weight.
When compared to people that slept 5 and a half hours per night, people that slept 8
hours per night lost the same amount of weight, but they lost 55% more fat while preserving
60% more muscle.
It's almost like you're... sleeping your fat away.
Not to mention that multitude of studies have shown lack of sleep increased levels of the
appetite-raising hormone ghrelin while decreasing leptin, the hormone responsible for making
you feel full.
So less sleep can equal to more eating, and a bigger belly.
So moral of the story is, don't mess with sleep.
Get your sleep, and get enough of it.
Heck, if you're watching this right now at 1 in the morning, turn off your phone, your
computer, whatever, don't even bother liking, sharing, nor subscribing.
Just go to sleep!
Now!
Let your dreams be dreams...
Good night.