Sleep
The perfect recovery time
Sleep is not just switching off for the night. Although we switch off our consciousness, our brains can actually be more active during some phases of sleep than when we’re awake. This occurs because of the many adaptations the brain is making throughout the night whilst we are asleep as well as all of the repair and recovery work done too.
Sleep is one of our key stress management strategies because as mentioned, if we are not recovering the damage of the day, then it is allowed to keep chipping away at all of our systems, both physiological and psychological. Quality sleep is our perfect recovery time because we are unconscious, switching off our ability to psychologically turn on the stress response. This allows us 7-9 hours of devoted time to dial down our stress hormones allowing quality time devoted to the maintenance, repair, re-modelling and adaptation of our mind as well as our body.
A quality sleep regime compliments our fitness because it better prepares us to train hard, both mentally and physically, as well as boosts the post training repair, recovery and re-modelling for our training adaptations.
Sleep quality and quantity advice is based upon the duration it takes our brain and body to carry out all of its repair, recovery and re-modelling each night. 7-9 hours is the average time it takes for our brain and body to fully run the process of recovery each night. Everyone will have individual variations in sleep needs, with some fully recovering in under 7 hours and some more than 9 hours. It is important to understand your own sleep needs and simply ask yourself whether you are functioning to the capacity you want. If not, improving sleep hygiene may be the answer you are looking for.
The greater the demand life and training places on your brain and body each day, the greater the need for the restorative effects of a quality sleep regime.
health and fitness benefits
Sleep regulates and balances our hormones during the night. This aids our stress management, helping to lower our stress hormones and increase our repair and recovery. Hormone balance also aids emotional decision making, helping us to choose to turn up for training after a tough day as well as choose better recovery techniques after training.
Whilst asleep we remodel our brain including pruning away old and unused connections whilst reinforcing the new ones. This is necessary for the learning of new fitness movements and reinforces their patterns whilst asleep helping to learn them faster.
Our brains waste disposal system only comes online whilst we are asleep. This nightly clear up helps us think more clearly, concentrate better, make more rational choices and learn new skills. All of which is important when trying to make effective fitness decisions, such as choosing to actually turn up for training, maintaining mental focus on our movements during training as well as making better choices with our nutrition and hydration following training.
A quality fitness regime can also help improve our sleep, not just create a need for it. A well timed and well managed training session can tip us over the edge of fatigue, helping to calm our system down to better enter our nightly recovery phase.
For more info on quality sleep and it’s many more benefits, I recommend following Matthew Walker and reading his book “Why we sleep”.
Simply put, a quality sleep regime will compliment anything in life especially fitness training. It is the perfect recovery time meaning all of our adaptation and improvements will come faster when regularly following a quality sleep regime.
I always adapt client training to meet their current ability to accept stress. If a client has been sleeping badly, then I will adapt their training and tone it down whilst they actively try to manage their sleep routine. Hard training must be earned through good recovery techniques, with quality sleep being key. Remember, training stress is additional to life stress and if training stress pushes clients over the edge, this can have negative effects on life outside of training. A quality sleep routine helps increase resilience to both life stress as well as training stress, giving more room for training hard and the adaptations that brings.
Improving our sleep regime is not a cost in time, it is an investment in our self, our fitness and our life. With a quality sleep regime, we can train better, recover better and feel better every day.
Important
Sleep is key to both mental and physical health. If you have chronic sleep issues, I highly recommend seeing a trained specialist who can help figure out the cause of your sleep problems as well as help give techniques to get you back to a good nights sleep. It is well worth the investment as you will have a need for sleep for the rest of your life.