If you are skipping an hour of sleep every day to get your gym session in, almost everyone will support that decision and even applaud you for it, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you are doing the right thing. Shaving off an hour of sleep from an eight-hour routine on certain days is fine, but if your sleep schedule already involves only sleeping for six hours or so, it’s a bad idea, to say the least. In case you are not sure how all this is actually related to your fitness goals, take a look at the following points.
Dieting Without Sufficient Sleep is Ineffective for Inducing Weight Loss
There have been enough studies to establish the fact that unless you are sleeping at least seven hours a day as an adult, dieting won’t be nearly as effective as it’s supposed to be. It has also been shown that people lost less weight when they slept less, as compared to when they slept their full quota of 7-8 hours per night. Symptoms of inadequate sleep, such as increased appetite (leptin deficiency) and lethargy comes in direct conflict with fitness goals.
Insufficient Sleep Will Hamper Your Muscle Growth
At least eight hours of sleep every night is a must for pro bodybuilders. While you may not want to be a bodybuilder, building at least some muscle mass is necessary to stay fit, lose fat, and look good. Unfortunately, anyone will find it particularly hard to gain if they are losing sleep on a continuous basis. The thing is that sleep is necessary for protein synthesis, and without that, it becomes very difficult to build muscle. Growth hormones responsible for muscle gain are released when we sleep, but when we are not sleeping enough, the level of a stress-causing hormone called cortisol is increased significantly. Since cortisol is also responsible for inhibiting growth hormones, that is additional bad news for your gains.
The Relationship Between Poor Sleep and Fat Cells
Just four nights of poor sleep can make your body more conducive to gaining weight. What happens is, the body’s ability to effectively utilize insulin decreases after just four nights of sleep loss since it becomes significantly more insulin resistant (by 30% or more). As insulin sensitivity decreases, the fats stay in the bloodstream, instead of being removed, utilized, or stored in the proper place. The pancreas pumps out even more insulin to counter this issue, resulting in haphazard storage of fats. Not only is this responsible for making you fat in all the wrong places, but it is likely that you will also develop diseases such as fatty liver and type 2 diabetes.
Therefore, the question is, how do we ensure a good night’s sleep? It’s not only about how long you lie on the bed, but it’s more about how many hours of blissful sleep you actually get out of your bedtime. At sleepsherpa.com, you will find the right answers to that question because it’s a dedicated resource which provides all the online help anyone can ever need to find a good night’s sleep.
Not everyone is ignorant of the relationship between sleeping and fitness, so people don’t always sleep less voluntarily. In such situations, it is important to figure out the real cause behind your restless nights and act accordingly.
