Sleeping Your Way to Better Health

by Darrin on January 16, 2011

Rip Van WinkleCould sleep deprivation be keeping you from achieving your health and fitness goals?

If you’re like most people, the answer is probably “yes.”

Although lack of sleep is treated as a badge of honor in our culture, the evidence is piling up that it will cause your body to pack on fat, make you unattractive, and increase your chances of premature death.

Damn.

Stress, Cortisol, and Beer Bellies

Stress plays a key role in obesity.

Whenever you are stressed, be it physically, emotionally, or mentally, your body secretes a hormone named cortisol in response. One of the effects of cortisol? A shift in the metabolism towards fat storage.

But why would our bodies do such a thing to us? Isn’t stress a normal part of everyday life?

In his awesome book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Robert M. Sapolsky illustrates that stress is a good thing. It allowed our ancestors to high-tail it when they were being chased down by saber-toothed tigers, for example. But stress is only beneficial when it is acute (brief) rather than chronic (drawn-out).

You see, throughout human prehistory, before jobs, 401(k)s, and a constant onslaught of negative stories in the media, almost all stresses were of the acute variety, and they therefore helped us to survive instead of causing us to gain a bunch of weight.

But today, in our go-go-go lives, chronic stress isn’t just common, it’s the norm.

And that means that your body is probably awash in fat-storing cortisol. And with the average American getting less than 7 hours of sleep every weeknight, it’s only making matters worse.

The Dangers of Sleep Deprivation

But the dangers don’t just stop at weight gain. According to a recent study, sleep deprivation will actually make you ugly.

And for all of you students, staying up late cramming for that exam is actually counter-productive, as mental clarity and focus diminish with an increasing sleep deficit. Those of us working long hours will be negatively affected by this as well.

And here’s one for you to ponder tomorrow morning during your commute: tired driving is just as dangerous as drunk driving.

Driver fatigue causes 100,000 accidents each year, a statistic that would probably go up if there were a way to measure tiredness as accurately as a breathalyzer can measure drunkenness.

Again, I think this is just a result of our workaholic culture, where working insane hours is held up as the ideal.

Now, I don’t condone drunk driving, but I do think that the pot is calling the kettle black in our society.

Me vs. Sleep

I’ve never done well with little sleep.

Throughout high school and college, I tried hard to party it up all night and still be Mr. Responsible the next morning. It never worked. As fun as it was to go out all night, and as much social proof as I got for bragging about my 0-4 hours of sleep, I always felt sufficiently shitty enough the next day that I could never really make a habit of it.

My first job out of college was 2nd shift (aka “The Greatest Schedule Known To Man”), which I worked for several years. When you start work at 2:00 p.m. every day, you can always get a good night’s sleep!

But that all changed when I moved out to San Diego and joined the cult of 8-to-5. Getting to sleep early has always been a problem for me. Even though I was waking up at 6:00 a.m. every morning, I couldn’t get to sleep until somewhere between midnight and 3:00 am.

And man, I felt like shit.

After plowing along for several months, I decided enough is enough.

No longer will I be among the walking dead! No longer will I succumb to the temptation to brag about my lack of sleep!

I decided I would do the absolutely insane and start placing priority on getting a full night’s sleep every night.

That means sleeping until I wake up, not sleeping until my alarm goes off.

I know, I know. This makes me look like a lazy-ass, probably some hippie stoner who hasn’t been gainfully employed since ’03. I mean really, how can you get anything done if you sleep 8 hours per day?

Well, from my experience so far, I’d say I get about 10x more done when I’m fully rested than when I’m getting the usual 4-6 hours per night.

When I get 5-ish hours of sleep per night, I spend the next day running around like crazy, but I’m completely worthless. I can’t focus and can’t keep my head straight. I sweat like a pig, my entire body aches, and I’m on the verge of complete physical exhaustion.

But when I sleep until I wake up naturally, even if I know I have an unbelievable amount of work to get done the next day, I’m able to hit the ground running with ridiculous levels of focus and drive.

Tracking Sleep

So I’ve taken the radical step to see if I can sleep as much as possible in 2011.

This may be even a bigger challenge than learning how to enjoy eating liver, kidneys, heart, tripe, and other offal.

The results so far this year have been interesting. I’ll hold off for a while until I get a good representative sample. (Quarterly, perhaps?) In the meantime, I suggest you all join me and start getting more sleep!

If you are used to trudging along through your day, throwing back heavily-caffeinated and sugared beverages to keep your eyelids from drooping and your mind from wandering, you’ll be amazed at how much MORE you can get done, even though you have fewer waking hours each day.

All I wanna know is… who’s with me?

{ 11 comments }

Dave - Not Your Average Fitness Tips January 16, 2011 at 5:30 pm

I’ve always enjoyed a good night’s sleep. In fact, when my sleep started to suffer after the birth of my son, that’s when I started to gain a lot of weight. I still don’t always have the luxury of sleeping through the night on a regular basis, but I get my 8 hours. I’ve gotten used to going to bed pretty early since I have to get up early for work. It means less time online or watching TV, but it’s worth it.

Raymond - ZenMyFitness January 17, 2011 at 3:53 am

Great post I think if we all get more sleep it solves a lot problems. I know I need more I get about 6 hours but 8 would be great.
On weekends I try to get some extra afternoon naps in but during the week I’m back to 6 hours.
Tonight I’ll try to go to bed earlier but first some 20 min of yoga to calm down and I’ll be off ZZZZzzzzzzz!
Raymond

luis martinez (61,mexico) January 17, 2011 at 10:00 am

Hi,Q.-How good is it to use natural supp. to enhance sleeping?,Some herbal body building supp’s enhances deep sleep via L-Dopa.I’ve tried some and seems to really affect deeply in sleep quality without side effects so far..Thanks

Kelly-Fitness Overhaul January 18, 2011 at 4:56 am

I agree with what you are saying and I know that it is true, but I have such a hard time doing it! It’s like drinking more water. I realize that I should be doing it but for some reason never actually do it.

I am going to make a conscious effort to sleep more this year. I just wish there was a way that I could clone myself so I could get more done!

-Kelly

Darrin January 18, 2011 at 7:47 am

@Dave

My girlfriend’s brother and wife had a child a few months ago and they were definitely a couple of sleep-deprived people for a while there! That’s one of those situations that’s really unavoidable, but glad to hear you’ve made room to get 8 hours these days. Sounds like you’re a busy guy, and you’re not missing anything worthwhile on TV anyways!

@Raymond

Haha, just make sure you don’t fall asleep on the keyboard, man!

@Luis

I tend to be skeptical of ALL supplementation by nature. It’s easy to make grandiose claims but not have to back it up in that industry because it is so unregulated. That being said, if what you’re trying works, by all means keep using it! It’s definitely more important to find what works for you in practice instead of what should work in theory. Personally, I’ve found that using a sleep mask and earplugs to block out all light and sound is the best way for me to get a good, full-night’s sleep. Super cheap and extremely effective.

@Kelly

It’s funny, I spend so much time learning new time management and productivity hacks, but one of the main reasons is so I can get as much sleep as possible while still getting tons done during the day. I think I need to put up a post with some of these tips… it’s very important stuff.

Alykhan - Fitness Breakout January 19, 2011 at 8:44 pm

Darrin,

I’m completely with you. I think sleep is way underrated and I actually have a written goal of 50 hours per week, although I rarely ever hit it. I blame workaholism (is that even a word?) as the main culprit. It’s pretty hard to get a solid 8 hours of sleep if you’re working 50-60 hours per week, commuting, spending time with family, working out, and taking care of other day-to-day responsibilities.

I’m sure stress levels are lower in Europe where people work 30-35 hours per week and get more vacation time. An ideal world for me would be working 20-25 hours per week, sleeping until I wake naturally (without an alarm) everyday, and devoting more time to health and wellness. Of course, that’s probably everyone’s fantasy. Still, I hope to get there someday.

Alykhan

Mike Navin January 20, 2011 at 4:46 am

Below is a link to an article that talks about a study that showed that not only did too little sleep cause weight gain, but also too MUCH sleep caused weight gain as well (less than 5 a night bad, as well as 9-10 hours a night bad):

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23887908/ns/health-behavior/

Just kind of interesting as to the too much sleep part of that study.

I like to get in 7 hours a night in if I can. That seems to work for me. If I get more than that, I do tend to feel weird or tired throughout the day. 6 hours works okay too. less than that and I can be pretty worthless.

And Luis, on your sleep supplement question, a number of years ago I tried Melatonin and it worked great. But, BIG side effect. If you take it consistently, it can actually drop hormone levels and reduce sex drive. didn’t know that until after about 6 months of taking it and once I read about that side effect and to just put it out there realized my drive had become diminished, I stopped taking it immediately. Drive got back to normal about 2 weeks of not taking it so, it’s reversible.:)

Zutchelli Morales January 21, 2011 at 1:14 am

Thank you so much for sharing this very informative post that youy got here. I’m actually that type of person who deprive herself from sleep due to being a workaholic. whew. I really should be alarmed to this and thank to0 your post.

Darrin January 21, 2011 at 7:33 am

@Alykhan

Good to see you make sleep a priority still. I know a lot of people in your position would just throw caution to the wind and stick with four hours per night!

@Mike

Thanks for your comment! I too used to be worried that getting TOO much sleep would be unhealthy after this story came out. But now I’m skeptical.

This study was observational, which is great for seeing correlations, but cannot properly prove causation. There could have been some confounding variables, such as the people who already had health problems were sleeping longer as a result.

I figure if everyone got 9 hours back in the days before electricity and alarm clocks (can you imagine?) and remained healthy, that’s a good enough reason to experiment on myself.

But I could be wrong! We’ll see how my sleep and measurements are doing at the end of the year. 🙂

@Zutchelli

Haha, you’re definitely not alone. I am prone to workaholism myself. You might even want to try setting an alarm at night so you know when to go to sleep! I think every minute you can get towards sleeping until you wake up the better.

Srdjan P - Bloom to Fit January 22, 2011 at 1:36 pm

Sleep is important to me and, like you, I don’t do well without it. I NEED it and lots of it.

Ever since I started my full time job (8-5) it’s been a struggle to get adequate sleep. I needed to try something new – something that would put me to sleep right away (and no not drugs or alcohol lol).

I got this app for my iPhone that plays soothing sounds. It actually calms me and puts me to sleep quickly. If anyone has issues I’d try playing soft soothing music…it helped me.

Darrin January 26, 2011 at 8:43 pm

@Srdjan:

Here’s something that might be worth trying: instead of setting your alarm for when you need to wake up in the morning, instead set it to go off at night so you know when to head to bed, no matter what. A nice spin to the usual!

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