How many hours do you get?
Sleep is a vital component of any exercise plan. However, it is often the least planned, and thus the least utilised. Current Australian guidelines recommend 7-9 hours sleep per night for majority of adults. For adults that exercise regularly, this number often increases. So, how many hours do you get?
Sufficient sleep has long been associated with improved health, with insufficient sleep identified as an associated risk factor for many major public health concerns including heart disease, diabetes and depression. Regarding exercise, insufficient sleep is associated with increased risk of injury, an increase in our rating of perceived exertion during exercise and a decrease in our ability to tolerate adverse weather conditions (aka Melbourne winter).
Sleep loss & Injuries
Sleep loss impairs our reaction time and can often result in decreased proprioception and reduced postural control. This can be linked to an increase in over-strain injuries to our locomotor system with suggestions that £ 6 hours of sleep per night is a direct, independent risk factor for injuries during exercise. Acute sleep loss also impairs our ability to recover from injuries by down-regulating our protein synthesis pathway. This pathway assists in repairing muscle damage and is seriously important for muscle recovery.
Sleep loss & Performance
Exercise performance is often affected during periods of sleep deprivation, with aerobic endurance representing the exercise type that is most affected (sorry for the bad news!). Sleep restriction also increases our heart rate, minute ventilation and plasma lactate concentration leading to increases in metabolic demand and perceived exertion.
The take home message from this is not just that you should enjoy a nice lay in sometime soon (you should though, preferably with breakfast in bed) but that you should take a minute to think about where sleep sits as a priority for you. For most of us, with work, training, family/friends and other commitments it is normally pretty low. However, I think you can see there is definitely a strong argument for getting your 7-9 hours a night. So next time when you’re planning out your training week remember to pencil in your sleep as well!
References:
Chennaoui, M., Arnal, P. J., Sauvet, F., & Léger, D. (2015). Sleep and exercise: a reciprocal issue?. Sleep medicine reviews, 20, 59-72.
Fullagar, H. H., Skorski, S., Duffield, R., Hammes, D., Coutts, A. J., & Meyer, T. (2015). Sleep and athletic performance: the effects of sleep loss on exercise performance, and physiological and cognitive responses to exercise. Sports medicine, 45(2), 161-186.
Informative !