We learn early in life how important sleep is for our development and functionality. This is evident in the high priority we place on sleep during our childhood. As we grow older and life accelerates, we seem to forget this fact and begin to neglect sleep, even attaching negative associations to it, usually with laziness. But sleep is anything but a lazy activity. Rather, it is crucial for our hormones, our brain, and our body.
In this post, we explore how you can improve your health through better sleep by understanding:
- Why it's important to prioritize sleep
- What impact does sleep have on your health
- Why the quality of sleep is just as important as getting enough sleep
- What measures you can take to improve your sleep quality
Why sleep is so important
It's a myth that we need less sleep as we age. In fact, we need just as much sleep in our 60s as we did in our 20s, because recovery is important whether you're young or old. To quote sleep expert Professor Matthew Walker, director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at UC Berkeley, "Sleep is probably the most powerful thing you can do to restore your body and your health."
Let’s take a look at why this is so.
Sleep contributes to your emotional well-being, serving as a therapy to combat depression and anxiety. It also improves cognitive performance, strengthens the immune system, increases life expectancy, and has an anti-aging effect—it even makes you look better!
That's not all: We even become smarter when we wake up after a good night's sleep. You've probably heard someone say, "Tomorrow everything will look different." This might be some of the best advice you can get. Sleep boosts your memory and creativity because your brain processes new information, connects it with stored memories, and recognizes new patterns—this helps you find solutions you couldn't see before ( 1 ).
How lack of sleep affects your health, hormones, and weight
To further emphasize the importance of sleep, let's talk about what can happen when you don't get enough sleep.
This can manifest itself the next day as emotional instability ( 2 ). One may become irrational, impulsive, or suddenly feel the need to seek sensations and rewards. This is because the prefrontal cortex—the logical part of our brain—is under pressure and can no longer properly regulate the part of the brain that stabilizes emotions—the amygdala ( 3 ).
There are also potential chronic effects, as sleep acts as a "memory button" for our brain when we memorize new information ( 4 ). Sleep deprivation reduces the brain's ability to create new memory traces by 40%. Studies show that sleep deprivation is the most important lifestyle factor contributing to the development of Alzheimer's disease.
Poor sleeping habits also disrupt the regulation of hormones in your body
Another chain reaction resulting from a lack of sleep affects your hormones. Lack of sleep is linked to hormonal changes that affect glucose (blood sugar) regulation in the body ( 5 ). Normally, when the body detects a rise in blood sugar levels, it releases insulin to regulate it. With a lack of sleep, the body (or pancreas) can become insulin insensitive and not release the adequate amount of insulin needed to regulate blood sugar spikes. This, of course, affects glucose tolerance, which can lead to an increased risk of diabetes. In fact, people who sleep 5 hours or less per night have a significantly higher risk of developing diabetes than those who sleep 8 hours.
If you 're striving for a healthier lifestyle , you should also make sure you get enough sleep! Studies show that lack of sleep affects the hormones that regulate hunger. Sleep deprivation leads to an increase in certain hormones that stimulate hunger and a decrease in others that tell us when we're full. This means that when you're sleep-deprived, you're likely to eat more than you need, especially foods high in fat and carbohydrates ( 6 ). This, in turn, sets you up for a glucose roller coaster.
Does the number of hours of sleep matter?
Absolutely, but keep in mind that quantity and quality are equally important.
The recommended amount of sleep is between 7 and 9 hours, with 8 hours being ideal for most people. But how do you know if 8 hours of sleep is enough for you? Let's say your alarm didn't go off one morning. Would you continue sleeping? If so, you're not getting enough sleep.
4 sleep stages and why they are important
Before you take steps to improve your sleep quality, it can be helpful to understand the four stages of sleep: There are three NREM (non-rapid-eye movement) stages and one REM (rapid-eye movement) stage.
Phase 1: The sleep onset phase occurs shortly before falling asleep.
Phase 2: In this phase, heart rate, brain activity and body temperature decrease.
Phase 3: This is where you enter deep sleep, or slow-wave sleep (SWS). This phase is considered crucial for restful sleep and is essential for glucose balance in the body.
Phase 4: During the crucial REM phase, brain activity increases rapidly. This phase is conducive to cognitive functions such as creativity, learning, and memory.
The phases follow a cyclical pattern and vary in length. The duration of each phase can be influenced, and this is where lifestyle choices come into play.
Night shifts, an irregular sleep pattern, or regularly disturbed sleep are all factors that can negatively impact sleep phases, which in turn impairs your physical and mental recovery. Sleep quality therefore means optimizing the different sleep phases, especially deep sleep (SWS) and REM.
How to improve your sleep through your lifestyle
- Stress management: When you're stressed, it's harder to fall asleep, you may wake up more often, and your sleep patterns may be disrupted. These disruptions affect your deep sleep, so you feel less rested in the morning. To reduce stress levels, meditation, breathing techniques, reading a book, or another activity that helps you relax before bed can help.
- Wake up at the same time every day: Discard your plans on the weekends to catch up on sleep. Your body loves routine, so try to stick to a consistent sleep and wake-up schedule. This works best if you wake up at the same time every day, whether it's the weekend or if you went out partying the night before. Waking up at the same time every day will help your body get the sleep it needs by making you go to bed earlier the next day! This promotes a healthy circadian rhythm and teaches your body to follow a specific sleep-wake cycle, which can help you fall asleep faster and improve your sleep quality ( 7 ).
- Create a bedtime ritual to unwind: Relaxing before bed signals that it's time for your body and brain to wind down. So dim the lights, play calming music, take a warm bath, get your favorite book, or do whatever relaxes you. Your body clock responds best if you start dimming the lights in your home 3-4 hours before bedtime. Darkness triggers melatonin production, which causes drowsiness and initiates the sleep phase. Blue light is our main enemy here. That's why most phones and laptops have a sleep mode where you can set times when blue light is automatically reduced. Ideally, however, you should avoid screens during your wind-down phase.
- Your morning routine is also important: Light exposure works both ways – within 30 minutes of waking up, go outside and expose your eyes to sunlight for 2-10 minutes. This triggers a healthy release of cortisol, which promotes awakening and starts the timer for melatonin. So, if you absorb bright light 14-16 hours before bedtime, it helps time melatonin release right when it's time to prepare for sleep. It doesn't matter if it's winter or cloudy, just don't wear sunglasses ( 8 ).
- Avoid late-night blood sugar spikes: Avoid heavy meals or snacking late at night. This can lead to indigestion and high blood sugar levels, which directly disrupt deep sleep.
- Check your blood sugar levels: Use blood sugar measurements to find out which foods cause your blood sugar levels to spike and drop. Interestingly, the circadian rhythm regulates glucose metabolism. Therefore, a disruption of this circadian rhythm, such as eating pizza or another heavy meal in the evening, can lead to dysregulation of blood sugar levels.
- Temperature : A cooler temperature in the bedroom is ideal for sleep, as the body needs 1-3 degrees less for a good night's sleep.
- Avoid alcohol: A glass of wine with dinner or a few cocktails on a night out with friends may be part of your personal life, but you should be aware that alcohol disrupts your sleep. While alcohol is a sedative that can help you fall asleep, it's actually a narcotic. To put it bluntly, you don't fall asleep; you shut down. This means that deep SWS and REM sleep are reduced and sleep interruptions occur throughout the night, which in turn impairs sleep quality and recovery.
- Exercise: Exercise is a cure for almost everything, including poor sleep and unstable blood sugar levels. However, you should avoid strenuous exercise that raises your heart rate late at night. This is especially true for high-intensity training like HIIT, heavy weight lifting, or even late-night jogging. Instead, opt for low-heart-rate activities like yoga or qi gong.
- Caffeine is all about timing: Would you drink an espresso as a good nightcap? No, right? But drinking two espressos at 5 p.m. is like drinking one at 10 p.m. This is because caffeine has a half-life of four to six hours, meaning it takes your body that long to get rid of half the amount of caffeine consumed. Caffeine is a stimulant and will keep you awake as long as it's present in your body in significant amounts. Even if you manage to fall asleep with caffeine in your system, it will disrupt your sleep cycle and lead to less restful sleep. So be careful not to drink your coffee or matcha too late.
The most important things in brief
Sleep is crucial for the body's physiological and mental recovery. The serious consequences of insufficient sleep include illness, functional impairment, and elevated blood sugar levels.
A sleep duration of 7 to 9 hours should be aimed for, and work should be done to improve SWS sleep (phase 3) and REM sleep (phase 4).
Therefore, you should analyze your daily habits that could be affecting your sleep quality. Make sure to restore your circadian rhythm: If your circadian clock is disrupted, it can lead to sleep problems. Strengthen it by maintaining a sleep schedule, avoiding staying up late, and eating dinner at least three hours before bedtime.
A particularly important factor is stable blood sugar levels, which affect your hormones, sleep quality, and therefore your recovery. Understanding how your body reacts to blood sugar levels can help you choose a healthy lifestyle. Hello Inside has developed a program to help you understand your body's response to food, exercise, and sleep.
Try the Hello Hormones program and get personalized insights to help you make smarter lifestyle choices to improve every aspect of your life, including sleep.
