This is What Happens When You Don’t Get Enough Sleep by Jerry Brainum 1/22

 

Of all the aspects that comprise physical fitness, the most overlooked factor is the importance of sleep. I frequently hear people say how they function just fine on 6 hours of sleep or less, but such people are engaging in self-delusion. They have no idea of what happens to their brains and bodies when they lack sufficient sleep. For years the precise reasons why we need to sleep were a mystery. All that was known was that if you didn't get enough sleep, you felt tired and lacked concentration and energy. Although there are now several medical journals that are entirely devoted to the science of sleep, the precise reasons why getting sufficient sleep is a necessity for good health still isn't completely known. However, recent sleep research has shed some light on why sleep is so vital to health and brain function. Indeed, an old Irish proverb says that "A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cure's in the doctor's book," which turns out to be a prescient observation. We spend a third of our lives sleeping and sleep involves two primary stages known as the rapid-eye-movement stage and non-rapid eye movement. But precisely why these stages occur still remains a mystery, although different effects occur in each stage.

For example, after about the first 90 minutes of sleep during slow-wave sleep that occurs in non-rapid eye movement sleep, growth hormone (GH) release reaches peak levels. Indeed, two-thirds of the entire day's release of GH occurs at that time. You don't have to be a scientist to realize that if this stage of sleep is interfered with, the release of GH is greatly blunted. And that has important implications for anyone involved in bodybuilding, fitness, or sports. Sleep has always been considered the restorative phase of the day or night and GH is involved in the restoration and recovery of body tissues and organs, including muscle. That explains why many bodybuilders and athletes inject themselves with GH with the notion that doing so will provide potent anabolic effects in muscle. However, just having normal amounts of GH is sufficient for that purpose, and taking super physiological doses of GH is not as anabolic as is popularly believed. Rather, GH is more involved in the preservation of muscle and the prevention of muscle loss. This is why GH levels begin to rise in the later hours of fast, such as past the 24-hour mark. The GH released then will help to preserve muscle tissue while promoting the use of stored body fat as a fuel source.

Many physiological events occur when we are sleeping that we aren't aware of. This includes the regulation of blood pressure, heart rate, the release of hormones, such as GH, immune . . .