How long is your day? Well if it’s like my day, it can be quite long. I wake up a little past 7, have my breakfast, and I’m out the door by 8. After weaving through a couple of traffic jams, I reach work by 9 am. 9 hours later I leave work and am home by 6:40.
I unwind as I have my pre-workout meal (usually some form of rice/waffles). I read my emails, plus a couple of top news feeds for the day. After my “me time” I am usually heading to the gym.
My workout will usually last about an hour, taking me to 10 pm. After the workout, I head home, have some dinner, iron my clothes, make my lunch, and am in my bed by 11:30 to be up by 4:10 the next morning.
Wait a minute?!!
I am getting less than 4 hours of sleep when I am supposed to be getting at least 7, ideally 8?One reason that I bring this up is that I know I am not the only one not receiving enough sleep!
According to the CDC, there are 41 million people that don’t receive enough sleep and not only does this affect a person psychologically but also physiologically. So, if you think sleep is not important, here are some things that will change your mind.
Hunger
Have you ever realized that when you receive less than 6 hours of sleep your appetite increases? That is due to the increase of ghrelin which stimulates hunger, while the hormone Leptin sends a signal to your brain for satisfaction is greatly decreased.
This scenario can cause potential over consumption of food leading to becoming over weight or even obese. In addition, the craving for high fatty foods also increases with minimal sleep.
Blood pressure
Lack of sleep has a known relationship with high blood pressure. Some studies have shown the reason for the high blood pressure from the lack of sleep may be due to the prolong activity of the sympathetic nervous system (which is the fight or flight system).
This can have prolonged effects on a person’s mood, energy, and heart. If you do have high blood pressure issues, morning workouts are probably not the best (especially if you are not getting enough sleep) since your blood pressure increases after waking.
Heart
Not only does lack of sleep throw your blood pressure out of whack, but it also throws your heart out of sync. A sleep deprived heart is a jumpy out of rhythm heart. The heart never comes to a complete rest, but it still needs to take a break from working against gravity, and the best time for that is during sleeping.
Without this proper break, you will increase your chances of heart disease, irregular heartbeats and even a heart attack! So, please don’t forget about your heart.
Remember, your body needs to recover from daily activities, so without sleep this recovery process cannot occur. Sleep is like water, whether you like it or not, you need it to survive.
-Phil