Health Consequences of Avoiding Mr. Sandman
Many say that sleep is important, but skirt around explanations about the importance of sleep within the body. I was curious what our organs are doing while we’re unconscious. I’ve found that the following are the top two reasons why sleep is so detrimental for health.
Your Brain on Sleep
First of all, getting enough sleep reduces the risk of injuries. Several parts of the brain need the body to rest, so it can reset to work more efficiently. Your cerebellum, the part responsible for coordination, won’t be as active because it didn't get to rest. The brain thought you were awake all night because you weren't able to get deep sleep. The network between the cerebellum and the gyri gets disrupted. They work together to react to things around you. Less communication between them leads to decreased reaction times while you’re awake.
For instance, without sleep, your hand-eye coordination might be off, causing more stumbles, twists, slips, and trips. One minute you’re doing the dishes while dozing off, the next minute you think you see a bug, then you try to recoil, only to land wrong. Now you’re splayed out on the ground with a sprained ankle. There was no bug in the first place. It was just your tired mind playing tricks on you. You’re left betrayed by both your eyes and your lack of balance. Was it your brain that betrayed you? Or was it your body unable to relax the night before, leading to sleep deprivation?
There’s been a link between rest, the cerebellum, and the frontal lobe. This is thought to be related to psychomotor vigilance. That is a term describing neurological reaction times and attention. You might pay less attention due to sleep deprivation and become less aware of your surroundings. This could look like tripping over things more often. Perhaps it leads to you stepping on things that otherwise would’ve been avoided.
Sleep is the New Spinach
The second reason is that sleep also prevents muscle deterioration and training plateaus. The brain releases the most muscle-building hormones when you’re in a deep state of sleep. When you’re not quite in that deep sleep state and are rather in the constant “Am I awake?”/ “Am I falling?” state, your body thinks that it’s still up. It can’t get to that zone where there’s a higher level of growth hormone and testosterone. Instead, your body gets stressed out because your breathing isn’t slowing, and neither is your heart rate.
When your body senses stress, it releases stress hormones, such as cortisol. This tends to at best disrupt muscle building and at worst eat away at muscles. Not only does it decrease muscle gains, but it also increases your risk of heart problems, chronic illness, and diabetes because your body is never at rest.
TL;DR
Basically, sleep is mandatory for long-term health, injury prevention, and muscle gains. Put down the coffee and go to bed. Else you fail at the gym, whether it’s a rep or a faceplant.
Sources
Chennaoui, M., Vanneau, T., Trignol, A., Arnal, P., Gomez-Merino, D., Baudot, C., Perez, J., Pochettino, S., Eirale, C., & Chalabi, H. (2021). How does sleep help recovery from exercise-induced muscle injuries? Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport, 24(10), 982–987. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2021.05.007
Lamon, S., Morabito, A., Arentson‐Lantz, E., Knowles, O., Vincent, G. E., Condo, D., Alexander, S. E., Garnham, A., Paddon‐Jones, D., & Aisbett, B. (2021). The effect of acute sleep deprivation on skeletal muscle protein synthesis and the hormonal environment. Physiological Reports, 9(1), e14660-n/a. https://doi.org/10.14814/phy2.14660
Zhang, Y., Yang, Y., Yang, Y., Li, J., Xin, W., Huang, Y., Shao, Y., & Zhang, X. (2019). Alterations in Cerebellar Functional Connectivity Are Correlated With Decreased Psychomotor Vigilance Following Total Sleep Deprivation. Frontiers in Neuroscience, 13, 134. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2019.00134