2 Conclusions About Sleep That'll Scare You
POSITIVE AFFIRMATION
"Today I will get to bed on time!"
Scared (Not) Go to Bed
Two thoughts have been bothering me ever since I learned about them:
Lack of sleep leads to muscle loss.
“A single night of total sleep deprivation is sufficient to induce anabolic resistance (aka reduced muscle creation) and a procatabolic environment (aka destructive metabolism). These acute changes may represent mechanistic precursors driving the metabolic dysfunction and body composition changes associated with chronic sleep deprivation.” - this study
Sleep is when your memories & brain get cleaned up and organized.
“Researchers think cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) may flush toxic waste out, “cleaning” the brain, and studies have shown that garbage clearance is hugely improved during sleep… One aspect of sleep that is well understood is how the slow electrical oscillations (or “slow waves”) that characterize deep, non-REM sleep contribute to memory consolidation, the process whereby new memories are transferred into long-term storage.” - Scientific American and more this study and this
Bottomline, not enough sleep, even for one night, wastes all that exercising we just did, contributes to bad metabolism, and adds to gunk buildup in the brain! What’s the point of exercising and eating right if lack of sleep is sabotaging all of our gains? That’s an argument to make sleep our #1 priority.
EASY TAKEAWAY
Sleep more. To be more exact, sleep to the point that you don’t need an alarm clock to wake you up.
…But Wait, There’s More
That takeaway works great if you have a lifestyle that allows for it. But what if you’ve got an early or late work shift, or so much to do that it’s hard to get enough hours in? For me, I recently had a baby and the number one question I get is, “are you getting enough sleep?”
MORE TAKEAWAYS
A few precise tips on how to get more sleep by accumulating time.
Stop squandering time throughout the day. My guilty pleasure is to play a game of Clash Royale on my iPad. Yours might be a few minutes of scrolling Insta or TikTok, or Twitter Threads. Consider eliminating it entirely. Potential minutes saved: 151 minutes!
Be efficient with your to-do list. Assuming you don’t enjoy doing your to-do list, be more strategic about getting them done. For example, can you “chunk” or “group” them together? Instead of going out to do an errand each day, can you combine them all into one trip, so that on the other days you don’t have to go out? When I do go out to run errands, I sometimes literally run, to and from the parking lots! Save time and exercise! Another strategy is to perform errands during non-peak hours, therefore avoiding crowds and long lines. Potential minutes saved: 60+ minutes
Better yet, do you really have to do that to-do?! Be lethal with scrutinizing if that thing really has to get done. Sometimes, things in life just accumulate to the point that it feels like all we’re doing is keeping up. Remember when we were younger and life was simpler? Therefore it’s possible, so go simplify life. And maybe it means buying a robot vacuum so you don’t have to do it, hiring a cleaning service, or subscribing to services like Amazon Subscribe & Save, InstaCart, and fashion boxes, so you don’t have to yourself. Potential minutes saved: 44 min
ADVANCED TAKEAWAY
For one week, be brutal with saving time throughout the day with the explicit goal of adding more sleep. Being brutal all the time isn’t sustainable (and no way to live), but treat this as an experiment to see how much time could be saved and what wonders it’ll do to your future self if you diligently apply it to your sleep.
BONUS TAKEAWAY
I can’t stop and won’t stop with all the takeaways!
“So the more you exercise, the more your body compensates by spending more time in the slow-wave rest — which is precisely what decreases as you get older. It's the perfect way to force your body to do more of what it needs.” - Arnold Schwarzenegger’s blog and this study
(sleep enhancements)
➩ Squeeze More Out of Your Day. How to find 15 minutes to focus on your health.
➩ What’s the worst part of waking up? That blaring alarm jolts you out of bed. Maybe people need it, but I’m over it. I prefer a slow, steady increase in volume to the point that my body hears it and wakes. Adjust your phone’s alarm to enable this feature.
➩ Reading a book. Hands down, the best way to relax for the evening and get your mind off of things. Right now I’ve got a few all going at once: The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green, The Good Life: Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness by Robert Waldinger, and Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity by Peter Attia
