Episode #12: The Impact of Sleep on Your Health + 3 Tips for better sleep

Think back to sitting in health class in grade school or middle school.  We covered topics like sex ed, we had to memorize the food pyramid, we learned about the importance of exercise, but did anyone ever talk to you about sleep?  I don’t think we ever covered sleep in any of my health classes, at least not memorably so, not beyond a perfunctory ‘you should try to get 7-8 hours of sleep a night’ sort of thing, and with all the information coming out about the importance of sleep in our lives, I can’t help but wonder, why didn’t we ever talk about this?  

We live in a society that glorifies hustle at the moment, and people are quick to sacrifice their sleep in pursuit of other more ‘rewarding’ activities, like work, but it seems like we might really be on the wrong track when it comes to the importance of sleep as a tool to manage our health and well being. 

Now, I’m a far cry from being a sleep expert, but I was always raised to prioritize sleep in order to function well, and personally I’ve just always really felt the need for a proper night’s sleep to feel my best.  I’ve always been a big stickler about getting enough sleep, and I love going to bed at night, just ask my university roommates, sorry guys!  Over the years I’ve picked up a few books about sleep just out of curiosity, I’ve always like scienc-y books, and recently I read a book called Why We Sleep, by sleep researcher Matthew Walker, and it seemed to be a really well rounded and succinct book about the importance of sleep.  It made an impact on me, so I thought for today’s episode I’d talk a bit more about that book, and why I think sleep is a really important health topic we should learn about, so that we can better manage our well being as adults when we’re out on our own juggling careers, with family time, with workouts, with social lives, with our technology.  

In today’s episode I’m going to walk you through three things I learned in this book that seem to be a common recurring theme in sleep research, as well as three tips you’re going to want to initiate after this episode in order to get a better night’s rest.

So, this book.  Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker.  After reading this book in particular, I couldn’t help but feel that sleep is a sorely glossed over topic in the whole scheme of our health and wellness educations.  Not only is it glossed over actually, it feels like it’s a cultural norm to not really value sleep and rest.  It’s quickly the first thing we sacrifice in order to fit more into our lives, to be more productive, or healthier as we fit in our late night work sessions or early morning workout routines in order to do it all.  After learning more about the importance of getting adequate sleep though, it seems we might actually be doing ourselves a massive disservice by cutting down on our sleep hours, and there were some really interesting research results that the author walks though in this book, that may leave you questioning whether or not you actually want to continue living like this, or wonder about how much better you’ll feel if you start to make some shifts to accommodate better sleeping habits.   

For the scope of this episode, I was more interested in how sleep impacts our day to day function, namely our capacity for concentration, our ability to learn and memorize new information, and our physicality and athletic ability.  Cool stuff.

The effects of sleep on your concentration.  

I found this topic super compelling, and apparently the author did too, because he made a strong argument for the effects of lack of sleep on traffic accident death numbers due to fatigue related errors.  I think we all probably realize that reduced sleep hours reduces our ability to concentrate, but I don’t think many of us are aware of how much this seems to be the case. 

Of course the catch 22 is that a sleep deprived brain doesn’t seem to be able to become aware of how much its performance is reduced.  So, you may realize that you’re not functioning all systems go, but you’ll underestimate just how much worse your performance is for being sleep deprived.  Basically, lack of sleep will make it harder for you to concentrate, but you won’t even be able to realize how poor your concentration is.  He argues that the human body needs to maintain more than 7 hours of sleep a night to maintain good cognitive function.  Personally, I know my work days are absolute garbage if something happens to really screw up my sleep the night before, so this one made pretty good sense to me.

The impact of sleep on your ability to learn.  

Those all nighters you pulled before an exam?  Maybe not as beneficial as you’d hoped they’d be.  The author cites numerous studies showing that our ability to learn and remember new lessons is significantly enhanced by getting a good night’s sleep both before, and after learning something new.  It helps cement those memories in our brains, and prevent us forgetting them.  There are lots of fascinating studies cited in the book on this topic that I loved reading, and I definitely recommend checking it out if you think this is as cool as I do. 

The effect of sleep on physical abilities.

I thought this was especially interesting because it often feels like we’re encouraged to sacrifice sleep in order to fit in workouts to make our lives healthier.  Also, the cognitive link with sleep makes senses, but I don’t feel like many of us think about the physical body impacts of maintaining a good sleep routine.  The author cites studies and data showing that sleep impacts all things in the realm of our physical abilities, including and not limited to, developing and remembering new motor skills, reducing the time to lactic acid buildup in our muscles, the time to physical exhaustion in a workout, decreased peak muscle strength and cardio output, all kinds of aspects of our physical abilities are affected by how well we sleep.  It’s especially information like this that makes it feel like maybe sleep is an important health related topic that we should all be learning more about.

Now this book goes into depth about way more elements of sleep in our day to day lives, but I thought the best way to pull together the second half of this episode would be to cover 3 tips to getting a better sleep if you’re feeling like maybe your sleep health practices could use a little work.

1. Reduce exposure to artificial light for an hour before bed.

First, the impact of artificial light on our sleep cycles seems pretty extreme.  Try to eliminate artificial light sources in your bedroom as much as possible.  This means using blackout curtains to get rid of surrounding street light that might disturb your sleep, and removing other light sources from your bedroom like screens or digital alarm clocks.  Also, it seems to be beneficial to reduce your exposure to artificial light in your routine for an hour or so before you go to bed.  This means dimming the lights in your house in the evening, and steering clear of ‘blue light’ including led lights and/or screens that will impact your sleep.

2.Stop using technology for an hour before bed.

This brings me to the second tip he emphasizes, which is reducing our use of technology before we go to sleep.  Most of us have a tendency to sit in front of our screens right up until we go to bed, and even bring our screens to bed with us to scroll or watch tv until we eventually pass out.  While we probably all know that this technology and blue light isn’t great for our sleep, apparently the impact on our melatonin production is massive, like to the tune of a 50% reduction in melatonin production.  This overtime has a huge effect on our ability to have a good night’s sleep, and is a tough habit to break.  Start to put away your technology for that last hour before you go to bed.  Close your computer, put your phone in a drawer, and don’t read a book on your ipad.  Instead choose to do things like read for an hour, have a bath or shower and enjoy your night time routine, have a cup of tea and chat with your family, just generally remove that technological stimulation, dim the lights, and allow yourself to actually unwind so you can fall asleep, instead of staring at your screen until you pass out.  Personally this is something I started trying to do consistently several years ago, and it’s actually the best not having your phone allowed in your bedroom, it just makes life way better AND you don’t check your emails first thing when you wake up which is just a crummy way to wake up in the morning.

3. Stop drinking alcohol before bed every night.

Finally, he presents a lot of information about the impact of alcohol on sleep.  It seems pretty clear that alcohol consumption suppresses REM sleep, which is a really important part of the sleep cycle for things like memory and physical ability that we talked about earlier.  Apparently, alcohol also causes you to have really fragmented sleep, punctuated by tiny pockets of waking up, that you don’t really remember, but that have a big impact on an uninterrupted nights sleep.  People get confused because alcohol acts as a sedative, but it doesn’t actually allow you to have a natural and proper night’s sleep.  So, that nightcap habit you may have picked up?  It could be helping you feel drowsy before bed, but it might also be a reason why you still feel so drowsy the next day.

I’m super curious to know how you feel about this topic.  Let me know your thoughts in the comment section of the blog or on the Youtube video for this episode of the show.  I’d love to know if you have more resources or information to share, and to know if you also feel like this was a big gap in your health education that you’d like to learn more about.  

Linked Resources

If you loved this topic and want to learn more, make sure you pick up a copy of the book Why We Sleep, linked here https://howtoadultschool.com/wellness-resources#wellness-books 

Instagram: http://instagram.com/howtoadultschool  

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