photo by peasap, licensed under creative commons
In the battle for a better body and better all-round health, diet and exercise are rightly considered two fundamental elements on which your success is based. But there’s another hugely important aspect which is often overlooked – getting a good nights sleep.
Proper rest should be considered at least as valuable as diet and exercise, as there’s some hugely important things that happen to your body while you rest that can make a massive difference to your health and fitness.
The Science of Sleep
Working out, either by lifting weights or doing cardiovascular exercise forces your body into a catabolic state – your body is breaking down molecules into smaller units to give you energy to get through the workout, and on a biological level you’re actually leaving the gym in worse shape that when you entered!
Muscle recovery and growth occurs when you’re in an anabolic state – your body repairs the damage done by your workout and other daily activities, which results in increased muscle strength, size and endurance.
Sleep is known to be an elevated anabolic state, making it the best time for muscle repair, as well as the rejuvenation of your skeletal and immune system.
Working out (and being awake in general) breaks you down, and sleep builds you back up better than before.
(Just a little more of the science stuff before I get to the benefits for slow carb dieters, I promise!)
There’s a hormone in your body called ‘leptin’, which is known commonly as the satiety hormone due to the huge role it plays in controlling your appetite. Lower leptin levels are essentially a signal which tells your body you’re starving and that you should consume more calories.
A Stanford University study back in 2004 found that those suffering from sleep loss had significantly reduced leptin levels – their data found that subjects had a 15.5 percent decrease in leptin in people who consistently slept for five hours compared with those who slept for eight.
Sleep and the Slow Carb Diet
When you’re sleep deprived, or even not sleeping particularly well, your body starts to crave the exact food you’re trying to avoid with the slow carb diet. You’re locked in a battle with your own body that’s extremely difficult to win!
Your body and your brain start to look for calories that will pull you up to your normal levels, and it also knows where the most calories and the quickest energy comes from – low quality carbohydrate sources like bread, cookies, ice cream and all the other ‘fast carb’ junk food you’re trying to avoid!
But what about willpower? Surely you can gut it out and just not eat junk food? Unfortunately, that poor night of sleep is looking to sabotage you again!
Poor sleep also has a strong influence over several important parts of your brain. Poor sleep was shown in a study at UC Berkley to increase activity in the amygdala, an emotional/reactive part of the brain linked to your motivation to eat.
The study also showed reduced activity in the frontal cortex and insular cortex, areas of the brain associated with self-control and decision making.
When these situations are combined, the result is vastly reduced willpower and self control. This, coupled with your body looking for those fast acting carbohydrates, is a recipe for slow carb diet disaster!
7 Ways to Drastically Improve Your Sleep
So now that we know the importance of sleep when you’re on the slow carb diet, how can you get a better nights sleep? There are some simple steps you can take to help you get the best sleep of your life:
Avoid caffeine later in the day – the half life of caffeine means it can still be in your system for hours after you’ve had your last cup of coffee. Aim to cut back in general, and aim for a 2pm cut off.
Make your room as dark as possible – having too much light around you when you’re asleep sends signals to your body that you should be awake. Get your bedroom as dark as possible – that includes switching off Netflix when you’re going to sleep!
Have a regular bedtime – your body craves routine, so getting to bed at roughly the same time each night means you’ll be ready to drop as soon as your head touches the pillow.
Avoid alcohol at night – although having a drink at night can cause you to fall asleep faster, studies have shown that it can drastically affect sleep quality
Wake up early – going to bed early and waking up early help sync your body with the natural circadian rhythms of the earth, providing more restorative sleep than resting while the sun is up
Work out in the morning – studies have shown that those who work out in the morning spent more time in the restorative ‘deep sleep’ state than those who worked out at night or in the afternoon.
Have an evening routine – anyone with kids will tell you that keeping them in a regular bedtime routine helps them sleep better and for longer. Your body craves routine, so by ritualising your evenings you’ll better prepare your body for sleep.
Hopefully this will help you understand the benefits of sleeping well, and how it can make your 4 hour body journey easier and more successful. The holy trinity of diet, exercise and sleep will help set you on the way to the healthy and happy life you want.
About the author: Stuart is the owner of Take Fitness, a health and fitness blog covering various aspects of nutrition, workouts and sleep optimisation.
Why Sleep Can Make Slow-Carb Even Easier is a post from: Finding My Fitness