The long run today was very very enjoyable but also blew my mind. I have been trying to use the longer runs to grab a chance to further educate myself on different topics. The podcast of choice this week was The Joe Rogan Experience with Matthew Walker. Matthew Walker is a sleep expert and Neuroscientist. I had heard a lot about the benefits of sleep not just in health and well being but also in exercise…I never realised the full extent to it. The more I listened on my run the more I got into a worm hole and realised how deep the phenomena of sleep goes.
My aim – to educate myself so I can improve on my “sleep hygiene” and have a deeper understanding when the subject is broached by my clients both in the clinic or just in conversations whilst out on the long runs.
It is not unknown that with newborn babies you notice a huge change in your life, and your sleep pattern. Everyone is different from sleeping 12 hrs straight to broken sleep. We currently are experiencing the second of the two, and I wanted to look into the effects of this on my training for a marathon.
The mini experiment is based on the same training plan for two different marathons – Stirling last year, London this year. I have noticed a difference in the quality already but wanted to investigate what science reports about lack of sleep. The podcast blew my mind and I wanted to share some of the podcast notes with you but also ask you to educate yourself by listening to the podcast.
Sleep is the greatest legal performance enhancing that most people are probably neglecting
The above statement is pivotal whilst we are shopping around looking at gaining 4% improvement in shoes, marginal gains with compression etc etc If we do the basics well we are less likely to put our health at risk, in fact we are likely to see many positive changes in our health and also in our performance.
If you’re getting 6 hours of sleep or less, your time to physical exhaustion drops by 30%
With the above quote, there is evidence that lactic acid builds up quicker the less you sleep and although an important role of lactic acid there is a detriment to performance. Furthermore, sleep helps to reduce the likely hood of injury, with studies showing 60% increase in injury likelihood with someone who has 5 hours sleep versus 9 hours. One of the interesting facts that the podcast eludes to is that the ability of the body to stabilise / balance drops the less sleep which in would result in different muscles having to work or specific muscles would have to work harder to stabilise the body segment leading to quicker fatigue.
I guess thats why after travel or periods of sleep deprivation there are aches and pains that your normal loading programme wouldn’t produce. So the performance of an athlete (recreational or elite) can be effected by something so basic as sleep levels.
The podcast notes further state we need 7-9 hours sleep. There are noticeable changes in health when you start to recruit less than the 7 hours. What the Sleep diplomat states is the cause for such impairments is down to a “sewage system in the brain that cleanses the brain of the metabolic toxins that have accumulated through the day” one of these toxins has been linked with the onset of Alzheimers disease and without removing these toxins, plaques build up causing the issues in the brain linked to the pathology.
Further pathologies such as bowel, prostrate and breast cancer have been linked to detriment of sleep. The World Health Organisation have classified any form of nighttime shift work as PROBABLE linked to carcinogenic enhancing.
How big is the problem – very big. The data is from America with 1 out of 3 surviving on 6 hours or less sleep. The modern lifestyle has reduced the average sleep time from 7.9 hours in 1942 to 6.5 hours today, below the recommended 7 hour level.
The evidence that really hit home was that we naturally carry out an experiment with daylight saving time zone changes every year, when looked at in closer detail, when we lose an hour of sleep in the spring forward of the clocks it has been shown to see a 24% increase in heart attacks….compared to the extra hour in the fall back of the clocks there is a 21 % decrease in the heart attacks compared to the normal level.
To summarise, human beings are the only species that deprive themselves of sleep for no reason, and currently there is no safety net for the lack of sleep.
I throughly recommend this podcast and I would recommend the website www.sleepdiplomat.com or the book “Why we sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams” both by Matthew Walker.I have decided that I am going to monitor my sleep, or patches of sleep both for the next week at home and also with a change in timezone to Canada and to see with my training the changes in resting heart rate, subjective quality of training, mood, level of energy upon waking. Following on from the trial I will be following up with a blog on products from motion nutrition.
I have been lucky enough to have been given a free trial of two of their products which I will go int more detail after I to look into what they are and how they may benefit me.
Sleep is surely something that is important, otherwise mother nature wouldn’t intend for us to do it. Further study from myself, but any knowledge or information from any followers would be gratefully received. The disclaimer is – I am no expert, but I am driven to improve my well being and if I can help share the knowledge please feel free to feed in and share also.
Thanks for your time as always
Run Long and Prosper ( Sleep Well )
James
