There seem to be two camps when it comes to sleep. Those that think that you can get by with the minimum amount of sleep to take advantage of more awake time and those that think you need your full cycles of sleep to function at your best. I fall into the “get your sleep” camp and here are three reasons why.
Sleep is your chance to clear out the neurotoxins in your brain
I was discussing neuroplasticity with my holistic doctor recently when she mentioned that there was new research showing a lymphatic system in our brain. The lymphatic system in our bodies clears out toxins and other debris. How does the lymphatic system in our brain work?
Interestingly, Dr. Lulu Xie [1] discovered that while we’re sleeping, brain cells shrink and the space between the cells is filled with fluid. The brain cells release their waste into this fluid and the toxins get swept away, readying your brain for another day.
Clearing out the detritus that accumulates in our brain leaves us ready to focus and to think. Essentially it’s like a nightly cleanse, except all you have to do is go to sleep. Productivity and thinking create the garbage, sleep is our brain’s way of clearing it out and preparing us to perform again.
What is a good night’s sleep?
If you make the decision to get a good night’s sleep you should aim for 7 to 9 hours a night. That’s the range that most adults need.
Most of my life, I aimed for between five and six hours of sleep, thinking that having the extra few hours of awake time would make the difference that I needed to get that extra edge. It turned out that my body craved more sleep and naturally migrated towards more over less. This included falling asleep every time I got in a car.
When I made a conscious choice to go to bed earlier and to try to get at least seven hours of sleep, I felt better and was more alert throughout the day. It turns out that I’m not alone.
In studies where scientists purposely deprive subjects of sleep, the subjects essentially become drunk people — losing cognitive ability and coordination over time.[2] We’re not talking huge sleep deprivation, either. The test subjects were restricted to six hours of sleep a night.
The interesting and surprising part is that the effects were cumulative. The longer you don’t get enough sleep, the greater your loss in cognitive ability. Oh, and did I mention that you won’t realize that you’re losing your edge? Subjects didn’t realize that they were getting slower and less alert. They thought they were just as productive and smart as at the beginning of the study.
Sleep improves your physical performance
There have been lots of studies about lack of sleep and how it affects our energy levels and our mental acuity and alertness. We know that we shouldn’t cut our sleep to gain any sort of edge. But what about extending our sleep?
If you get extra sleep — as much as you want, you will become better physiologically. A study performed at Stanford, showed that basketball players who were told to sleep as much as possible were faster and more accurate than when they slept on a lighter cycle (ten hours versus seven hours).[3]
This means that not only is not getting enough sleep bad for you, getting lots of sleep is good for you. Sleeping as much as you want isn’t really an option for most of us. Those halcyon days to teenagehood where we got to sleep in until ten are long gone. Heck, I feel guilty sleeping in until nine on weekends.
My point is that sleep is restorative and our minds and bodies need that restoration to perform at our best.
You need to sleep
Sleep is the body’s way of reviving itself both mentally and physically. Instead of trying to cut into our sleeping hours when we want to be productive, we should be taking advantage of the body’s built in rejuvenator. Sleep enough and you’ll be more alert, clear-headed, and able to perform at your peak.
How many hours do you get in? Do you feel like you need more or less? And more importantly, what are you going to do about it?
[1] Sleep Drives Metabolite Clearance from the Adult Brain
[3] The Effects of Sleep Extension on the Athletic Performance of Collegiate Basketball Players