We all know that getting enough sleep is essential for achieving a healthy lifestyle. While eating a healthy diet and hitting your exercise goals are important, they don’t mean much without a consistent and healthy sleep schedule.
Sleep is probably not a priority if you have a busy lifestyle, but it definitely should be. Getting enough sleep is essential to leading a healthy and happy lifestyle. When we sleep, we give our body the necessary time to repair and restore itself, both physically and mentally.
At POW8R, our main goal is to help our clients develop a healthier, maintainable lifestyle, and getting plenty of sleep is a prime factor in achieving this.
Keep reading to learn more about sleep debt and how you can achieve a more consistent sleep schedule.
What is Sleep Debt?
Sleep debt, also known as a sleep deficit, is the difference between the amount of sleep you require and the amount you actually receive. Sleep debt does not have a significant impact over a short period of time, but if it builds up, it can considerably impact your health.
If you lead an extremely active lifestyle, rest days can benefit your fitness journey and help you avoid falling into sleep debt by allowing you to get enough well-needed rest.
How Do You Calculate Sleep Debt?
For those of you who are worried that your sleep debt may be affecting your life and would like to take an active approach to fixing it, it is important that you first calculate your sleep debt. Luckily, a sleep debt calculator can be easily found with a quick search.
For those of you who want to work it out yourself, you can do the following calculation:
The hours of sleep you should get – the sleep that you actually get.
It’s really that simple, and you can do the calculation based on every night to work out your sleep debt for the week.
We want all of our clients to have the best quality of life possible, which means getting a healthy amount of sleep. There is really no point in dedicating your time to one of our monthly challenges and following a strict eating plan only to fall when it comes to staying asleep.
How Sleep Debt Affects You
If you’re worried that you may be experiencing sleep debt, here are some ways that sleep debt may affect you. By understanding these effects, you will better understand whether or not it is affecting you.
Physical Performance
If you lead an active lifestyle, your body needs to perform well. Not getting enough sleep may be interrupting this. When you sleep, your body takes much-needed time to repair and rebuild your muscles and tissues.
Without adequate sleep, your body cannot repair the microtears caused by exercise, resulting in prolonged soreness and an increased risk of injury.
Sleep deprivation can also impact glycogen production and reduce your energy metabolism, causing fatigue to occur more frequently. This impact will make it more difficult to sustain your workout sessions.
Metabolism and Weight
If you find yourself craving a snack after a night of little sleep, this is because sleep deprivation has been proven to raise ghrelin (the hunger hormone) and lower leptin, which tells you when you’re full. This means that you might feel more inclined to eat unhealthy snacks.
Chronic sleep debt can also decrease insulin sensitivity, hinder your metabolism, and make losing fat and building lean muscle more difficult, even when completing regular exercise.
Cognitive Function
It has been proven that sleep debt dulls your reflexes and slows cognitive processing speed, which can pose several risks during workouts, making it dangerous to engage in activities that require split-second decisions
Sleep debt can also affect your decision-making skills. When you’re exhausted, you may decide not to stick to your designed fitness plan, making it harder to stick to workout plans or resist cravings.
This is why sleep duration is so important, as is having a community that can support you when you are not necessarily making the healthiest decisions. By using the POW8R fitness app, you will have a community of people on the same journey who can help you stay on track on these difficult days.
Mental Health
One of the best things about exercise is that it can help you lead a happier life by helping you develop healthy habits. Exercise releases dopamine, which can drastically improve your mood.
Unfortunately, sleep debt and deprivation can have an opposite effect, increasing stress and anxiety. This happens because sleep deprivation increases your cortisol levels, causing heightened anxiety and even symptoms of depression.
This only emphasises the importance of getting enough sleep, as sleep debt can drastically impact your mental and physical well-being.
How You Can Improve Sleep and Avoid Sleep Debt
If you are struggling with sleep debt and this blog has provided the wake-up call you need to make significant lifestyle changes, here are some ways to avoid sleep debt and enhance your overall sleeping habits.
Don’t Exercise Right Before Bed
We have previously touched on the best time to work out in past guides, and through research, we have discovered that exercising before bed can actually be detrimental if you are looking to improve your sleeping patterns.
Exercising before bed can interfere with your sleep routine by increasing your body temperature, heart rate, and adrenaline levels. This elevation makes it considerably more challenging to unwind and drift off into sleep, and reach deep sleep
Physical activity signals your body to stay awake, especially if the workout is intense. So, avoiding exercise before bed may help you achieve a healthier sleep schedule.
Create a Realistic Sleep Schedule
If you want to fix your sleep schedule, the worst thing you can do is launch straight into an unrealistic, unsustainable sleep schedule.
If you have a really bad sleep schedule, the best way to fix it is to slowly increase the hours of your sleep and go to bed slightly earlier each night. This is a far more realistic way to develop healthier sleep habits.
Identifying your circadian rhythm – your body’s internal clock – is also a great way to make the most out of the hours of sleep each night that you get, helping you to fall asleep faster and wake up feeling refreshed.
Optimise Your Sleep Environment
You’re not going to get a good night’s sleep with a TV blaring and your phone screen inches away from your face. If you really want to make changes to your sleep habits that will stick, you need to optimise your sleep environment.
To achieve the best sleep, ensure that all distractions are set aside and that your sleeping space is comfortable. If your mattress is uncomfortable, it may be time to replace it with a newer model, maybe consider investing in a mattress topper if necessary.
Create a Wind-down Routine
As humans, we are creatures of habit, so it may not surprise you to learn that developing a consistent wind-down routine may help you achieve a better night’s sleep. You can quite literally condition yourself to have more sleep by implementing healthy habits hours before bed, such as reading a book or even meditating.
Adhering to this routine makes your body more attuned, enhancing your sleep quality.
Focus on Nutrition and Exercise
It’s no secret that we value exercise and proper nutrition at POW8R. Eating well and exercising is instrumental in achieving a healthier lifestyle, which includes getting better sleep.
Nutrition and exercise can improve sleep by regulating the hormones in your body that promote tiredness and make it easier to fall asleep.
Eat foods containing plenty of vitamin D, as these can trigger the production of melatonin, the sleep hormone.
Working out during the day can also help to wear you out, making you much more likely to get an early night and plenty of sleep.
Improve Your Sleep Schedule With POW8R
We hope this blog has given you more information about sleep debt and its effects on your life.
If we have established anything in this blog, it is the importance of sleep, exercise and nutrition for achieving a healthier lifestyle.
Not happy with your current lifestyle and looking for a change? Download the POW8R app now to find out how, with the proper guidance, you can transform your life and improve your sleep.
Make it happen with POW8R.