Sleep and exercise

Sleep and exercise

Have you ever wondered why you exercise? Probably for at least one of these reasons:

• Aesthetics: losing weight, gaining or ‘defining’ muscles and improving body appearance.
• Health: to maintain or recover health or on the recommendation of a professional.
• Satisfaction: enjoyment of the physical activity practiced.

* The body only reflects externally (skin, hair, nails, etc.) how it is on the inside, but many still insist on seeking beauty by treating appearance as a priority. Anyway, discussing the inappropriateness of this behavior and that good lifestyle habits should be routine for health reasons is not the aim of this article, so let's move on...

I don't know about you, but interestingly, most people exercise mainly for the first reason: to look (more) ‘beautiful’. The thing is, especially for aesthetic purposes, exercise only works if it's done properly. If it's not, it puts stress on the body and we all know that chronic stress compromises health, makes you feel unwell and damages your appearance (it even makes you fat!); and honestly, who wants to exercise to make themselves look worse than they already are?

But how do you exercise properly? Basically, this way:

• Good guidance on the most suitable exercise and how to perform it (here, I suggest assessment and monitoring by a good Physical Education professional or even a Physiotherapist).
• Proper nutrition before and after exercise.
• Sufficient scheduled breaks between training sessions.
• Adequate sleep.

And everyone understands the importance of the first three factors, but a common question is: what does sleep have to do with the quality of physical exercise? The answer is simple: much more than you might think, to the extent that an athlete with poor sleep might not get any positive results from guided exercise. In other words, you can work out in the best gym, be coached by the best personal trainer, take the best supplements, eat very well, have no illnesses and still not achieve the expected results... What could be wrong? Your sleep.

When night falls and both the brightness of the environment and the bustle of the day diminish, your pineal gland begins to convert its serotonin (‘pleasure hormone’, produced mainly during the day) into melatonin, the sleep hormone. In addition, more GH (growth hormone) is released by your pituitary gland into the bloodstream. Together, melatonin and GH stimulate ‘repairs’ in the body, with melatonin being the main ‘conductor’ of intellectual/emotional repair and GH of physical repair. That's why, especially during sleep:

Our body recovers from the aggressions of the past day and prepares for the new day by creating/depositing tissue where necessary (e.g. muscles*, bones and cartilage) and eliminating unnecessary tissue (e.g. toxins).

Our mind fixes memories, “discards” thoughts and memories that are of little use, makes connections between thoughts (how many questions do we have to solve when we go to sleep that seem much easier to solve when we wake up the next day?.

*Most muscle synthesis takes place at night, where GH directs the body to group together the amino acids it receives from the diet to form the necessary proteins that make up the muscles.

The subject is much more extensive than these simple notions posted here, but I think the essentials have already been made clear: those who don't sleep well don't release GH and melatonin in adequate quantities. As a result, they won't undergo the necessary “repairs” to their body and mind (to the right extent), as described above. As a result, the body's productivity for the next day's activities becomes increasingly impaired, including for new physical exercises. Of course, circulatory, respiratory and other benefits can usually be felt during or immediately after exercise, but it is during sleep that the body becomes increasingly fit for regular sports practice, precisely because of the repairs it undergoes with the proper secretion of hormones, especially GH and melatonin, as explained above.

But now that the importance of sleep for optimizing physical exercise has become clear, how do you sleep properly? Some important tips would be:

• Try to sleep in the dark or in minimal light - this promotes the release of melatonin.
• Try to sleep in silence or with the minimum of noise - Sounds keep the brain ‘awake’.
• Avoid ‘hustle and bustle’ around bedtime - Activities can raise cortisol (‘stress hormone’) which reduces the release of GH and melatonin, impairing sleep.
• Have a pillow and mattress that suit your biotype.
• Try to sleep on your side.
• Never sleep fasted or thirsty, but of course, avoid excesses of any kind close to bedtime.

Good health, good sleep and... good training!”