Neuro Athletes,

It’s been said by Sleep Expert and Neuroscientist Dr. Matthew Walker that “Sleep is the greatest legal performance enhancing drug that most people are probably neglecting”.

Research on sleep and athletic performance has exploded over the past decade. Sleep scientists have found that total sleep time and sleep quality are both highly associated with virtually every athletic quality: speed, endurance, strength, power, injury risk, immunity, attention, decision-making, learning, and so on. 

This can be the difference between winning and losing. If you’re spending long hours in the gym, on the playing field, and in the film room trying to be the best you can be, do you really want to ignore the low-hanging fruit of sleep and all the potential benefits?

To get a sneak peak into this topic, check out the Instagram reel I did !

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Primer

Poor sleep quality and short sleep duration are associated with an increased risk for muscle mass reduction. Thus, they may also influence muscle strength. Sleep is essential for the cellular, organic and systemic functions of an organism, with its absence being potentially harmful to health and changing feeding behavior, glucose regulation, blood pressure, cognitive processes and some hormonal axes. Among the hormonal changes, there is an increase in cortisol (humans) and corticosterone (rats) secretion, and a reduction in testosterone and Insulin-like Growth Factor 1.

Consequently, we hypothesized that sleep debt decreases the activity of protein synthesis pathways and increases the activity of degradation pathways, favoring the loss of muscle mass and thus hindering muscle recovery after damage induced by exercise, injuries and certain conditions associated with muscle atrophy, such as sarcopenia and cachexia.

How Does Sleep Affect Muscle Growth?

Glucose is a type of sugar that is stored within the body and used for energy. It is, in fact, the only kind of sugar that the body can break down for energy. Any other kind of sugar that we ingest is broken down into glucose before our muscles can use it for energy.

During sleep, blood glucose gets stored in the muscle as muscle glycogen. While glucose exists in other locations in the body (the blood and liver), muscle glycogen is a preferred location because it produces more energy than when glucose comes from the blood.

Poor Sleep, Poor Performance

According to the 2008 study by Dr. Bert Jacobson, lack of sleep will hinder energy levels and leaves us susceptible to mood swings.2 You might not think that “mood swings” are something we should be concerned about. However, there is enough research showing that our emotional state can directly affect our athletic performance, that it merits consideration.

Proper sleep is vital to help your clients perform optimally during training sessions, boost endurance, and enhance mindset for the best results. In the end, all of this leads to better and faster muscle growth.

My take

There’s honestly no way around it. No matter how much research I dig into, it alway proves that sleep is the most fundamental process to human existence. I often imagine what world we would be living in if we lived in a world that demanded we sleep for 10 hours each night.

The world is a better place when we sleep.

What do you think?

This Week on The Neuro Experience Podcast

ACU’s School of Behavioural and Health Sciences. Prior to this she was the HeadRecovery Physiologist at the Australian Institute of Sport for over 15 years and hasled the Recovery team at three Olympic campaigns with the Australian OlympicCommittee. Her research focuses on sleep, recovery and fatigue and she haspublished over 160 peer-reviewed articles and multiple book chapters. Shonaprovides consultancy services to the Australian Open Tennis Tournament and Nikeas well as a number of national and international professional sporting teams.

IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:

• What happens to muscle and recovery during sleep deprivation and why

• What happens to athletes who don't recovery adequately 

• Hormones related to sleep deprivation

• Hunger - Protein - sleep deprivation

Until next time,

Louisa x