Sleep: The Third Pillar of Health

Jul 21

Sleep. Eat. Move. Repeat.

For years, we’ve emphasized exercise and nutrition as the two most important components of our health. As sleep research has started to become a part of the conversation, it’s finally becoming clear that sleep is not only a fundamental part of wellness, but alongside exercise and nutrition, it is the third pillar of health.

It’s only recently that we have begun to understand just how important, fundamental, and intertwined sleep is to our survival and well-being. Not only is sleep required for us to sustain life, but more and more research is being uncovered that shows how it vastly affects the other two pillars of health, as well as a range of other systems in our bodies.

So, I’ve got some good news and bad news for you. Eating well and working out is still good for you but without adequate quality and quantity of sleep, you won’t be seeing the results you necessarily want to see.

What does sleep do and why should we care?

Matthew Walker, neuroscientist, self-described sleep evangelist, and author of Why We Sleep, explains “There does not seem to be one major organ within the body, or process within the brain, that isn’t optimally enhanced by sleep (and detrimentally impaired when we don’t get enough)”.

Want to be as productive and efficient as you can at work? Sleep.

Want to lift more and work on that summer body? Snooze.

Want to be emotionally available to your toddler even when you want to tear your hair out during their tantrums? You guessed it – get some shut eye.

Sleep plays a vital role in so much more than we know!

Sleep enhances our ability to learn new skills, consolidate old ideas with new ones and prune unnecessary information from the day. It improves our ability to memorize, retain, recall, and use new knowledge to solve problems creatively. Sleep aids in both short-term and long-term memory. When we are sleep deprived, our focus, attention and attentiveness wanes and it becomes harder for our brains to receive and process information. Our neurons actually stop communicating effectively and we lose our ability to retrieve previously learned information. Our judgment is affected, and it becomes more difficult to make sound decisions because our brains aren’t accurately assessing situations.
When we sleep, our growth hormone production gets increased and our muscles and tissues get repaired, rejuvenating our body and brain. Adequate sleep is closely connected to the health of our cardiovascular system, effectively lowering blood pressure while keeping our heart in good shape. A good night’s sleep and a consistent sleep schedule ensures and possibly speeds up recovery. Inflammation in the body is supposed to reduce during sleep but if you don't get enough rest, inflammation doesn't have time to subside. You might find that if you sleep less than 6 hours a night for three or four nights, when you wake up, your muscles are sore or you may have pain in your body.
Sleep helps balance the hormones that affect when we feel full and hungry as well as our blood sugar levels. When we are well-rested our body actually craves the nutrients we need and we make healthier food choices. Furthermore, sleep actually helps us absorb important minerals, vitamins and nutrients in our bodies. When you sleep less than you should, a lower proportion of energy you burn comes from fat, while more comes from carbs and protein. This can put you at risk of gaining weight and losing muscle. Additionally, insufficient sleep or abnormal sleep cycles can lead to insulin insensitivity and metabolic syndrome, increasing your risk of diabetes and heart disease.
Getting adequate sleep is vital to keeping your immunity strong. Immune function is most active at night. Sleep improves our immune systems, helps prevent infection and fends off all kinds of sickness. Most of the healing happens during the first third of a night's sleep, when there is an increase in slow wave, deep sleep - this is when your body recovers from the busy day and undergoes physical restoration so keeping a steady sleep schedule can boost your immune system. Studies show that people who don't get quality sleep or enough sleep are more likely to get sick after being exposed to a virus.
Sleep provides our brains the chance to process and appropriately rationalize the stressors and our reactions to the previous days’ events. When well-rested, our prefrontal cortex (think rational parent) keeps the amygdala (think irrational child) under control so you can better process feelings and produce healthy, balanced responses. Sleep and emotional regulation have a bi-directional relationship - we need sleep to regulate our emotions and emotional reactions to make logical decisions. And in order to sleep soundly, we need to have our emotions in check to be able to get into a calm, conducive stress-free state for sleep. Lack of sleep affects our mood – potentially making us more irritable, depressed, short-tempered, irrational, and unable to cope with stress and adversity.

How much sleep do you actually need?

Unfortunately, that’s a loaded question, as everyone requires a different amount of sleep, as well as finding their sweet spot for when that time will be, according to their chronotype (which I’ll touch on in a future blog). On average, most people require somewhere between 7-9 hours every night to optimize their health. But let me repeat again – everyone requires a different amount of sleep to function optimally for them. So, leave that 8-hour sleep myth behind.

Three key takeaways on the third pillar of health

That was a lot to take in, but if there’s three things you should take away it’s that:

Sleep influences all the body’s major physiological systems, including thermoregulatory, musculoskeletal, endocrine, respiratory, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, stress and immune systems.
Sleep also impacts your weight, mental health, and overall quality of life.
All these relationships are bi-directional.

That’s why as a sleep coach, I’m investigating all the different processes and factors circling around your brain and body that are outside of sleep to get to the root cause of your sleep issues.

If there’s one key thing I want you to take away, it’s the bi-directional nature of sleep. We need to sleep to de-stress and de-stressing will help us sleep. We sleep to eat well and eating well will help us sleep better. It’s all connected.

The field of sleep is ever evolving. The biggest challenge is communicating the importance of sleep and how it affects our cognitive, physical, emotional health. That’s my mission as a sleep coach, to educate, motivate and help you identify what’s holding you back from reaching your sleep goals and get you where you want to go. Because we need all three pillars of health to support one another.

Let’s optimize your sleep, and your life, today.

To find out how your sleep may be impacting other areas in your life, get in touch or book a free 20-minute discovery call.