How Sleep Affects Your Fitness

One important and often ignored element of a workout regiment is taking a break. Rest and recovery is the most neglected component in a workout schedule, and this component is highly linked to your sleep.

There are four phases of the sleep cycle:

* Phase one starts when the sun sets and hormones release that make you start to feel sleepy in the absence of light.

* Phase two occurs when a person a person lies down to relax. This phase lasts for about ten to fifteen minutes.

* During the Phase 3, the sleeper falls into a deeper sleep—this too lasts about fifteen minutes.

* Phase 4, the last phase of the sleep cycle, occurs about half an hour after the person has laid down. During this part of the cycle, the eyes move back and forth very quickly. This phenomenon is commonly known as REM sleep (rapid eye movement).

During this last part of the cycle, the first dream occurs. When that dream has finished, the cycle restarts. Ideally, this cycle repeats itself five times per night. Studies have shown that uninterrupted; a person generally sleeps for eight hours and fifteen minutes per night.

Sleep deprivation can cause several problems that affect your health, and your body building routine. One such problem is glucose intolerance, which occurs when the central nervous system blocks the pancreas from producing enough insulin, affecting the body's power to digest food. Increased carbohydrate cravings may also occur—brought on by a need for more energy producing calories that can therefore affect your nutrition plan. Sleep deprivation can also cause a weakened immune system, which can lead to colds or flu and prevent you from working to your maximum potential.

A quick test to tell if you are sleep deprived is if you can lie down in the middle of the day and fall asleep within ten minutes, it is likely that you are sleep deprived. If this describes your sleeping patterns, it is important to reduce your sleep debt by catching a few extra Z's every night, though we all know that isn't easy!

In conclusion, you need seven to nine hours of sleep each night for your body to run efficiently. Without this valuable feature, you will have muscle loss, which will lower your metabolism, and affect your drive and focus in working out. Rest and relaxation, though often neglected, is as vital to a healthy body.