Expressing Health First: Holiday Bonus Column

by Dr. Kathryn Woodall, DC, CST

Dear Friends – RMAXers,

We have been addressing three key factors in creating health:

1. the food we eat
2. the amount and type of movement we engage in
3. the thoughts we have, which are incorporated into our paradigm

In the next issue we will explore movement and exercise, but before we head there I want to cover something that is so intricately woven into the other three areas that it is impossible to discuss them without also discussing it. In the way that the right quality and quantity of recovery is part of every good training plan, the right quality and quantity of sleep is part of every healthy person’s habits. Just as food, movement, and thoughts can affect how much or how little sleep we get, sleep plays a role in determining the types of food we want, how we move, and our mental functions, as well as several other aspects of our health.

According to The Sleep Foundation, the right quantity of sleep is 7-9 hours each night for the average adult. Teenagers need 8-9.25 hours; kids ages 5-12 need 10-11 hours; and those younger than 5 need 10-18 hours. Those are all values that have been determined for healthy individuals. If illness or injury is present, additional sleep is necessary.

While it might be tempting to think that we are wasting time by sleeping 1/3 of our days away, and for many of us sleep is the first activity we rob time from when busy, you will quickly see that time spent sleeping is far from wasted.

That following are some of the positive consequences of getting the right amount of sleep:

• Scientists believe that there are five basic stages of sleep. The first is rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, while the other four are non-REM sleep. During REM sleep your heart rate and blood pressure experience spikes of activity, but during the four stages of non-REM sleep your heart rate and blood pressure progressively lower as you enter deeper sleep.

• These deeper stages of sleep are also associated with a greater release of growth hormone. In addition to boosting muscle mass, growth hormone signals greater repair of cells and tissues. Sex hormones are released during sleep which support puberty in adolescents and encourage fertility in adults.

• During sleep, cytokines are produced in greater quantity. These cellular hormones play a role in the immune system and help to fight infections.

• The appetite suppressor leptin increases while the appetite stimulant grehlin decreases during sleep. Even the body’s use of energy is affected by hormones that are released while sleeping.

• Though the mechanism is poorly understood, studies indicate that getting an adequate amount of sleep helps to improve mood, memory, and learning.

Those are just some of the things that we know sleep promotes. But 7-9 hours each day seems like a lot, doesn’t it? Surely it can’t hurt to miss an hour or two? According to studies, it depends on how often that hour or two is skipped. The occasional night of less sleep can easily be made up for by getting more sleep during the following nights. However, consistently missing a couple hours of sleep adds up over time and creates a sleep debt. This sleep debt alters how long a person stays in each of the five stages of sleep, and in some cases even prevents that person from getting to the deeper stages. If the sleep debt becomes excessive or chronic, signs and symptoms begin to appear. Just as many good things happen with the right amount of sleep, there are negative consequences when a person doesn’t get the right amount.

• If you aren’t getting enough sleep, your blood pressure and heart rate may not lower. When the blood pressure doesn’t lower during sleep, a person is more likely to experience a stroke, heart attack, chest pain/angina, an irregular heartbeat, and congestive heart failure. Because a lack of sleep is stressful to the body, hormones related to stress may be released in higher quantities during the day. This can add to blood pressure not dropping with sleep and increase your chances of experiencing the previous problems.

• C-reactive protein is associated with a greater chance of developing atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), and studies show that chronically missing out on needed sleep raises the levels of this protein.

• Hormones like testosterone, progesterone, and growth hormone decrease without adequate sleep. When these hormones decrease in adults, so can muscle mass, tissue repair, and fertility. In children, their decrease slows growth and may delay or alter the progression of puberty.

• Without the increase of cytokines provided by a full night’s sleep, the individual is less able to fight off common infections.

• Studies find that people sleeping less than 7-8 hours per night are more likely to be overweight, and they tend to prefer eating foods that are higher in calories and carbohydrates. Sleep so powerfully impacts appetite, energy use, and weight control that insulin and blood sugar levels mimicked those of someone developing diabetes in otherwise healthy young men after only 6 nights of sleeping 4 hours per night. A long-term study revealed that women who sleep less than 7 hours per night were more likely to develop diabetes than those who slept between 7-8 hours.

• Decreased sleep tends to slow the rate at which we learn, solve problems, and react to situations. In fact, people who are deprived of sleep and are then tested in a driving simulator perform just as poorly as those who are drunk.

• Lack of sleep is linked with faulty decision making, higher risk taking behavior, and greater risk of depression.

Given all of the above, it is easy to see that sleep is important. I’m sure that some of you are now wondering how to get a healthier amount of sleep, and wondering if there are things that you are doing which are adding to a decreased quantity or quality of sleep. While I would love to go into both of those things, the sheer volume of material is more than I want to cover in this column. I have included a small list for each, but these lists are by no means comprehensive. If you have a burning question about sleep, please visit the forum at www.rmaxi.com and post it there.

Sleep can be adversely affected by:

• High fat diets
• Diets high in processed and sugary foods
• Large meals right before bed
• Caffeine
• Nicotine
• Alcohol – that nightcap might get you to sleep more easily, but it also decreases your chances of getting to the deeper stages of sleep and increases your chances of waking when the effect of the alcohol wears off.
• Mental, physical, and emotional stress
• Too much exercise – one might think that being exhausted would bring about sleep, but sometimes it alters hormonal levels to such a degree that it becomes more difficult to sleep
• Too little exercise
• Too warm of a temperature
• Stressing about an inability to go to sleep

Sleep can be positively affected by:

• Eating a balanced and nutritious diet – please see the “food” column in this edition of the magazine for an example
• 30 minutes of moderate exercise each day
• A consistent schedule
• Keeping the temperature of the room you sleep in comfortable to slightly cool
• Getting a healthy amount of sunshine
• Learning techniques to decrease your stress and slow your physiology – the new RESET: Rapid Energy Sports Enhancement Technique DVD can be one means of doing so

Before we wrap this up, I would like to touch a bit more on the relationship between exercise and sleep. I’ve scanned research articles for over a week while trying to clarify points regarding exercise and sleep. In the end, I have to say that this appears to be an area where more research could be done. On the research that has been done, the evidence that the studies produce often needs to be interpreted with caution. Often it isn’t well explored as to why the findings occurred. For example, in some of them it wasn’t clear if exercise improved sleep, if improved sleep led to feeling more like exercising, or if both factors were at play. The studies also don’t address how exercise and sleep affected other areas of the participants’ lives, or how other aspects of their lives affected the exercise and sleep they were getting. With that in mind, below are some studies and their results which are relevant to our readers.

• John Trinder, Ph.D., and his colleagues in Tasmania, Australia compared sleep habits of distance runners, weight lifters, and sedentary people. Their study found that the runners fell asleep more quickly and experienced a longer duration of deep sleep than the participants in the other two groups. -- It did not appear that there was a group of either weight lifters or runners who were using high intensity interval training, so we do not know the findings related to that type of group.

• A study on sleep and exercise conducted in Finland found that 43% of the participants who increased their exercise over the previous 3 months reported improved sleep, while only 1% had a sleep decrement. 30% of the participants who reduced their exercise over the previous 3 months reported poorer quality or reduced duration of sleep, while only 4% reported improved sleep. --Again, it would be nice to know if there were other changes going on and if the 4% that improved and the 1% who didn’t had healthy hormone levels.

• I found conflicting studies regarding the effects that exercising close to bedtime has on sleep. Some studies concluded that there were no negative effects upon exercising even as close to 30 minutes before sleeping, while others concluded that exercising within 5 hours of going to bed made it more difficult for participants to sleep. --After closer examination, I concluded that both studies might be valid. The study which concluded that it had no effect used participants who were all aerobically fit. The studies which concluded that it made going to sleep more difficult used participants with greater parameters and included those who were elderly, experiencing depression, or who might otherwise be more likely to be ill and to have altered hormonal values. None of these studies were done over the long term to determine if the latter groups might eventually have improved their aerobic fitness enough to not experience negative effectives upon their sleeping patterns.

In closing, the next time that you decide that sleep isn’t important you might want to weigh more closely the benefits of sleep to the benefits of the other activity that you have in mind.

Until next time, may your actions today create a healthier you tomorrow.

Best regards,
Dr. Kathryn Woodall, DC, CST

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This column does not form a doctor patient relationship with Dr. Woodall or any guest commentator. You should always seek the guidance of your health care professional(s) prior to implementing changes which might impact your health.

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VOLUME 5 ISSUE 6

ISSN#: 1555-7723

Publisher: Scott Sonnon - Senior Editor: Ryan Murdock - Assistant Editor: Jeanne Gostnell - Contributing Editor: Dr. Kathryn J. Woodall, DC

© 2007 RMAX.tv Productions  All Rights Reserved. Reproduction without permission prohibited.
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