Draft: All About Sleep
Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2018 12:38 pm
This is a copy of an old forum post that needs updating, there may be some errors
Abstract
Of the many training variables to consider sleep is often viewed as ancilliary, easily dispensed with in the face of social expectations, the demands and responsibilities of adult life, or simply in exchange for more leisure time. Sleep, however, should be treated as the primary recovery variable, of crucial importance, and not to be thoughtlessly dispensed with. Many factors affect sleep quality, which in turn directly affects recovery, mood, and perception - and by extension foundational training methodologies like RPE.Strength athletes should be especially aware of sleep as many are considered at-risk populations for chronic sleep conditions such as obstructive sleep apnea and are frequent users of sleep-influencing stimulants such as caffeine and other dietary supplements in pre-workout drinks.
Overview
Blah blah blah longer summary of why you should care.Sleep duration
Anecdotally and scientifically, you're pretty much "locked in" to whatever your sleep requirements are with physical fitness and exercise playing into it - the more obese and sedentary tend to sleep more and tend to experience inferior sleep quality. Older people need equitable sleep, but as hormonal systems change with age they tend to sleep less. Some people function better on biphasic or polyphasic patterns as opposed to the common monophasic pattern. Drastic reductions in sleep volume by adherence to erratic polyphasic cycles - like 15m naps every 2 hours or the retarded 'Dymaxion' or 'Everyman' cycles - fail to work at all, most participants can't maintain more than a week. Reports of people maintaining these for long periods of time tend to be false or exaggerated.
Perception of adapting to less sleep is psychosomatic. While a controversial concept, I believe most recent data supports the idea of sleep debt - studies show that people who build sleep debts make up for it later with extra naps or sleeping in on the weekends (however this doesn't allow them to perform better when sleep-deprived later). There's also evidence that if you THINK you're going to do poorly due to perceived sleep loss, you will. Some populations perform well despite being sleep deprived, but there's definitely a bell curve with this (even the performers have a point they're 'too tired').
Fun fact that people on far ends of the bell curve of sleep duration have higher all-cause mortality. Efforts made to artificially change sleep duration fail to have a major impact.
Sleep quality & hygiene
Everyone tends to sleep and wake better if they stick to 4-5 sleep cycles, one cycle being about 90 minutes with the expectation it takes you about 15m to fall asleep. I like using sleepyti.me to calculate cycles if my schedule is disrupted.Even chronic caffeine users suffer increased sleep latency (time to fall asleep) and show lesser sleep quality despite some able to sleep within close proximity to caffeine consumption (thought to be due to a reduction in REM). Likewise alcohol tends to decrease sleep latency but degrades sleep quality (thought to be due to a depression of CNS activity). Tobacco is somewhere between both of these, dependent on the dose (small doses are stimulants, large are depressants, iirc).
As we all probably know, bright light (especially blue) suppresses melatonin production, which is what kicks off your sleep sensation in the evenings. Y'all should be using Redshift or f.lux or some equivalent if you have a lot of screen time (Anecdotal confirmation - I use these on all my devices, and they help a LOT).
Sleep latency tends to be shortest if you maintain good sleep hygiene - i.e. wherever you sleep, sleeping is ALL you do there, you don't consume tobacco/caffeine/alcohol beforehand. This is a reason why they recommend no computers/cell phones in the bedroom, or not sleeping in workshops or exciting environments, or why they suggest having sleep 'rituals' where you prepare yourself for sleep ahead of time with habits that cue yourself to be ready, rather than flopping right into bed immediately.
These are important things to consider because if you suffer poor sleep quality or have increased sleep latency, you could be spending more hours in bed than actually being asleep. (No brainer, just saying it for sake of completion).
Sleep apnea interrupts sleep for reasons twofold - both awakening people and decreasing oxygen saturation. Bad news bears. Regardless of fitness, neck circumference has the highest correlation to incidence of sleep apnea, I believe starting around 16-17 inches. If your neck is this big even if you think you sleep well and even if you're in good shape, you may want to get checked for sleep apnea. Back sleepers tend to have less obstructive airway issues too, iirc. (incorrect, at least in relation to those with high pillows that thrust chin forward)
Here's some great resources from PubMed on helping your sleep, tailored for Insomniacs, that I think are great for any population.
My Experimentation
I've done two stints of biphasic sleeping - once for about a year, and later for about six months. Consisted of sleeping immediately when I got home at 5 PM until about 12 AM, waking from 12 AM to 4 AM, and sleeping again until 7 AM. Worked surprisingly well, but I was still getting my 8-10 hours. It reduced my overall stress (and I could shop with no crowds), but made socializing impossible. I've also swapped my schedule around before to wake at 3-4 AM and do my strength training immediately, sleeping about 5-6 PM. Worked well and eliminated some sleep latency issues I was experiencing from late 10-11 PM workouts. But, ultimately, it also made socializing impossible so I stopped doing that too. Around this time is when I seriously considered investing in a home gym.
I've also alternated between using black-out curtains and covering/taping over all sources of light in my bedroom. I notice I sleep more deeply, but it makes waking in the morning more difficult without bright/blue light to kick off the wake cycle.
References
Regarding amyloid draining for side posture sleeping: https://americanpostureinstitute.com/pr ... ain-drain/Side notes:
Should talk about PWO supplements that are considered to have mild stimulant effects like beta-alanine and carnitine, maybe talk a little about the cardiovascular consequences of poor sleep, in addition to cortisol and all that other shit if I didn't mention it above...