Let’s think about it. A paralysed human would have been an easy dinner for a sub-Saharan lion. Despite this, humans and almost all other animal species have evolved with a need for sleep. While we are learning a lot more about sleep, we do not fully understand everything about it just yet. What we do know is that sleep must provide a significant advantage for survival and evolution, as humans remain at the top of the food chain.
So no, you can’t sleep when you are dead because this is a vital daily process helping us stay strong, smart, regulated and healthy.
How does sleep keep us at the top of the food chain?
Strength
Sleep is as vital as exercise for strength and fitness
- Adaption: There is no point training without then letting your body adapt to that training.
- Recovery: Your body needs time to rest and repair after being pushed to be stronger tomorrow than it was today
- Strength: Less sleep = Less Gains
Dorky details
- Growth Hormone Release: Primarily released during deep sleep (NREM stage 3), it aids in muscle, bone, and connective tissue repair and growth.
- Protein Synthesis: Muscle building occurs during deep sleep as the body synthesises protein to repair daily damage or the damage done from a big gym session.
- Glycogen Replenishment: Sleep replenishes glycogen stores, providing energy for high-intensity exercise and future training sessions.
- Mitochondrial Repair: Deep sleep repairs cellular powerhouses, ensuring energy availability for workouts and daily activities.
Smart
No point reading without sleeping
- Memory formation: Sleep allows us to consolidate memories and reinforce new skills we have learnt that day
- Creativity: It allows us to join abstract thoughts together for problem solving, creativity and make sense of the many crazy things in this world
- Brain detox: It is a time that our brain needs to clear out waste products which can slow down our CPU (our brain)
Dorky details
- Neuroplasticity: The brain’s ability to change and adapt. Sleep promotes neuroplasticity by the formation and strengthening of specific neuronal connections. This helps consolidate memories as well as help us learn new skills.
- REM sleep improves procedural memory – the way we perform certain skills and tasks. It allows tasks like cycling to become automatic without conscious thought. This is thought to be due to a surge in the neuro-chemical acetylcholine during REM sleep, along with an increase in other important neurochemicals that aids neuroplasticity.
- Brain detox: During deep sleep our brain waves slow down and become rhythmic like ocean currents. These rhythmic waves sweep across the brain and clear inflammatory cells and metabolic bi-products that drive us to sleep. These waves clear our brain and allow us to wake up fresh and learn more the following day. Forget the dodgy detox diets and improve your sleep!
Regulated
Emotional regulation
- Neurotransmitter regulation: Sleep balances neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, which are crucial for maintaining a stable mood and emotional well-being.
- Reduces Pain Sensitivity: Sleep enhances the body’s ability to regulate pain by increasing the release of natural pain-relieving chemicals and reducing sensitivity to pain signals.
- Emotional processing: Processing of past emotional events via dreams and integration with other memories.
Dorky details
- Emotional Processing: During REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the brain processes and integrates emotional experiences, improving emotional resilience and adaptive coping. This sleep stage allows for the recontextualization of emotional memories without the waking stress responses. When it goes will it moderates the intensity of negative emotions while preserving their informational content.
- Neurotransmitter Balance: During sleep, the brain modulates levels of key neurotransmitters such as serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine (the same neurochemicals targeted by most antidepressant medications.) The natural fluctuations in neurotransmitter levels during sleep serve two important functions. First, they help regulate overall neurotransmitter balance. Second, these fluctuations allow the brain’s receptors to reset, potentially enhancing their sensitivity to these chemicals.
- Pain: Sleep does help with pain by promoting tissue healing and reduction in inflammatory cells that can cause pain. However it also can help manage acute and chronic pain by increasing the release of natural pain-relieving chemicals (endorphins) and modulate our serotonin levels (discussed above with mood). Serotonin, plays a large role in pain regulation which is why I often use some classes of anti-depressants strictly for pain and not mood.
Healthy
A working immune system, and protection from chronic disease
- Boosts Immune Cells: Sleep increases the production and effectiveness of immune cells, helping your body fight off infections and illnesses.
- Enhances Antibody Response: Getting enough sleep improves how your body responds to vaccines by producing more antibodies.
- Reduces Inflammation: Sleep reduces inflammation in your body, which supports overall immune health and faster recovery.
- Hormone regulation: controls and stabilises all those important things for long term health – blood pressure, weight regulation and appetite.
Dorky details
- During sleep our body produces more cytokines (proteins which help the immune system communicate), and helps support our big players in the immune system such as our T cells and our natural killer cells (best named immune cell)
- Adequate sleep supports your body’s hunger-control system (i.e. Your Appetite). It promotes the release of leptin, the “I’m full” hormone, and helps keep ghrelin, the “I’m hungry” hormone, in check, leading to a more balanced appetite and healthier food choices.
- Sleep helps lower blood pressure by allowing your heart to rest and your blood vessels to relax, reducing micro-damage and lowering your risk of strokes and heart attacks – it’s your body’s nightly maintenance routine for a healthier cardiovascular system. Body is able to change parts of the autonomic (should just be called automatic as occurs without us thinking) nervous system and balancing out the hormones that regulate the pressure in your vessels.
In summary
Sleep isn’t just for the lazy – it’s actually vital to keep you alive and thriving. From building muscles to boosting brain power, sleep keeps us humans sharp, healthy, and on top of the food chain.
Hopefully now you might realise why I’m always going on about sleep to my patients, but I’m still going to drum in home because I’m about to explain why getting enough shut-eye is my favourite health advice for surviving our overscheduled lives (and no, it’s not because I’m trying to sell you any sleep supplements).
