The importance of sleep

So today's post goes over something that everybody has probably experience or dealt with before, not enough sleep.  We all deal with it different ways, pushing through it, taking supplements or drinking some kind of caffeinated beverage.  Even though it may make you "feel" better and more awake and ignoring the fact that taking it in large quantities is not good as I talked about before, how big of a factor is sleep in performance?

Physical effects
- reduced endurance
- reduced cardiovascular performance
- poor reaction times
- hormonal disturbances
- Slower recovery

Now an interesting thing is that even though we all have had this idea of sleep is important bestowed upon us, it has been hard to put data to back that up physically.  What has been linked is that the RPE (rating of perceived exertion) goes up when you're lacking in sleep.  This is important because if you've done a certain route before and you felt great, going back and feeling like you're getting bent over a rock does wonders for motivation.  Conversely, when you're well rested you feel good, a lower RPE so you can finish your workout.  You can hit your time, or if nothing else, you felt compelled to push a little bit more than you normally would.

Another really important thing is recovery.  You produce growth hormones while you're sleeping which will aid in the recovery of muscles and thus makes it easier for you to back up for the next day and hit it hard again. This on the other hand does have a whole lot of significance behind it. 

This next part has less science backing and is more of like personal realizations.  You're usually in a better mood when you're rested, and it's easier to pull yourself out the door.  You're usually generally less stressed when you're well rested and the lions share of sicknesses that the typical individual is afflicted to can be traced back to sleep.  So if you're well rested, less stress, less sickness, I'd say it's a win win.

So at the end of the day how important is sleep?  Well it won't make you the worlds fastest athlete, but it will give you a free percent or more improvement for not doing a whole lot.  You can recover quicker to hit it quicker.  You will probably be injured less often and healthier more often.  So it's part science, part convention that people have found sleep to be very important and I'd have to agree with people on that one.

~Cheers