Here's a guest article on Sleep from Sol Orwell and the examine team.
Sleep
Is your client getting enough sleep?
Sleep deprivation is a surprisingly difficult topic to handle in a hands-on approach, since
sleep deprivation is not always accompanied by the feeling that you have slept poorly. In
many cases, actually, people feel refreshed in the morning after a poor sleep yet their
function throughout the day is impaired by the poor sleep (this is seen in some instances
where somebody drinks the night prior and wakes up after 4 hours feeling completely fine,
yet ‘just had an off day’ for some reason).
In some instances clients do know when they slept poorly, but it is unreliable enough that
simply asking a client “How was your sleep” isn’t the most effective way to get a true
answer.
A possible indicator of impaired sleep is the need to have an alarm clock upon waking, and
clients saying that they are ‘in a daze’ in the morning until they start a routine habit such as
breakfast or showering.
Clients who wake up without the requirement of an alarm clock or alarm clock substitute
(ie. their children waking them up) and feel pretty much refreshed upon sitting up are more
likely to have had a good sleep.
Keep in mind that, within an hour of waking, both of the aforementioned persons have a
good chance of feeling exactly the same (making asking them how they feel at this time
an unreliable means of assessing sleep quality); the true difference is in the early waking
hours.
Another possibility to assess how well a client sleeps is their sleep latency (the time
between choosing to ‘go to bed’ and the moment where you actually fall asleep; a good
sleep latency being falling asleep when your head hits the pillow and a poor latency being
a 30 minute delay period) and their frequency of waking up in the middle of the night.
In regards to waking up in the middle of the night, there is some evidence that waking up
once around 1-2am in the morning (assuming a standard sleeping schedule) is completely
normal and somewhat indicative of having good sleep prior to that. Poor sleep, as assessed
by waking frequency, is multiple waking points in the night (4-8 or so) and this indicates that
your sleep is not deep and small stimuli can wake you up.
Problems of lacking sleep?
Surprisingly, hindering sleep for a single night does not adversely affect physical
performance too much if the task is something requiring low motor coordination and skill
(ie. a leg press rather than throwing a football). In this sense, if a client shows up for a
standard weight lifting session that doesn’t involve too many complicated or overhead lifts
then the impaired sleep might not be a problem.
Chronically restricted sleep does, however, promote physical fatigue (secondary to
impairing recovery) and in this instance physical performance and power output can be
negatively affected.
Building off the last section, physical performance can be negatively affected if the
performance requires a high degree of motor coordination. This is critical for olympic lifters
and athletes more than anything. Interestingly though, creatine supplementation seems to
help with this (as well as the obvious example of caffeine).
The cognitive effects also extend to everyday tasks and the clients work, and it is harder to
keep attention on the task at hand when sleep deprived.
As mentioned before, a lack of sleep impairs judgement. This may be a bit problematic if the
client is not under supervision since the combination of “poorer performance on lifts
requiring motor coordination” and “inability to properly assess one’s own physical
capabilities” may lead to some regretful decisions on what weight to use for barbell
snatches.
Tips on getting more sleep?
Unfortunately, sleep isn’t mathematically perfect. If you function best on seven hours a
night you cannot expect to get five hours one night and nine the next yet still expect to
function perfectly; consistency in regards to both the hours you sleep a night and the time
you fall asleep can both contribute to better sleep cycles.
Sound, light, and physical disturbances (think of ‘The Princess and the Pea’) are known to
impair sleep. An interesting note is that these stimuli actually still affect sleep quality even
when the person is unconscious and ‘sleeping’. Even if you manage to fall asleep in a well
light room that isn’t silent, the sleep will not be as restful.
Due to this, clients should sleep in a very dark and quiet room. If there are any apparent light
sources (such as a TV screen) on while they sleep those should be addressed and, if
possible, the stimuli removed. In some extreme cases where darkness and silence are
infeasible, an eye cover or earplugs may be a worthy purchase.
While it would be somewhat improper to just state that “carbs before sleep help with sleep”
(that is too absolute of a claim to be accurate) it is known that a deprivation of dietary
carbohydrates somewhat screws with sleep. This is due to carbs aiding in the conversion of
tryptophan into serotonin, and with low serotonin comes less conversion into melatonin.
Specifically in instances where a low carbohydrate diet impairs sleep quality in your clients,
will adding in a small amount (20g or so to start) of carbohydrates be beneficial to sleep; there
is no apparent difference
between moderate or high glycemic carbs here, so a very small serving of ice cream might
actually be useful (remember to state limits of carbohydrate consumption and to keep it
small, lest your client screw up their weight loss that they were on the low carb diet for).
For supplements, there are many options but few effective ones. This is mostly because the
only real reason for a topic to get repeated funding is for it to have huge social importance,
and the only real problem in
society with sleep is shift work, jet lag, or insomnia (all of which are problems of sleep
latency and treatable with melatonin).
Following that note, any issue with sleep latency is very well treated with melatonin (a
cheap, safe, and effective first-line option). Proper dosing involves getting 300mcg capsules
or a 3mg time release capsule, and if the former option is taken try to find the lowest
effective dose (this may be 300mcg, 1.5mg, or even 3mg and higher).
Beyond that, other options that are relatively cheap and known to be safe for enhancing
sleep quality include L-theanine (200mg) or glycine (3g); these supplements when taken
before bed are associated with better self-reported vitality and awareness the following day.
--
For more from Sol and the Examine team's take on nutrition and supplements - check out
their newest resource at www.examine.com
www.DefinedFitnessWexford.com
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