The Importance of Sleep

I’m sure everyone knows that without sleep we really can’t function. That is something that has been hammered into us ever since the day nap time ended. Now that we are all grown up and have busy lives, whether it is school, work, a family, or something that somehow doesn’t fit into the previous three things, sleep is now wanted more than ever, yet we can never seem to get enough of it. On the other hand, some of you may be in denial and think you don’t need as much sleep as others and that you can be fine on 2-4 hours of sleep a night. Well to you people I have but one message, You are so wrong! I have learned firsthand these last two weeks just how important sleep is, both with health but also my fitness, happiness, mental state, and anything else that can be applied to a person.

Last Saturday (May 3rd) was my comedy group’s sketch show and as such, we were having late practices every night as a part of our “hell week”. It also happened to be a week with 2 exams and a paper, so there was not much time to be had for sleep. Due to my class schedule and the extra practices, I had to wake up really early that week, to the point where I really was averaging 2-4 hours of sleep a night. The day before my show I had planned on testing my deadlift in hopes of setting a new 1RM. Due to the lack of sleep I had been getting, I hadn’t been recovering, and as such, while I was working up, weights that I could previously hit fairly easily were feeling incredibly difficult. At that point I knew it would be a waste to even try and that I would definitely not hit a new max, but instead today I was able to hit a PR. Sleep is probably the most important part of gaining results from training because that is when your muscles recover. If you’re not getting enough you won’t recover, but if you are you will see all kinds of progress.  

Not only is sleep incredibly important for making progress in your training, but it is also incredibly important for your health and wellness. This past Wednesday, my lack of sleep finally caught up to me and I felt absolutely terrible. I could barely stand, to point where one of my teachers told me to leave class and go to bed. Not only had I gotten sick to exhaustion, but I was also feeling very agitated and cranky towards everything, and that was frustrating to me because I’m not usually like that. I ended up sleeping 6 hours during the day though, 9 more that night, and then 10 hours Thursday night and woke up feeling phenomenal Friday, like I was a new person.

Sleep is the most important part of training and you should aim to get 8 hours of sleep each night, probably 9 if you trained that day. If you’re not sleeping you won’t make progress, but you’re also going to get sick and feel terrible. Do yourself a favor and go back to cherishing your sleep. Now go get a good night’s sleep everyone.