R'xd Inactivity

By Sandy

We eat and move aiming to better our bodies and lives for functionality based on principles of evolutionary adaptation. This is an ideal that appeals to me greatly given my background. However there is a aspect to my life I feel is very unhealthy and not actively or even passively pursued in terms of improvement. I feel I may also be in the majority of Crossfitters and active people as a whole.

This aspect is sleep. Sleep has been shown to be unnecessary for life. We can live without it but are we healthy without it (or more relevant) with inadequate amounts of it? How much sleep do we need - should it be a low carb, grass fed, unprocessed sleep just enough to sustain exercise or do we need as much as we can get. Diurnal rhythms, cortisol levels as well as in-numerous biochemical mood modulators such as serotonin, dopamine etc affect and are affected by levels of sleep. Interestingly enough many of the mood modulators (happy reward chemicals) are seen in very similar circumstance in food consumption. My mind/body will reward me for the deep fried mars bar dagwood dog super combo due to an evolutionary driven chemical push for survival in terms of topping up with such a potent (impotent) form of energy..

Our bodies/mind reward sleep or more accurately punish lack of it. Is this similar to satiety with food intake and should there be sleep/exercise performance associations similar to diet/performance that are encouraged at Crossfit (if they aren't already).

If concentration and co ordination have been shown to be significantly affected by it then why is it that I won't eat a little bit of rice but sleep on average 5 hours a night and wonder why I am always tired???

I would like to find out more on the effects of sleep and its influences on exercise performance and well being. I find this particularly interesting given that my day (and most of the night) time job is putting people to sleep. I should treat myself and be off.