Why Sleep Affects Performance

WHY SLEEP AFFECTS PERFORMANCE

There is only so many hours in one day, and it is a consistent topic that people try to get their heads around because we all want more hours, more time in our pockets to get what we need done. Regardless of whether you are a full-time parent, employee, athlete or businessman/woman we all want more time.

A lot of people want more sleep, definitely the people who are grinding their way to the top. They want more sleep to feel more energised in order to give more in their lives. In our case it is fitness. We want to make sure that we are getting enough rest so that we can train to a higher level and excel more.

Especially people who are currently trying to lose weight, we have to find a balance in our lives to ensure that we are fully rested, because if we are not it can have negative effects on our bodies.

A lot of people discuss the training level and effort that is needed in order to lose weight, but they forget that sleep is one of the key factors that also contributes to your goals. It is suggested that if you are in full time training that you should be sleeping between 7-10 hours an evening, depending how the rest of your lifestyle is like. If you are naturally quite active, then you may need more sleep to recover. If training is pretty much the only active thing that you do, you don’t have any other commitments like children, then you could get away with sleeping less.

"Charlie was recommended by a friend who had achieved amazing results on his program. A little skeptical about the usual internet ‘before and afters’ I gave it a try and I’m so pleased I did. I feel, look and train better than ever before. 

Charlie is an awesome coach and genuinely cares about getting you to reach your goals. He’s on hand whenever you need him and pushes you to keep going when you’re feeling down.

I’m on my second phase now and will continue to work with Charlie to push myself and see what I can achieve! If you’re thinking about giving it a go I highly recommend it. If you put the work in the results come...along with a bowl of coco pops" Matt from the UK

Tons of people, oddly enough successful people are the ones that are telling you to not get sleep. Though for some of the time it is very much true, if you’d like to really excel in life and not just for weight loss that you may have to give up things like sleeping to achieve it. But over the longer course of your life, you cannot keep that up. We are designed to sleep, that is how we best recover. It isn’t meditation or salt baths or keeping our energy level up with an endless supply of caffeine. The best way is getting your head down pushing towards your goals when you are awake, and then really shutting off at night to recover.

So what are the benefits to getting more sleep, let’s check it out.

• It improves your mental performance, isn’t it a horrible feeling when you turn up to work and you’ve slept terribly the night before and now you are stuck for 8 hours unable to concentrate. Your lack of sleeping is stopping you from being able to keep your attention focused not just at work, it could be in the gym too. When you are well rested you are able to feel more energised for starters and also be more accurate at work, you will be able to do tasks easier and retain more information given to you during the day.

• Physical performance, lack of good sleep can lead to being generally quite depleted, you don’t have the energy to play with your kids or get in a good workout, or even do the mundane tasks like putting on a load of washing. The reason you get this way is that when you are not rested you have a lot of muscle tension in your body as it is trying to overcompensate for you being tired, which leads to your body essentially using more energy to keep you going through the day.

• Good old health and wellbeing, no one who has deprived themselves from sleep for an extended period of time is in the best health. There are some people who are naturally able to sleep on less sleep, but this is not everyone. Big successful people preach on how much sleep they sacrifice in order to get where they want but please take note that they only do it for a select period of time.

Overall, as much as making sure you are eating the right food, working out correctly and doing everything you have been told to do. Please do not neglect sleep, as that is one factor that is just as important as the rest of them.

As always any questions please drop me a message!