Sleep, Sleep, Sleep - Key Takeaways from Sleep Smarter
Good morning!
I am writing this from a plane (yay traveling!) and I usually have a content calendar. As we approach summer and things get back to more of a normal, we’ve been especially busy (in a good way!) so I didn’t have anything planned this week.
That was until I read the book, Sleep Smarter by Shawn Stevenson. He is a sleep expert and I enjoy listening to his podcast, The Model Health Show and following him on social media.
Shawn is someone who changed his life and one of the things that is his passion is SLEEP!
Do you need more sleep? Maybe you sleep 9-10 hours a night but how is the quality?
Here are 10 interesting passages from this book:
A study published by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that poor sleep quality was equal to binge drinking and marijuana use in determining academic performance. (pg. 3)
A recent study that focused on the sleep quality of day-shift office workers revealed some shocking results. When compared to office workers who have direct access to windows at work, those office workers who didn’t have access to windows got 173 percent less exposure to natural light and, as a result, an average of 46 minutes less sleep each night. (pg. 11)
In a study, nighttime iPad readers took longer to fall asleep, felt less sleepy at night, and had shorter REM sleep compared to test subjects who were assigned to read regular printed books. (pg. 20)
Caffeine has a half-life of around 5 to 8 hours (depending on your unique biochemical makeup). Half-life essentially means that after a specific amount of time (say, 8 hours), half of the substance is still active in your system. (pg. 29)
Studies have shown that the optimal room temperature for sleep is really quite cool at around 60 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit. (pg. 35)
The International Agency for Research on Cancer has not classified overnight shift work as a Group 2A carcinogen. This means that saying up repeatedly, and working overnight, is a strong enough cancer-causing agent to be lumped in with lead exposure and UVA radiation. (pg. 43)
The environment you create in your bedroom, and things you do in your bedroom, can have a significant impact on the quality of sleep you get. (pg. 64)
The most accurate biological markers that can tell us how long we’re going to live are something called telomeres. Research conducted by scientists at the University of California found that sleep deprivation is one of the single biggest triggers for accelerated loss of your telomere length. (pg. 84)
Research published in Archives of Internal Medicine found that people who did a moderate amount of exercise - about 100 minutes a week of activity such as tennis, swimming, or running - had telomeres that on average looked like those of someone about 5 to 6 years younger as compared to those who did the least exercise - about 16 minutes a week. (pg. 85)
A study published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine found that patients with primary insomnia had a radical improvement in sleep quality when they added in a consistent exercise regimen. (pg. 88)
So there you have it! Sleep, sleep, sleep. Make it a priority. It is a key piece of the puzzle when trying to become a healthier person.
What is one passage that stood out to you from that list?