The completely legal (and free) performance enhancing drug that 67% of the population isn’t taking advantage of — Part I of III
Alright, let’s cut straight to the chase:
1. You’re goddamn right I came up with a Grade A clickbait headline. Hat tip to me for getting you to click.
2. So what’s the drug? Spoiler Alert: it’s actually not even a drug after all— it’s sleep. Welcome to the troll blog, folk’s.
In all seriousness, though, most of us aren’t getting enough sleep, and it’s not just us Americans who are screwing this up. In fact, the World Health Organization estimates that two-thirds of people in developed nations aren’t getting the recommended 8 hours of sleep each night (although I’d argue that this number is actually a hell of a lot higher considering it’s a well known fact that people routinely lie their faces off on health surveys).
Ever since we can remember, we’ve been lectured the same thing from our parents to teachers to basically any preachy asshole who’s ever had authority over us — ”You need to get at least 8 hours of sleep/night.” Do most of us do that?
Answer: Absolutely not. Specifically, as mentioned before, two-thirds of us aren’t doing this.
And, more importantly, is this just a bullshit old wives’ tale passed down from generation to generation, or is there actual truth to this reommendation?
Answer: No and Yes.
Whether or not we want to believe these people scolding us like they’re religious preachers beating down our doorways to spread the word, there’s actual scientific research that confirms that not getting enough sleep at night (specifically, at least 7–9 hours for adults) can be seriously detrimental to your health.
Here’s the problem, though — this isn’t going to be a quick fix. After all, this a societal epidemic.
In societies designed to reward hard workers with the increased opportunity to lead more fruitful lives, we’ve adapted to compromise sleep in the name of getting ahead. Now, this isn’t to say I have a problem with capitalism (I don’t), but here’s what’s wrong with this line of thinking:
- You have highly influential people wearing the proverbial badge of honor that they don’t need to sleep as much as the rest of us (i.e. “the sleep when you die” crowd). Notable people who have advocated for this broken line of thinking include former U.S. President, Ronald Reagan, and former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher (more on them later).
- Whenever you aren’t getting at least 7 hours of sleep/night, your physical and mental capacity becomes severely compromised. So basically, it’s counterintuitive that you can accomplish more in the day by way of decreasing sleep time. Weird how that works, right?
So the question becomes the following — how do we get society to change its stance on sleep?
In my opinion, there’s a three-step process:
Step #1: Scare the shit out of people (i.e. tell people everything that can potentially go wrong as a result of insufficient sleep).
Step #2: Explain the benefits to people (i.e. tell people everything that can potentially improve as a result of sufficient sleep).
Step #3: Educate people on how they can develop and maintain better sleep habits.
For the sake of this first post, we’ll tap into step #1 (we’ll get into steps #2 and 3 in separate blogs in the near future). After all, without understanding WHY getting 8 hours of sleep/night is important, it makes total sense why preachy assholes yelling at you to get more sleep at night (without providing any context whatsoever) would fall on deaf ears. Idiots.
So, with that said, let’s start by learning how we’re going to die young because we’re stuck in the habit of scrolling through the gram at night.
Step #1: Scare the shit out of people
Before we really tap into problems that result by way of inadequate sleep, I’d be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t direct you to what recently changed my personal stance on sleep in the first place. You see, coming from a guy that routinely got between 4–6 hours of sleep over the past seven years or so (or basically ever since I graduated college and transitioned into waking up at adult hours of the day), I never really thought twice about what I was doing.
Then, three podcasts later and boom — here I am — writing a blog post about why you should be getting more sleep at night. What a hypocrite!
Let me tell you, though, after hearing about all the horrid things that can happen to you just by getting under 7 (SEVEN!) hours of sleep at night, it’s safe to say that number struck a chord. Perhaps I’m a bit of a hypochondriac, but I’m sure most of you out there can relate in a sense of how often you, too, get less than seven hours of sleep. As I mentioned before, it’s basically the norm at this point.
So if you have the time, I HIGHLY recommend listening to this three-part interview series between Peter Attia, MD (Canadian-American physician whose medical practice focuses on the science of longevity) and Matthew Walker, PhD (Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and Founder and Director of the Center for Human Sleep Science) from Dr. Attia’s podcast, The Drive:
However, if you don’t have the time to burn through nearly six hours of content, I encourage you to check out the show notes (which are basically just as good and will save you hours of time):
But if you’re too lazy to do that, too, don’t worry! I’ll give you the CliffsNotes version of all the ways you’re going to die prematurely (or just have a decreased quality of life) all because you’re not sleeping enough at night. Sound good? Good!
Here you go:
Short-term health detriments resulting from lack of quality sleep (i.e. less than 7 hours/night)
- Decreased productivity.
- Lower academic test scores.
- Increased risk of drowsy driving automobile accidents (this can actually be worse than drunk driving, believe it or not).
- Higher rates of anxiety, depression, and basically every other mental health disorder.
- Increased risk of suicidal thoughts.
- Increased suicide attempts/rates.
- Increased appetite.
- Decreased willpower to eat healthy foods.
- Decreased desire to exercise (although I think can we can categorize this under the “no shit” category).
- Decreased athletic performance (more on this later in blog #2).
- Increased risk of injury — especially in athletes.
- Decreased sex drive.
- Increased cortisol levels (i.e. your body’s stress hormone).
- Increased glucose (or blood sugar) levels — too high and you’re essentially pre-diabetic.
- Increased blood pressure.
- Higher resting heart rate.
- Increased risk of heart attacks (don’t believe me? There’s an annual, global experiment performed on 1.6 billion people that takes place every March that backs up this claim.)
- Compromised immune function (hello, cold and flu).
Sadly, we’re just scratching the surface here. I’m sure I missed a few, but I think you get the point. Almost EVERYTHING you can think of is affected by poor sleep in the short-term— mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally — you name it.
So now that we know how poor sleep can affect us tomorrow, here’s some of the horrible shit that can affect us years down the road:
Long-term health detriments resulting from lack of quality sleep (i.e. less than 7 hours/night) over long periods of time
- Increased risk of Alzheimer’s/Dementia (sadly, both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher succumbed to variations of this disease).
- Increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
- Increase risk of Type 2 Diabetes.
- Increased risk of cancer (specifically, cancers of the breast, prostate, colon, and ovaries).
- Decreased testosterone levels in men (hot seat: ball sizes).
- Increased infertility levels in women.
- Inability to form new memories.
- Lower IQs (me).
Alright, so I think you get the point — the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life (along with a bunch of other horrible things). It’s really that simple.
But don’t worry — it’s not too late to fix it. Come back next week for Part II to learn how your health (and performance) can improve by getting sufficient sleep. Spoiler Alert: some of the stuff will blow your mind.
Still don’t believe me on any of this stuff? Check out Matt Walker’s TED Talk from this past June (hint: he’s a lot smarter than me):
Twitter: @PeepsBurgh
Instagram: @michael_priola
