BOOST YOUR ENERGY
How turning in early could pump up your gyms sessions
How much sleep did you get last night? We’d be willing to bet it wasn’t enough. Statistically speaking, most of us are falling short, much of the time. But while our early weekday starts may be inevitable, we rarely turn in each night quite as soon as we really should (a fact that push notifications, Insta Stories and reruns of The Handmaid’s Tale certainly don’t help).
So, if a burgeoning blue light addiction isn’t enough to make you rethink your nocturnal habits, a recent US study published by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention should be. They found that sleep could be the simplest and cheapest form of injury prevention. In their research, athletes who averaged fewer than eight hours of sleep per night were 70% more likely to sustain injuries during training. This made sleep an even more accurate predictor of risk than training strategy.
Aside from the obvious downsides of stepping onto the pitch or into the squat rack while bleary-eyed, sleep is crucial for maintaining testosterone levels, even in otherwise healthy men. Low levels of the hormone further reduce concentration, energy and strength, as well as seriously hampering your ability to burn away fat. Making this one body transformation that actually does happen overnight.