238|Why We Sleep

Remove the Guesswork: Health, Fitness and Wellbeing for Busy Professionals

238|Why We Sleep

February 13, 2021

Why do people sleep? What do we get from it? Leanne shares her thoughts on this very important activity that we can’t live without.

Visit https://www.bodyshotperformance.com/topic/podcasts/ for the complete show notes of every podcast episode.

Topics Discussed in this Episode:

The sleep cycle
How sleep keeps the brain healthy
The role of sleep in appetite regulation

Key Takeaways:

One sleep cycle is about 90 minutes. Half of that is light sleep. Of the remaining half, one quarter is deep sleep, and the other quarter is REM sleep.
Deep sleep is where we get a lot of the physiological adaptations to exercise and cellular repair. It’s the restorative portion of sleep.
REM stands for rapid eye movement. REM sleep is where we do our dreaming, memory consolidation, and learning consolidation. It’s a very important aspect of sleep.
Sleep gives us an opportunity to repair and restore our body. It also gives us an opportunity to repair and restore our mind.
Sleep also serves to flush out the brain of beta-amyloid plaques, thereby strengthening the brain and mitigating our risk of cognitive decline.

Action Steps:

Prioritize your sleep.

Leanne said:

“What we tend to see, if you’ve had a very physical day, you may get more deep restorative sleep. If you’re under a lot of emotional load, you may notice that you get more REM sleep.”

“[Sleep] needs to be right up there as a non-negotiable.”

As always, if you want to register your interest in some of the ideas that I’m putting together with Bodyshot Performance, send an email to anne@bodyshotperformance.com.

If you’re interested in finding out what your health IQ is, take the Health IQ test to find out, and get a free 39-page report built around our six signals, which are sleep, mental health, energy, body composition, digestion, and fitness.

Let me know your thoughts and feedback. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard on this episode and it’s added value to you, share the episode with someone you think could benefit from it. And don’t forget to leave a rating or a review and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts.

Links to things mentioned in the episode:

Link to James Wilson episode

Link to Greg Potter episode

Link to book Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

Link to book Sleep by Nick Littlehales

Link to book Sleep Smarter by Shawn Stevenson

Link to Oura Ring - Use discount code BODYSHOT for €50 off