Spring is fast approaching. For many of you, that means a race is on the horizon, so it鈥檚 time to turn up your training, dial in your diet, and rebuild your trail legs. But as you begin this performance-minded overhaul of your waking hours, you should also consider the one-third of your day where you do nothing at all: your sleeping hours.
鈥淚 often find myself in this dilemma where I could wake up early and go for a run or I could get an extra 20 to 30 minutes of sleep,鈥 says Chris Winter, a sleep researcher who consults for various professional teams and author of . 鈥淢ost days, I鈥檇 probably be better off getting the sleep.鈥
Roughly 40 percent of us don鈥檛 get seven or more hours of sleep. But logging shut-eye is . Winter, for example, conducted a study that showed professional baseball players who didn鈥檛 get enough sleep had shorter careers in the majors. One reason may be that sleep helps you recover from hard training. 鈥淭he lion鈥檚 share of growth hormone secretion happens during deep sleep,鈥 says Winter.
And while eating less is to be the main driver of weight loss, fixing your approach to sleep may actually be one of the easiest ways to cut weight. The number of sleep hours you get is a strong predictor of what and how much you eat. People who slept five hours or fewer, for example, consumed nearly 700 daily calories more than people who got a full night鈥檚 sleep, according to . That鈥檚 about seven pieces of bread, three PowerBars, or a McDonald鈥檚 quarter-pounder with fries that can up and vanish from your daily diet.
鈥淲hen a body is sleepy, you try to eat to stay awake,鈥 Winter says. Blame biology. When you鈥檙e sleep-deprived, the appetite-regulating hormone leptin drops and the hunger hormone ghrelin spikes. You鈥檙e calorie-dense, high-carb foods鈥攕tuff like tortilla chips and granola bars鈥攐ver vegetables.
Incremental weight loss and muscle gain is more important now than ever as you start to ramp up your training. According to , most people end the winter nearly five pounds heavier than they started it. That extra flab doesn鈥檛 just your health鈥攊t can kill performance. from marathon runners even shows that higher body-fat percentage is tied to slower finishing times, even when you鈥檙e talking only five pounds.
So get some sleep. The simplest way is to make your bedroom feel like a cave.
#1. Darken Your Room
If you can see anything at all in your bedroom at night, it鈥檚 too bright. Light is the main disruptor of the sleep process, Winter says. The solution, he says, is to buy blackout curtains for your windows and rid electronics from your bedroom (or, at least, put tape over their lights). If it鈥檚 still too bright, use a sleeping mask.
#2. Kill the Noise
If you fall asleep to the din of Netflix, you鈥檙e setting yourself up to have your sleep interrupted, and that can blunt recovery-enhancing processes like growth hormone release, Winter says. Set your TV on a sleep timer. If your room is still loud鈥攍ooking at you, apartment dwellers鈥攊nvest in earplugs.
#3. Turn Down the Thermostat
鈥淭here鈥檚 new research that says temperature may be just as important as light in controlling sleep patterns,鈥 Winter says. Cooler is better. Aim for 66 degrees: A found that people who slept in a 66-degree room not only slept better but also boosted their ability to metabolize fats and sugars.