This week’s blog is all about why we sleep. There’s a couple of really great books I’d recommend to you, where I’ve got a lot of my ideas from. One is by Professor Matthew Walker, and it’s called Why we Sleep. Very well publicised across London and the UK this summer, so you may have heard of it. The second book is by Nick Littlehales, and it’s also called Sleep.
There are three fundamental reasons why we sleep. One is we’ve recently discovered it helps to flush out plaques called beta amyloid plaques; it’s a build up of these plaques that is believed to contribute to Alzheimer’s and other kinds of dementia. What we now know is that during the process of sleep, we flush out a lot of those plaques from the brain, therefore, staving off, or even reducing, or eliminating, the risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease. It’s certainly a principle to consider. Just by getting more sleep, we could mitigate the risks of early onset dementia, or Alzheimer’s later on in life.
The other components of sleep, a sleep cycle, is composed of light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep. We know that light sleep is the sleep that cycles us through the other stages. Deep sleep is where we write data to the disk, it’s where we download everything that’s gone on in our brains in the day. REM sleep is where we sift through memories and learning, and consolidate all of that.
They both perform really important functions. I quite often talk to people about sleep, and you hear a lot of people saying that they’re great on six hours, they thrive no problem at all. However, it’s actually a tiny percentage of people that have this genetic variation, according to Matthew Walker, who thrive on six hours sleep a night or less. In fact, if you rounded it up or down, it would be 0%. That’s how few of us have that genetic variation that allows us to thrive on six hours sleep or less. Most of us need between seven and eight hours sleep. Many of us aren’t getting that.
In future blogs we’ll talk about ways that you can do so. But, you can also look back through our blog archive, because we’ve recorded lots of blogs on sleep, and there were some really powerful and very easy to implement techniques we’ve suggested for getting that seven or eight hours that’s optimal.
I hope that’s helpful. If you need anything, or if you’ve got questions on any of this, you can email me at leanne@bodyshopperformance.com.
Bodyshot Sleep Package
We have brought together everything you need to optimise your sleep, in one package. The Sleep Package includes the DNA test for diet and fitness, a non-invasive blood test panel for thyroid and red cell magnesium and the Oura ring for sleep tracking and recovery.
Once we’ve received the results of your DNA and blood test, we arrange a suitable time for the consultation which takes place online and lasts approximately 60 minutes. In the consultation, we analyse your results, explain what everything means and draw up a personalised action plan so that you know exactly what to do.
The Sleep Package also includes an eBook that talks you through the Sleep Signal and gives you loads of tips, information and a resource you can keep coming back to. The eBook is a concise summary of everything we’ve learned from the hundreds of clients we’ve helped to optimise their sleep.
What you get:
- DNA test for diet and fitness
- Oura ring
- Custom Blood Panel
- eBook
- Consultation with a Health Expert
If you’d like to find out more about this package, please click here.
What’s your Health IQ?
If you’re reading this, you’re are probably in a reasonably senior position, running your own business or have a busy life running the home and juggling other responsibilities. Either way, you’re busy. The convergent pressures of work and family life have probably meant that the time you did have to spend on health and fitness has disappeared. Why not talk to us and see how we can help.
Leanne Spencer is an entrepreneur, coach, TEDx Speaker, author of Remove the Guesswork, and founder of Bodyshot Performance Limited. Bodyshot is a health and fitness consultancy that helps busy professionals get more energy by removing the guesswork around their health, fitness and nutrition. Visit www.bodyshotperformance.com or email info@bodyshotperformance.com to register your interest in our services and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.