NIFS Healthy Living Blog

Roughly how many hours of sleep would you say that you average per night? Six hours? Ten hours? Now think about your fitness goals and the results you want to see from exercising. Are you where you would like to be, or are you on pace to get to where you would like to be? You can be doing everything correctly from the exercises that you perform, nutrition and supplementation, stress reduction, whatever it may be, and you aren’t quite getting the results you’re looking for.

The Stages of Sleep

What if I told you that the amount of sleep that you get in a night correlates to your recovery from exercise? In most cases, it is recommended that you get at least eight hours of sleep per night. This can vary depending on factors such as exercise intensity, frequency, and even your age, however. For the purpose of recovery, let’s stick with that eight-hour recommendation. Why is that the recommendation? There are four stages of sleep that cycle throughout the night. There is N1, N2, N3, and REM. Reaching N3 is essential for recovery, and it is important that your body spend enough time in N3 while the sleep stages are cycling. During this N3 stage of sleep, the body releases hormones that are essential for recovery at night. One of the hormones being released is Human Growth Hormone (HGH). HGH is essential because it acts on many tissues in the body, muscle tissue being the big one, and it helps promote healing and recovery. HGH also helps raise other hormones in the body that are essential to recovery such as Insulin-Like Growth Factor (IGF-1).

How Do You Know Whether You Are Getting N3 Sleep?

As I have said, these sleep stages are constantly cycling throughout the night. Have you ever had multiple dreams in a night? That likely means that you reached REM sleep at least twice that night, which is great because your body got enough time in a deep sleep state and enough time in that N3 stage. Back to that eight-hour recommendation. Although this can vary slightly, it has been found that sleeping eight hours allows the body to go through two to four sleep cycles on average, therefore giving the body enough time in N3 and enough time for the essential hormones to be released.

This blog was written by David Sebree, Health Fitness Specialist. To learn more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.

Hormones have an especially important role in dealing with resistance training. The endocrine system is a collection of glands that produce hormones that regulate metabolism, growth and development, tissue function, sexual function, sleep, and mood. Some of these hormones are anabolic, which promote tissue building, and others are catabolic, which are used to degrade/break down cell protein. Ideally for muscle building, it is important to produce anabolic hormones while limiting the production of catabolic ones.

Anabolic and Catabolic Hormones

Scientists have identified examples of anabolic hormones in the human body. These examples include insulin, IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor), testosterone, and growth hormone. On the other hand, the catabolic hormones are cortisol, catecholamines, and progesterone. For our purposes, we can focus on two of these hormones: testosterone and cortisol.

Testosterone

Testosterone is the primary androgen hormone. The way to promote testosterone is short rest periods, 30 to 60 seconds, heavy resistance—85 to 95 percent 1RM (large motor units), and chronic resistance training (2+ years). Further, testosterone has a known effect on the nervous system: it increases neurotransmitters, and it acts on every tissue in the body. Men have 15 to 20 times more testosterone than women, and acute, or sudden, increases following workouts are small.

Cortisol

Cortisol, on the other hand, converts amino acids into carbs and breaks down proteins and inhibits the synthesis of proteins, which is bad if you are trying to build muscle because proteins are the building blocks for muscle. Cortisol increases during exercise with high volume/short muscle rest, causing large serum cortisol. This does more damage to the muscle and is not good for muscle recovery. Chronically high cortisol levels have adverse catabolic effects.

Knowing that your body produces both testosterone and cortisol, the difficulty lies in the ability to produce more testosterone than cortisol to see muscle growth.

Ways to Promote Lower Cortisol Levels

Here are four ways to lower your cortisol levels so that you can build muscle:

• Utilize proper rest times during high-intensity resistance workouts.
• Eat enough protein and carbohydrates to help you through the resistance workout.
• Perform resistance workouts when your body’s cortisol levels are lower, typically later in the day.
• Make sure you are getting enough sleep.

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Make sure you are paying attention to your hormones during resistance exercise. If you are not careful, hormones might be affecting your gains in a negative way instead of a positive way. As you can see from this information, these are just a few areas you can target to start producing testosterone and therefore, affect the tissues within your body. Hopefully, this information gives you a better understanding of the main two types of hormones, anabolic and catabolic, how they work in your body, and ways to achieve those gains you are looking for in your resistance training.

Source: Haff, G., & Triplett, T. (2016). Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning (4th ed.). Human Kinetics.

This blog was written by David Behrmann, NIFS Health Fitness Instructor.To learn more about the NIFS bloggers, click here. 

One of the most critical things we do for our health is sleep. Without sufficient sleep, we risk impairing cognitive function, developing chronic diseases and mental disorders, and even an early death.

There’s a lot about sleep that remains a mystery to science, but what is known is that it plays a major role in consolidating memories, cleaning metabolites from the brain, and allowing the nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems to repair themselves. Good sleep is essential for our bodies to thrive, but 30 percent of employed adults have reported 6 or less hours of sleep per night, when the recommended amount is between 7 and 9 hours. Hormones directly involved in the sleep cycle also play a critical role in health, so it’s important to maintain a steady sleep schedule to prevent these hormones from becoming imbalanced. One of the hormones that plays a role in sleep is melatonin, and this blog will focus on its effects on sleep as well as metabolism.

The Physiology of Melatonin

The physiology of melatonin is a complex subject, and research to discover its mechanisms and effects is ongoing. However, I will explain some of the things we know to be true about melatonin and why it may be important for you.

Melatonin is a hormone made in the pineal gland when it gets dark outside. When melatonin levels increase in the bloodstream, you begin to feel less alert and more sleepy. Although a major function of melatonin is to encourage sleep, it has a huge impact on metabolism. Some of the functions are these:

• Regulates energy expenditure.
• Potentiates various actions of insulin.
• Regulates glycemia (blood glucose) and lipidemia (blood lipids).
• Manages circadian synchronization of insulin secretion, synthesis, and action; hepatic (liver) metabolism; white adipose tissue metabolism; and skeletal muscle metabolism.
• Regulates energy flow to and from storages.

That’s a lot of responsibility for one hormone. Whereas a lot of these functions are significant, what’s most important to understand is that melatonin balances energy expenditure by controlling the flow between energy stores. It has a direct impact on the browning of white adipose tissue, which is a way for the body to regulate body weight. This works because the function of brown adipose tissue is heat production by burning large amounts of calories. It also plays a major role in regulating glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity. When melatonin levels are normal, all of these essential functions can be carried out.

Chronodisruption

Chronodisruption is what occurs when melatonin production is impaired. This can be due to illumination such as lights turned on inside when it’s nighttime, working the night shift, or aging. All of the functions listed above become disrupted and no longer work efficiently. This disorganization can lead to metabolic diseases and obesity.

The best thing to do if you think you may be experiencing chronodisruption is to talk to a doctor. They may encourage you to try melatonin-replacement therapy, because there have been some successes in various research studies, or help you find a healthier sleeping routine.

Top Takeaways About Sleep and Weight Management

Melatonin is a huge contributor to overall health and metabolism. If disrupted, your whole body can feel the consequences. It might seem like the most important thing to do for your health is healthy eating and exercise, but sleep may be at the top of the list. Without adequate sleep, our hormones lose balance, our mental capacity is reduced, and our overall health is negatively impacted.

This blog was written by Hannah Peters, BS, CPT, Health Fitness Instructor. To learn more about the NIFS bloggers, click here.