to face your fears… just by catching more zzz’s. Rebuild your body like Wolverine. During the sleep cycle, the body pumps out a dose of human growth hormone, which repairs muscles, and boosts muscle mass. More sleep = more muscle/better athletic performance. When you exercise, or lift a weight, fibres in your muscles tear. And when you sleep, your muscles have the chance to repair these tears, and grow back even stronger. It’s not actually the workout that makes you stronger, it’s resting afterwards. So is it a surprise that Lebron James and Andy Murray are total machines? Well, with 12hours of sleep, not really. Their bodies are getting the maximum time to repair itself and grow stronger from their brutal training. Stanford University looked at the effect of sleep on several of their sports teams. By adding 2 hours of extra sleep to their routine, the basketball squad increased their sprint times by 5% and their free throw accuracy by 9%. The swimming and football teams also boasted performance boosts. So if you want to break a physical plateau, or remain injury-free, try getting a few extra hours of kip. Immune to Illness. The Hydra. Greek mythical monster. When you cut off its head, it grows 2 back. What doesn’t kill it only makes it stronger. That’s like your immune system with more sleep. The immune system relies on sleep. The more shut-eye you get, the greater your ability to destroy illness attacks. The less sleep you get, well… In a study done by the University of Chicago, student volunteers slept for only 4 hours a day for 6 days, and afterwards tested forblood pressure, stress, and antibody response to a flu vaccination. After only 6 days, they were completely stressed out, they’d developed high blood pressure, and their bodies produced only half the normal number of antibodies when given the flu vaccination. Half the number of antibodies after only 6 days. That’s pretty scary. But all these effects were completely reversible when they caught up on sleep. So – sleep more, and beast up your immune system! Pesky winter colds? No more. Sniffly noses? Purrleaaase. Control Hunger Two hormones control hunger; ghrelin and leptin. And both can only be regulated properly with sleep. When you go down the insomniac tunnel, your body pumps out too much ghrelin, which makes you, feel hungrier, while the satiety hormone, leptin, is reduced, so you don’t feel full. Thus, you’re way more likely to stuff your face the next day. Not because you lack the discipline to eat healthily, but because your sleep-deprived body is telling you that you need toeat, even though you don’t. Sleep more, and you’ll want to eat less. Become more like-able. When we’re sleep-deprived, we’re grumpy. We get pretty snappy and our tempers become perilously short. Really, we’re just one friendly-joke away from killing someone. Why? When we’re deprived of sleep, the region of the brain in charge of reasoning takes a back seat to our “lizard” brain. So unless your friend’s offering food, water or sex, you’re not going to be too pleased. Sleep puts reason back in the driving seat. We can see things from different perspectives, engage in conversations and generally be a more personable person. Ok, so that’s why we should be considering getting more shut-eye. But what happens if we don’t get enough kip? The Perils of Sleep Debt Every hour of sleep that you miss accumulates into a “sleep debt”. And with each hour in dreamland missed, more brain junk accumulates in your noggin. Let’s say you’ve got a tough project at uni. Or a business assignment. Maybe yousleep 2 hours less during weekdays, but you lie in an extra 2 hours on the weekend to catch up. I’ve caught up. I feel fine. It’s all good right? Well, no. You’ve still missed 6 hours. That’s almost a whole night’s sleep. And that’s 6 hour’s worth of junk clogging up your brain to start the week. And what if you miss 6 hours every week? Hmm, that’s a lot of crap floating about up there. NOT GOOD. We’re talking short/long term memory loss, weakened immune system, obesity, stress, high blood pressure, brain fog, impaired decision making, crabbit… You get the picture. If you know you’ve got a sleep debt, but you feel pretty good after a decent night’s sleep, then imagine how awesome you’d feel if you completely caught up on your sleep. Invest in yourself. Sleep more! Call to Action: Get More Sleep! So.. you want a bit of this super-power action. How do you get some? Well, we all know how awesome waking up early is. So let’s leave that alone. That means we’ll have to go to bed earlier. So,I’m throwing down the gauntlet. I challenge you, for the next month, to get at least half an hour extra sleep every night. How do we go about it? First, work out what time you need to be asleep by. Say 10:30. Next, pick a time, like half an hour before, that you NEED to be in bed by, say 10:00. At 10:00, just read a book until 10:30. Something fictional that’ll get you lost in the drama. Why? 3 reasons. You’re sectioning off a time every day to read, so you’ll learn more. Reading is tiring. Your brain has to work, meaning that you’ll be sleepy when your head hits the pillow. You have an exquisite taste in books, so you’ll look forward to going to bed earlier. So try it. Challenge yourself, and sleep a little bit more. Could there be a superhuman-you just waiting to be unleashed? You bet. Takeaway: The Super-Powers of Sleep. Benefits: Makes you an awesome learner. More stuff for the in-tray AND file it while asleep. Gets the creative juices flowing. Linking un-related topics =lightbulb moments. Decision Making easier. Less brain junk, more clarity. Muscle repair and growth like Wolverine. Immune system on all cylinders. Better in social situations. Feel less hungry. The Challenge: Monday. A new week. I challenge YOU to get a little bit more sleep every night. Make a time at night that you must be in bed by, then read until your allotted “go-to-sleep” time. And of course, combine with waking up early for the most kick-ass day. After a month, see how you feel. Unleash your super-powers within. So that’s it folks. How much sleep do YOU need? Have you experimented? Noticed any kick-ass benefits? Drop us a comment by joining the Dreambigstartsmall community on facebook . As always, Dream Big start small! Iain Resources: