Sleep is more important then diet and exercise combined?

[Brandon Nankivell]

This was claimed by Shawn Stevenson (author of Sleep Smarter) on the Tom Bilyeu show.

Whether the claim is true or not, the science and your own sleep-deprived self will tell you that sleep is vital for great health.

So I'm curious, where are the discussions on sleep in this forum?

Assuming we used a measure for optimal health where we measure 'If I were to deprive you of X for 24 hours and your objective was to stay alive, which item in descending order of importance would you want to retain?'

Correct me if I'm wrong but the the order would look something like this:

1. Air

Die in minutes without it.

2. Water

Die in days without it.

3. Sleep

No evidence that you can die from lack of sleep but longest time is ~11 days someone has gone without it, and at that point you're extremely dysfunctional.

4. Food

Die in months without it (give or take, depends on many factors like individual biology, amount of body fat etc...)

5. Exercise

Not sure you can die from lack of it anytime soon but many years down the track you're probably going to live a shorter and lower quality life without it.

Again the assumption here is that what your body demands for survival is what equates to optimal health.

Do you think this is a reasonable assumption to make? And if so, why should we focus on food and exercise before healthy sleeping habits?

[TrynaBeTurquoise]

Quality and quantity of sleep is vital but I would be careful saying its more important than diet and exercise combined. Its all important. 

The way our society functions is at odds with good sleep hygiene, all this new research has been coming out but it will take a while for society to catch up. Like children whose circadian rhythms naturally cause them to sleep in longer, but are expected to get up early for school and function at high cognitive levels. Systemic issues need to be fixed.

[Michael569]

I agree with that assumption. A bad diet will take decades to kill you, and most likely it will make your years from 50+ really miserable. Lack of exericse will shorten your life and make you prone to some disease but again will not kill you especially while you are young. 

Sleep, on the other hand is a different story. A chronic undersleeping (geting 7 hours and less) reduces your immune surveilence and disrupts your endocrine system. Deprive yourself of sleep for 48 hours and your cognitive abilities will match  those of a drunken man. There is greater tendency to overeat, to lie, to manipulate and to lash out on people. 

Your reasoning, empathy and emotional inteligence go down the toilet even after 1 day of bad sleep. Even sleeping during day and working nights increases your chances of cancer dramatically, make you more prone to obesity and stress-related issues. Your cortisol is chronically elevated which unsufficient sleep which leads to A LOT of problems down the road 

A lot of disease we see today is related to chronic sleep deprivation. 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Michael569

[iTommy]

All are important, and go hand in hand. If one is out of line, then the other aspects might suffer. I hugely struggle with good & quality sleep, and it's having quite the impact on my overall health, especially my psyché. I can't remember the last time I got a good quality sleep, it's probably been 3/4+ years now. I usually wake up multiple times during the night, so I'm not sure of how much sleep I actually get (including quality sleep). Maybe I get somewhere between 3-5,5 hours of sleep, if I am lucky, again quality sleep doesn't seem to be included there. My diet is alright, it could be better (I've got colon/stomach issues, and I am experimenting with foods that work for my body). I do consciousness work, exercise is in there too and so on. My outer/inner circumstances aren't ideal, but even when they were better, there was still disfunction within the sleep category. 

My concentration, focus, energy, motivation, my overall mental health is in the shi*ter and I suspect that sleep has a lot to do with it. I remember when I somewhat got decent sleep a few years back... when I woke up in the morning, my energy levels were noticeable better than usual. I felt more alive and saw more beauty in everything, more focused and motivated overall. 

Sleep affects all areas quite a bit, physical health, mental health. It's a huge deal...

[Rigel]

Heard sadhguru talk about that and how you can cut down your sleep quota to 3-4h a day with proper management of the body/mind

What do you guys think of this? 

[Truth Addict]

1 hour ago, Rigel said:

Heard sadhguru talk about that and how you can cut down your sleep quota to 3-4h a day with proper management of the body/mind

What do you guys think of this? 

I agree.

In fact, I think 4 hours is enough and optimal.

[Tim25N]

Sleep is an integral part of the recovery of our body. If the biorhythms of the body are violated, then the nervous system will suffer from this, hormonal failure, digestive problems and, of course, depression are possible. 4 hours is not enough! 7-9 hours - for your best mood and health. 

[RawJudah]

Sleep is the FOUNDATION of human health. It is the number one thing we really need for a healthy body and mind. Healthy food and lots of water is good too but it doesn't come close to having good quality sleep night after night.

Read 'Why We Sleep' by Matthew Walker and it will change the way you look at sleep. We humans are the only animal that purposely deny ourselves of sleep in order to do more, its absurd... Other animals only skip sleep if their survival is threatened.

[DrewNows]

5 hours ago, Rigel said:

Heard sadhguru talk about that and how you can cut down your sleep quota to 3-4h a day with proper management of the body/mind

What do you guys think of this? 

Yup. Proper utilization of energy and body function can indeed yield more wakefulness. Consuming less food, higher quality food, body detoxification and tapping into the universal energy will promote some amazing health benefits. 

I hear that breatharians of different levels sleep roughly 3-4 hours, can go up to a year without food, and become very in-tune with their body 

[Moreira]

What are your thoughts about people who works on nightshifts for decades? Even if they sleep 8 hours during they day, the rest is not the same, they age faster less lifespan and more risk of cardiac diseases. 

[pluto]

Yes because its not in tune with nature and circadian rhythms, sun/moon cycles ect.. I am so glad i got my mother to switch her shifts after 15 years nightshirt it was greatly effecting her health and she was changing as a person. One of the most important things one can do to be in good health is learn to be more in tune with nature and natural cycles. Everything is interconnected and has meaning.

@Rigel Some require more, some less. The more in tune with spirit you are, the less the need for sleep. We need sleep more as we become more physical, more dense, so to speak.

 

[Michael569]

 

15 hours ago, RawJudah said:

Read 'Why We Sleep' by Matthew Walker and it will change the way you look at sleep. We humans are the only animal that purposely deny ourselves of sleep in order to do more, its absurd... Other animals only skip sleep if their survival is threatened.

^

[Bill W]

On 16/09/2019 at 6:10 PM, RawJudah said:

We humans are the only animal that purposely deny ourselves of sleep in order to do more, its absurd... Other animals only skip sleep if their survival is threatened.

Yes but most if not all animals don't have a job to maintain, bill's to pay, or forums to post on. 

[RawJudah]

@Bill W Lol, you can't use that as an excuse. 

Minimise your lifestyle down so that you have plenty of time for rest and a good night sleep. 

I know bills have to be paid, but you can still do it along with 8 hours of sleep at night. 

 

[Bill W]

@RawJudah  Good points. On a serious note in terms of...

On 9/16/2019 at 6:10 PM, RawJudah said:

We humans are the only animal that purposely deny ourselves of sleep in order to do more, its absurd... Other animals only skip sleep if their survival is threatened.

Perhaps that's the same reason human's skip sleep a lot, we feel our survival is threatened? Maybe not imminent death, but our survival in society as a "functioning" and "well" individual. We perhaps feel we need to do an extra one or two hours of "stuff" instead of trying to sleep because in some ways we feel our survival depends on it? 

[outlandish]

I've heard a theory that humans are uniquely able to skip sleep via sheer willpower as a survival strategy. Our ancestors were persistence hunters, during certain long periods of our evolution our ancestors essentially ran down their prey until they wore them out. Many of our adaptations can be explained in this context. So one idea is that we figured out how to push through sleepiness as we hunted prey down during these endurance persistence hunts.

Doesn't mean it's good for us, just means we're better at it than other animals.

[d0ornokey]

Any of the 3 out of alignment (diet/exercise/sleep) has serious effects on my mood, not sure which is more tbh.

Edited September 20, 2019 by d0ornokey

[Michael569]

@OmegaBrite how does Omega 3 impact sleep lol? 

You know, you could have at least changed your name before trying to sell your supplements here. 

Edited September 25, 2019 by Michael569

[Brandon Nankivell]

On 9/16/2019 at 7:56 PM, Rigel said:

Heard sadhguru talk about that and how you can cut down your sleep quota to 3-4h a day with proper management of the body/mind

What do you guys think of this? 

@Rigel This is an interesting proposition. Do you have a link to the source video where Sadhguru says this? I'm deep into sleep research and those heavily experimenting with sleep and something that often comes up is that healthy people need less sleep.

3-4h: Anything is possible however I am yet to meet or even hear about someone who can function optimally on that amount of sleep. Does Sadghuru himself sleep for 3-4 hours a day? For now I'd only be treating it as food for thought.

[Rigel]

@Brandon Nankivell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEh7cBv1kMc

There's a bunch of other instances where he talked about that.