By Gabe Sanders PhD, NSCA-CSCS
“How many hours do you sleep each night?” Do you get eight or more hours of sleep each night or is it more like 4-5 hours of sleep each night?
“Is your sleep uninterrupted?”
Constantly waking up, stirring, or failing to fall into a deep sleep can alter your health, recovery, and weaken your immune system. If you have no idea how to answer these questions, I want to challenge you to begin to learn about your own personal sleep habits. The more you are aware of and learn about your sleep, the more likely you will be able to improve your sleep quality.
Think of your sleep quality as the amount of time you sleep each night without waking up or stirring. Uninterrupted sleep allows your body to fully recover from the previous day’s rigors. Regardless of whether you are an athlete, kid, older adult, or young adult, you need to sleep, and you need high-quality sleep.
Failing to sleep can weaken your immune system
On the contrary, insomnia, or simply failing to sleep, can weaken your immune system and lower your pain threshold. These findings are significant for older adults who suffer with chronic diseases or conditions like arthritis because failing to sleep can make life more difficult, as they perceive their pain to be more severe. Additionally, a weakened immune system can open the door for diseases.
These findings may be especially true for African Americans, as several studies have specifically studied African American older adults and found that the lack of sleep is associated with a higher level of perceived pain.
“How can I tell if I am getting enough high quality sleep at night?”
The answer is not quite so simple, but there are some easy and accessible ways to monitor your sleep. You can simply download free apps on your phone and follow their directions to successfully monitor your sleep. You can also use devices like the Fitbit Charge HRTM and wear them to sleep each night, and then the app will give you detailed information regarding your sleep.
Here are three tips to help you enhance your sleep quality each night
Avoid high sugar snacks at night. Eating sugar is simply not good for you, especially if you are trying to improve your sleep at night. Sugar can make you feel jittery, and without question, interferes with your sleep
Engage in regular exercise. Expending energy through regular exercise will help “wear you out” in a good way that can help you feel tired at night, in turn, helping you sleep more soundly.
Avoid excessively long naps in the afternoon or evening. Even if you work throughout the day and feel tired when you get home, try to avoid sleeping or napping, as it can hamper your night sleep quality.
Keep in mind that while there are no perfect methods for every single person, awareness is the first step and small lifestyle changes can make a big difference.
Article’s Resources
Petrov ME, Goodin BR, Cruz-Almeida Y, et al. Disrupted sleep is associated with altered pain processing by sex and ethnicity in knee osteoarthritis. Journal of Pain. 2015. 16(5): 478-490.
Bazargain M, Yazdanshenas H, Gordon D, Orum G. Pain in Community-Dwelling Elderly African Americans. Journal of Aging Health. 2015.
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