Disclaimer: This publication is for informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. Medical advice should always be obtained from a qualified medical professional for any health conditions or symptoms associated with them. Every possible effort has been made in preparing and researching this material. We make no warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability of its contents or any omissions.

Introduction

The experts tell us over and over again that we must eat right and get exercise to stay healthy and live a longer life.

When most people begin their health and fitness journeys, they immediately begin to engage in a low-calorie or a low-fat diet and participate in aerobic activities several times per week. Though these changes can undoubtedly improve your health and overall quality of life, many fail to recognize one other important factor: sleep.

By effectively targeting your exercise routine, current eating plan, and sleeping habits, you can maximize your potential when it comes to your health and fitness. This also enables you to take additional steps to develop a plan that better suits your current health and fitness goals.

In this book, we’ll be offering a comprehensive overview of exercise, nutrition, and sleep and how thoughtfully emphasizing each of these factors can guide you toward a healthier and more fulfilling life.

The Importance of Exercise

No matter what your current fitness goals are, there are plenty of exercise methods and routines that can help you target your goals. By intentionally selecting a routine that targets your intended goals and takes into account your current level of fitness, you can better adapt your physical body and achieve a more ideal body composition.

Exercise & Health

Exercise isn’t only important for improving how quickly you can run a mile, how much weight you can bench press, or which yoga positions you can maneuver yourself into.

Participation in a consistent exercise routine can significantly impact each organ system in the body and prolong your lifespan by several years or even decades.

Most of the physical benefits of exercise are rather apparent. It’s easy to recognize that you’re losing body fat, building muscle, and becoming more flexible. Yet, there is much more occurring internally that’s capable of vastly improving your health.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has compiled a comprehensive list of all of the physical and mental benefits that may occur as a result of adequate exercise.

Here are a few that have the potential to impact your health journey.

Assistance with weight control (losing, maintaining, or gaining)
Improved heart functioning (lower heart rate, blood pressure, and risk of heart disease)
Boost in muscle, bone, and joint health (reduced risk of arthritis and increased bone density)
Lower risk of developing most types of cancer (breast, colon, kidney, etc.)
Psychological benefits (greater mood, less stress, and higher quality sleep)

The benefits of exercise don’t stop there. By making sure you’re getting enough exercise on a weekly basis, you can also improve your dietary habits and sleep schedule.

Exercise Recommendations

The actual type of exercise that you participate in on a daily or weekly basis will undoubtedly depend on your health and fitness goals. However, there are quite a few guidelines that you should be following in order to maximize your potential and obtain a state of optimal health.

According to the American Heart Association, Americans should be getting approximately 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week. You could reasonably spread this time across five days, for 30 minutes of moderate exercise during each workout.

If you’re participating in higher intensity exercise, the recommendation is 75 minutes per week.

Regardless of how intensely you’re exercising, the American Heart Association also recommends that American adults focus on strength training exercises like resistance training at least twice per week.

Exercise And Sleep

Many Americans are directly impacted by sleep conditions like insomnia, which makes it difficult to fall and stay asleep on a consistent basis. There are tons of natural remedies when it comes to treating insomnia, but very few are as effective as exercise.

If you’ve been diagnosed with insomnia, the last thing that’s probably on your mind is expending more energy that you don’t have by participating in an exercise routine. Yet, there is plenty of evidence that suggests that exercise can boost the quality of sleep that you’re getting each night.

To understand how exercise impacts sleep, you need to think about how exercise impacts the body and mind.

Take a look at how the effects of exercise can result in greater sleep quality.

Exercise can burn energy and make you tired. No matter what type of exercise you’re performing, you’ll be burning calories and depleting your body’s energy reserves. When you have less energy within your body, your arousal levels will dramatically decrease, and you’ll be more likely to fall asleep at night.
Exercise can reduce stress. If you’re the type of person that experiences insomnia as a result of lingering anxiety and stress, the best way to tackle this issue is by eliminating these factors entirely. Exercise is capable of reducing stress and anxiety levels while also boosting your ability to fall and stay asleep.
Exercise increases body temperature. When your heart rate and blood pressure increase as you exercise, your body temperature also rises. With an increase in internal body temperature, you’re more likely to become fatigued and fall asleep.
Exercise can regulate your circadian rhythms. At all times, your body is following a sleep-wake cycle that affects all functions within the body. When you participate in an exercise routine, your body is able to manipulate your circadian rhythms, which can ultimately impact your ability to sleep at night.

Though exercise can improve your ability to fall asleep at night and reduce the symptoms of insomnia, there are other factors that you have to take into consideration. Particularly, there seems to be some evidence that the actual timing of your workouts can cause different effects when it comes to your sleep schedule.

Timing is Everything

Whether you’re exercising as soon as you wake up in the morning, on your lunch break, or on the way home from work, you’ll experience the physical and mental effects associated with exercise. However, some scientists believe that when exactly you fit exercise into your schedule can be vital in improving your sleep quality.

Before we make recommendations for the best time to exercise when you’re looking to improve your sleep quality, it’s important that you understand that there are benefits of exercising at all times of the day.

In the list below, we’ll overview how timing your workout can impact all aspects of your health and wellness. That’ll allow you to strategically plan out your workouts to reach the goals you’re targeting.

Morning workouts. While you might not have enough energy in the morning to get the most out of your workout, there are many perks associated with exercising at the beginning of your day. By exercising early in the morning, you can better target your body’s metabolism and even promote further weight loss. This can also help to boost your energy levels throughout the day and reduce your stress.
Afternoon workouts. When you exercise in the afternoon, your body has much more energy saved up to help you get the most out of your workout. There also seems to be some evidence that working out in the afternoon can help you to burn more calories during your workout, mostly because you’ll be able to apply much more effort now that you’re properly fueled.
Night workouts. Most people associate working out at night with boosted energy levels and the possible inability to sleep, but these are simply fitness myths. Working out at night can help you to burn any remaining energy you have in your body while also stimulating weight loss. As long as you’re not exercising immediately before bed, your sleep should be unaffected.

Generally speaking, exercising at any point over the course of your day can vastly improve your ability to fall asleep at night. Nevertheless, there are greater sleep benefits at a particular time of day.

When you work out in the morning, you’re efficiently setting yourself up for better sleep when nighttime finally arrives. If your sleep schedule is currently impacted by the symptoms of insomnia, you should implement a morning workout into your daily routine to see if there’s any marked difference.

Building an Appetite

Everybody knows that all types of exercise can help you to burn calories and eventually lose weight (if that’s your goal). What many people don’t seem to realize is that the relationship between exercise and diet is also reversed.

That means that the type of exercise that you’re participating in and the intensity of your workouts can directly impact your appetite and desire to eat. Interestingly enough, the appetite changes that you experience may be vastly different than somebody else’s.

Before we go into how exercise impacts appetite, we want to clarify the differences between two terms that are often used interchangeably: Appetite and hunger. Here’s the difference.

Hunger is physiological. When you feel hungry, it’s your body’s way of telling you that you need to eat. Your body recognizes that it needs fuel to survive and function properly. When you’re hungry, you might notice that your stomach is gurgling or cramping up.
Appetite is psychological. Unlike hunger, appetite is entirely controlled by your brain. This is the actual desire to eat rather than the need to eat. Your appetite might be triggered by certain smells, locations, or even the feeling associated with hunger.

Many researchers have analyzed the effects of exercise on diet. Ultimately, they determined that low-intensity and long-duration workouts are more likely to suppress your appetite while high-intensity and short-duration workouts are likely to result in an increase in appetite.

Given these results, you can more accurately select an exercise routine that’s linked to your dietary plan.

If you want to lose weight and consume less food, you might want to consider longer workouts of lower intensity. If your plan is to gain weight and muscle mass, you should focus on shorter workouts of higher intensity.

In the same realm, an increase in appetite that results from exercise may induce cravings for specific types of foods. This has incredible potential to impact your diet and body composition both positively and negatively.

Exercise-Induced Cravings

As much as it would be ideal for your body to crave the healthy foods that fit into your desired eating plan, it’s just not that simple. In fact, the cravings you have post-workout can also negatively impact the pursuit of your health and fitness goals.

The actual cravings that you have after a workout will greatly depend on the type of workout you performed and how your body responded to it. That means you might crave sweet foods on your way home from the gym one day while desperately craving salty foods the next day.

By understanding how certain types of exercise can affect your cravings, you can better plan out your workouts to discourage yourself from eating foods that can negatively affect your intended diet. Here are some types of cravings you may have.

Fatty foods. There isn’t much scientific reasoning behind craving fatty foods after a workout, but there are some possibilities related to human psychology. When you burn calories and fat during a workout, you might feel as if you can now replace what you lost without negatively affecting your health. In essence, you might view this as a reward for exercising.
Salty foods. When you sweat during a workout, you’re reducing the amount of water and salt stored within your body. When salt levels begin to decrease rapidly, your body strives to replace the salt it lost during perspiration. Keep in mind that the body does require salt to perform several functions and avoiding salt entirely can be bad for your health.
Sweet foods. Regardless of the type of exercise you’re performing, your body begins to deplete its glycogen stores, which reduces the amount of sugar within your body. When your glycogen levels decrease, you’re much more likely to crave sweet foods like cake, candy, or donuts to stabilize your blood sugar levels post-workout.

On the other hand, there is also a great possibility that you’ll crave healthier foods after exercising. You might crave fruits and vegetables, protein, or carbohydrates.

By keeping track of how your cravings are affected by certain types of workouts, you can target workouts that increase cravings for the foods that’ll allow you to reach your health and fitness goals. That means workouts that boost protein cravings if you’re looking to gain weight and increase muscle mass.

The Importance of Nutrition

Though most people associate improving their health with cutting fats, sugars, and salt out of their current diet, your goal should ultimately be to adopt a more balanced diet that supplies your body with the nutrients and fuel that it requires. With that said, there are plenty of eating plans that can effectively suit your needs and preferences.

Nutrition & Health

When most people begin some sort of diet, the usual goal is to reduce the amount of fat, calories, sugar, and salt that they’re consuming on a daily basis.

While these lifestyle changes will ultimately improve your health and reduce your risk of developing chronic health conditions, it would be much more beneficial to adopt a more balanced diet.

Cutting out the “bad” nutrients from your diet is important, but you need to make sure you’re also increasing your intake of the “good” nutrients.

The United States government currently enforces ChooseMyPlate, which is a product of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This eating program offers dietary recommendations for a more balanced diet.

The program doesn’t only make recommendations but also offers explanations as to why a balanced diet can be beneficial to your overall health. Here are some benefits of a balanced diet, according to ChooseMyPlate.

Lower daily calorie consumption
Increase in vitamins and minerals that assist with body functioning
Reduced risk of developing cancer and heart disease
Improved immunity

When you begin to eat a more balanced diet, you’ll impact every aspect of your body. In addition to adding years to your life, you’ll feel much better about yourself.

Nutrition Recommendations

The actual number of calories that you should be eating per day depends on your age, gender, sex, height, current weight, and current level of physical activity. However, the actual nutrients you’re consuming are much more important than the calorie count.

Macronutrients are the nutrients your body depends on to provide your body with an acceptable amount of energy throughout the day. The macronutrients are protein, carbohydrates, and fat.

In order to get the most out of your diet, you should be intentionally consuming foods that provide your body with the recommended amount of each of these macronutrients.

For the most part, the following guidelines should help you to maintain a healthy and balanced diet while also allowing you to reach your fitness goals.

10-35% of total calories
45-65% of total calories
20-35% of total calories

Remember that the specific amount of each nutrient that you’re consuming will vary based on your health and fitness goals. If you’re looking to build muscle, for example, you would be consuming a higher percentage of protein throughout the day.

Fueling Your Body

As much as you might hate to hear the word “calories,” the only way to provide your body with the proper amount of fuel prior to a workout is by consuming an acceptable number of calories. With too few calories, you won’t have the energy you need to power through your workout.

To figure out how many calories you actually need to be consuming per day in order to maintain your current body, you have to determine what your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is.

This value factors in your age, gender, height, and current weight and tells you how many calories your body requires per day at rest. If you’re regularly exercising, you then need to factor in the calories lost during exercise.

In addition to providing your body with the fuel it needs to perform daily tasks, you also need to guarantee that the nutrients you’re getting in your diet are capable of providing you with the energy you need for exercise.

Though you might not know it yet, each nutrient that you consume in your diet is capable of affecting your body composition and your performance during exercise.

Here are some ways that micronutrients and macronutrients can impact your ability to get the most out of your workouts.

You can’t get away with entirely eliminating fats from your diet, but consuming healthy fats like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats can provide your body with the energy it needs to power through a long and arduous workout.
Many new fad diets suggest consuming fewer carbohydrates per day, but carbohydrates are actually your body’s first choice when it comes to using energy. By consuming healthy amounts of carbohydrates, you’ll have much more energy to work out.
This macronutrient won’t necessarily provide you with the energy you need to fuel your workout, but it will encourage your body to fully repair its muscles, bones, and joints after a tough workout. It’s also responsible for preparing your body and mind for your next workout.
Vitamins & Minerals. The benefits of consuming vitamins and minerals go way past improving your performance during exercise. In fact, your body desperately requires vitamins and minerals to maintain optimal function and perform at its best.

Remember that all nutrients have a specific role within your body and as long as you consume them as recommended, your health should only improve.

In addition to consuming the proper nutrients to improve your athletic performance, you also need to make sure that you’re properly hydrating. This is just as important as getting your nutrients in.

Hydration is key to good health

It keeps vital organs healthy
Supports brain function
Keeps skin soft and supple
Boosts your overall health
Fuels workouts and restores electrolyte levels

Hydrating for Exercise

Most organizations recommend a water intake of about 64 ounces per day for the average adult man and woman, but there are more recent suggestions that take into account participation in exercise and the important roles that water plays in the body.

That’s exactly why some organizations are pushing the public to consume well over 90 ounces of water per day, more if you’re participating in strenuous exercise that increases perspiration rate and loss in water weight.

To fully grasp why hydration is so important, especially during exercise, it helps to learn about how dehydration can significantly impact the body and its performance. Here are some effects that may occur if you’re dehydrated.

Reduced blood volume. When your body has less blood pumping through its veins, your body will adapt by increasing its heart rate and blood pressure. Ultimately, your heart must work much harder to get blood to all regions of your body. This can severely impact your performance and lead to further health complications if left untreated.
Higher body temperature. No matter how you’re exercising, your body’s temperature will naturally rise due to increased perspiration, heart rate, and blood pressure. By being dehydrated and further raising your body temperature, you’re putting yourself at an increased risk of developing heat-related conditions like heat stroke, heat cramps, and heat exhaustion.
Development of cramps. Your muscles require a certain amount of water to maintain functioning. When you’re dehydrated and lacking the appropriate electrolytes, your muscles will not have the energy or blood flow to perform properly, which puts you at risk for cramps. The severity of the cramps won’t only impact your performance but can also drastically affect the status of your health.
Increased fatigue. All functions within your body require nutrients and water. When your body is low on fluids, you’re more likely to be fatigued, feel lightheaded or dizzy, and even lose consciousness. This makes exercise extremely dangerous for your entire body, but it’s likely you won’t even have the energy to exercise in the first place.
Lack of electrolytes. When your body enters into a state of dehydration, you’re also going to be limited when it comes to the electrolytes present within your body. Electrolytes are responsible for maintaining the health and functioning of the nerves and muscles in your body. Without electrolytes, you’ll be extremely weak and unable to power through even the easiest of workouts
Increased risk of heat-related illness. With low levels of hydration and exposure to high environmental temperatures, you’re opening yourself up to developing heat-related illnesses like heat cramps, heat exhaustion, and heatstroke. When your body experiences any of these conditions, your muscles and body begin to shut down, making exercise nearly impossible and highly dangerous.

Though you might enjoy seeing a lower number on the scale when you reduce the amount of fluids you’re consuming on a daily basis, your body desperately needs water for day-to-day functions and exercise performance.

By properly hydrating, you’re providing your body with the fluids it needs to perform optimally during any type of workout.

Nutrition And Sleep

The foods and beverages that you consume over the course of your day aren’t only responsible for providing you with the energy you need during the daylight hours. In reality, your diet has incredible potential when it comes to impacting your ability to fall and stay asleep at night.

There are plenty of foods in the standard American diet that have the potential to prevent you from falling asleep, whether they’re causing heartburn, dramatically increasing your energy levels, or impacting the functioning of your brain.

Here are some foods and ingredients that can impede your ability to fall asleep at night. These are the foods that you should consider removing from your current diet.

Though you might enjoy a morning cup of coffee to boost your energy levels before you get to work, everybody tolerates caffeine differently. If your body is sensitive to caffeine, you might experience an increase in anxiety and arousal throughout the day. If you’re consuming caffeine too close to bedtime, you’re going to have difficulty falling asleep.
You might notice that you’re more tired after consuming alcohol, but that doesn’t mean you’re getting quality sleep by drinking alcohol at bedtime. That’s because alcohol reduces the amount of time you spend in deep sleep, meaning you might be sleeping for longer but not getting much out of it.
Acidic foods. Regardless of the time of day that you’re consuming acidic foods, it can impact your ability to sleep at night. When you eat highly acidic foods, you might experience heartburn. Though you can mediate the side effects while you’re awake, heartburn can also keep you up at night.
Everybody knows how much sugar can increase your energy levels. When you’re experiencing a sugar rush, you’ll have a greater amount of energy and be unable to fall asleep.

If you’ve already removed those foods and ingredients from your diet but still struggle to fall asleep at night, here are some foods and ingredients you might want to consider adding to your diet.

When you add nuts like almonds to your nighttime routine, your body may trigger an additional release of melatonin. When your melatonin levels are higher, your sleep-wake cycle is more easily controlled, and you’ll get higher quality sleep.
While most teas include caffeine, which could negatively impact your ability to sleep, there are low-caffeine options that can help promote relaxation as you’re trying to fall asleep. By developing a bedtime routine, you’re more able to control your sleep habits.
When you consume foods high in tryptophan, like bananas, you’re actively adjusting the serotonin levels within your body. When serotonin levels increase, you might experience a boost in mood and a greater ability to fall asleep.

It’s apparent that consciously selecting meals and ingredients benefits much more than the physical composition of your body and your ability to exercise. The right or wrong diet can drastically influence your sleep habits.

At the same time, the actual timing associated with what you’re eating throughout the day can affect your sleep, for better or for worse.

Bedtime Snacks

If you grew up treating yourself to a bedtime snack before heading upstairs and going to bed, it’s possible that you’re still continuing this tradition. As an adult, your dietary habits are probably much different than they were when you were a kid.

You’ve also probably heard the age-old tale about how eating too close to bedtime can cause an increase in body fat and eventual weight gain. Though this is true in some circumstances, a bedtime snack can actually improve your ability to fall asleep at night.

At the end of the day, it really depends on what you’re eating and how close to bedtime you’re eating it. Take a look at these guidelines for eating prior to falling asleep at night.

Try not to eat at two hours before going to bed. This will allow your body the time to properly digest all of your meals for the day. If you’re still hungry closer to bedtime, you can eat a snack that’s easily digestible.
Bedtime snacks should be small. When you eat bedtime snacks, they should be just that: Snacks. That means you shouldn’t be eating full meals or anything larger than a few hundred calories prior to going to bed. The smaller, the better.
Don’t eat foods that can cause heartburn. Acid reflux is bad enough when you experience it during the day. It’s even worse when you’re trying to fall asleep. If you’re eating a bedtime snack, make sure it doesn’t contain high amounts of acid.

It’s true that there might be negative effects linked to eating too close to bedtime. Nevertheless, there are also plenty of benefits.

There appears to be scientific evidence that eating a bedtime snack can actually help you to lose weight. When you eat smaller meals spread throughout the day, you can ease the pressure on your digestive system and consume fewer calories over the course of the day.

By satisfying your hunger immediately before bed, you could also be reducing the hunger you typically experience in the middle of the night. When you aren’t waking up from hunger pangs, you’ll experience more consistent, restful sleep.

The Importance of Sleep

The importance of sleep is often overlooked but ensuring adequate sleep can help you to improve the overall quality of your health while also allowing your body to successfully repair itself. When you place more of an emphasis on your sleep schedule, you’ll notice a vast number of physical and mental benefits that you weren’t receiving before.

Sleep & Health

Sleep isn’t just a way to refresh your body and mind and prepare for the next day. As something that takes up approximately one-third of your entire life, your body and mind both take advantage of this large amount of time to help repair and restore the body to its normal functioning.

Getting the recommended amount of sleep each night is a solid start, but you also need to guarantee that the sleep you’re getting is of high quality. This will allow your brain to optimize the body’s condition to provide the greatest benefit in the long term.

Here are some body processes that your brain can more effectively initiate when you’re getting enough sleep, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Removal of toxins from within the body
Reduction in the development of chronic conditions (heart disease, diabetes, depression)
Repair of cells in the brain and body
Improvement in memory and brain functioning
Energy production

When you lack the appropriate amount of sleep, you’re severely limiting what your body and mind are capable of doing. Unfortunately, the importance of sleep is often understated, and many fails to recognize just how much sleep can impact your health.

Sleep Recommendations

In order to get the most out of the sleep that you’re getting each night, you should be striving toward a certain time goal. For adults, the recommended amount of time you spend sleeping each night should be seven or more hours. Younger populations require much more sleep.

However, sleep isn’t just about time. It’s also about the quality of sleep you’re getting in the time you’re sleeping. There are quite a few things that you can do to improve your sleep quality.

Set an appropriate temperature. The best temperature for sleeping is resumed to be between 60 and 67 degrees. By setting a temperature that’s too high or too low, you might become uncomfortable and be unable to sleep.
Reduce distractions. You should make every effort to remove distractions like cell phones and televisions. This also might involve closing your shades to prevent outside light from entering your room. Noise is also a factor, so it’s time to replace that noisy fan that keeps you up at night.
Use comfortable bedding. Many times, people are unable to fall and stay asleep because they’re simply uncomfortable. You should try to invest in a comfortable pillow, mattress, and bedding to make you more comfortable in bed.

There are many factors that can influence your ability to sleep but taking all the necessary precautions can greatly improve your ability to get quality sleep each night.

Sleep Quality & Your Appetite

Sleep is remarkably important when it comes to providing your body and mind with the energy, they need to perform daily tasks and fuel exercise. What many people don’t realize is that the quality of sleep that you’re getting each night can impact your current appetite.

When your body experiences hunger, it triggers the release of hormones like leptin and ghrelin. Both of these hormones are responsible for maintaining your appetite, with ghrelin boosting appetite while leptin reduces it.

The amount of sleep you’re getting each night directly affects the release of these hormones. As the amount of sleep, you’re getting on a daily basis decreases, your ghrelin levels will increase.

That means less sleep means greater appetite. In the long-term, not getting enough sleep can lead to weight gain and the development of an unhealthy diet.

On the contrary, getting the recommended amount of sleep each night will help to stabilize your daily appetite, limit overeating, and keep you at a healthy weight. Therefore, it’s extremely important that you place an emphasis on getting enough sleep each night.

Sleeping Through Meals

It’s apparent that not sleeping enough can cause an increase in body fat and caloric consumption. Yet, there’s also a concern that comes along with sleeping too much, especially when your sleeping habits cause you to skip meals.

You’ve probably heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. That’s not just folklore and there’s actually tons of scientific evidence that backs that up.

To fully convince you that breakfast is an important meal and that you should be making every effort to wake up in time for it, here is a list of the benefits associated with eating breakfast.

Lower risk of obesity
Healthier eating habits
Maintenance of the eating/fasting periods
Controlled blood sugar levels
Stabilized metabolism

Interestingly enough, sleeping too much and sleeping too little can cause very similar effects, particularly weight gain. In order to best pursue your health and fitness goals, you should add breakfast (or at least a morning snack) into your daily routine.

Powering Through Your Workout

We’ve already discovered that exercising can help you to fall asleep at night and improve your sleep habits. But sleep can also help provide your body with the energy it needs to outlast your previous workouts and improve your performance.

When your body and mind are asleep, your body begins the process of creating energy to prepare for when you wake up. You might notice that when you wake up after a good night’s sleep, you feel much more energized and ready to take on the day.

The same theory goes for sleep. With high-quality sleep, you won’t only feel more energetic throughout the day, but you’ll also be able to better power through your workout.

There are several effects that you might experience while working out when you don’t get enough sleep the night before. Here are a few sides affects you might have as a result.

Not enough energy to complete your workout
Muscle weakness and fatigue
Lack of mental desire to workout
Limited performance

If you want to make the most out of every workout, you need to make sure that you’re getting enough sleep on a nightly basis. Otherwise, you’re much more likely to plateau in your performance and lose the motivation to continue with your diet and exercise plan.

It’s difficult to see improvements in your body composition and exercise performance when you don’t even have the energy to work out at your full potential.

Sleep does much more than allowing your body to create energy to perform daily tasks. It’s also vital for reversing the damage that comes along with exercise.

Reversing the Damage

Every time you exercise, you’re causing slight damage to your bones, joints, and muscles. As long as you’re allowing your body the appropriate recovery time between workouts, these parts of your body will rebuild and be stronger than before.

In addition to making sure that you’re getting enough protein on a daily basis to repair your muscles, your body also depends on adequate sleep to fully repair your body’s damaged cells. By not getting enough sleep, you won’t fully recover from your most recent workout.

There are plenty of functions that occur within your body while you’re asleep that help to prepare you for your next workout. Take a look at this list of what your body actually does while you sleep.

Improve motivation and focus. When you receive quality sleep after a long hard day, you’re also helping to return your mind to its original state. By getting enough sleep, you can take it a step further and improve your motivation and focus, which both can influence your exercise performance.
Repaired body cells and muscles. Body cells and muscles are constantly being repaired throughout the day, but these repairs are much more common while you’re asleep. When you’re getting enough sleep, you’re giving your body and muscles more time to return to their normal state, reducing the recovery time necessary.
Production of hormones like human growth hormone (HGH). In addition to helping your muscles recover and increasing their size, your body releases larger amounts of HGH while you’re resting. With a higher quality of sleep and more HGH flowing through your body, your muscles will increase in size while you’re sleeping.
Muscle relaxation. It’s not all about recovery. It’s also about allowing your muscles the appropriate time to relax. When your muscles relax and aren’t in a constant state of arousal, they can repair themselves more easily and allow you to wake up feeling more rested.

It’s normal for your body to become damaged in some way during exercise, particularly microtears of the muscles. These changes are necessary in order to eventually build muscle, but you need to give your body the proper time to recover and repair itself.

If your body composition goals involve increasing the size of your muscles, you need to make sure you’re getting enough sleep to allow your body to perform those processess.

Putting it all together.

No matter what your health and fitness goals are, there are a multitude of ways in which you can achieve them. The first step in improving your health is acknowledging that you’ll need to implement several changes in your life in order to reap the greatest benefits.

That means you can’t reasonably expect to cut down on your daily calories and immediately begin the process of losing weight. That’s because sleep and exercise also play a vital role in the weight loss process.

This applies to every health and fitness goal that you may have for the near future. The best way to maximize your health potential would be to target sleep, diet, and exercise simultaneously.

The actual methods that you use to improve your health and fitness will have to take into account your current fitness levels and what you can reasonably fit into your schedule. If you’re not personally motivated to make changes to all three of these major areas, the benefits you notice will be limited.

Never Give Up

Stay Healthy Live A Longer Life