Sleep is the secret sauce.

There isn’t one facet of your mental, emotional, or physical performance that’s not affected by the quality of your sleep.

The big challenge is that in our fast-paced world today, millions of people are chronically sleep deprived and suffering the deleterious effects of getting low quality sleep.

The consequences of sleep deprivation aren’t pretty either. Try immune system failure, diabetes, cancer, obesity, depression, and memory loss just to name a few.

Most people don’t realize that their continuous sleep problems are also a catalyst for the diseases and appearance issues they’re struggling with.

Studies have shown that just one night of sleep deprivation can make you as insulin resistant as a type-2 diabetic. This translates directly to aging faster, decreased libido, and storing more body fat than you want to (say it ain’t so!).

Now stretch that out over weeks, months, even years, and you can start to see why lack of sleep can be such a huge problem.

A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal showed that sleep deprivation is directly related to an inability to lose weight. Test subjects were put on the same exercise and diet program, but those who were in the sleep deprivation group (less than six hours per night) consistently lost less weight and body fat than the control group who slept for over 8 hours per night. Could high-quality sleep be the missing component to nutrition and smart exercise to help you shed fat for good?

we’ll be exploring the sleep-body fat connection and specific strategies to help you get in the best shape of your life. Pour on that secret sauce please!

Other studies show sleep deprivation encouraging cancer, Alzheimer’s, depression, and even heart disease. In a society that’s overworked and under-rested, it’s more important than ever to pay attention to issues associated with not getting the sleep that we require. Although we’ll be covering the negative impact of sleep problems in this book, we’re going to put our major focus on what you can do to improve your sleep starting tonight, and avoid these chronic issues in the first place.

What about performance in your work? And what about productivity and getting things done?

At first glance we might think that working more and skimping on the sleep will get us there faster. The research is in and it’s 100 percent conclusive: when you don’t sleep well, you get slower, less creative, more stressed, and underperform. Basically you’re only utilizing a fraction of what you’re capable of. We’re going to talk about this more in the blog, so sit tight and I’ll give you the low down on what sleep (or lack there of) is doing to your brain.

There’s an old Irish proverb that says, “A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything.”

You deserve to be healthy, happy, and fulfilled in your life. Getting great sleep is a huge component of this, and this book is the key to helping you get there.

A pioneer, and leading authority on sleep research, Dr. William Dement said, “You’re not healthy, unless your sleep is healthy.”

Nothing could be more true, and these tips are going to help you get great sleep for many years to come.

KNOW THE VALUE OF SLEEP

The topic of this chapter is a little unusual, but it’s probably the most important. Many people are negligent about getting enough sleep because they don’t truly understand the benefits they’re getting from it.

So what is sleep? And why is it important?

Well, defining sleep is a lot like trying to define life. No one completely understands it, and if you try to explain it you’re more likely to sound like Forrest Gump than a world-renown scholar (Life is like a box of chocolates… sleep is like pretending to be dead).

Sleep is actually defined as a natural periodic state of rest for the mind and body, in which the eyes usually close and consciousness is completely or partially lost, so that there is a decrease in bodily movement and responsiveness to external stimuli.

That sounds a little weird, but the most important takeaway is that it’s a natural periodic state of rest for the mind and body. If you’re not doing it, then you’re being completely unnatural. And, nobody likes unnatural people.

What’s more important is knowing the big prizes that sleep gives you. Generally, being awake is catabolic (breaks you down) and sleep is anabolic (builds you up). Sleep is known to be an elevated anabolic state, heightening the growth and rejuvenation of the immune, skeletal, and muscular systems. Basically, sleep rebuilds you and keeps you youthful.

High quality sleep fortifies your immune system, balances your hormones, boosts your metabolism, increases physical energy, and improves the function of your brain. Without all of the essential benefits that sleep is providing, you will never, I repeat never, have the body and life you want without giving your body the right amount of sleep.

In our culture, sleep is not respected very much at all. As a matter of fact, we are often programmed with the idea that to be successful we need to work harder, sleep less, and we can catch up on all the sleep we want when we’re dead. To say sleep is not respected is really an understatement.

Working hard is unarguably a big part of being successful, but so is working smart. So many people in our world today go on plugging away with work, burning the candle at both ends, not realizing that the quality of work they’re doing is being radically compromised. Research shows that after just 24 hours of sleep deprivation, there is an overall reduction of six percent in glucose reaching the brain. Simple translation: You get dumber.

This is also why you crave candy, chips, donuts, and other starchy, sugary things when you’re sleep deprived. You’re body is trying to compel you to get that glucose back to your brain as soon as possible. It’s a built-in survival mechanism. This is inherent in our genes because, in our days as hunter-gatherers, that lack of brainpower could mean a swift death from a predator or a substantially reduced ability to hunt and procure your own food for survival. Today a simple trip to the refrigerator can bypass your body’s cry for more sleep, but those stress mechanisms are still alive and well within your body right now.

I Can’t Believe I Did That Last Night

The most valuable takeaway from this sleep deprivation “brain drain” discovery is that the reduction in glucose isn’t shared equally. Your parietal lobe and the prefrontal cortex actually lose 12 to 14 percent of their glucose when you don’t sleep. These are the areas of the brain we most need for thinking, for distinguishing between ideas, for social control, and to be able to tell the difference between right and wrong. Have you ever made a poor decision when you were up late at night that you wouldn’t have made if your head was on right? Chances are you have.

It wasn’t entirely your fault. Your brain was hijacked by a dumber (and slightly less attractive) version of yourself.

Always remember the value of your sleep. You will perform better, make better decisions, and have a better body when you get the sleep you require. Sleep is not an obstacle we need to go around, it’s a natural state your body requires to boost your hormone function, heal your muscles, tissues and organs, and make your mind work at it’s optimal level. The shortcut to success is not made by bypassing dreamland. You will factually work better, be more efficient, and get more stuff done when you’re properly rested.

There’s a big difference between “working” and actually being effective. By sacrificing your sleep, you can definitely do more work, but the quality and effectiveness of your work will be sacrificed. A physician study published in The Lancet proved that sleep-deprived individuals took 14 percent longer to complete a task, and made 20 percent more errors than individuals who were well rested. Structure your time to get more sleep first and you’ll be able to get your work done faster and more effectively than if you zombie walked your way through it.

When you know you’ve got a big task, project, or event coming up, pull out a calendar and plan ahead how you can get your ideal number of sleep hours in. Often times it’s as simple as setting up a schedule. But, people overlook it because, well, it’s just too easy.

If it’s important to you, you’ll schedule it. Stick to that schedule as well as you can, and know that you will get the work done better and faster if you’re more rested. We usually sacrifice our sleep to cram in more work because we didn’t plan efficiently. And as the wise Benjamin Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”