Princeton Longevity News

When it comes to the topic of exercise and sleep, which comes first: the pillow or the sneakers?  Many times a common factor in preventing someone from exercising is that they are too tired, but exercise may actually help you sleep better, aid in recovery and ultimately sleeping better will lead you to an even greater workout and results in training.

Sleep is one of the most important necessities in life and is not only based on how much you get, but by the quality of the hours you spend under the covers.  Your body uses this time to repair muscles and undergo protein synthesis, release proper hormones and can prevent cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. 

Muscle repair and recovery

       Resting and allowing your muscles to recover is equally as important as the work you put into your training.  Heavy training will damage the muscle tissue in order to improve your fitness and rebuild that muscle to become stronger.  Growth hormone stimulates growth of the muscles and cell reproduction and regeneration. 

The pituitary gland releases growth hormone in a pulsatile manner.  At rest, these concentrations are not very high, but when an individual goes to sleep, the levels released increase.  This usually occurs when the body is in non-REM sleep, or about two hours after going to sleep.

  Consistent bed times are extremely important because your body will begin to release its peak at that same time of night, almost like a rhythm.  Your body will secrete growth hormone at other times of the day in smaller amounts but the highest point will be in that onset of sleep.

If the individual continues to go to sleep at different times each night, or does not have a good quality sleep, the release of growth hormone will be reduced.  The body will not realize the individual is in that stage of sleep where the greatest amount should be released, so the body will continue to release the smaller pulses. 

This leads to less repair and growth of the muscles.  The right amount of sleep will depend on each person, but quality of sleep will allow the individual to fully go into all of the stages of sleep and release the largest volume of growth hormone to benefit them.

Sleep and body weight

       Growth hormone is not the only hormone that is regulated while you sleep.  Leptin and ghrelin are two hormones associated with hunger and appetite.  Leptin works to suppress hunger, and ghrelin stimulates appetite.  When you are exercising and training for hours a day and stressing the body, it is hard enough to maintain proper nutrition and food intake. 

When you skip on sleep, or demonstrate poor sleep quality, these levels of hormones try to compensate for the energy expenditure leading to increased levels of ghrelin and decreased levels of leptin. 

Someone who is exercising to lose weight but not seeing results may be experiencing these changes in hormones, putting a detrimental effect on their performance and training. This can also lead to eating more empty calories and carbohydrates then the body needs.

Exercise effects sleep, sleep effects exercise

       Counting sheep, a dark room, warm milk and exercise?  Increasing your physical activity in your daily routine has been shown in studies to increase the amount of time in non-rapid eye movement sleep. 

       Exercise helps to alter the body’s circadian rhythm which tells us when to sleep and when to be functional.  This can benefit someone who is having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep because the body may need to be adjusted to different hours of sleep or work you are undergoing.

       Different intensities of exercise have different effects on everyone, promoting better sleep in some people right after an intense workout, or giving some people an effect similar to caffeine to re-energize the body. 

Exercising outdoors in the natural light can also benefit the mind and mood of the individual, allowing less anxiety and stress and a more peaceful sleep.

       When the core temperature of the body comes down, it is easier for the onset of sleep to occur.  Your temperature changes throughout the day and is highest first thing in the morning. 

Exercise will raise your core body temperature, allowing it to peak again, giving you more energy.  This will also enable the temperature to drop easier and deeper leading to a better sleep.

       Adding exercise into your daily routine promotes healthier sleeping habits, but on the other side of things, a lack of sleep can hinder performance and training. If you are tired and lack energy to complete a vigorous workout, you may be more prone to injury and improper form.  Your reaction time will be slower and performing at your optimal level will be harder to achieve. 

The body will need even more time to repair and recover when tired but if you skip on sleep again, it will not be able to release the proper amount of growth hormone which will leave the muscles damaged.  If someone gets stuck in this type of cycle, it can lead to overtraining and injury.

       Both exercise and sleep effect each other tremendously.  The body needs enough sleep in order to function properly and have enough energy to train hard.  However, all of the hard work will not pay off unless you rest and repair the muscles through sleep. 

The optimal amount of sleep is dependent upon the individual person, but ensuring the same general onset of sleep and quality of sleep each night will produce the most favorable hormonal releases, muscle repair, recovery and performance.  You snooze, you succeed.

Here at the Princeton Longevity Center, it is our job to keep up on the latest research in all aspects of health related fields, so we can disseminate sound advice, based on the studies and research performed in the US and abroad. If we want our patients to continue to improve their health and lifestyle choices, we need to have reasonable access to the information that can change lives.

Recently two members of Congress have introduced HR 3699, the Research Works Act. This bill would prevent the National Institutes of Health or any other agency from causing or even allowing private-sector research work to be disseminated online without prior consent of both the publisher and the study authors—even if the funding came from our tax dollars. (from The Alliance for Natural Health)

Please take action and fill out this simple form which will be sent to your local politicians to voice your displeasure with the proposed Act.  If passed, health professionals and the public alike will have to pay as much as $30 apiece for access to scientific journal research articles.  Think about that for a moment…didn’t taxpayers fund the research already?

Your support is greatly appreciated and we look forward to continuing to provide you with the best scientifically backed health information!

Chris Volgraf, CSCS, HFS, CGFI-2

Senior Exercise Physiologist

Is muscular imbalance causing your back or neck pain or leading to a potential injury? As an Exercise Physiologist at PLC, one of my roles is to screen patients for muscular imbalances.  These imbalances are not limited to athletes and can be due to a number of factors like lack of joint mobility or instability/weakness of a muscle group. This can happen when you overwork one muscle group and under work its opposing muscle group by doing simple things such as lifting a child repetitively or sitting in one position too long at the computer. Here are three of the most common imbalances we see and some simple strategies to begin the restoration process.

1. Anterior Pelvic Tilt:  This occurs when the front of the pelvis is tilted forward or looks down and can be a combination of tight hip flexors & lats, or a weakening of the deep core stabilizers, such as the transverse abdominis.  Since most of sit for a good portion of the day, it is a safe bet that our hip flexors become shortened.  A good place to start is by stretching the hip flexors.

2. Rounded Shoulders:  Ever feel like your shoulders are creeping forward.  If so, then a quick posture screen would most likely show that your shoulders are drifting forward.  To correct this, we need to strengthen the muscles of the upper back and posterior (back side) of the shoulder.  The best exercise for this is performing Prone Y’s on a Physioball.

3. Loss of Hip Mobility:  Typically this is due to lack of movement.  One of my favorite exercises to prescribe for this is Quadruped Hip Circles.  This exercise not only strengthens the muscle around the hip joint, but actively takes the joint through a large range of motion to help restore mobility.

Performing these exercises can help restore balance back to the intended area.  However, be sure to have your movement and posture screened by a trained professional.  This will ensure that what you are feeling is actually occurring and a proper exercise prescription can be developed and safely implemented.

Keith T. Burns, MS, CSCS

Exercise Physiologist

As the clock strikes midnight on December 31st, many people have a laundry list of resolutions to achieve in the New Year. Many of these resolutions are health related, such as losing weight, eating healthier and participating in more regular physical activity. While setting New Year’s resolutions and goals is a great way to get motivated to make positive changes, often we find ourselves back to our old eating and exercise habits before the end of January. Here are some tips to developing great health goals and advice on how to make them last.

Tip #1: Keep a written list of goals:

Having a handwritten or typed list organizes your thoughts and provides visual feedback on whether or not you are working to achieve the goals. You will gain a tremendous amount of satisfaction when you can “scratch” that resolution off of your list.

Tip #2: The fewer the goals/resolutions, the better:

Aim for 2-4 goals at the most. Having too many issues to tackle will become overwhelming and will not allow you to put enough time and attention into adequately achieving the goals. Instead, focus on less than a handful of specific goals, write them on your paper, and then come up with ways to put the goals into action (see tip below).

Tip #3: Make these goals/resolutions specific and measurable:

Developing goals that are specific and measurable is key to achieving success with your resolutions.  A resolution such as “eat healthier” is indeed a positive goal for the New Year, but it is not specific and does not explain how you will measure the success of “eating healthier.” Instead, make your goal “eat at least two pieces of fruit per day” which is specific and can be easily measured.

Have short term and long term goals. 12 months is a long time and having a goal to “be a certain weight” by the end of the year lacks the day to day motivation that you will need to actually achieve that goal. Instead, have small goals that will lead into larger goals. For example, start with a weight loss goal of 10 pounds by the end of February, or you can even start as simple and specific as “I will lose 2 pounds this week, and every week, until the end of February.”

Tip #4: Set new goals when others have been achieved:

Congratulate yourself for achieve your goal! But don’t let this victory derail your hard work. Use it as motivation to create a new set or goals or a revision to your previous resolution.  If your goal was to lose 20 pounds, now aim for 30! Remember to keep it specific and measurable, so “30 pound by the end of June” is better than just “30 pounds.”

Tip #5: Find out what keeps you motivated:

If your motivation is falling short, find a friend or relative to participate in your healthy lifestyle mission with you. Having a partner helps keep you on track and using others as a support system for the emotional and physical stress that weight loss and other lifestyle changes can produce is extra important to making these changes stick.

When working on your resolutions individually, be conscious of what internal or external factors help keep you going. Can you only workout at the gym when you have a good book to read or new song on the ipod? If so, aim to always have those support tools with you to prevent “excuses” from popping up.

When you feel like you have plateaued or lost all motivation – enlist the help of professionals.

Even the most determined individual can hit a point where it is hard to keep up with healthy lifestyle changes. When you feel like you are ready to quit or feel yourself slipping back into bad habits, find a Registered Dietitian to work with who will review the progress you have made and come up with a new and improved plan to set you back on the right track! You are never too old or too smart to ask for help from a professional!

Best of luck with your New Year health resolutions!

Email Gail at gwikler@theplc.net for any questions, concerns or advice about making healthy lifestyle changes.

Interesting article about the sugar content in many commonly consumed breakfast cereals. Several patients at PLC report that they eat their childrens’ breakfast cereal out of convenience (and for taste). However, neither adults nor children should be consuming these types of high sugar cereals. Instead, when selecting a brand, one should look for cereals that are whole grain, high fiber and/or high protein, with little or no added sugar.

Click the Link below for the article.

http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2011/12/many-kids-cereals-as-sugary-as-desserts-review-finds/