It may seem like a trivial issue that could be easily overlooked, but giving your body proper sleep every night is really an important step to grow muscle faster.
Why does sleep make a big difference in whether or not you grow muscle faster?
Well, let's simply take a look at what happens when you DON'T get proper sleep each night...
1) Your mental focus decreases.
Studies have shown that just a single night with insufficient rest will have a significant negative impact on your mental focus and willingness to perform difficult tasks.
2) Your physical performance is not at its peak.
Without proper sleep, your strength levels will decrease, and you'll end up using less weight and/or performing fewer reps than you would normally be capable of, both of which are required to grow muscle faster.
You cannot grow muscle faster if you don't focus on steadily adding weight and reps to all of your exercises, so you have to keep your strength up to achieve this.
3) Your muscle recovery will be cut short.
The fact is, and I'm sure you know this, your muscles do not grow IN the gym. Your muscles get bigger when you are resting or eating, OUT of the gym.
A major portion of the recovery and remodeling of damaged muscle tissue happens while you are fast asleep.
You also need to rest your joints, central nervous system, and immune system in addition to your muscles.
4) Hormone levels will be compromised.
You limit the production of some of the most important muscle building and fat burning hormones that circulate inside your body if you do not get ample sleep.
These include biggies like cortisol, testosterone, growth hormone, and insulin.
To put it simply, when you don't sleep, each and every one of these important hormones is affected...
a) Cortisol: A major catabolic stress hormone, this bad boy works hard to increase abdominal fat storage and break down muscle tissue for energy.
Research shows that when you don't get sufficient sleep, your body produces more cortisol.
b) Testosterone: The major muscle building hormone. When you raise your levels of testosterone, your muscle building capability will increase.
When you don't sleep, your testosterone levels are lowered.
c) Growth Hormone: When you want to build and maintain muscle, this hormone works hard to regenerate your body.
Your growth hormone levels increase as you sleep at night.
If you fail to get proper rest at night, this hormonal surge will be compromised.
d) Insulin: It delivers important nutrients to the cells of your body.
Without the right amount of sleep, your body's insulin resistance levels are upped. Your body will then try and overcompensate by releasing more of this hormone. Consequently, you can experience excess storage of fat, diabetes, or even heart disease.
So, just how much sleep is enough in order to grow muscle faster?
As usual, the requirements vary from person to person.
You should at least give your body 8 hours of sleep at night. If you feel the need to sleep for 9 hours or more, get it. You need to rest enough sleep so that you are properly rested and feel energized the next day.
More sleep will help you grow muscle faster as it will:
- Improve mental focus and energy
- Help you get stronger
- Ensure ample recovery in between workouts
- Reduce cortisol levels
- Increase testosterone
- Up your growth hormones
- Reduce resistance to insulin
If all this information doesn't encourage you to get more sleep, I can't imagine what will.
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