What is sleep hygiene?
Sleep hygiene is a variety of different practices and habits that are necessary in creating a good nighttime sleep quality and full daytime alertness.
(Irish, Kline, Gunn, Buysse & Hall, 2015)
Why is a good sleep pattern important?
Sleep aids in recovery.
Uninterrupted sleep periods declines with age (Reynolds et al., 1986). Sleep is essential for the cellular, organic and systemic functions of an organism, lack of sleep can lead to being potentially harmful to health. Sleep enhances muscle recovery through protein synthesis and human growth hormone release.(Dattilo et al., 2011)
Motivation and alertness
Poor sleep is associated with poor or a lack of motivation, emotion, and cognitive functioning as well as increased risk for serious medical conditions. (Zaharna & Guilleminault, 2010)
Sleep plays a large role in the regeneration of damaged muscle tissue. An impaired sleep pattern affects functional recovery of the muscle.An advisory of 8 h of sleep is given and a deprivation of this can in short term down regulate muscle repair(Schwarz, Graham, Li, Locke & Peever, 2013)
The Science
The main neuroendocrine systems involved in the human body’s response to stress are the autonomic sympatho-adrenal system and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA).Stress is a nonspecific physiologic response to any kind of demand that an organism faces. Sleep disruption is a stressor and results in activation of these stress systems. The lack of sleep effects the stress system resulting in lower levels of stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline)(Zaharna & Guilleminault, 2010).
A lack of adrenaline will leave the body feeling unmotivated and prolong reaction time and low levels of cortisol can in some ( not all ) cause weakness fatigue ( feeling tired) and low blood pressure.
Sleep Recommendations
At current the best sleep hygiene recommendations include regular exercise, managing stress levels , noise reduction ( minimal sleep disturbances ), sleep timing regularity ( trying to stick to a pattern and routine) , avoidance of caffeine, nicotine and alcohol, and keeping daytime napping ( to a minimum ).
(Irish, Kline, Gunn, Buysse & Hall, 2015)
Physiology and Nutrition 