Why I don’t compromise on sleep anymore

For those around me, I am the “sleep guy”. That is not because I am lazy or chronically tired, but rather because since a few years I’ve been going to bed at 9.30 pm sharp - Kendrick Lamar’s live concert being one of the rare exceptions.

Three years ago I read “Why We Sleep” by professor Matthew Walker: understanding how fundamental sleep is for a human being - and how much I had neglected it in my life - made me promise to myself that I would make sleeping for at least 8 hours my number one priority. It is fair to say that this book has changed me profoundly, more than any other book I have ever read in all categories.

If you don’t want to read any further, I don’t negotiate on sleep because my health is just too important, and I prioritise it above all else. Sleep is so impactful on the management of diabetes, for my running performance and recovery, for my productivity at work and for the overall quality of my life that neglecting it would be nothing short of extremely stupid.

If that means saying no to some evening events that go on until late, I am ok with it. In today’s society that is not always accepted, but as I said, I have decided to put my short term and long term health above everything else.

My sleep routine

My aim is to stay true to this rule 90% of the time allowing a few exceptions here and there for some important occasions, but besides these it is really difficult to convince me to be around in the evening.

I usually eat two to three hours, switch off all my devices one to two hours and turn off all the lights one hour before bedtime. Hitting the bed at 9.30 without the troubles of digestion, with no recent light exposure nor any exposure to social media or other forms of entertainment makes falling asleep extremely easy. I just read until I am tired. Then I naturally wake up, without alarm, at around 5.30, and I feel great and ready to tackle the day.

You don’t have to go to bed at 9.30pm and wake up at 5.30am as I do - this works for me given my schedule and the fact that I like to wake up early. But you surely want to get your eight hours in as much as you can, and if you have some form of diabetes this is absolutely absolutely absolutely critical.

You need to sleep too

If you believe, as I did a few years back, that “I am ok with just 5/6 hours of sleep”, and you don’t want to read any further, just know that you are not a superhuman and cannot live well if you don’t sleep enough, and that you need to sleep.
Think of it from an evolutionary perspective: while we sleep we don’t do any of the things that push our species forward (eating, reproducing, developing technology, etc.), and we are extremely vulnerable to predators and outside threats. Considering all this, why in the hell would evolution promote a species that still needs to sleep, and not one that can thrive on one or two hours of sleep, or no sleep at all?

Turns out sleep is fundamental to the survival of our species, and if you’re a human like me you are no exception.

I’m done with this long intro: this is a blog about diabetes, running and food, and my experiences have proved time and again that sleep is the true source of everything good that comes from them - and conversely, lack of sleep is pretty much the cause of all the problems.

Let me share the three main reasons I do not negotiate on sleep anymore.

1 - Sleep is the magic ingredient for insulin sensitivity

Sleep makes you more insulin sensitive, period end of story.

When you’re well rested, your body can use insulin much more efficiently and is likely to need less of it. Being sleep deprived makes you insulin resistant: in practical terms, this means that no matter how much insulin you inject your blood glucose keeps rising and oscillating during the day and the night for “no apparent reason”.

There are two reasons why you want to avoid insulin resistance: one is that chronically elevated blood glucose levels have terrible long term consequences. The other is that insulin is all about fat accumulation, so the more your body requires, the more you’ll store energy as fat. This quickly contributes to developing metabolic dysfunctions that will significantly shorten your lifespan (I’ve already elaborated on this before).

I noticed that when for some reason I sleep less or worse, then controlling my blood glucose during the day is a mission impossible. Regardless of how much I inject or what I eat, my glucose levels are constantly disrupted - at meal time but more importantly in the hours between meals, when the glycemic level keep rising for no reason even though I haven’t eaten anything.

Someone becoming more insulin sensitive. No effort required.

By contrast, when I get a sufficient amount of sleep I barely need any extra injections because my blood glucose is in range most of the time, no effort required. In fact, sleep was a major contributor to my successful 90% time in range challenge, and is what keeps me in range 80-90% of the time.

2 - Sleep helps me regulate my food intake

There is another reason why poor sleep kills your attempts at diabetes management: you’ll be more hungry, and you’ll seek more junk food. This happens because a lack of sleep alters your levels of ghrelin and leptin.

From the Matthew Walker podcast:

“When leptin levels are high, your appetite is reduced, and you feel satisfied by the food you eat. Ghrelin does the exact opposite. It revs up your hunger, so when your ghrelin levels are high, you don’t feel satisfied by the food you ate, so you want to eat more.

Matt tells us that when you’re not getting enough sleep, the levels of these two hormones are affected in unfortunate ways, causing you to feel less full and more hungry. Specifically, sleep loss decreases leptin levels by 18%, yet increases ghrelin levels by 28%!
So when you are not getting enough sleep, the body losses the fullness signal AND suffers an increase in hunger levels. The combined consequences? Your appetite rockets up!”

Consequently, you’ll tend to default to more processed foods - that pizza or that ice cream will look much more attractive than normal, and you’ll easily make those your meal.

Unfortunately, highly processed foods that are rich in processed sugars and fats are direct contributors to insulin resistance. You’re already more insulin resistant due to the lack of sleep, and you’re now eating stuff that makes everything even worse.

I have that too. When my sleep quality was low, I see myself reaching for highly processed junk food more easily and more often. I have a thing for bread, dates and fatty sauces, and while in normal circumstances I have no problem controlling my cravings, sleep deprivation makes me extremely vulnerable and indulgent. In simple terms: I eat lots of them, way beyond what is acceptable, and I can’t stop.

You can imagine what happens to my blood sugar levels and to my insulin requirements. They both skyrocket and become untamable.

3 - Sleep keeps me running at top level, and without injuries

Poor sleep for me has a 1:1 relation with running injuries, and I figured that out the hard way. Stressful periods when the quality of my slumbers is worse have always led to some physical problem that has impacted my ability to run.

One time the left knee was inflamed, the next was the right knee, then the ankle, then the lower back.

All these problems were not caused by running - if anything, running was what brought them to the surface. They were in fact the mere logical consequence of a body that was not recovering properly. If you’re training for anything, rest and recovery are just as important as the training itself, if not more.

That is when your body reaps the benefits of the training and adjusts itself to meet an increasing load the next time. It is no surprise that when that period of rest is missed, you’re forcing your organism to sustain increasing amounts of stress in a progressively worse condition.

It is also no surprise that at some point your body will use injuries and inflammations to get you to stop the purge.

So far, my antidote to running injuries has been a mix of gradual decrease of the mileage/intensity AND plenty more sleep. This has got me out of trouble every time, and my plan for the future is to make sleep an integral part of any training build no less than the running workouts. The goal is to never reach the point where I am forced to stop by an injury. Hydration, nutrition and running form are all essential variables in this equation, but all of this goes out of the window if you’re not sleeping enough.

The tool I use to heal my body.

There are thousands more things I could say about why sleep has been so transformative for me - ability to achieve and maintain focus, improved workout performance, and being sick less often - but I’ll save them for a “part two”.

If you are unable to fall asleep and sleep well, know that it is all about lifestyle. You need to know what impacts your sleep quality and what routines are beneficial for a good night of sleep. Sleeping well is possible, provided you care about it and are willing to put some effort into it.

Sleep to be a better human

I’ll conclude with this: when I am well rested, I am a much more pleasant person to be around: I smile more, I am in a good mood, I am more kind and happy to help the person next to me. At the end of the day, one can have perfect blood glucose, be a great runner and achieve perfect scores in every bio-marker, but none of that counts when you’re miserable towards those around you.

I used to be reactive, to raise my voice, to be on my nerves most of the time. It’s curious that since I’ve been sleeping more and more consistently, that is not the case anymore.