Are you getting enough quality sleep?
By Steve Born
Hammer peak performance tip: Lack of quality sleep can put a major damper on athletic performance and cause serious health problems over the long term. Ensure peak athletic performance and health with REM Caps, formulated with four nutrients to help you sleep and dream soundly.
1) Do you recall your dreams? If your answer is "no," then you aren't getting enough of the deepest phase of sleep, called REM ("rapid eye movement") sleep. According to experts, every adult requires two or more hours of REM sleep nightly. Without sufficient REM/dream sleep, your athletic performance will suffer and so will your health.
2) Are you feeling more anxious or stressed? Inadequate sleep tends to lower our "stress perception" threshold and diminishes our ability to deal with daily challenges and aggravations.
3) Are you having trouble remembering things? Because it facilitates connections between nerve cells, deep sleep is intimately involved in memory. The less deep sleep accrued, the fewer the connections between nerve cells.
4) Do you have a hard time concentrating? In studies, sleep-deprived subjects had trouble with concentration, resulting in poor performances on tests requiring the ability to focus. The effect increases with ongoing poor sleep.
5) Has your appetite increased? By staying awake longer, you obviously have more hours in which to eat/overeat. In addition, research from the University of Chicago shows that lack of adequate sleep alters the levels of the hormones that regulate hunger, resulting in increased appetite.
The consequences of inadequate sleep
If you answered "no" to #1 and "yes" to any of the rest, you're not obtaining sufficient amounts of quality sleep, which undoubtedly is hurting your health and athletic performance. Lack of quality sleep hampers immune system function, as well as memory, learning, and mood. And a highly respected athlete/coach has labeled the lack of quality sleep as "the ultimate performance killer."
In contrast, "adequate sleep provides only positive, healthful benefits," says Bill Misner, Ph.D. "In a typical day, a person's waking hours are consumed trying to meet the mental and physical demands encountered at every turn, as well as replenishing vital nutrients used up during these activities. During sleep the body takes time out to rebuild and recharge, preparing for the day ahead."
Sleep is also critical for building strong muscle mass, adds Dr. Misner: "Deep sleep patterns may mean the difference between big anabolic gains and none at all! Both bodily repair and anabolic growth occur only during quality rest, and when deep sleep patterns become routine."
Bottom line:
Obtaining sufficient quality sleep regularly is crucial for maintaining optimal health and athletic performance. REM Caps will help you achieve that on a nightly basis. REM Caps contains four nutrients - Valerian Root Extract, Melatonin, 5-HTP (5-Hydroxytryptophan), and Magnesium - to help you get to sleep quickly, and achieve adequate REM sleep.
As a bonus, melatonin (a hormone naturally produced in the brain) is also a very powerful antioxidant shown to be a powerful immune system stimulator, with the potential to help prevent certain cancers. For a more sound, restful, and productive sleep and its added health and performance benefits, REM Caps is a natural.
