During my research about muscle growth, I stumbled upon a very old article from 1968 about the presence of the growth hormone during your sleep. It is said often to me that rest is very important in order to stimulate muscle growth. I was wondering how this worked, and how sleep affects the growth of the muscles. And this article actually gave me some answers.
The growth hormone
The growth hormone stimulates, among others, the growth of cells and the regeneration of cells. This thus has an effect on your muscle growth. This is why taking in extra growth hormone is popular by some athletes. However, there is no scientific evidence that taking in extra growth hormone improves strength and/or speed. But, research did show improved lean muscle, decrease of fat, and more muscle mass as a result of the growth hormone. Also it showed that the use of the growth hormone stimulates storage of water in your body. So, the growth hormone could assist in moving fluids away from fat towards your muscles. Lucky us, that our body provides us with this great hormone!
The growth hormone during sleep
The natural production of growth hormone is highest in stage 2 and 3 of your non-REM sleep. Non-REM sleep stands for non Rapid Eye Movement sleep and usually is 80% of your sleep time. Non-Rem sleep has four stages of which stage 1 is very light sleep and stage 4 is very deep sleep. Stage 2 is a period of light sleep, where you have periods of muscle flexion and relaxation. This is the stage that the body is preparing to go into deep sleep. When you wake up and you are a bit disoriented, you usually just woke up from sleep stage 3 or 4.
Go to bed in time!
In the graph below, you can see on top the stages of sleep and the according lever of growth hormone in each stage as the sleep continues. At 11PM you can see the largest peak in the natural production of the growth hormone. At his time, the person is in deep sleep as you can see (stage 4). Another peak can be observed at 2.30AM. Again at this time the person is in deep sleep (stage 3). This graph shows that at the beginning of your sleep, when you are in deep sleep, the production of the growth hormone is greatest!
For contrast, the graph below shows the production of the growth hormone for a person that goes to bed late (delayed sleep). In the graph you can see that production of growth hormone is very limited over the whole night. Even though this person does reach the deep sleep stage (stage 3), it does not product much growth hormone. This shows that going to bed early stimulates the production of the growth hormone to a greater extend! So, up to bed your go!
Good night!
Source: Takahashi, Y., Kirnis, D.M., Daughaday, W.H., 1968. Growth Hornone Secretion during Sleep. The Journal of Clinical Investigation, 47. pp 2079-2090
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