Sleep and sufficient rest are incredibly important for your general well-being, but also to build muscle mass or reduce fat percentage. Many people pay too little attention to sufficient rest and therefore achieve less results in the gym. When you do not get enough sleep, your body produces more cortisol (stress hormone). When the cortisol level increases, muscle growth stagnates and more fat is stored in the body.

Our sleep rhythm has different phases:

• Stage 1. Light sleep; after falling asleep you enter light sleep. You no longer wake up from every sound, but you also do not sleep deeply and when you wake up you often do not even remember that you have slept. This stage lasts about an hour.
• Stage 2. Deep sleep; after light sleep you enter deep sleep after a transition phase. Your heart rate goes down and your muscles relax. If you wake up now, you feel confused and need some time to wake up. This phase lasts about 20 minutes.
• Stage 3. REM sleep; after deep sleep you enter REM sleep. This is also called dream sleep. During REM sleep you process data and certain things are stored in the long-term memory. This stage lasts about 20 minutes.

These phases repeat themselves throughout the night, but become shorter in duration as the night progresses.

Especially during the first phase of deep sleep, growth hormone is released. Growth hormone stimulates various growth factors such as Insulin Growth Factor. The positive effects of growth hormone and IGF are:

• Regulation of moisture
• Strengthening of the bones
• Building the muscles
• Decrease in the amount of fat

All these effects are achieved by the influence of the growth hormone on various metabolic systems. It ensures the formation of collagen, promotes the formation of protein and ensures the retention of calcium, phosphate and nitrogen compounds. These are all substances that are necessary for growth.

Many people do not yet realize the consequences of excessive stress. By continuing to expose the body to stress stimuli, you can become physically and mentally exhausted with all the consequences that entails. Because less progress is made in the long run, they train more and harder, which makes the stress in the body even worse.

It is important to know that we can all only deal with stress to a certain extent. Various factors play a role in this, such as; sleep quality, nutrition, condition, etc.
By taking rest, the body recovers from all stress stimuli. That is why it is important to take this into account in your workouts. If you are already stressed, and you train hard or too long, you will receive an extra dose of stress stimuli.

By slowing down, taking longer rests between sets and minimizing your training frequency, you will experience less stress stimuli. By spending more time relaxing, you will therefore make more progress!

With too little rest and a bad night's sleep, your body goes into a state of hyper-alertness and starts producing more cortisol. This causes fluctuations in your blood sugar as a result of excessive cortisol production.

When the body experiences stress, the brain sends a signal that energy must be produced quickly because there is a threat. The body activates systems to defend itself against this threat (muscles, nervous system, heart and lungs). This is regulated by the hormone cortisol.
Cortisol gives the liver a signal that glucose and fats must be released into the bloodstream to provide energy quickly. The blood sugar level rises quickly as a result.
When the blood sugar level rises, insulin is produced to lower the blood sugar level. Insulin wants to send the blood sugar to the systems that you need to defend yourself. Actually, this is not necessary, because it is only a mental issue.
Your muscle cells can also become inflamed (inflammation) due to stress, which blocks the absorption of glycogen and fats.

This will cause you to create more fat cells because excess blood sugar is sent to them.
When you are stressed, other systems are also switched off, such as your digestive system, because all the energy is needed for the body to defend itself against the threat.
Problems can arise around the digestive system, which means that the absorption of food is lower. The body goes into a waste process, as it were.
Some characteristics of this are fluid retention and diarrhea and/or constipation.
This ensures that the body can absorb fewer nutrients to recover, which can cause loss of muscle mass and even injuries. It may even be that your liver is forced to break down amino acids and use them for energy production, because there is insufficient glycogen and the body continues to ask for quick fuel.

As a result, the hormones Leptin and Ghrelin do not function properly, which can lead to increased appetite. These hormones determine your satiety. If these hormones do not function properly, you can have more food cravings, which results in a higher intake of your calorie requirement and therefore more fat storage.

Because your brain has to stay alert and waste energy all the time, your brain capacity decreases and your testosterone production is lowered. This in turn leads to less nutrients being sent to your muscles.
Studies have shown that your energy level can drop by up to 20% after a night of insufficient rest.

• Make your bedroom as dark as possible.
  Light keeps us awake because we naturally function when it is light.
• Avoid blue light an hour before going to sleep.
  Exposure to blue light suppresses the production of melatonin and stimulates the production of the stress hormone cortisol.
• Limit fluid intake later in the evening.
  Drinking a lot will make you pee more during your night and you won't be able to sleep through the night.
• Don't drink caffeinated drinks in the evening.
  Caffeine keeps us alert and prevents our brain from coming into rest mode.
• Try reading or doing something else that relaxes you the last hour before you go to sleep.
  Relaxing will help you get into a resting state and become sleepy.

Greenshake ; to be used with a lot of stress from training. This product contains many antioxidants that can remove the excessive oxidants from your body.

Sleepstack ; this composition ensures that your brain comes to rest. This contains magnesium, taurine, zinc, ashwagandha and 5 http.

Cortisolve;  this is a very strong supplement and is only recommended for severe short-term stress.

Of course you can also use individual supplements for a good night's sleep, such as magnesium. Magnesium is good for a lot and you can read more about it  in this article.

For more products in the field of sleep and rest,   take a look here .