Saturday, December 12, 2009
Our bookshelf at the gym is supposed to have several copies of Lights Out! Sleep, Sugar and Survival. Most of the time they are nowhere to be found. Our members keep borrowing them, and for good reason. If you have not read this book, GET IT! The information the book shares is eye-opening if not a little scary. The impact of sleep on our health is often underplayed or at the very least misunderstood. As Robb Wolf points out, the CDC lists shift work as a known carcinogen. An excerpt from this article gives some information:
Shift work. A review by Steenland [2000] includes eight studies of shift work and CVD judged to be of high quality. The results of the studies are not consistent. The RRs range from 0.9 to 1.4 and Steenland states that the epidemiologic data suggest a modest association. Taking an inverse-variance weighted average of the eight studies results in a combined RR of 1.1 (95% CI 1⁄4 1.0–1.2). An estimate of the percent of workers involved in shift work from the May 1991 Current Population Survey was available [BLS, 1992] for full-time wage and salary workers. Based on the survey, an estimated 20.0% of male workers (or 17.8% of all males ages 20–64 years) and 14.6% of female workers (10.7% of all females ages 20–64 years) are employed in shift work. Using the endpoints of the RR confidence interval from Steenland (1.0–1.2), results in an AF range from 0% to 3.4% for males and 0% to 2.1% for females.
This should be alarming, not only to those engaging in regular shift work, but to the rest of us who often neglect sleep in place of other activities. Do yourself a favour and put sleep among your top priorities for the next month and see how you feel.
Workout
Complete 3 rounds of:
Max deadhang pull-ups
rest 5 minutes
Fat Tabata Gone Bad
Complete 8 Tabata intervals at each of the following stations:
- Wall ball shots (boys: 20#; girls: 14#)
- Sumo deadlift high pulls (boys: 115#; girls: 80#)
- Box jumps (20″)
- Push press (boys: 115#; girls: 80#)
- Row
