In both cases the patients were hindered in virtually every measurable spectrum of development. In the 8 year olds case, her apnea was resolved with cpap and has turned a corner, grades up, losing weight, and joined the choir!

Andrew-
Great information…all i can say is “WOW”. 400lb 8 year olds?! Stunning AND tragic.

Now here comes the ugly (always saving the BEST for last)…the sleep issue. Still lucky to get 5 hours a night (this is on a very good day). I realize how much I am affecting my lifespan, daily health and performance. Don’t get me wrong, I hold my own pretty good but would love to see what I’d be capable of if I could get adequate rest. So trying to figure out what’s going on. Got homw the other night from work @ 9 and should’ve headed straight for the rack since that would allow me exactly 7 1/2 hours. Instead I was lying down about 1030 and did not go to sleep until almost 1200. Once I finally drifted off, it wasn’t an hour & 1/2 later that I was wide awake again. This sort of thing happens all the time. Either I stay up til 12,1,2 and then just thrive on 2-3 hours of sleep or I will wake up throughout the night and have bouts of insomnia where it takes me anywhere from 45 mins to sometimes hours to go back to bed. No clue what’s going on but since you are the guru when it comes to all theis stuff, decided to let you chime in and give me some recommendations. BTW-sorry for the novel! Hope all is well in Cali and if you ever find yourself in the Peach State you know you’re ALWAYS welcome. Take care&Happy CrossFitting. Lauren

Hey Girl!!

I think your experience is typical that even moderate shifts towards a paleo/zone approach produces stunning results. I really like that idea of a 30 day super tight experiment…see how much you can ratchet it down and what the results are. THEN you have a baseline of perfect compliance and training to compare/contrast with say a 1 cheat day per week scenario. The interesting thing is you will likely feel BETTER overall with the 1 day off the rails…both physically and emotionally. The Zone is a BOATLOAD of discipline and it borders on the OCD…but it fracking works.
Sleep-That is a tough one…we noticed that if we can keep the light low and no computer/TV in the evenings we crash out pretty easily. Sounds like you run a very tight schedule so it can be hard to simply plough through the door, hop in bed and sleep. I think we need some “in-between” time where we are just hanging out…but obviously this whittles into our potential sleep time…tough to balance. You might try 100mg 5HTP before bed to solidify the quality of your sleep. 1000mg of buffered vit-c can also reduce cortisol levels before bed…this is a big help for me. Keep me posted, send photos of the transformation!
Robb

http://www.webmd.com/news/19991116/benefits-sleep-deprivation-depression

So there may be some use in staying up all night.

But more recently (though known for some time), others have found that fasting the day before and then eating at upon waking can be used to resync the food entrainable circadian rhythms. In short, fast, fly to Bejing, eat breakfast with them, and you will be on their time. This may work well for Paleo Dieters wanting to snap out of a little insomnia.

http://sleep.med.harvard.edu/news/229/Harvard+study+finds+fasting+resets+circadian+clock

Jack-
I’ve been working on a post looking at sleep deprivation and depression…the key here is punctuated exposure!
Great find on the re-sync info!
Robb

Ricardo-
That is my understanding…a week or so of no sleep causes cardiac arrhythmias and a host of other problems…I’ll track down some additional info.
Robb

First of all, I wanted to tell you what a pleasure it was to meet/train w/ you @ the Camp Pendelton cert this past weekend. Thanks for all the great info and training, as well as for furthering my already existing CF addiction! The whole team was amazing and this was by far the best certification I have ever attended as far as knowledge gained & professionalism by the staff. Absolutely incredible and can’t wait for my next opportunity to get more of the kool aide ;o) I was truly amazed at how much insight you were able to provide in the short time you were allotted (I could have listened to you talk nutrition for hours on end) and found all the info fascinating (started the zone today as promised so we’ll see if we can lean out some of the mass). Of course now we move to the topic of this discussion…sleep deprivation & its effects on your health, training & life in general so of course I find it enlightening per our conversation Sunday (disturbing is really more accurate due to my lack of anything even resembling a normal sleep cycle). Promise I will be adding sleep into the regime as well as rest days to limit overtraining! Look forward to seeing what other RWOW’s (Robb’s words of wisdom) are posted here in the future. Take care&Happy CrossFitting.
- Lauren

Hey Girl!
That was a fantastic weekend…makes me want to be a Marine! OohRAH!! THANK YOU for the kind words…I love doing the certs and helping folks. I did a year of medical school and pulled the plug on it because I felt like it was pinning in the wind…you never really help people, just stem the tide of the inevitable. I actually feel like I make a difference at these events and, well, it’s damn fun to boot!

Keep me posted on your improving sleep schedule(hint)
Robb

Justin-
Honestly, I don’t know. I’ll check on the pharmacology of Ambien…I do know that a common sleep aid, benedryl (diphenhydramine) works by blocking histamine production…which also shuts off growth hormone secretion. Not too damn restful. I suspect Ambien is s similar story but I’ll check. It’s rare that we get a free lunch!
Robb

However there is one thing that kills faster than suffocation/drowning, as I learned in my wilderness first responder course, and that is a wound to a major artery, particularly the carotid or femoral arteries as they are the most exposed and susceptible.

Dutch-
I’m going to tackle this in another post, great find!
Robb

Gabriel-
It’s projected to be in the 100′s (F) in Chico today…I think thirst wins! We did do a gig in Edmonton and it was -50C…that day, cold trumps thirst!
Robb

Sleep is just less. I sleep well always. It’s rather I wake up a bit easier and usually can stay up an hour or two longer than before.

Performance wise – better on metcon and just a tiny bit worse on strength (lower body) but better on upper body strength (and even that might be of a result of overtraining).

A week after switching to strict zone – got 7 strict hspu (normally I kip) and a deadhang muscle up – both pr’s. And a few days later – a Big Boys MU Greg E style.

Before the recent Zone streak I was doing
2700-3000 cal / 300 g pro/

Leo-
You are feeling/performing better on Zone ratios? Better sleep?
Robb

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3830145

http://www.usafa.edu/isme/JSCOPE97/Belenky97/Belenky97.htm

Good stuff (data wise, not what those boys had to go through).

-jj

The celiac discussion was right on target too — and it’s been on my thoughts (&blog) as well — silent celiac disease actually causes ALL these below conditions — which everyone I know HAS…
–infertility
–eczema
–Hashimoto’s hypothyroidism

And good dietary nutritional factors have been shown to reverse/ameliorate these:
1) enough vit D to get blood to 25(OH)D3 = 60 ng/ml
2) fish oil 3000mg EPA+DHA (or even higher)

(and as you mentioned gluten-wheat-elimination, ie paleo diet)

-G

G-
Have you read that Cordain piece on north-south skin pigmentation, vit-d and gluten? SUUUPER good.
Robb

http://www.tampabays10.com/news/local/article.aspx
?storyid=80326 (wfs)

Most notable among his problems are irritability and learning disabilities. This article says that, although short, he did get some sleep during the night and a quick nap at night. When deprived of REM sleep the body will skip Phase 1-3 of sleep and go right to REM when a person finally gets to bed. This may help explain why Rhett has survived as long as his has with his condition.

Luckily he has had surgery and has just recently had a full nights sleep. I’m sure this will help with his irritability problems and also help him grow as a 3 year old should.

On a personal note, I can go about 20 hours without sleep (depending on the situation) but right when I’m around that 24 hour mark I become extrememly paranoid.

Do you notice Robb that in general amounts of sleep necessary to recover and have more energy than normal once an individual goes onto pretty strict Zone/Paleo (with or without IF).

Leo-
You know…I’ve never noticed the decrease in sleep need. Coach Glassman has mentioned it. Barry Sears talks about it, but like creatine, I suspect I’m a non-responder! The thing about this…I am always tight on my nutrition…I just can’t eat much junk and if anything I tend towards really low carb….so the only real uptick I get from the Zone is I have better glycogen reserves and can do better on WOD’s. Post WO carb intake definitely minimizes soreness for me…but I do not see the dramatic change many people see. I wonder if this is a function of how much the diet gets cleaned up? How far off the rails are you by comparison to when you are Zoning?
Robb

Going back to the lack of sleep thing recently there was a article in Men’s Health where the author tried a multiphsic sleep experiment for 4 weeks on himself. It was basically you nap for 20 minutes 6 times a day. Of course as soon as the experiment ended he slept 15 hours straight and all of his friends were able to tell that he ended it without even being told just by the simple way he looked/carried himself.

While I know there are proponents of multiphasic sleep out there I just can’t see how you can cut to 120 minutes of total rest to sub in for ~8 hours of rest. Then if add up the deficit over a months time the difference is huge.

Allen-
It might be a great way to get buy but I suspect the price tag might be BIG.
Robb

So glad to see you posting again. I feel like sleep is sooooo important, thanks for reminding me how much. I know one of the biggest reasons for my body comp changes (including crossfit, and paleo/zone eating) has been the fact that I consistently get 7-8 hours sleep. That being said I should get some sleep now.

BTW I gotta say the most recent episode of BSG was kinda disappointing.

Nick

Nick!
I feel bad about my sporadic posting. When I travel I am just CRUSHED. My sleep sucks and I’m just not very creative with the writing. I don’t want to just throw junk up here for filler…I want it to be good and helpful. I’m actually dealing with a pretty good dose of adrenal fatigue that I swear, felt like it was going to kill me off. Terrible stuff.

You are right…BSG is kinda spinning…season 3 was SOOOOOOOOOOO good. I’ve got an idea how a Jimmy Hendrix song made it into the “Final five”…
Robb

Here is the update on the boy. He has apparently had a successful surgery.

Cool!
Robb

Namely, two things:
1. you did a workout
2. you were sleep deprived that night (forcibly)

Next night’s sleep you get a higher amplitude GH pulses than normal. So in effect, if we think of it in terms of training it is EXACTLY like a supercompensation effect from using multiple training sessions to induce an overreaching effect.

Obviously, this is not chronic sleep deprivation or anything, but there is some favorable adaptations that can occur because of temporary sleep deprivation.

————–

Anyway, for the topic I’d agree with your hierarchy. Obviously, you’d die sooner with deprivation of air and water.

Sleep is the anabolic time where your body is refreshed especially your mind not to mention the other tissues in your body. You don’t get sleep, bad stuff happens like depressed immune function and blah blah blah. Increased stress hormones like cortisol, depressed GH/test response…. leads to quicker aging. Plus, the brain goes psycho after like a week of non-sleep.

More important than food.. hmm.. possibly. I mean you have to have sustainance to live. Strictly speaking in terms of being able to go without obviously as you grow you have a tendency to have more reserves to be able to cope with such a loss of food. An infant that goes without food for a week will probably be very close to death while most adults or teens can go probably a month.

I would tend to say yes overall (sleep before food). If we look at sleep, chronic deprivation provokes said stress response which is mostly negative. Chronic deprivation of calories results in… longer life.

G-
It was merely a guess…1,000 pardons.
Robb

Chris! Go to bed brother!
Robb

Due to his age it’s hard to judge how the sleep deprivation affected him mentally/emotionally; but the fact that he’s alive means that the body must have some way of adapting to a lack of sleep.

Well…I’d be super interested to see what his immune function is in addition to some other values. I wonder if an adult would make it through something like this? Not sure if this is a sign of adaptation or simply a younger, more resilient subject. Great find either way, very interesting.
Robb