After a rough night of sleep, your muscles might still be game for a workout, but  your brain could have other plans. In Minute 3 of Saturday’s “Last-Minute Marathon Preparation,” we discussed why one restless night probably won’t wreck your race-day strength or endurance. However, new research suggests severe sleep loss can still make physical effort harder to sustain. According to “Sleep loss reduces muscle endurance by rewiring brain networks, study finds,” researchers tested 35 young men after a normal night’s sleep and again after getting fewer than four hours. Participants held a resistance-band bicep contraction until exhaustion, giving out sooner when sleep deprived. Yet muscle sensors found no significant difference in how quickly their muscles fatigued. Instead, brain activity recordings suggested that sleep restriction disrupted communication among networks responsible for attention, movement, and sensory processing – potentially making it harder to keep pushing during exercise. The study only examined a stationary arm exercise, so it’s unclear whether runners would experience the same effects. Still, it offers another reason to prioritize sleep before a big endurance effort. Researchers are also investigating whether creatine could soften the cognitive effects of sleep loss. In “Single-Dose Creatine Reduces Sleep Deprivation-Induced Deterioration in Cognitive Performance,” a study of 29 adults found that a single dose of 0.2 grams per kilogram of body weight helped preserve certain measures of attention and reasoning during extended sleep deprivation, with improvements of up to 12%. The study didn’t test athletic performance, so it’s not a proven solution for sleep loss before race day. That being said, there’s growing evidence connecting creatine with mental performance and energy, so it could be worth trying if creatine supplementation fits into your health needs and lifestyle.

#MindOverMattress