Why is it so beneficial to a human being to sleep 7 or 8 hours to have good muscle growth? I recently started with bodybuilding and I gained a good amount of muscle in just a few weeks. But I started to think why is it so beneficial to a human being who specially focuses on muscle growth to sleep the recommended daily dose of 7 till 8 hours?
L.S.:
I've already looked here but it hasn't got an answer. So an answer would be appreciated.
Hormones that are released during slumber are going to be the biggest reason. If you don’t sleep long enough you might miss the sleep cycle responsibile for the hormone release. Of course, you can also start to suffer from sleep deprivation if you get too little sleep. The rest and recovery obtained during slumber is also useful, but It isn’t dependent on getting consecutive sleeping hours.
In addition to JustSnilloc's answer, getting enough sleep so as to be fully aware is also important. Being "in the moment" and conscious of your body and its reactions is important when exercising for reasons of safety (you don't want to absent-mindedly forget plate clips, or miss the rack when putting the bar back up) as well as properly targeting the exercise (you don't want to be just going through the motions, or failing to isolate the movement by recruiting unrelated muscles). Lastly, being short on sleep can result in a degree of numbness and slowness of reaction time that could lead to you winding up in an injurious situation should things go wrong.
