Welcome to the Get Fit Guys quick and dirty tips to slim down and shape up.

My name is Ben Greenfield and I'm the Get Fit Guy.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that 7 is the new 8,

explaining that your body may actually need less sleep

than the traditionally recommended eight hours.

But if you're into fitness, exercising, or mental and physical performance, you may want to think again.

And in this episode, you're going to find out exactly why.

Now, there's an ideal amount of sleep needed for fat loss or muscle gain and for optimizing

things like tissue repair, protein synthesis, appetite regulation, and growth hormone release. In a previous

Get Fit Guy newsletter, I covered the topic of whether sleep could get you more fit. And you can

check out that newsletter over at quick and dirty tips.com.

And this episode that you're listening to now is episode number 202.

But now it's time to find out more details about why sleep could get you more fit.

And look at exactly how much sleep you should be getting to efficiently reach health, performance,

fitness, or body composition and fat loss goals.

Now, until recently, the National Sleep Foundation had established some pretty good guidelines

for sleep based on up-to-date research.

They found that in most adults, sleeping fewer than seven hours

per night is associated with decreased alertness and increased risk for chronic disease,

while sleeping more than nine hours per night is also associated with a shorter life and

higher risk of chronic disease. Unfortunately, it appears that now they may also be jumping on board with these new

lower sleep recommendations. The most recent seven hours per night info reported by the Wall Street

...