7. Get More Sleep… But Why?
No matter how hard you work out, how heavy you lift or how much protein you eat, you will not see optimal muscle-building results if you’re chronically sleep-deprived. Not only will lifting weights feel exponentially harder, you might lose your motivation to lift weights at all. Then, obviously, you won’t build muscle.
Sleep also facilitates muscle recovery. Studies show that most of the muscle repair process happens during sleep, and that sleep influences important hormones like cortisol, human growth hormone and insulin growth factor, which all play a role in muscle maintenance and growth. A 2018 study even found that just one night of no sleep can curtail your muscle-building efforts by increasing protein breakdown.