Can’t sleep after a training session?
Can’t sleep after a training session? You are not alone. Here’s how to make sure your sleep and recovery isn’t ruined by your training sessions.
According to research most of us are not getting enough sleep and this can be compounded by specific training sessions and / or training later in the day / evening.
Did you know that in addition to physical conditioning and conscious eating, sleep plays a major role in recovery from any training sessions, athletic performance and competitive results? The quality and amount of sleep people get post training is often the key to successful fitness goals, maintaining longevity in their fitness program and essentially doing well in your chosen field.
Sleep Deprivation
Some research suggests that sleep deprivation increases levels of stress hormone, cortisol. Sleep deprivation has also been seen to decrease production of glycogen and carbohydrates that are stored for energy use during physical activity. In short, less sleep increases the possibility of early fatigue state, lack of energy and poor focus in everyday activities let alone in training sessions. It will also slow recovery post-exercise. Poor energy at a cellular level hugely decreases capacity building when training.
The Science behind sleep
Evening training sessions and its effects on sleep
Post exercise insomnia
Evidence proves that heavy training loads can be detrimental to sleep. Many of us have experienced a sleepless night or unable to fall into sleep when we have completed a taxing session, or training very late, increased our intensity minutes (82%+) too quickly or carried out a specific long session finishing in the later part of the day. It can be so frustrating and debilitating especially to motivation, recovery and self-confidence. Why is this?
Cortisol
This is a hormone that is released by the body when it is placed under stress. When we exercise, we are stressing the body at all levels and so this will increase the production of Cortisol which is then released into the body. Elevated Cortisol levels will affect sleep.
Adrenaline
This is a hormone that is produced when you get excited and will increase blood flow, breathing, energy metabolism, and prepares the muscles for exertion by maximising blood glucose levels and expanding the air passages of the lungs putting your body in a state of alertness rather than sleep.
Body temperature
That feeling of radiating heat after exercise is because the core temperature of your body has risen and there is sometimes a level of dehydration which are the effects of training hard, both of which will affect sleep.
Growth hormones
These are essential for maximizing muscle repair and growth and strengthening bones which are all particularly vital after all training sessions. Research shows that 95% of your daily production of growth hormone is secreted from the pituitary gland in the brain during deep sleep. Having inadequate sleep for whatever reason will decrease the production of growth hormones and effect your training efforts and emotional state.
EOF guidance – Planning Equals Prevention
The good news is that there are a number of ways to prevent post exercise sleep insomnia and in fact use exercise to help with more routine and constant sleep patterns maximising the training adaptations and ultimately boosting performance.
Solution:
Progression
Elite Outdoor Fitness training packages ensure that peoples training loads are progressive and this means that they increase load and intensity minutes in a balanced way to allow the body to recover and heal during training and also mitigate against over training and over stressing of the body. This will allow a person to be well prepared for those taxing sessions and still get good sleep.
Planning sessions
It’s important to plan your sessions to allow you to do more stressful and taxing sessions earlier in the day or on a weekend when you can fit it in earlier or on some occasions breaking the session into 2 parts Am and PM. Doing back to back high intensity sessions is not normally a good approach to training so separate the higher intensity, loaded or high stress sessions to allow you to bring more balance to your training over a 7 day period.
De loading
All training programs with Elite Outdoor Fitness allow a person to de-load to ensure they are capturing that fitness, increase motivation and self-confidence but most importantly maximise recovery and mitigate against over training. Providing more balance and progression.
Nutrients, supplements and energy boosters
Many people take supplements or boost their energy by means of a cup of coffee or energy drink. Its important to understand what you are putting into your body and the effects it will have many hours after your training session which will affect your sleep and recovery.
Monitor your sleep quality
Many watches and gadgets feature sleep-monitoring functions. Here at EOF we suggest going a touch more high-tech and use a heart-rate variability (HRV) monitoring which can be found as a function in most watches nowadays. We like the Garmin products specifically Fenix and Tactix.
Conclusion
Using these tips will help you maintain more balance and therefore you will be more likely to have better sleep patterns and recovery periods. Changing the times that you train will help you sleep better and be less stressed overall. Eating healthy and not late at night, reducing or having no caffein intake after 16:00 hours and limiting screen time 30 minutes before anticipated sleep will all help in getting good sleep. These are tips from EOF but essentially, we believe that sleep will come in bundles if you find good balance throughout everything in your life. Once you have good sleep most things will start to fall into place. The effects of not having enough sleep over an extended period are not good for your health, well-being and emotional state and balance.
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