Last year I begin to notice that I was often falling asleep at work and required a walk to get the blood flowing again. In the beginning I thought it was due to a job that wasn't very stimulating. Then I noticed at home I was getting a bit on edge and was often a bit grumpy. I got 7 hours of sleep every night, that is more than the average person, so that shouldn't have been the problem or was it.
So I looked back a little on my exercise routine. I would do pretty good for 3 or 4 months and then just wouldn't have the energy to continue and would take a break only to start the cycle over and over. I had worked hard on adjusting my exercise program with increasing intensity and recovery weeks , and nothing seemed to work. I remember the days when I would be excited to get out of bed, but they seemed to be in the hazy past and I just attributed my lack of energy to old age.
Then I decided to see if I could change the tide and get my energy level back. I made it a priority to get at least 8 hours of sleep every night. While I still wanted to exercise the #1 priority over all else was to get 8 hours of sleep. At first it was hard to sleep past my normal time, so I started going to bed earlier. No problem falling asleep, just staying that way was still an issue. I thought of taking some supplements, but the idea of taking any type of drug was not appealing.
Fast forward about 8 months and my body is getting use to the idea that it can sleep longer than 7 hours. At first I would sleep over 8 hours on the good nights and back to 7 on the okay. We'll not talk about how many hours I got on the bad nights. I had to learn to relax when I woke up at night and not worry I was losing sleep. I still have some nights I don't sleep well, but when that happens it doesn't ruin the next day.
I believe your sleep patent is often a learned behavior. Our body learns what we tell it to do. So if we tell it we need 7 hours of sleep it will try and learn to sleep only 7 hours. I've always woken up before my alarm, but now I'm walking up before my alarm with energy to exercise, tough I don't jump right out of bed, I'm a lot more energetic.
An important fact to waking up earlier than my alarm was trying not to wake up to exercise and just try to sleep. Remember the #1 goal was to sleep close to 8 hours. I could do exercises at night if I got a good night sleep, since I wouldn't be too tired. Of course exercising too late made it hard to get to bed early enough to get the 8 hours sleep. If you think you need to wake up early to exercise, you will, which defeats the purpose of sleeping in.
Now I'm get about 8 hours a night and this morning work up about 6:15 am. Plenty of time to do my strength routine. I want to move my bed time to 10 pm and see if I can wake up a little earlier so I can have a great productive morning and do not only some strength training but a little cardio as well.
Sweet Dreams
Dana
