Do you use the excuse of being too tired to exercise? What if it was the other way around, what if you exercised to not be so tired?
Exercise has proven to help with so many factors for our health let’s talk about how important sleep in conjunction with exercise is. Sleep is our body’s time to recover from our daily activity so if you are not getting enough sleep you may wake tired and try to reboot with caffeine, which in conjunction could cause you to loose more sleep. So try breaking the cycle by adding exercise to your day. You will find that you will sleep better and feel more refreshed in the morning.
Besides the obvious reason of fatiguing the body, exercise also helps us sleep better by controlling our body’s temperature. Studies have shown that the lower our body’s temperature gets at night the deeper sleep we can fall into, allowing us to wake more rested. Exercise helps this by increasing our temperature during the day to allow our temperature to become even lower while sleeping.
Sleep and exercise are important for people at any age.
Sleep is the time to allow for the body to recover. Recovery is one of the most important things for the body to heal. Also, lack of sleep decreases the body’s production of hormone production for growth and repair. If you have a teenager that is prone to getting injuries from over-training, try getting them to go to bed earlier. This allows the body more healing time.
There is some truth to not participating in vigorous exercise before bed. This can cause a disruption in sleep due to the increase in heart rate and body temperature. Our body needs time to recover from exercise so a late night would not be the best time for an extreme workout. Try to allow about 3-6 hours before sleep for your body’s temperature to decrease. However, if the evening is the only time you have to workout than there are other choices like an evening yoga class that targets rest and relaxation over strength.
Adequate sleep will also aid in weight loss, because it allows the body to rejuvenate and give you more energy through out the day. Having more energy in general will allow you to burn more calories. When you are over weight, many times you can have a breathing issue when you sleep, which causes the body to malfunction at night and not allow a proper night’s sleep.
So, take some time to get on a sleep schedule in addition to exercising and your body will thank you in so many ways!!
