It's not by choice. The house is still wrecked, which means we're well into the second month of living in a hotel. Which means the grandparents don't have room to crash overnight when Michelle's working. Which means I have no babysitters at 5 a.m. Which means no gym. Which means I'm cranky and restless.
Maybe it's a good thing that I'm forced into taking a few days off. My right shoulder has been bothering me for over a week now, and I might as well give it some extra time to recover.
Plus, I've been slammed with work, kid stuff, and the Nom Nom Paleo iPad App. (Yes, still. We're feverishly working on a new update to fix the update that was supposed to fix the previous update, but didn't. Got that?) So getting a few extra hours of sleep is a good thing.
I'm hitting the sack, but if you're looking for something to read, check out these links:
Before scuttling off to bed last night, I already knew I wouldn't me making it to this morning's CrossFit class. My back is still giving me fits, and as a result, my sleep has been terrible these past few nights. I'm beat, and in no condition to get up in the middle of the night to practice deadlifts.
Yes, I think it's important to stay active while recuperating from an injury. And yes, I've been borderline fanatical about not missing the 5 a.m. class. But lately, I've been sloooowly coming to the realization that sometimes, my body simply needs a break.
Trish posted an excellent article today about overtraining and the need to prioritize rest and recovery. Do I think I'm overtraining? It's possible. I don't exhibit many of the classic symptoms of overtraining (like elevated resting heart rate, declining performance, compromised immunity, and constant crankiness), but I've clearly been hampered lately by a series of injuries. If my body's screaming "no mas," I guess I ought to listen.
So I took today off. By the time Friday rolls around, I'll have had four consecutive days of rest. And during my time away from the gym, I'm going to heed Trish's sage advice:
If you're antsy between workouts, consider using time to improve your mobility instead. Cook a good meal. Go to bed early. Play with your kids. Play with your wife... The answer to faster times and better performance often has more to do with turning the lights out, computer off and getting some good shut-eye than adding an extra run.
She's absolutely right. Our engines run better after a pitstop.
Tired of my harangues about the importance of sleep? Too bad. Suck it up.
Tonight, let’s look at what happens once you drift off into slumberland, and dive in a little deeper into why it’s so damaging to your health (and fitness goals) when you don’t get enough shut-eye.
Typically, over the course of a night, your body and brain goes through a series of anywhere from four to seven sleep cycles. If uninterrupted, each cycle takes about 90 to 110 minutes, and consists of several distinct stages:
Stage 1: This initial stage of light sleep (which occurs only when you go from a conscious state to an unconscious one) lasts about 5 or 10 minutes, during which you drift in and out of sleep. Your muscles relax (except when your whole body twitches and you get that sudden “OH CRAP, I’M FALLING!” sensation -- it's called hypnic myclonia, by the way) and your eye movements slow down. You can be awakened pretty easily during Stage 1 sleep; when that occurs, you usually don’t recognize that you fell asleep at all.
Stage 2: In this second stage of the sleep cycle, which lasts for a half-hour or so, you’re still in light sleep, but your body temperature drops a bit. Also, your eye movements, respiration, heart rate and brain waves slow considerably – interrupted by just a few occasional bursts of rapid brain waves. Fully half of your total sleep time is spent in Stage 2 sleep, which is also called “spindle sleep” because of the spikes (or spindles) in brain activity. These spindles, incidentally, are critical to the brain’s ability to process information.
Stage 3: When you enter Stage 3 (some experts separate this into two stages – 3 and 4 – but for our purposes, let’s just lump ‘em together), you’re in deep sleep. Your brain begins producing much slower, high-amplitude “delta” waves. When you’re in deep sleep, there’s basically no eye movement or muscle activity. (This is also the time when some kids experience sleepwalking or bedwetting.) It’s very difficult to be awakened from deep sleep – but if you manage to be roused, you’ll likely feel disoriented and out-of-sorts for a while.
REM Sleep: Rapid eye movement distinguishes REM sleep from the other stages. But it’s not just your eyes that move faster -- during this period, your heart rate increases, blood pressure rises, and breathing becomes rapid, irregular and shallow. Brain waves during REM sleep increase to levels similar to those during regular waking hours, and most of your dreaming occurs during this stage.
Now: What happens if your sleep is interrupted, or you don’t get enough sleep?
If you’re awakened -- by noise, light, your own snoring, your alarm clock -- and you go back to sleep, you actually start over again at square one: Stage 1 sleep. If this happens within the first few minutes of sleeping, no harm, no foul; after all, your head just hit the pillow a few minutes ago. But if some disturbance awakens you while you’re in Stage 2 sleep or beyond, you’ve just deprived yourself of some valuable Stage 3 and REM sleep.
The same goes for inadequate sleep. Go to sleep too late or wake up too early, and you’re missing out on the full benefits of a full night’s rest -- and exposing your mind and body to a host of risks.
What risks, you ask?
First and foremost, lack of sleep can lead to obesity, diabetes and premature aging.
In laboratory studies of healthy young adults submitted to recurrent partial sleep restriction, marked alterations in glucose metabolism including decreased glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity have been demonstrated. The neuroendocrine regulation of appetite was also affected as the levels of the anorexigenic hormone leptin were decreased, whereas the levels of the orexigenic factor ghrelin were increased. Importantly, these neuroendocrine abnormalities were correlated with increased hunger and appetite, which may lead to overeating and weight gain. Consistent with these laboratory findings, a growing body of epidemiological evidence supports an association between short sleep duration and the risk for obesity and diabetes.
In other words, your metabolism is wrecked and your appetite goes haywire.
Sleep deprivation mimics many elements of the aging process. One could make the argument that how you feel when you are sleep deprived is likely how you will feel if you are both diabetic and old (sleep deprivation dramatically impacts insulin sensitivity). Improved sleep time and quality will help you: Lean out, avoid depression, autoimmunity, heart disease... It might even help you be a better athlete.
Besides making us miserable, lack of sleep appears to predispose to obesity and diabetes, and probably sets us up for the Big Sleep down the line. I can't say I'm surprised, given how awful I feel after even one night of six hour sleep. I feel best after 9 hours, and I probably average about 8.5. Does it cut into my free time? Sure. But it's worth it to me, because it allows me to enjoy my day much more.
Sleep deprivation also impairs your body’s ability to recover from your crazy metcon beatdowns. According to U.C. San Diego study, lack of sleep results in reduced levels of Interleukin-6 (IL-6) -- a cytokine that triggers an immune response to trauma -- including normal microtraumas from exercise.
Even if you like to pride yourself on being a lunkhead who cares not a whit about your brainpower or emotional well-being, think about this: REM sleep is the period when your brain transfers the muscle movements you learn from your short-term memory into your long-term memory. Your hippocampus downloads information to your neo-cortex so that you can recall -- among other things -- how to perform physical skills. In other words, don’t waste your time trying to perfect your snatch technique if you’re not going to get enough sleep.
Check out this handy infographic for more about the risks of sleep interruption and deprivation:
(Click the image above for the full picture.)
The upshot? Go to bed early. Try to wake up without using your alarm clock, or use an alarm that'll gently rouse you rather than jolting you awake. (Gadget hounds: Try the Lark or Zeo.) Worried you won't wake up in time for your early morning meeting or workout? THEN GO TO BED EARLIER. Make sure you keep your room pitch-black -- no nightlights, no glowing LCD displays on your cell phone, clock, DVD player. Cover 'em up if that's what it takes. Get blackout curtains. The light's bad for you and contributes to you getting fatter. And no, I’m not kidding.
I know I’m guilty of not always often practicing what I preach. (I'm still awake right now, after all.) I recognize that I'm skating on the edge of being chronically sleep deprived. But I want to turn that around. Part of why I wrote this post was to convince myself to get my butt into bed earlier.
I'm an idiot (but what else is new?). While the kids ate breakfast in the kitchen, I snuck into the garage to row 2K on our erg. I don't know what possessed me -- I hate rowing, and I especially hate rowing 2K. But the Thursday classes at CrossFit Palo Alto did it a few days ago, and perhaps out of a misguided sense of obligation to suffer along with everyone else, I hopped onto the rower and pretty much wrecked myself for the rest of the day.
Thankfully, we had zero on the agenda today. A couple of our friends dropped by for brunch, and we made a Costco run, but for the remainder of the day, I pretty much lazed around. I didn't even work on the half-dozen or so unfinished blog posts that are languishing on my computer.
It felt nice to turn off my brain for a day. I just wish I'd remembered to rest my body, too.
Recently I’ve had another slight bout of insomnia, and so I rediscovered a trick I learned several years ago. It’s so simple it seems like it can’t possibly work, but it unfailingly does.
The simplest cure for insomnia: get comfortable and close your eyes, and then replay your day in your head, in every detail possible, from the moment you woke up. Start from the moment your eyes opened, and replay every movement -- getting out of bed, starting the coffeemaker, going to the bathroom, washing your hands, or whatever. Don’t summarize -- leave nothing out.
It works. I’ve never made it to mid-morning in my mind movies. I inevitably fall asleep. It’s much better than counting sheep (I’ve tried) and even better than meditation (I’ve done that too). Try it, and when it works, praise me in your dreams.
[Updated 4.13.11: I tried this last night, and it worked like a charm...]
When M told me about her (second ever) WOD at CrossFit Palo Alto this morning, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Her class (along with all other Tuesday classes) did "Uphill Fran" today -- and given that I'm a Monday/Wednesday/Friday guy, I missed it.
Uphill Fran is our gym's twist on CrossFit's signature workout, turning the Fran formula of 21-15-9 thrusters and pull-ups on its head. Oh, and it also adds 3 rounds of 400 meter sprints for good measure. Here's what Uphill Fran looks like:
Run 400 meters
9 barbell thrusters
9 pull-ups
Run 400 meters
15 barbell thrusters
15 pull-ups
Run 400 meters
21 barbell thrusters
21 pull-ups
As with most CrossFit WODs, the mere thought of Uphill Fran gets me both excited and nauseous. So on the one hand, a (very small) part of me was jealous that M got to try this workout before I did -- but a much bigger part of me was relieved that I didn't have to suffer through it today. In the end, I'm happy to kick back and enjoy my off day.
The rest day is your day to get your mind fresh again. Think about that anxiety you get when you first read what the workout is. We often experience what I like to call "The Dread." Nervousness, anxiety, making up excuses on why you don't need to workout that day..."The Dread" can kick your ass. We need that rest day to get a break from "The Dread." I don't know about you, but I never experience "The Dread" while I am contemplating sitting on my couch and watching "So You Think You Can Dance" reruns on my TIVO.
I don't know about the "So You Think You Can Dance" part, but I'm certainly glad The Dread won't kick in until 5 a.m. tomorrow.
I fail to see how anyone can train 5 or 6 days a week in the gym and for hours at a time. That is factory or agricultural work, not anything human beings were evolved to do. And the paradox is that you will gain less strength and fitness if you overtrain. You will join the thousands who quit exercising out of sheer boredom. Overtraining increases your stress level, interferes with your sleep, raises your level of stress hormones, and reduces your level of growth hormones and testosterone. It leads to less muscle gain, not more, along with loss of fitness and boredom. Boredom is one way your brain stops you from harming yourself.
Last night, I got home later than usual, which threw off my entire nighttime routine. I stayed up way past my usual bedtime, and didn't get my full night's rest before popping up this morning. And I'm feeling it today. I'm dragging.
Just a few years ago, I prided myself on being able to get by with just 5 or 6 hours of sleep. After the kids were in bed and M left for another overnight shift at the hospital, I'd either catch up on work and/or unwind in front of the TV for a few hours before staggering to bed at 1 or 2 a.m.
Not anymore.
Sleep deprivation ain't worth it. You end up feeling and looking like death warmed-over. And your workouts suck because you're too tired to give it your all. As Robb Wolf puts it:
Sleep deprivation mimics many elements of the aging process. One could make the argument that how you feel when you are sleep deprived is likely how you will feel if you are both diabetic and old (sleep deprivation dramatically impacts insulin sensitivity). Improved sleep time and quality will help you: Lean out, avoid depression, autoimmunity, heart disease... It might even help you be a better athlete.
Most people recognize that diet and exercise are critical to maintaining health and wellness. But too many folks equate sleep with laziness, when in fact, getting enough good quality shut-eye is just as important. Listen to Stephan Guyenet:
Besides making us miserable, lack of sleep appears to predispose to obesity and diabetes, and probably sets us up for the Big Sleep down the line. I can't say I'm surprised, given how awful I feel after even one night of six hour sleep. I feel best after 9 hours, and I probably average about 8.5. Does it cut into my free time? Sure. But it's worth it to me, because it allows me to enjoy my day much more.
By the way, here's a photo of my favorite grub at AT&T -- a Sheboygan bratwurst loaded with sauerkraut and onions. It doesn't look like much, but it's damn tasty.
The best place to get 'em are at the Doggie Diner cart (not the big concession counter) near section 109 -- the line is long and the selections are limited, but a juicy, hot-off-the-grill bratwurst is well worth the wait.
And it goes without saying that I don't eat the bun.
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