Sleep!
Not only is the PNC a great time to focus on your diet/nutrition, it is also the perfect time to pay attention to your sleep habits in order to help facilitate quicker recovery. I recommend everyone read T.S. Wiley’s Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival. In it he outlines proper sleep conditions coinciding with seasonal exposure to daylight. He explains that it has only been the last 80 years that our culture has had the luxury of electricity, light bulbs, tv’s, and other gadgetry. These things keep us up after the sun goes down, distracting us from the rest our bodies require. You see, while we are in deep slumber the internal systems of our bodies are hard at work producing hormones that are critical to repairing the exhaustion that has occurred throughout the day. Our hormones are the most powerful substances we possess, so we need to make sure we are taking full advantage of them.
Here’s a simple of run down of Wiley’s recommendations:
Get more sleep.
- Go to bed earlier, incrementally.
- Turn off the TV after 9PM.
- Better yet, take it out of the bedroom.
- Sleep as many hours as you can without getting fired or divorced.
- Always get up as close to dawn as possible.
Get quality sleep.
- Keep the lights in the house at low levels of intensity after dark.
- Be sure you sleep in utter darkness in a very cool room. Think cave.
- Put tape over lit-up digital gadgets (ie. alarm clocks, Voltron night lights, etc.)
Sounds simple enough, right? You’ve all ready committed to eliminating sugars and other processed carbohydrates from you daily eating. And, you’re eating more lean protein and healthy fats, correct? This is sure to help you feel better throughout the day, and both during and after WODs. Why stop there?! Now commit to going to bed 15 minutes earlier each night and see how you feel. Feel better, look better, perform better… now’s the time to make the changes to make these things happen.
Bottom line, improving your diet/nutrition will have huge impacts on your CFRVA performance, but on top of that, adding high quality sleep patterns for extended periods of time will make you a CFRVA rock star.
6 Responses to Sleep!
Andrew, I loved this post! For years we used regular black landscape plastic tucked behind our wood blinds for blackout. Living in the city, night does not mean dark. There are more elegant solutions, but blackout shades are usually super expensive. Black felt would be cheap and way more “green”.. plastic is not ideal. But, if you need to better sleep tonight, then grab something.. a dark towel or a regular black trashbag (bags will naturally stick to the window) and tuck it behind your normal blinds. If you can still see your hand in front of you then it’s not dark enough! (thanks for the post — it was a great reminder to make the room dark again.. it hasn’t been truly dark since Lois arrived)
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Can’t sleep more than 5 hours a night since I was a kid. I haven’t used an alarm in a long time. I can catnap though. Only wish a normal day gave more opportunities for them.
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