If you are well and truly living your life quintessentially the 21st century way, then chances are you’ve got plenty of things to fill it up to the brim, and no shortage of thoughts swimming around a cluttered mind.

For many of us, a lot of those thoughts tend to swim most energetically at night, when the lights are off and no other surrounding stimuli compete for our conscious awareness. Yes, in the stillness of night, those figurative pesky, little demons come out to play in that most important of spaces right between the ears.

Without some pretty good mastery of meditation or mindfulness techniques, you might find yourself at a bit of a loss as to how to deal with these niggling mental intrusions. Unfortunately, the alarm will still ring right on schedule in the morning and you are all too aware that lying awake all night won’t do much for your productivity throughout the ensuing day. This can all get quite depressing and overwhelming.

The anguish of insomnia is sadly one of those conversations I’ve had a little more often than I’d like to, with all manner of people seeking guidance on health and lifestyle. Sleeping difficulties are common, and chances are that, whoever you are, you’ve experienced them at some time or other.

Of course, there are many things you can do to improve the quality of your sleep beyond the scope of the topics discussed here. There are tried and tested strategies for coping with insomnia definitely worth a try, but whichever you choose, the good news is that there is always an extra mile you can go, or an extra sheep to count for some surefire shut-eye: physical activity and exercise in any of its shapes or forms.

The ways in which increased physical activity can help you sleep are both direct and indirect in their influence. An indirect effect attacks what is often the cause of sleep troubles in the first place. If you feel anxious and overcome by worries, then chances are you are generally stressed, and a well-known benefit of exercise is its ability to effectively combat general stress. Working out will lower stress hormone levels and increase endorphin levels, leaving you feeling secure and empowered.

Exercising in the evening tends to enhance sleep due to increased feelings of tiredness, while exercising in the morning is often reported to leave early birds energised for the better part of the ensuing day

A more direct contribution to alleviating your wakeful woes, however, is that exercise helps you establish and maintain a set routine. Having a structured routine consisting of set times for going to bed in the evening and waking up in the morning is a fundamental strategy for improving sleep quality. By including exercise sessions either later in the evening or early in the morning can help you establish this routine. Exercising in the evening tends to enhance sleep due to increased feelings of tiredness, while exercising in the morning is often reported to leave early birds energised for the better part of the ensuing day.

While these two points are certainly cause in themselves to consider exercise as a worthy plan for improving sleep, there is more. Sleep is when the body tends to carry out a lot of its rest and recovery duties following a day of physical work.

If you indulge in little to no physical activity throughout the day, then the body has less of a reason to need as much rest and recovery, so even the mildest of exercise routines will make a positive difference.

Muscle cells and energy reserves must be repaired and replenished at night, so more activity means the body simply must shut down and sleep to carry out these important physiological processes. This phenomenon is plainly experienced simply by means of a feeling of increased tiredness. In short, if you work out, you’ll feel more sleepy come bedtime as your body plainly shows you what it needs to maintain good health.

I’ve yet to see the formal research on this final point, but at least according to my own personal observations, I consider all this to be true of one particular type of training above all others, and I’ve met many enthusiasts and professionals alike who tend to agree. When it comes to resistance training specifically, the more intense your training is, the more sleep you will find yourself needing.

During past periods of particularly intense bouts of resistance training, needing up to 10 hours of sleep has been relatively normal. Balanced programmes not entirely devoted to lifting weights would result in needing about the standard eight. During rare periods of little to no resistance training in my programme, as little as six hours of sleep was quite enough rest for healthy everyday functionality. Of course increased intensity will leave you needing more sleep, whatever the type of training, but with the muscular reconstructive requirements associated with weight training in particular, this phenomenon appears to be one certainly deserving of further investigation.

So if you’re having trouble sleeping, start sweating. If you really want to bring out the big guns in your assault on insomnia, then start hitting the weights. Big compound movements with dumbells and barbells will work best, with weights that are challenging, or pretty much the heaviest you can handle for the prescribed number of repetitions per set outlined in your programme. Yes, you can get toned and tight, and sleep tight too.

matthewmuscatinglott@gmail.com

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