Feeling Tired? 5 Habits to Feel More Energized!

January 29, 2016

Today’s guest post is from Steven Moniz — Founder, Strength and Con­di­tion­ing Coach at Mon­vi­da Sports Inc. 

Nev­er under­es­ti­mate sleep!

As ath­letes and moun­tain bik­ers, we are con­stant­ly look­ing for ways to improve and increase our per­for­mance, both on and off the trail. Lifts can increase pow­er, big climbs can increase car­dio­vas­cu­lar health and yoga can increase flex­i­bil­i­ty — but none of it is effec­tive if you don’t have the ener­gy and out­put to effec­tive­ly focus on your workout. 

Now what if I asked you, have you been get­ting sick often? Have you been get­ting injured more often? What about not feel­ing rest­ed when you wake up? Are you start­ing to lose the moti­va­tion you once had for competing?

Of course, if you answered any of these ques­tions with a ‘yes,’ there can be many fac­tors that are con­tribut­ing to these feel­ings. Stress in life is start­ing to eat at you; your nutri­tion hasn’t been on par, or hav­ing a nag­ging injury that won’t go away — the list can go on. One of the biggest things that peo­ple over­look when com­pet­ing at a high­er lev­el is not get­ting enough rest. We live in a soci­ety that doesn’t stop. We are con­stant­ly on the go and feel pres­sure to keep up. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, we usu­al­ly sac­ri­fice the most impor­tant thing first – sleep. We wake up ear­li­er and go to bed lat­er to fit more into the day –but what hap­pens to your body when you aren’t get­ting the prop­er amount of Zzz’s?

Sleep­ing is your body’s time to recov­er from the stress of train­ing and dai­ly life. This is the time when your body is repair­ing itself and grow­ing stronger.

WHEN YOU SLEEP…

- Human growth hor­mone is released in spurts and ener­gy stored in your mus­cles called glyco­gen is replenished

-  Dam­aged cells are repaired

- And your cor­ti­sol lev­els (stress hor­mone) is being catabolized

WHEN YOU DON’T GET ENOUGH SLEEP…

- Your body does­n’t have the prop­er time to increase those glyco­gen stores, which leads to decreased ener­gy and performance

- Your cells don’t have enough time to build, leav­ing the win­dow open to pote­nial injuries and illnesses

- Your mood and emo­tion­al rep­sons­es can be off — caus­ing you to be irritated

- On top of all that, if you’re rid­ing and work­ing out dai­ly, “over­train­ing” is a real threat — with­out enough sleep you will burn out

You’ll notice when you or some­one else is get­ting the prop­er amounts of sleep. Their inten­si­ty in the work­outs is there, they are moti­vat­ed, and are con­stant­ly pro­gress­ing and get­ting stronger as they train. There is no com­pro­mise when it comes to get­ting a good rest­ful sleep!

Now you might ask, what is the right amount of sleep to get, and how do I shut off this very active mind of mine?

The right amount of sleep can range depend­ing on age, habits and your activ­i­ty but any­where between 7–9 hours a night should set you up for suc­cess dur­ing the day.

5 SLEEP HABITS THAT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL MORE ENERGIZED…

1. MAINTAIN A REGULAR SLEEP SCHEDULE — GO TO BED AT THE SAME TIME, AND WAKE UP AT THE SAME TIME EVERYDAY (YES, THAT MEANS THE WEEKEND TOO!)

It’s chal­leng­ing, but try to wake up at the same time every­day — and go to bed at the same time. Main­tain­ing a reg­u­lar sleep pat­tern will set your inter­nal clock and improve the qual­i­ty of your sleep. It can be tempt­ing to sleep in on the week­ends, but in the long run it will make you feel more tired.

2.  AVOID SUBSTANCES LIKE ALCOHOL, CAFFEINE, AND NICOTINE HOURS BEFORE BED

Alco­hol can def­i­nite­ly put us to sleep faster, but the con­se­quence is you miss out on impor­tant stages of sleep, includ­ing the Rapid Eye Move­ment (REM) stage, that allows us to wake up feel­ing refreshed. Cof­fee is a strong stim­u­lant and boosts your body into being alert, ulti­mate­ly coun­ter­pro­duc­tive when you’re try­ing to fall alseep. As for nico­tine — it’s also a stim­u­lant and can keep you awake at night, it’s also not help­ful for those car­dio­vas­cu­lar workouts.

3. AVOID ‘SCREEN TIME’ PRIOR TO BED

IT’S EASY TO LOSE TRACK OF TIME WHEN YOU’RE BROWSING THE WEB, OR THINKING ABOUT WATCHING ONE MORE EPISODE ON NETFLX. MAKE A POLICY OF NO ‘SCREEN TIME’ AT LEAST ONE HOUR PRIOR TO LIGHTS OUT. YOU WILL FEEL MORE RESTED IN THE MORNING, AS IT GIVES YOUR BODY MORE TIME TO UNWIND BEFORE YOU FALL ASLEEP. 

4.  TRY NOT TO NAP LATER IN THE AFTERNOON

Who does­n’t enjoy a quick cat nap? Unfor­tu­nate­ly naps can dis­rupt your nor­mal sleep pat­terns. It’s impor­tant to lis­ten to you body — if you have been extreme­ly active, com­plet­ed a big race or been hard on your body — then def­i­nite­ly think about nap­ping, but be con­scious of how it could effect your over­all sleep.

5. PUT YOUR MIND TO SLEEP GRADUALLY – READ A BOOK WHILE YOU REST IN BED

Read­ing a book before bed helps qui­et the mind from the stress of the day. Keep a book beside your bed and get in the habit of read­ing a few pages before you turn the lights off.

Main­tain­ing a sol­id sleep reg­i­men will not only help you recov­er and increase your over­all per­for­mance, but you will also make you feel more energized.

Write down a pre-bed rou­tine that’s right for you, and see if you feel more ener­gized through­out the day!
 

Look­ing for help­ful health and train­ing tips? Check out oth­er Train­ing, Nutri­tion and Health articles.

About the Author: Steven Moniz is the Founder and Strength & Con­di­tion­ing Coach at Mon­vi­da Sports Inc. After train­ing and coach­ing indi­vid­u­als for sev­en years, Steven has learned that peo­ple need goals—something to dri­ve them —to get them to push hard­er, faster, and remain com­mit­ted. Mon­vi­da push­es ath­letes to exceed their goals through pri­vate train­ing ses­sions, class­es, online pro­grams and sports ther­a­py for all ath­letes. Steven has fused the things he loves in life: train­ing, help­ing peo­ple, and adven­ture sports.