Thursday, May 17, 2012

Choosing Sleep

This week I have been choosing sleep over working out.  All this really means is I need to get to bed earlier.  Which means in bed by 10, asleep by 10:30.  It doesn't help that Jason is a night owl and I kind of feel lame going to bed so early.  But I have to if I'm going to work out regularly.

I didn't go to strength training yesterday and I didn't swim this morning.  However, today is the first day in a long time that I haven't felt like I could lay my head down on my desk and fall right to sleep.  So maybe I've finally caught up with my sleep deprivation.  Tomorrow I can go to strength training and get back on a good schedule for me and my exercising.

I know I need to get enough sleep.  Just yesterday, I was listening to another report about how lack of sleep raises cortisol levels.  Cortisol is the stress hormone that in primitive times was a signal to our bodies about external stressors.  For example, famine.  Or saber-toothed tigers.

Too much cortisol prevents weight loss and will even cause you to gain weight, as your body tries to prepare for whatever stressful situation it might face, since obviously something's wrong, or you wouldn't be producing so much cortisol. 

What this tells me is I can eat well and wake up early to get to the gym, but if I'm not going to sleep early enough, I'm fighting a losing battle.  Sigh.  It's so hard to get everyone right.

1 comment:

Joe and Joanne said...

Very interesting about the Cortisol. We have the exact same sleeping issues in our house too. Joe is a total night-owl and I am an early bird like no other (have been since the wee years so I know it's genetically ingrained). I too felt weird going to bed early, but once I had a good talk with Joe about it and knew he understood and supported my reasoning behind hitting the sheets early, it helped me to *rest easy* so-to-speak when I went to bed a couple hours before him.

Good luck! I think you're doing great!