A sleeplessness night will leave you tired and drained. A solid 7 to 8-hour sleep will leave you feeling great. Lack of sleep will leave you feeling more than just tired. The effects go deeper.

Today we will tell you how to optimize your sleep for recovery and get the most of your workouts.

We all know you should get around 8 hours of sleep. We have heard it before but it’s hard if you have kids or a job where you work late. How do you optimize your sleep for recovery?

Try to get to bed no later than 10:30pm if possible. I know for some work may get in the way. In a perfect world if you can get to sleep by then do it! There are certain hours into your sleep that your body will actually start repairing and rebuilding itself. So if you worked out that day then you are going to need the extra recovery. Think if you were to get to bed at 1 am you will miss out on some of this recovery, so it’s definitely going to affect your workout the next day. Yes, because your tired but you’re also not fully recovered from yesterday’s workout either.

Aim for 7 to 8 hours of sleep. If you did a lot of strength work or a long bike ride, try to get an extra hour. Or, if you have a hard workout the next day aim for the 8 hours so your body is ready. Just getting five hours will leave you performing minimally.

Psychological recovery also happens during sleep. Have you ever tried to get work done late at night and can’t think anymore? Then after some sleep you feel refreshed and get it done no problem? Well that is because your mind has had time to recover and repair as well.

It goes deeper than just the feeling of tiredness. It affects your mind and your body.

Lastly when you allow your body to get in a really tired state staying up late cortisol (a fat storing hormone is released) so staying up late won’t help with weight loss goals.

Today’s Action Item:

Try to get to bed 30 minutes earlier this week. Avoid screen time one hour before bed. Look at your workout schedule and get the sleep you need based on that.

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