Tips for Preventing Post-Workout Insomnia

Some people have a difficult time sleeping if they workout in the evening. If you are one of these individuals, you might be reacting to the increased adrenalin and cortisol that can result from strenuous activity.

Sleep and exercise are equally important for your health, so the trick is to develop a routine that optimizes both.

Research suggests that many people will sleep better if they exercise, even if that exercise is done in the evening, as late as an hour or two before bed. If your lifestyle is such that you can only exercise at night, then there are ways to improve your chances of sleeping well.

Overdosing on Exercise Can Backfire:

One of the major causes of insomnia is exercising in excess, which can actually cause your tissues to break down, become inflamed and fail to heal or repair. This can also raise your risk for injury.

This is why it’s so important to make sure you allow your body to fully recover between sessions. Excessive endurance exercise activates your stress response, elevating your stress hormones, cortisol, adrenaline and norepinephrine. If these hormones stay elevated all of the time, it’s not good for your heart, fitness, or overall health.

Stress hormones increase your heart rate, alertness and the blood flow to your muscles. This increases your chances for survival in a crises situation. You may perform better physically, but it may also make it difficult r you to sleep. Normally, your cortisol level peaks about 30 minutes after you wake up and then declines throughout the day, being lowest at bedtime, which helps you fall asleep. But doing vigorous exercise at night, can throw your system off by kicking your cortisol level back up again.

Over time, extreme exercise may give you chronically elevated stress hormone levels, which can weaken your immune system and raise your risk for chronic disease. The most serious risk of extreme endurance training involves damage to your heart, including sudden cardiac death. This is especially true if you have a history of heart disease.

Tips for Preventing Post-Workout Insomnia:

If evening is the most convenient time of day for you to exercise and it doesn’t interfere with your sleep, then by all means continue.

If you have a hard time sleeping after an evening workout, then you might want to change your evening workout routine to a less intense one.

Coffee before a workout can enhance your fitness gains, but if you exercise in the evening, the caffeine may also keep you awake.

Staying well hydrated during your workout can help reduce your cortisol response.

Try taking a hot bath, shower, or sauna just before bed. The sudden temperature drop from getting out of the bath helps your body shut itself down, facilitating sleep.

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