Nappy time in EE 490, taken by Jared. Fucker.
So I’ve been staying up late in senior design lab recently, and I haven’t been getting as much sleep as I need. When I walked in the gym the next day, guess what - I didn’t feel like doing shit! And I’m usually a pretty energetic guy. This goes to show that the amount of sleep you get directly affects the quality of your workouts. And vice versa - the intensity of your workouts directly affect the quality of sleep you get! It’s a viscious cycle.
If you get both the exercise and sleep you need, then hats off to you! If you get neither, then you’re certainly not reaching your mental and physical potential. Take heed, this cycle can also work negatively - little sleep leads to less exercise, which leads to less energy, which leads to energy drinks, and energy pills, which leads to even more insomnia. Ahh to be a college student. This is just one part of the bigger picture I painted with the triangle on my first blog. It’s all beautifully connected. But how beautifully connected you make your triangle, is up to you.
When you exercise with little sleep, you force your mind to go through the motions - when it really doesn’t want to. With little sleep, your mind is mentally unprepared for the physical stress of a workout. When you do sleep, your brain cleans up and repairs itself, rearranges and builds memories, and prepares itself for the next day. “Sleeping on it” seems to provide the clarity we need to piece together life’s puzzles.
When you sleep without exercise, you will find that the quality of sleep just isn’t as satisfying because you get less rapid eye movement (REM). Exercise helps our bodies transition between the phases of sleep more regularly and more smoothly. When you exercise and put physical stress on the body, the brain increases the amount of time you spend in deep sleep, the phase of sleep during which your body repairs itself.
Listen to your body when it gets groggy and tells you it needs rest, or when it gets antsy and tells you it needs to move. A lot of people don’t, and that’s how we get sick. So listen up! I sure do =)
