Have you promised to pull yourself together and start sleeping eight hours a day and working out seven days a week? Let’s see if this will help you feel better.
You Need Eight Hours of Sleep a Day
That’s not exactly true.
The body needs sleep to recover. 8 hours is the standard recommendation for most adults who maintain an active lifestyle with moderate-intensity exercise. Some people get 6 hours of sleep, while others need 9 hours. Children and the elderly tend to sleep longer.
The exact length of sleep is determined by your body’s needs and lifestyle. It can happen that you may need more sleep when you become more active – this is normal.
When You Start Exercising, You Need to Rearrange Your Daily Routine
It’s a myth.
Unless you are striving for Olympic records, sleep should be a normal part of daily life. But often when people start exercising, they run into one of two problems: they start wanting to sleep an hour after a workout or, conversely, can’t sleep half the night.
In the first case, your body lacks energy due to lack of food or sleep. In the second case, you do not have time to relax after the activity. Both problems are easy to solve.
If you can’t cope with drowsiness at all, even 20-30 minutes of sleep can help relieve it. It’s worth taking care of a good night’s sleep:
- Make it completely dark: hang blackout curtains and use a blindfold.
- Ensure silence: Earplugs can help.
- Set the room to a cool temperature.
If your workout takes place in the evening, try to have a break of 2-3 hours between fitness and going to bed. That way your body has time to relax and you will fall asleep. Evening rituals like brushing your teeth, showering, and 5 minutes of meditation before going to bed help you get in the mood for sleep.
You Have to Constantly Force Yourself to Comply With the Schedule
That’s partly true.
It can be difficult to establish your daily routine, but after a few weeks it becomes a habit. It’s impossible to plan every day precisely, but it’s important to set time limits for the beginning and end of the day.
Sometimes it’s possible to sleep longer, but there is a risk not only of disrupting the system but also of encountering headaches or insomnia in the evening. A well-defined wake-up time sets the time to go to bed.
For a smooth awakening, there are lamps with a gradual increase in light, imitating the sunrise, or recordings of birds chirping. This helps you get up in the morning awake rather than putting off alarm clocks. Rituals like meditation or an hour without a phone in the evening, which prepare the body for sleep, work similarly. To ensure this rule works, you should avoid watching YouTube or playing at Hellspin1 an hour before you go to bed. At first, it will be difficult, but replacing these activities with something smoothing will make this process easier.
If You Don’t Sleep Well After Exercising, Your Body Won’t Recover
It’s true.
Poor quality sleep interferes with the recovery process. You will feel tired and your progress in training will slow down.
When you sleep, your body makes protein compounds that help your muscles grow. Growth and satiation hormones are also synthesized. That is why sleep disturbances have a negative effect not only on sports results but also on the general state of health.
You Have to Go to the Gym as Often as You Can
This is a myth.
It’s enough for fans 2-4 strength training sessions a week to maintain an optimal physical shape. You shouldn’t do more because muscles don’t have time to rest, and exercises will be ineffective and dangerous.
One workout a week doesn’t provide enough exercise to see positive results, but it’s better than nothing for your overall condition. To work out more often, choose a gym near work or home – this will save energy and travel time.
Some Workouts Can Be Replaced by Household Chores
That’s not entirely true.
Workouts come in two types: cardio and strength. The first are aimed at increasing endurance and the second at increasing muscle mass. Cardio workouts are our basic activities: walking, running, cycling. In other words, natural exercises that don’t require a visit to the fitness room. Strength training is working with machines and weights. They are static, monotonous exercises, the repetition of which makes the muscles tense and grow.
You need to maintain a high level of activity during the week to achieve results. You can leave strength training for weekends, and on weekdays take longer walks with the dog, give up elevators, walk to the next stop, and go for a walk at lunchtime. However, such activity has nothing to do with strength training.
