How sleep and recovery affect your performance and well-being

Sleeping properly is incredibly important both for the recovery of the body and the brain, and yet so many of us feel that we do not get enough sleep, which also means that our energy level during the day can suffer.

This also affects other factors such as how we may perform at work, our patience with the children, our partner, whether we can exercise or not or what dietary choices we make during the day. Our cognitive ability becomes worse, how well we handle stress or how well we can learn new things.

How much sleep we need is highly individual, but if you feel that you are sluggish and tired in the afternoon or feel that you are not recovering properly between training sessions, then maybe this blog post is just for you.

When we sleep, the brain slows down, the blood pressure, body temperature and pulse drop and the body's muscles relax. Here, the opportunity is also given for the new formation of cells and the body devotes itself to building up what we have broken down during the waking state.
(Many people think that we, for example, build muscles in the gym, but the fact is that we break down in the gym - which we should! And it is during rest and recovery that we build up).

So what do you do if you can't sleep?

If it is about a single night, a weekend or short occasions, the body usually makes up for this, but if you frequently have poor sleep health and do not feel rested, it is important to do something about it so that it is not negatively affected in the long run.

For some it may be about not exercising too late in the evening if you want to be able to sleep better, for others you may need to review your intake of caffeine during the day or not eat or drink too late in the evening, but generally speaking it can be said that factors that contribute to sleeping better are:

1. Going to bed and getting up at the same time every day. Even on weekends.
   
2. Making sure the bedroom is dark and cool.
   
3. Not looking at TV or the phone for the next hour before going to sleep.
   
4. Being outside during the day so that you get enough daylight - this regulates the levels of melatonin in the body, which helps us sleep.

I also just want to add that getting up at 4:30 in the morning to go for a power walk may not be for everyone. If it works for you, you don't feel tired during the day and you feel it's valuable and a good routine for you then go for it! But, if you feel that you sleep badly or too little, it is (in my opinion) not worth accumulating steps at the expense of sleep - as I wrote earlier, it is when we sleep that we build up. Don't get up in the middle of the night to reach your step goal if you feel that you sleep poorly in general - then sleep is more important!

If the above tips do not work and you feel that you have problems with sleep, I recommend contacting a health center as help is available.

I hope you found the post interesting and would like to take the opportunity to advise that the next post is about running and how to get started with running.

Sleep well!