Once upon a time I would toss and turn in bed. I would lay down and think of all the things I had to do the following day... or the things I didn't get done that day. My mind would race and anxiety would create a knot in my stomach. Then through the night I would wake to use the restroom and it was a crap-shoot whether I could go back to sleep again.
Completely normal right? I even found articles on how that is the correct sleep pattern for humans, going back thousands of years ("Myth of the Eight-Hour sleep"). But I still felt tired, like I was missing out on something... maybe I was reminiscing on the sleep I used to have in high school, and mourning my loss. Yet even after I justified my light, frustrating sleep... I still felt tired and cranky.
Two full weeks ago I started weight training. For two full weeks I have had the deepest, most thorough sleep of my life! This might be a passing phase, as my body adjusts to the new demands I am making... or it may just be, as I finally utilize my body and muscles, I am starting to get the sleep I am supposed to have.
I advocate utilizing the qualities humans have adopted through natural selection. Trying to fully embrace the way our body was designed to work. We are at our most basic level, animals. Our lives have deviated greatly in the last 200,000 years ("Timeline of Human Evolution" ) and as a result we as a species have under-utilized our natural abilities. The work of hundreds of thousands of years of selective breeding and adaptation to create a body that works in tandem with an advanced mind. We are at our best when we are pushing ourselves to pick up heavy things and emulate our ancestors.
Clean eating, walking and utilizing our muscular structure and potential; these staples of our ancestors lives can also be stapes of modern mans life as well. And by adopting these practices we can be at our best mentally. I have cut out soda and most processed foods over the last 6 weeks. After the initial shock wore off, it was surprisingly easy to do. Then when I paired it with weight training the real changes began. I started thinking again. Don't get me wrong, I have always been a thinker (insert "the thinker" pose) but I was often plagued by periods of short attention span, mood changes and insomnia. Since changing my lifestyle, these problems have all but disappeared leaving me amazingly well rested, alert and stable.
My husband is feeling the same benefits. He told me the other day how he used to have periods of excess energy, and periods of fatigue throughout the day... but since weight training his body is in a constant state of alertness and energy. It is amazing what TRUE energy feels like. Not the manic caffeinated insanity coursing through your body after a shot of caffeine... the the complete mind sharpening clarity of a great nights rest, a body physically capable to do anything at any time and the constant "I can keep going" attitude. It is amazing.
Now at the end of the day I go to bed and can't even remember laying down. I am out immediately, mind off and sleep on... and it is amazing! I awake from a inky, velvet sleep and AM IMMEDIATELY awake! I am ready to start the day and that is ridiculously convenient since I have two young children who don't care if I am tired, have a hangover or need a cup o' joe to wake up. I am never going back to the way it was. And I can't wait to see what other changes I am going to start seeing within my life.
"Weight Training for Better Sleep"
"Can Weight Lifting Workouts Actually Help you Sleep Better?"- Talks about a Stanford Medical School study with insomniac patients, I couldn't find the actual study, but I will keep looking...
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