I knew this day would come.
Honestly I didn’t think it would happen so soon but I knew that sooner rather than later I would be in this situation.
I’m thousands of miles from home with a blown out back. I am just a wee 18 hour plane ride away from the only person on the planet that I know can actually fix what I’ve done to myself.
This injury has come from a combination of many things: over caffeinating, under sleeping, less than stellar nutrition, ignoring physical cues etc.
And the reason that I’ve decided to write this is because I have been long overdue for an article on recovery and sleep. It has been one of the top requests that I’ve gotten from all of you to cover. So I thought it was a good time to write this as I sit here two days free of caffeine, with a spasmed back, getting back to eating more green veggies (it’s been a week of intentional plan carbapalooza).
Injury prevention overall comes from a need for nutrition. By nutrition I don’t necessarily just mean food. When I think of nutrition I think of food, fitness (in healthy amounts), supplementation, and sleep.
For the average athlete these things are often incredibly out of whack. You have a full-time job, family, a caffeine addiction, old shitty eating patterns from before you were an athlete, as well as total confusion about the gym.
This is super normal by the way.
Let’s start out by talking about society and the cultural norms of sleep for athletes.
Phrases like “I’ll sleep when I die” or “rise and grind” are great when they’re applied to a professional athlete who‘s only job is to wake up, work out, and then go take a nap before working out again.
For most of us this is not the case. For most of us this rise and grind mentality has turned into sleep deprivation, over caffeination, adrenal gland fatigue, and a myriad of other things that are causing you to be sick, tired, and injured.
Much like the bacon trend, it has become incredibly trendy to be addicted to coffee.
I can’t tell you the number of IG accounts I’ve unfollowed because I’m so sick and tired of seeing everyone proudly declare their addiction to caffeine.
Over caffeination has put us into an incredible vicious cycle of wake up too tired, drink caffeine, have energy for a little while, then drink more caffeine to keep it going, then don’t get good sleep because of caffeine, wake up again feeling like shit repeat the cycle over and over.
How many of us, like me in the last few days, have attempted to kick caffeine and realized how miserable it can be. It can feel like this will be your life forever.
Headaches, exhaustion, withdrawals.
It’s not fun. In fact because I’ve been caffeine free for so long I forgot how terrible the withdraws off of caffeine can be. And I’ve only been back at the multiple coffees a day since I’ve been in Europe.
So what regulates sleep and awake time?
We have two systems in our body that can be affected due to caffeine. We have what’s called a wake drive which is a body mechanism that is used to stay awake. The later it gets in the day the lower your wake drive becomes (it also typically dips mid day #thatthreeoclockfeeling).
Similarly we have what’s called sleep homeostasis. This is an increase in sleepiness that over the course of the day will tend to get stronger. When we have an increase in sleep homeostasis and a decrease in wake drive this is how we naturally fall asleep.
Now the issue with caffeine is that it actually inhibits the receptors that receive some of these signals that allow us to go to sleep. Because caffeine is blocking those receptors, there you are wide awake or, even worse, tossing and turning, or maybe sleeping but ever so lightly that you’re not actually getting the deep sleep you need for recovery for both body and brain.
How long is caffeine fucking with your system?
Caffeine has a six hour half-life. What that means is that over 6 hours your body processes about half the caffeine in the cup of coffee that you drink in the morning, the other half is still in your system. AND if you have an unhealthy liver from eating shit food or drinking too much, it stays in your system even longer. If you then pile another cup of coffee onto the one that you drank in the morning you’re now increasing the amount of caffeine in your system that your body has to go through in another six hours to reduce it only by half.
What this means is that if you actually want to have functional normal sleep, you need to limit the amount you drink AND stop caffeine by 1 PM which can be a little tricky when you’ve got practice at 9 PM or you are feeling that 3pm drag.
If you are an athlete with night time practices, most likely you will take that quick hit of caffeine around five or six to get into the groove for practice. By the time you get home you may be tired but the type of sleep that you will get is dysfunctional due to the caffeine in your system. Throw in an hour of TV or phone time and damn your screwed. As a result the recovery you need from the practice you just had is almost nonexistent. Just because you fell asleep doesn’t mean you’re having good productive sleep (specially if you sleep with the TV on).
Lack of sleep or dysfunctional sleep affects athletes in a number of ways.
First of all in a sleep deprived or dysfunctional sleep state reaction, attention, and focus all decrease. That means when you need to get yourself out of harms way, even a single night without sleep can affect your reaction time similar to having a blood alcohol level of 0.5.
Your immune system will take a hit as well. This means you’re going to get sick easier.
If that’s not enough, lack of sleep also increases cortisol levels which cause your body to store fat, as well as raise the inflammation inside your body which causes a detriment to recovery. Chronic inflammation and elevated cortisol levels are linked to everything from digestive issues to cancer.
Lack of sleep will also increase your irritability which has you less able to have a positive mindset during the game.
Studies of baseball players showed performance actually worsened over the season due to lots of travel and fatigue instead of having them get better from an increase in training.
Trying to eat healthy and stay lean as well?
A decrease in your bodies glycogen recovery and insulin response means that you’re just going to crave more carbs all the time.
Plus fun fact if you’re tired your body has to actually spend extra resources to keep you physically awake (remembrance that wake drive?).
In my own personal fitness career, I cannot name a single time where I have been well rested, well fed, and then gotten a stupid injury.
The issue is that when we are overtired or lacking sleep, research shows that we have reduced recovery times as well as reduced reaction times.
What this means is that in a single practice where you have been lacking sleep you may have reduced reaction times which can hinder your ability to save your own ass. AND in the long term, a lack of sleep means reduced recovery which means you’re more likely to pull a muscle or tear something then you would be had you given your body proper rest and recovery.
On top of all the sleep deprivation and disordered sleep due poor sleep habits and caffeine intake, we can also add in over training.
Let’s be real.
The majority of you reading this article are not professional athletes. You may love the shit out of your sport but you are not eating sleeping and breathing it. You likely have a day time job, possibly even a family, or other activities that you have to attend to throughout the day.
Your job is not to play your sport, eat healthy food, and sleep the rest of the time to recover so that you can do two a day workouts every day.
For most of us, our passion and desire to get better tends to take over our better judgment of what our body is screaming for.
For most of us our bodies are screaming for rest.
The reality is, to get reasonably better at your sport, you can train outside of practice three days a week and see some pretty incredible gains.
Contrary to popular belief, you do not need to be working out six days a week on top of 2 to 3 practices a day in order to get better.
In fact, if you pile six workouts a week on top of your job, your family, your practices, your regular life stress etc. then toss in a healthy dose of caff to stay awake which is also sabotaging your sleep, what you’ve created is a recipe for injury and disaster.
So what are the actual benefits of getting non-REM light sleep and deep sleep for athletes?
During non-REM sleep the body experience is higher activity levels of cell division and regeneration. During that light sleep you’re actually getting the muscle recovery you need. If you’re not getting enough of this type of sleep you’re actually going to lengthen your recovery times.
Another fun fact, during this type of light sleep brain waves actually show the brain synthesizing new information such as new training tips, specialized plays, new movements, and coaching advice. If you’re not getting quality sleep, all of the things you’re learning aren’t even setting in.
During deep sleep your body is doing things like regulating levels of cortisol, also known as the stress hormone. If your cortisol levels are too high it actually affects the body’s ability to digest glucose and can lead to things like coronary heart disease or diabetes on the very extreme end of the spectrum.
They’ve actually found that the inability to process glucose for sleep deprived athletes was similar to affects experience by elderly people. Because endurance is tied to the bodies ability to metabolize and synthesize glucose for later use as fuel during races in events the last beyond 90 minutes you’re going to need to get enough sleep for your body to properly use the energy already stored in your muscles. You don’t want to be performing like an old person.
Athletes that aren’t getting enough REM sleep will notice things such as an inability to recall detailed information. Need to remember that play or to execute a more complex movement. You’ll need REM sleep. In most sports those fractions of a second can be the difference between winning or losing as well as the difference between being injured or getting out of harms way.
Hopefully by now I’ve made my case for why quality sleep needs to be a priority on your list if you want to be a better athlete.
So now that we have all that outta the way, what does one need to do to get quality sleep?
- Cut caffeine at 1pm
- No blue light 1 hour or more before bed (TV and phones)
- Limit light in your bedroom (stop sleeping with the TV on, and get rid of outside light)
- Make sure you room isn’t too hot or too cold
- Try not to eat a huge meal before bed (it puts your body to work on digesting which elevates heart rate)
- Meditate to calm your mind and release the worries of the day
What’s the resolution to all of this?
Well my friend I have an answer for you. It’s the same answer that I’ll give you if you ask me what is the best way to lose weight.
The answer:
Moderation
What all of this comes down to is injury prevention, increased energy, better sleep…
All of it requires the same fundamentals that you need to execute to live a healthy happy life.
- Eat nutritionally dense foods (most of the time)
- Get enough sleep (7-8 hours for most of us, 10 hours for elite athletes)
- Drink enough water (.5 Oz per pound of body weight)
- Limit your caffeine intake (2mg per KG of body weight -about 2 cups of coffee and drink it before 1pm)
- Supplement as needed (I am a huge fan of a 3x/day multivitamin, aloe, and shiitake mushroom on a daily basis. We can talk supplements another day)
- Eat enough protein (.75-1g per lb of body weight)Eat your veggies
- Be responsible with your training (3x/week is perfect for those who practice 2-3 days per week and have a full time job, family, etc)
At the end of the day, there is a difference between survival and optimization.
For most of us to live a healthy life you need to follow these fundamental guidelines. For those of us that want to be high-performance athletes you need to start taking the stuff a little bit more seriously.
If you’re someone who suffers from chronic injuries it’s time to take a look at what you eat, how your training, and what your sleep patterns look like.
Because if you want to be in the game for the long-haul you have to take care of yourself now.
A Krash Course in World Travel 