Better sleep keeps you motivated. If you get the right amount of zzz’s the night before, you’re in a better mood to workout, you feel more alert, and you’ll be prepared to take on and smash your goals. You also feel more rested and relaxed, which is important for endurance. If your mind is exhausted it means you are less likely to take your workout that extra mile and push yourself. You’ll also experience duller reflexes which can be unsafe in a gym environment, leading to silly mistakes that may result in injuries that could prevent you from working out to your full potential.
A lack of sleep also means that your muscles aren’t recovering properly from your previous workout. When you sleep, your body is creating growth hormones that repair and grow the muscles so they are stronger and bigger for your next session. This lack of recovery time also means that you’re more likely to experience joint pain and stiffness during your next workout. If you continue like this for a while you’ll find that your workouts really have no point. Your muscles, without a recovery period, will continue to deteriorate.
If you’re not sleeping that means there is more time during the night that you are awake and hungry. Late at night is one of the most common times that binge eating occurs. A lack of sleep has been linked to increased appetite, and this means that your health and fitness goals will slip. In a tired state, you have less self-control mentally, so it means you’ll most likely give in to those cravings you’re usually good at avoiding.
Poor sleep is directly linked to your mood. A lack of sleep and poor attitude might leave you dreading your next workout, which is no way to stay excited and motivated to work out. You want to be getting the most positive experience possible from exercising because it has so many health benefits. If you find that you’re feeling tired often, consider whether this is because of a lack of sleep or some other underlying issue. If it is just a lack of sleep, you may have to consider giving up a couple of episodes of your favourite Netflix show to get better rest. You’ll thank yourself the next day, trust me.
Check out our post on how to improve your sleep quality here!