Problems falling asleep after long training session, is it the food ?

[g0re]

Hey guys,

After a normal training session, I usually have a protein shake and then a bit of food with it. My training session usually ends at roughly 8:30ish PM and that is when I usually have my shake and small meal. I then try to go to bed around 12:00 or 1:00 am but never fall asleep until like 3 or even 4 am Could it be the shake ? My food consists of chicken/tuna, rice, vegetables and fruit.

 

[pliftkl]

I doubt it is the food keeping you up for 6 hours after you eat it.

What time do you normally wake up? Do you wake up at consistently the same time?

 

[rubberducky27]

Doubt it's the food. Wrapping up training at 8:30 and hitting bed 3.5 hours later shouldn't be a problem, but I guess it can be.

I usually wrap up training at the same time, sometimes later, but in order to get my sleep I hit bed 10pm, 11pm at the latest. It used to be a battle, but my lifestyle doesn't leave the room to not sleep without messing me up.

You've got all sorts of options here. There are your sleep supplements, I tried a lot of the all natural ones and settled with zinc / magnesium as it seemed to work. That being said it's also the time I took up Yoga before bed. The stretching and breathing worked wonders for relaxing me.

A simple excercise I've used with people before is to simply breathe in at 5 seconds and breathe out at 8 seconds. Once you find flow keep it up for 2 minutes or longer. Some do this in bed, others found like the yoga thing that not getting into bed until relaxed worked best. Originally we used this to relax the boys before a fight, I think it's even an i-phone app nowadays.

 

[g0re]

I doubt it is the food keeping you up for 6 hours after you eat it.

What time do you normally wake up? Do you wake up at consistently the same time?

Well... I usually wake up at around 9:00 AM consistently. I head to school and train right after it. It could be stress too :/

 

[ChinBo37]

Its the late, hard training. How long have you been on this schedule? SOmetimes when I return to the gym and have a hard workout, I cannot fall asleep.

I would keep at it and chew some valorian root.

 

[Sinister]

It's not the food, it just sounds like you're not coming down from the adrenaline/dopamine production of moderate to intense training. Melatonin might help, as well as a good ZMA that has a touch of valerian and hops with it. The combination of those things should ease both the mind and body enough for relaxation. Also, make sure your sleep hygiene is good, no light, cool temperatures, some white noise perhaps.

 

[Rws177die]

I am up for a long time after trainning late at night, it seems pretty normal. However practice ends at 8:15 and I am sleeping around 12-12:30

 

[curb1850]

Are you watching TV in bed? I was having the same issues and ditched the TV at night, half hour max and then off to sleep without it. After a few days I wasn't having issues anymore.

 

[numberthirtytwo]

J Sleep Res. 2010 Jul 28. [Epub ahead of print]
Effects of vigorous late-night exercise on sleep quality and cardiac autonomic activity.

Myllym

 

[g0re]

It's not the food, it just sounds like you're not coming down from the adrenaline/dopamine production of moderate to intense training. Melatonin might help, as well as a good ZMA that has a touch of valerian and hops with it. The combination of those things should ease both the mind and body enough for relaxation. Also, make sure your sleep hygiene is good, no light, cool temperatures, some white noise perhaps.

That could possibly explain it. Sometimes I finish my training sessions around 9:00-9:30. My body feels tired at the end of a long training session but my mind seems to stay very active... it's possible that the chemical reactions due to a dopamine/ adrenaline increase are keeping me up all night long.

I will try the suggestions you mentioned. Hopefully that will knock me out faster.

Thanks.

 

[Ian Coe]

It's not the food, it just sounds like you're not coming down from the adrenaline/dopamine production of moderate to intense training. Melatonin might help, as well as a good ZMA that has a touch of valerian and hops with it. The combination of those things should ease both the mind and body enough for relaxation. Also, make sure your sleep hygiene is good, no light, cool temperatures, some white noise perhaps.

Magnesium alone will do the trick, but the addition of zinc is always a bonus.

 

[couzo]

I have the same issue or should I say I used to. Your body will get use to the late training. I tried eating less, taking sleeping pills and trying things like zma nothing seemed to work.

One weird thing to suggest is to try to slow your mind. When I used to go to bed my mind felt like it was racing I woud be thinking about loads of things such as the stuff I did really well at training or the stuff I did really badly. Now I just try not to think about anything and just empty my mind again this will sound weird but just picture in your mind a quiet scene then off to sleep I go.

Hope this helps a little and if not keep trying stuff to get off to sleep.

 

[Henry Swanson]

Natural Calm works well. It's a mag citrate product. Just make sure your conservative with the dosing when you first start out because too much mag can give you the shits.

 

[Sinister]

Magnesium alone will do the trick, but the addition of zinc is always a bonus.

Well, magnesium is the primary electrolyte for muscle relaxation, and one of the most overlooked digestive/recovery substances out there, but it won't do much to relax the mind. That's why I suggested the melatonin to go with it.

And being as melatonin is arguably the most powerful antioxidant substance in existence, taking an mg or two of it is an "it can only help" situation.