How to Improve Your Sleep for Fitness
Sleep and fitness are two inseparable aspects of human life. Staying fit such as working out and eating healthily improves a person’s sleep quality. In return, good sleep quality makes you wake up early and improves the results you get from following a life of fitness - you burn more fat from working out.
Good sleep quality also provides you with more energy for daily activities like audition preparation for aspiring pro cheerleaders. It improves dancing and workout performances for current pro cheerleaders as well.
How? Getting 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night gives your body time to recover from exercising. Your muscles experience less pain from sores and more human growth hormone is produced the more hours of sleep you get. This means you have better muscle growth and formation than those who sleep unhealthily.
Find out how to improve your sleep quality every night with these effective tips!
1. Increase bright light exposure during the day
Exposure to sunlight during the day keeps your circadian rhythm healthy. It is also one of the effective ways to cure insomnia. When you’re spending most of your time indoors during the day, make sure to always get out or at least open all the blinds and curtains to let light in.
2. Reduce blue light exposure in the evening
Bright light or blue light improves daytime energy during the day as well. But use it during the night and you’ll find it harder to sleep. Blue light can be found in device screens such as cellphones, TVs, laptops, and computers.
I automatically set my phone to turn on its blue light filter when 7 pm hits. The warm red-orange light then helps me feel drowsy before bedtime.
3. Avoid caffeine in later parts of the day
Caffeine lasts in our system for 6-8 hours. Drinking coffee and energy drinks from 3 pm onwards is sure to make sleeping difficult. If you can’t stay off coffee in the afternoons, at least brew yourself a cup of the decaffeinated variety.
4. Shorten daytime naps
Naps that last more than an hour is one way to make night time drowsing difficult. If you intend to nap, time yourself using your phone and put it far enough for you to hear but hard to reach. Napping longer than an hour also makes you feel groggy after waking up.
5. Optimize your bedroom environment for sleeping
Make sure your bedroom is a sleep-inducing environment. It must be cool, silent, and dark. However, keep your windows open for light to come in when the morning comes. Sunlight is a good alarm clock and it keeps you off bed compared to a device that you can just snooze or dismiss anytime.
6. Follow a mind-relaxing pre-sleep routine
There are a lot of pre-bedtime activities that help us relax to the point of feeling sleepy. A good example would be reading a book under a warm-colored lamp. Find yourself a pre-sleep routine that works for you. Make sure it doesn’t fire up your brain activity because that will keep you up at night.
7. Keep clocks away when you’re in bed
When you’re in bed, seeing a clock and watching it makes your mind focused. It also makes your brain calculate how many hours of sleep you’ll get. Remember, to doze off into dreamland, your mind must be relaxed and empty. So, you must prevent it from thinking and solving math problems.
8. Drink enough water
Drink enough water where you’ll no longer need to get up later to quench your thirst or take a trip to the toilet.
9. Stay off inhibitors and stimulants
Alcohol might send you to sleep but it ruins your sleep quality. You could wake up in the middle of the night thirsty or get off the bed with a bad hangover. The same goes for cigarettes. Nicotine is a stimulant that helps you relax but keep you up. Avoid them if you’ve made it your nighttime habit to smoke or drink.
Follow all the tips you find above every day so you can establish a good sleeping routine. Make your goal to wake up an hour before the sun rises. Use that extra time to do your pre-workout routines, exercises, and meal planning for the day. Go get it, tiger!
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Pro cheerleaders stay fit, flexible, and strong so they can give out their best performance in the arena. However, achieving that wow-worthy, toned physique doesn’t happen overnight. You need to arm yourself with the right daily workouts.
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