Thursday, March 1, 2012

No ZZzzzZZZzzz's For You!!

Well, it's Thursday and I am still struggling with my sleep.  I am now in week three of sleeping poorly and my humor has worn very thin.  It is so frustrating since I had another bad workout, my nights at work are getting torturous, and I KNOW exactly what all that cortisol is doing to my body.  Even though I am sleeping better than I did the first week, the accumulated fatigue means that I am just as tired.  I'm cranky with the customers and the horses, really body sore, bitter, and frustrated... all from lack of sleep.  I was really dismayed when it took both days off for me to rally this past Tuesday and that by Wednesday, I was trashed again.  THAT is not a good sign going into the weekend (the busiest part of the week).

I have a hard 90 minute interval workout down for today, which at this point I am dreading.  There is nothing worse than pushing to the limit and falling short of the target just because of fatigue.  Tomorrow night is just a swim and I may try to take that night off.  There is a balance with insomnia between maintaining as much of your normal rhythm as possible and recognizing that there is very little recovery happening.  This is a hazard for anyone that works night shift but that fact doesn't help when you are so tired you hallucinate (oh, yeah!  Been there a few times..) and are experiencing first hand why sleep deprivation is acknowledged as a form of torture.

Unfortunately, whining about it doesn't help.  At some point, my body will give in and I will sleep through the night (well, day... but whatever.)  I would prefer when that moment comes to have maintained my program so I don't have to "get back into the groove" but I am also wary of overtraining.  When I get the proper sleep, it is pretty amazing how quickly my body heals but it takes very little to overflow the kettle when it is not emptied every night.





2 comments:

  1. Does melatonin help you? When I have a bad bout of sleep I take 2 g just before bed and it helps TREMENDOUSLY. I don't think it works for everyone but thankfully it does for me.

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  2. Not usually, though sometimes I get lucky and it can break a streak. It seems like when I push too far, I set up this cycle. It's weird. The more tired I am, the less I sleep. It usually carries on for a couple of weeks, though once it lasted three months, then something disrupts it and it's over till the next time. I never bother with drugs anymore since it just makes it worse. I have no trouble going to sleep, it's staying asleep that is hard so anything I take just makes me more miserable.

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