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.
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.
ReplyDeleteNot 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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