Exercise and sleep

Anybody notice a connection between exercise and poor sleep/fatigue? I workout pretty hard and I’m starting to think that my cns/adrenals are over taxed. It’s counterintuitive because you’d think that exhaustion from working would help you relax, but I’m finding that it’s doing the opposite. I think it might be giving me the 4am wake ups. Any insight into exercise and sleep/adrenals/cortisol is appreciated.

i am out a gym 5 days a week and notice no difference in wether  i sleep good or not when i exercise sometimes i can sleep but other days i would get a hour when i did not exercise so to be honest some people it wears them out and some it does nothing they still cant sleep .again some people cant work out at all because of the cortisal being raised .

It’s affected my sleep. It shortened it but I think I get more restful sleep now. I exercise vigorously 4-6 days a week.  I wouldn’t stop though benefits far outweigh the possibly fewer hours of sleep.

DBM,

 

Some BB report what you describe. You might experiment with decreasing the intensity or length of your workouts to see how that affects your symptoms. That way you can rule out a coincidental effect. Sometimes sleep goes through waves in wd for inexplicable reasons that have nothing to do with exercise. Overall, I think exercise is crucial to recovery, sleep and mood but some folks are very sensitive to it. Good luck!

Thanks everybody. I’m going to monitor it. I’ve been doing really intense workouts throughout withdrawal. I love the endorphin release. Exercising is probably the only thing that makes me feel good and relaxed for a bit. I read a sticky on here re: the HPA axis and how benzos can throw it off. Apparently exercise can easily tax this system. I just don’t want strenuous exercise to be exacerbating this during my entire recovery and causing wd to last longer than it needs to. MT, you could definitely be correct, there’s no rime or reason to those cortisol surges sometimes. I’ll try cutting back and will see how it goes.

Anybody notice a connection between exercise and poor sleep/fatigue? I workout pretty hard and I’m starting to think that my cns/adrenals are over taxed. It’s counterintuitive because you’d think that exhaustion from working would help you relax, but I’m finding that it’s doing the opposite. I think it might be giving me the 4am wake ups. Any insight into exercise and sleep/adrenals/cortisol is appreciated.

I am also a fitness addict. I don't do anymore hardcore, HD aerobics anymore or HIIT. My cardio is light to moderate now, 30 mins on a stationary bike, 6 days per week along with a whole foods plant based diet. This is what seems to work the best for me.

 

I think ppl sometimes put too much focus on exercise. Nothing wrong with exercise but the diet is always #1 and has to come 1st. Look at running guru Jim Fixx who started the running and fitness craze in America. He was fit, he was slender but he also ate a horrible diet and fell dead of a massive heart attack at age 52. :-(

Agreed, AntiB. I’ve been doing CrossFit and it has gotten me in the best shape of my life. I don’t want to lose it. But, like you say, it’s all about diet. ‘You can’t out work a bad diet’ the saying goes. I’m doing a healthy fats, whole foods diet. Basically Weston A. Price/Nourishing Traditions. Limiting carbs to around 100g and they are healthy carbs like fermented oats. I think I can maintain my fitness if I scale back for a month. Easy to say, hard to do!! I love going all out in the gym!!

Make sure that you’re not working out too late in the day. It could amp you up and disrupt your sleep.  Maybe try exercising in the morning  if you’re not already doing so ?

Hey Restoration, I always make sure to workout in the morning.

I did a brutal workout this morning and I’m mad at myself for not scaling back. We did deadlifts for reps with running. I knew better. Every time I do plenty deadlifts my cns gets destroyed. I’ll let y’all know what happens to my sleep.