Sleep is one of the most important things you can focus on for the benefit of your overall health. When you are sleeping well consistently, there are many benefits.
With better sleep, your metabolism will be more efficient, your mental health will be stronger and more resilient, you will have much more ability to exercise well and more effectively, your diet will do more for you, and your memory will improve as well.
The link between sleep and exercise is particularly interesting. In this article, we will explain how exactly they affect each other, and what the true nature is of this codependent relationship.
Recovery
One of the main ways that sleep affects exercise is that when you get more sleep, your body is much more capable of good recovery after exercise. Recovery is an important part of your exercise regime, and yet many people overlook it.
Recovering well from exercise allows your body to return to its equilibrium state faster, and reduces the risk of damaging your body by overworking tight or strained muscles. In turn, that means that you will be able to get back to exercising again sooner, and you can therefore continue a routine of exercise and stay more fit.
If you get more sleep, your recovery time will be faster, which will help you to get stronger and stay healthier.
Drive
In order to exercise effectively, the right motivation is absolutely necessary. You are probably already well aware of how difficult it can be to have the proper motivation if you are tired. Even just missing out on one night’s worth of good sleep can make it harder to have the appropriate drive that you need to exercise well.
When you sleep better on a better bed, such as a custom premium foam mattress, you are going to increase the necessary drive to help you exercise well. This will also help you to get more out of each workout session.
Strength
Sleep may play a particularly important role when it comes to those people who are engaging in high-intensity workouts. If you are doing a lot of strength exercises such as intense muscle training, you need to get plenty of sleep. Sleep will allow you to be able to effectively perform your exercises through the end of your workout.
Because sleep plays an important role in restoring your immune system, you do need to make sure that you are getting enough sleep in order to help that recovery process. This is especially the case in muscle training, where you are effectively causing damage to your muscles in order for them to regrow.
You won’t feel that you have the capacity for maximizing your strength training if you are not getting enough sleep.
The Reverse Benefit: Better Sleep With Exercise
Of course, the better you sleep, the more likely it is that you are going to exercise well. But the opposite is also true: the more you exercise, the better you will sleep, and the higher the quality of sleep will be.
This is a virtuous cycle that we should each aim to develop, and it’s one that you can start working on at any point in the cycle itself. As long as you are exercising every day, you are going to find it easier not just to get to sleep in the first place, but to stay asleep, and to get into a deep state of sleep that you really need for the truly restorative effects to kick in.
So make sure that you are exercising at least once a day, even if it is just a little exercise- a brisk walk around the block, a ride on your bike, etc. Keep in mind that exercising in the afternoon has an increased effect on how well you sleep.
Sleep Is The Priority
As you can see, sleep is a critical priority if you want to be as healthy as possible. It affects not only your readiness to perform, but your strength, drive, and recovery, as well.
If you are struggling to sleep, you might want to upgrade to a premium foam mattress, or try adopting a bedtime routine that is more likely to get you off to sleep. However you do it, keep in mind that sleep is a priority that cannot be ignored, as it impacts nearly every aspect of your life.
