Sunday 19 June 2011

Sleeping Right: The Road to Recovery

You may have noticed my last few posts haven't been strictly on
"HOW TO GET PERFECT ABS FROM JUST 2 MINUTES PER DAY FOR A WEEK"

All of that is for good reason. In short- that simply is impossible.
Quality transformations of your body that you can maintain take time, and although it is possible to speed up this transformations (and trust me these secrets will be included in future posts) it is vital you get the basics right.

Today I am going to be covering SLEEPING.
Sure- sounds easy. Everyone can sleep. However take an elite swimmer for example- everyone can breath. But how many know how to breath correctly while swimming all out in an Olympic 100m freestyle final, the answer is: not many. In this post I hope to show you how to get a good nights sleep in order to maximize your gains from training and increase your potential training times per week. This is a must-read for all athletes.


Here are some tips on how to make the most of your shut-eye:

Have you ever gone to bed early, woken up late and STILL and feel tired? It's highly likely you are suffereing from low blood sugar. Have a pre-bed meal/snack that fits your nutritional program. It's been proven that two tablespoons of flaxseed oil can be eaten with the celery-and-almond-butter which increases muscular cell repair during sleep and thus decrease fatigue. Flaxseed oil tastes terrible however so I suggest holding your nose while you down it.

Take a cold bath just before you jump into your bed. This is an old Japanese trick that has recently been explained by modern science- one explanation researchers have proposed is that the
usual hot bath at bedtime, increases melatonin release and is related to mechanisms
for life extension. However on the other hand, according to a Stanford University: Researchers in Sleep Biology: cold is a more effective signaler “time giver”) for sleep onset.
Perhaps the hot-bath effect was related to the subsequent rapid cooling

I tested the effect of shorter-than-usual 10-minute ice baths. An ice bath is simple to create: put two to three bags of ice from your local store ($3–6) into a half-full bathtub until the ice is about 70% melted. People new to this should start by immersing the lower body only and progress to spending the latter five minutes with the upper torso submerged as well, making sure to keep their hands out of the water at all times. I found this was like getting shot with elephant tranquilizer and couldn't fall asleep quicker so I highly recommend it, although different methods work for different people.

Of course we all know eating a large, fatty protein meal just before bedtime will also do the trick- however while the protein won't harm you, it's not the greatest way to keep off weight as the meal will go straight into fat reserves (unless you literally run marathons in your sleep) so try keep this to a once a week/not at all thing.


Finally, if you REALLY can't nod off resort to the military crawl postion;


This is a last resort that works for the fact that: you can’t move.
It’s like a self-imposed sleep prison, which the Mayans and other cultures have use to calm infants by immobilizing them. To toss and turn from the half military crawl position, you have to first lift your entire body off the bed-which is no easy task.

And of course: less fidgeting means faster sleep.


That's it for sleep-tips today, another blog on basic rituals to get into if you want a healthy lifestyle you can maintain. I will be covering some more tips on sleep including how to Sleep Diet.
However, that will be in a later post.
As always- Stay Tuned

13 comments:

  1. Hm, I'll try the ice bath and see how that works out.

    The military crawl position is among the most comfortable, I think.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't have enough trouble to try the ice bath, had plenty of those playing football. the crwl is how i normally sleep, works like a charm

    ReplyDelete
  3. Thanks for the sleeping tips. I really needed these.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I should try that military crawl thing. I figit all the time.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Very useful information. I am definitely not doing the ice-bath, though. xD

    ReplyDelete
  6. I often cant sleep, but I try the military..but I am all like "meh" and move into a fetus like position. :/

    ReplyDelete
  7. The military crawl position always works for me. Also I found that a nice meal before sleep works good, just as you say. But the ice bath? Wow, no way.

    ReplyDelete
  8. great article! I've been researching how to sleep better since my new job makes me wake up early...really early.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Still no luck pulling off this military position :/

    ReplyDelete
  10. good sleep tips. ya i never thought about the science behind y the military position works [which it does for me] but ya, the information you give sounds about right. im interested in what other well being tips you have to offer

    ReplyDelete
  11. Maybe you should tell people that you copied this from Tim Ferriss

    ReplyDelete