Whether you’re still in college or already have a job, dragging yourself to Planet Fitness every day when you only had a couple of hours of sleep is a bad idea. Exercising is a good idea and it offers plenty of benefits. However, working out without any sleep the night before won’t do you any good.
It’s ok to miss a few spin class or a few Zumba sessions if you’re tired, fatigued or burned out. And it’s most definitely OK to skip the gym if you have had no sleep.
Sleep, after all, is the foundation of many things including your health and fitness. If you’re not getting enough sleep (or haven’t slept at all) it will be difficult for your body to recover after your workouts. Not only that, but you’ll dread having to exercise and you’ll only spiral downward from there.
There’s a connection between fitness and sleep. Inadequate sleep adversely impacts athletic performance. On the other hand, sufficient sleep improves performance. The jury’s still out there as to whether or not inadequate sleep affects a person’s fitness ability however researchers believe your fitness performance goes down when you’re deprived of sleep because every workout just seems more difficult to do.
You’ve probably experienced having difficulty concentrating in the morning when you’ve stayed up all night. Or how you can’t seem to answer the questions on your test paper even though you’ve studied all night for it. The same is true for exercise. It’s just tough to workout when you haven’t had any sleep.
Without sleep, your muscles won’t be able to rebuild or recover. The muscles that were broken down during your workout can’t heal or make way for stronger muscles. So what’s the point of spending 45 minutes doing strength training?
So what can you do when you haven’t had any sleep? You can rest instead of going to the gym. That might seem very unproductive but it will actually do your body a lot of good.
Now if you actually feel the need to have some kind of physical activity, you can still do light exercises.
Consider going for a 30-minute walk in the morning just before heading to work (or school). You may also follow it up with 20 minutes of stretching just to get your blood flow going.
If you’re always deprived of sleep and you feel like you simply do not have time to exercise, you might want to take a closer look at how you’re spending your time. Even Elon Musk, who runs a multi-billion-dollar empire, still manages to lift weights and run on the treadmill. Well he probably doesn’t sleep much, but who can blame him?
It could be that you are:
- Spending more time on social media
- Watching TV a lot (including streaming services)
- Not being very productive at work
If any of these rings true to you, it’s about time you make serious changes. You can still find time to exercise AND get enough sleep every night. The key is to manage your time wisely and focus on doing things that are beneficial to you and your well-being.
Let me share a video of Elon Musk on his views about social media: