A Question of Sleep

So, after chatting to Nick and reducing my volume training still hadn't been going the way I wanted.

My sessions were still way slower than they used to be, I felt totally flat and to be honest, I just didn't feel like training.

I felt pretty frustrated because I thought i’d fixed everything else that could be causing the decline in my performance. I thought my nutrition was pretty good. My iron levels were finally up and my living situation was much improved. My sleep wasn't great...but I didn't lie awake all night.

It was only when I talked to a sports doctor, that I realised that waking up four or five times a night wasn't normal.

I never wake up in the morning feeling rested. Throughout, the last marathon training cycle my recovery was awful. If I want to reach my potential, I need to fix this.

After doing some research, I started talking to a doctor who has a lot of experience in this area.

I already did most of the things that were recommended online; avoiding blue light after dinner, establishing a regular bedroom routine and trying to avoid caffeine after lunch.

However, my poor sleep has been a long term issue for me and more aggressive measures are needed.

The doctor suggested some blood tests, which revealed a major reason why I wasn't sleeping. I plan to go into detail about my results and what they showed in a future post. For now, just check out the graph below.

To simplify things, my cortisol levels (including night time values) were way too high. Check out this article here if interested)

I discussed my results with the doctor and she made quite a few recommendations to help with my sleep.

This involved some supplements, which I also plan to go into more detail about in a future post.

It also included some lifestyle changes. I need to reduce my stress levels further to reduce my cortisol levels. I'm working on this but having spent most of my life being pretty highly strung, it's a challenge for me.

Another major change I have begun this week is doing my harder sessions in the morning. Getting a good nights sleep after an evening session is pretty much impossible for me. Thankfully, my energy levels are miles better in the morning anyway, so this switch has been easy for me.

So, here goes the start of my plan to fix my sleep and high cortisol/ stress levels...hopefully, soon i'll be sleeping like this little one -->

Sleeping like a puppy...