Does Working Out Later In The Day Effect Sleep?

In my 11+ years as a fitness coach, I have trained individuals at all times of the day, but I never came across sound research determining if there was a detriment to sleep by training too late in the day (versus training too early). In a recent study publish by Concordia University, postdoc fellow Emmanuel Frimpong reports, “Overall, our analysis showed that when exercise ended two hours before bedtime, there were sleep benefits, including the promotion of sleep onset and increased sleep duration.” Frimpong goes onto say, ”On the other hand, when exercise ended less than two hours before bedtime, sleep was negatively impacted. It took longer for participants to fall asleep and sleep duration decreased.”

MY TAKE: I don’t think there is a right or wrong time to train, but as CMO of Inside Tracker Dr. Gil Blander said in our recent podcast, “The problem with the fitness community is they sacrifice their sleep for exercise.” As long as your sleep is not effected by the time you train, I think you are good to go. But if you are forced to wake up early to workout thus reducing the duration of quality sleep, or you are working out so late in the day that you are negatively impacted your ability to get to sleep, there is room for improvement. Personally, I find the most successful clients that I train workout about 30 minutes after waking from 7-9 hours of sleep. For these clients, that are able to:

1. Get quality sleep

2. Wake up and become oriented and get some fluids or stimulants into their body

3. They don’t allow other activities to get in the way of their workout

4. They aren’t working out so late that it becomes challenging to get to sleep

If you are having a hard time finding the “right time” to workout, I can help. One of the benefits of working together is that I can help identify areas of your life that are getting in the way of you being your best self and work toward creating real change through action steps. Click the link below to get started today!

Carbs before bed, good or bad?

A common question I get about nutrition is, “Will carbs before bed make me fat?”

As always, it highly depends on the individual, but I will give you some guidance into making the best decision for you. First, we have to know a little about the energy releasing hormone cortisol. Yes, I meant that: Energy releasing. When you think of cortisol, you think of “stress hormone.” But really what cortisol is doing is mobilizing fuel for energy. In the case of cortisol, a “healthy” person should have higher levels of cortisol when they are waking, and they should continue to drop throughout the day until they are low in the evening.

This should be the case if you need to mobilize energy in day hours and need less energy in the evening, and need to be able to rest and digest (unless you are a shift worker and this might be different).

We can signal the release of cortisol with food (or lack of food. This is actually how you feel the affects of fasting). In the morning, we will get a spike in cortisol which will get us up and moving. As we get food into our body, the cortisol will start to drop progressively throughout the day. The macronutrient that has the most affect on the release of cortisol is carbohydrates. Knowing this, we can utilize carbohydrates in the evening lower cortisol levels so we can get better sleep. But not all carbohydrates are created equal. A starch rich sweet potato is going to have a very different digestion time and affect on blood sugar than a donut. The sweet potatoes complex structure of carbs will take a while to break down and slowly release into your blood as you sleep. The donut on the other hand, is made up of more simple sugars that enter the blood stream much more quickly and are absorbed much more quickly.

If you lay of carbs completely before bed, your cortisol will start to rise during sleep and you will be left staring at the ceiling because your energy mobilizing hormone just kicked on in the middle of the night.

My take? If you want to keep cortisol levels under control as you sleep, eat 1-2 cups of starchy carbohydrates (rice, potato, yams, yucca, quinoa) 2-3 hours before bed.

Remember, this is a complex issue, and their are many factors that can contribute to weight gain and sleeplessness. However, I would give it a try for a few weeks and see if adding some starchy carbs to dinner improves your sleep. What do you have to lose other than those dark circles below your eyes?

Looking to navigate the complex world of nutrition and stress? I’m here to help! Click the link below to get started today!

How to Cool Off During Sleep...

Are you lying there at 3am wondering why you feel like a furnace? As you sleep your temperature needs to be regulated in order to get deep restful sleep. If the temperature of your room and more specifically your mattress is too high (or too cold) you will not get the restorative benefits of sleep. That's where the Chilisleep Ooler Sleep System comes in. With the hydroponic pad underneath your body, it soaks up your body heat so you maintain that "just jumped into bed" cool sensation on your mattress.

Give the Ooler Sleep System a try with the Chilisleep 30 Day Free Trial: (this is an affiliate link. At no extra charge to you, a small percentage of your sale goes toward supporting the channel):

Why Do I Crave Carbs At Night?

You just had dinner a half hour ago, and all of a sudden, the craving hits: Sugar. That little bit of sweet. It may be that ice cream you have hidden in the back of the freezer, or those scratch made cookies you made for your kids bake sale. Either way, they are calling to you. But do you ever step back and ask, “Why carbs at night?” Why at the end of the day are we craving sugar and not fat or protein?

In a study published the Oregon Health and Science University in the journal Obesity found that the body's internal clock, the circadian system, increases hunger and cravings for sweet, starchy and salty foods in the evenings. We know that the body is craving on the clock, but why carbs? What is so significant about carbohydrates? According to the National Library of Medicine, “Carbohydrate consumption--acting via insulin secretion and the "plasma tryptophan ratio"--increases serotonin release; protein intake lacks this effect.” A ha!

We need a cascade of various sleep hormones to get us to sleep and it all starts with the hormone serotonin. Carbs (especially starchy carbs) contain tryptophan which is a precursor for serotonin. Your body is asking for sleep, and if you lack the drive to sleep, your body will crave sugar to pump out serotonin so you will want to sleep.

The issue is that we tend to overconsume carbohydrates like sugar in the evening and this leads to excess weights gain. My advice? Have dinner as the sun sets in the evening that has a serving of starchy carbs (rice, potatoes, etc.). Approximately 2 hours after you eat dinner, start your pre-sleep winddown process and hit the hay. You’ll lose weight and feel better in the process!

Need a personalized touch in your fitness and nutrition journey? I’m here to help! Click the link below to get started today!

4 Unconventional Sleep Tips With Sleep Expert Dr. Matt Walker

In a recent Huberman Lab Podcast, Dr. Matthew Walker gave some unbelievably simple and helpful tips on sleep:

1. If you get a bad night’s sleep, DO NOTHING-Following a poor night’s sleep, it is normal for us to want to sleep in later, nap, go to bed early, or maybe even have an extra cup of coffee. Dr. Walker suggests doing none of those things, as it will throw off your body’s natural sleep cycle the following evening. Matt's advice, don’t do anything.

2. Have a wind down routine-Many of us think of sleep like a “light switch.” Get into bed and go to sleep. Dr. Walker says, “Going to bed is more like landing a plane.” Meaning there are a gradual sequence of events that happen before you sleep. He suggests a wind down routine that might consist of light stretching, meditation, reading, listen to a podcast, and keep it consistent. Practicing

3. Don’t count sheep!- Studies show that counting sheep usually makes it harder to go to sleep because it keeps the areas of the brain on that need to downregulate in order for you to go to sleep. Instead, Dr. Walker recommends going on a mental walk in a familiar area that you can remember (a park, around your neighborhood, etc.). Additionally, Dr. Walker recommends journaling an hour before bed in order to clear the mind of ruminating thoughts. This “worry journaling” closes down the tabs in your mind instead of having them “open” during sleep (studies show that performing this activity can reduce the time it takes you to fall asleep by 50%!).

4. Get Rid of Clocks-Remove all clock faces in your bedroom (including your phone). Having clocks in the bedroom you are more likely to check them when you are having a tough night’s sleep adding to anxiety around sleep.

If you’d like personalized accountability and programming around your health and wellbeing, I’m here to help! Click the link below to get started!

"I Can't Fall Asleep!"

Welcome back!

In this week's episode, Scott and I sit down and discuss our approach to a client who can't fall asleep. What assessments to we perform, how do we test and retest, and what are our interventions?

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Are you frustrated with the affects of poor sleep? I’m here to help! Click the link below to get better sleep tonight!

Could the Bedjet Help Your Sleep better?

I have talked about the importance of sleep many times before, but here are a few facts I came across the other day:

1. Adults between 18 and 64 need seven to nine hours of sleep per night. Adults over 65 need 7-8 hours.

2. 35.2% of all adults in the U.S.7 report sleeping on average for less than seven hours per night.

3. Almost half of all Americans say they feel sleepy during the day between three and seven days per week.

Sleep can drastically be improved by controlling the climate of the bedroom. There are many products on the market advertised to keep you warm or cool while you sleep. The Bedjet Climate System is a product that I recently tried. Watch my review and see if it’s the right for you! If you like what you see or you learned something, please give the video a like and subscribe so you can stay up to date all of of my latest content!

Need some more help with your sleep? Click the link below to set up and free assessment today!

Clearing the Runway...

Last week, in my post about a common sleep mistake (going to bed without being sleepy), I mentioned the term “clearing the runway” in regards to going to bed with too much going on in your mind. Coach Matt Wignall elaborates on this term, “Your mind before bed is like a jet before landing: The bigger, more powerful the jet the longer a runway it needs to land and come to a complete stop. In other words, the more mentally active and stimulated you are during the day, the more time you need to gradually slow your mind down in the evening before it’s ready to fall asleep.”

If you are dealing with sleep issues and are mentally charged when trying to fall asleep, it is important to transition from the stress of the day, to a more sympathetic state where your body can restore. Matt offers some suggestions:

• TV Shows. A lot of people report success with nature documentaries like Planet Earth or old favorite sitcoms like Cheers or Seinfeld. And don’t worry about “blue light” impacting your sleep. The science of this is shaky at best, and even when some studies have shown a negative effect of blue light on sleep, the effects are typically quite small—much less influential than, say, worrying and getting anxious about not sleeping because you got into bed without being sleepy.

• Stretching or yoga

• Meditation or formal relaxation practices like Progressive Muscle Relaxation or Diaphragmatic Breathing

• Puzzles or other non-competitive games

• Certain hobbies may have aspects that are non-stimulating and would therefore be appropriate sleep runway activities. For example, sketching ideas for a new watercolor painting or simply listening to music without doing anything else.

Personally, I meditate before going to bed each night. I sit down and set a timer for one hour. Once my head starts bobbing, I know it’s time to get to bed. I usually last 30 minutes, but on some nights it’s longer. I know from experience that if I force myself to go to bed for I am tired (and I’m anxious about tomorrow), I will have poor sleep quality. To me, 5-6 hours of quality deep sleep is always better than 8-9 hours of disturbed sleep.

Need help identifying your own sleep triggers?