Sleep Your Way to Fitness

Normally, I’m a night owl. After the girls go to bed, I need that time to myself to get some things done and just unwind from the day. You can normally find me getting into bed around midnight and then crawling back out around 6 a.m. to get ready for work. I knew that had to change once I went for a 5 a.m. alarm to fit in my Mamavation Two Week Challenge workout.

When I saw Fitness Cheerleader’s post on getting more sleep, I knew I was on the right track in at least one area. I’ve been forcing myself to bed no later than 10 o’clock to make sure I get at least 7 hours of sleep before trying to kick-start my day with an intense workout. It’s not always easy to fall asleep right away, but I’m at least putting in an effort.

My dogs are excellent sleepers.

I’m finding it actually rather freeing to be getting to bed at a normal hour. I feel moreawake throughout the day at work and my morning workout is actually a great energizer to start the day off. Here are a few things that I’ve found really helpful to get myself to sleep:

• Go pee. I know. This seems so dumb, but I’m often far too lazy to get out of bed once I’m nice and cozy to actually go to the bathroom. But, I’ve found that once I don’t feel like my bladder is bursting at the seems, I am able to get to sleep much faster.
• Kick your husband out. My hubby tends to enjoy watching TV in bed while he’s winding down for the night. But, he doesn’t just watch any TV – He watches wrestling practically every night. The problem with that is that the entire show seems to be made up of strobe lights and yelling people, which is the exact opposite ofconduciveto sleepy time. As much as I like snuggling with him, I’d much rather he watch wrestling in the living room while I get myself to sleep.
• Make sure the dogs have been out.If I dare to go to bed without letting the dogs out one last time, they will sit at my bedroom door and scratch and bark until I pull myself out of bed again to let them out (regardless of the fact that they were out just an hour prior). Try as I might to ignore them and wait for them to go to sleep, it just doesn’t seem to work. Jerk dogs.
• Do notunder any circumstances watch the news before bed.Nothing good is ever on the news. It’s always stories that make me want to keep my children under my protective wing at all times and never any feel-good headlines to help me sleep. So, if I watch the news before bed I tend to lie awake thinking about all of the horrible things that are probably going to happen to our family.

So now you have my tips for getting to bed earlier and adding to your health. You see, I’m practically a fitness expert!

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