Chronic lack of sleep

[the_jest]

I've read the many statements throughout the Starting Strength books and forums about the importance of sufficient sleep. I am not questioning the truth of this.

However, if one can simply not ever get a good amount of sleep--because of the busyness of the responsibilities of work and family life, of stress-related insomnia, or whatever--then what? Is it OK just to acknowledge that progress will be slower than one would prefer? Or are there other steps to take to attempt to deal with this?

For what it's worth, I often feel tired, but I seldom feel under-recovered. That is, it's not usually the case, on a workout day, that another day of non-exercise would make me feel any different--I'd still be tired, and I wouldn't feel any more recovered.

[Yaums]

Lack of sleep can be really hard. I usually sleep well now that the kids have grown up, so it's no major problem, and I've never experienced any real insomnia. I don't know how to deal with it. I can give some tips I use when I feel too tired and want to focus on getting good sleep, but it's probably stating the obvious and won't help much if you have chronic insomnia or whatever. Anyway, here they are, by order of importance for me:

• going to bed early
• no screen at least one hour before bed (be it TV, computer or phone)
• good "wake up" habits: on working days, I set up my alarm at the same time each day, instead of as late as possible, and I get up as soon as it rings (no "snooze"). On week ends I get up as soon as I am awake, usually at the same time as the working days.
• a short nap (half an hour) when possible
• no sports/training after 8pm
• if I shower before going to bed, cold water

Best strategy (for me), was to go to bed early with a book. When I read twice the same sentence to understand, I put down the book, and am asleep in less than 1 minute.

[the_jest]

Thanks. I appreciate this, but I was actually asking a different question--assuming I simply can't get the right amount of sleep, then what?

I have tried a number of methods of getting more sleep, but unfortunately these have generally not worked, so I'd like to move on to the next issue, of what to do about it :-(

[Yaums]

OK, my bad. I misread the "other steps to take" part.

Is your progression suffering from lack of sleep? by the way, are you still in your novice LP?

[the_jest]

@mgilchrest: Getting a full eight hours would be difficult on most days, but I could certainly get rather more than the 4-5 hours I usually tend to. My doctor feels that we should attempt to focus on the stress; the additional sleep I'd get from drugging myself wouldn't be worth the side effects of the drugs. Working on this.

@Yaums: I'm not following SS as such, I'm adding LP elements to an Oly lifting program. I'm still making progress in those areas, though more slowly than I'd like. I have no idea if my progression is suffering--as said, my recovery as such feels fine, subjectively.

[John Hanley]

I'd strength train 2x/week.

Have you tried melatonin? I love the shit.

[ambivalens]

From personal experience with something in the same alley as what you're dealing with:

* acceptance: this is huge. Accept that there are days you will feel like utter shit, but try to give the workout your best anyway. Motivating yourself is extremely hard when you're lacking sleep, but sometimes your physical strength isn't as affected as you might think.
* light day mid week: push it on Monday and Friday, try to keep Wednesdays light. More time for recovery, less mental stress about having to go hard every time you lift.
* nutrition: make 100% sure you're actually eating enough. Not just "yeah, I'm full at meals", but actually making damned sure you're getting enough of your macros. This won't affect your sleep, but it might be huge for your lifting (it was for me)

I take a sleeping pill "now and then", if I've had too many days in a row with very little sleep and I'm getting really desperate for rest, but in general I find it better to stay away from the meds.

I'll say it again, acceptance of the problem has, along with really getting a grip on my nutrition, been the biggest thing for me. It reduces my stress levels dramatically just being able to think something along the lines of "Okay, I might have a bad night, but I'll deal with it just fine, and sometime soon I'll have a really good nights rest". It sounds stupid, but it has worked really well at reducing my fear of the bed.

[Agilic]

I'd strength train 2x/week.

Have you tried melatonin? I love the shit.

As a currently sleep-impaired person, I'm going down to twice per week myself right now. I am being forced to because of time constraints, but the more I think about it, it may be the right thing to do anyway. This could be nonsense, but my line of thinking is that if one normally gets 2-3 nights sleep between sessions @~8 hours each, you're looking at 16-24 hours of sleep to recover for the next session. If you or I are sleeping ~5 hours a night, that would only be 10-15 hours of recovery sleep between sessions @ 3 per week. Now I'm going to have 3-4 nights rest, so 15-20 hours sleep which is more in line with an 8hr per night sleeper.

I'm excited to see if this helps keeps my progress going and will report back.

[the_jest]

Thanks for the various thoughts. I haven't tried melatonin; in general I prefer not to take hormones or other drugs for that matter, though I know melatonin is considered very safe.

I can't go exclusively to twice-a-weeks, but I can make one of the days a lighter day--dial things back on Wednesday, perhaps. This might be something to try.

My attitude probably isn't my main issue--I _feel_ fine, I don't walk into the gym thinking, "Man, I'm tired, I'm gonna fail at everything today." In fact, despite the fact that I only got three ( :-( ) hours of sleep last night, right now I'm thinking about the gruesome workout scheduled for tomorrow, and I just can't wait to get into the gym! But I do hope I get a solid amount of rest tonight.

[Músculo-Tonto]

However, if one can simply not ever get a good amount of sleep--because of the busyness of the responsibilities of work and family life, of stress-related insomnia, or whatever--then what? Is it OK just to acknowledge that progress will be slower than one would prefer?

If it isn't, then I should have quit long ago. And neither one of us are quitting, are we, jester?

Work with what you can do, not with what you can't -- An amazingly simple lesson in attitude that I've yet to master.

Time to log out.

-Jeremy