The pressure to get rid of our “spring rolls” and get the beach body we’ve always desired is officially on. And with that being a huge focus (or at least a goal for the meantime), us women are actively trying to achieve our fitness goals and schedule regular workouts into our daily lives… no matter what.
While working ourselves so hard, we’ve all experienced the excruciating pain of trying to wake up to go to the gym or just to get off the couch when we’re feeling exhausted. Maybe you’ve had a busy week with working long hours or having additional classes to help for an upcoming exam you’re stressing about. Or maybe, you were up all night tossing and turning.
When you try to have regulated workouts in your daily plan, you always try to make them happen, and if you don’t work out, you tend to feel guilty about it. But there’s actually scientific proof that skipping your workout isn’t the worst thing to do when you’re tired; in fact, it’s suggested that you skip the gym on those days!
According to the National Sleep Foundation, getting seven to nine hours of sleep per night is recommended for “optimal mental and physical health.” It makes sense when you think about it. The more sleep you get, the more energy you have and the more alert you’ll be. Anything less than those seven to nine hours, and you feel like a sloth.
LIVESTRONG recently tackled this topic in an insightful article. It’s important to be alert and aware while you’re at the gym, and if your mental state is altered because of a lack of sleep, you are putting both yourself and others at risk.
If you attempt an intense circuit or grueling cardio routine when you are in a sluggish stage, you may become distracted or too careless to do the movements correctly, and you can hurt yourself. You may also become unaware of others around you because you are too focused on trying to do exercises you really don’t want to and can harm others in the process.
Injuries from sloppy form happen all the time! Plus, exercising without adequate sleep could also exhaust you to the point of fainting, and no one wants that.
If you need even more convincing, a small study at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine looked at five women’s tennis team members at Stanford University. They were told to keep a consistent schedule for two to three weeks; that meant no changes in physical activity or sleep. After those weeks passed, they had to do sprinting and hitting drills to judge their performance. Next, they had to extend their sleep schedule to 10 hours a night for five to six weeks. When they were tested again, their performances were significantly better.
Obviously, this isn’t the biggest discovery, and many would say this is common knowledge, but it really does put sleep and exercise into perspective when you use professional or high-degree athletes as an example. If you want the best results, you need to be well-rested, otherwise you’re just hurting yourself and setting yourself up for injuries that will take time to recover from and will set you back from your weight loss goal even further.
When trying to determine if you really should skip the gym to catch up on some relaxation, you need to determine whether you are actually tired or just being lazy. You know your body the best, and it’s important to know your limits. If you’re in a bad mood, go to the gym; don’t make an excuse to skip because of that. So, if you genuinely have had a lack of rest recently, take a day off and don’t feel bad about it. Even the greatest athletes and fitness gurus need to catch up on sleep, too.
Featured Image via Unsplash
