By David Freeze

  I have been reading quite a bit lately about runners who don’t get enough sleep. Why? Because I am one of them and have begun to explore solutions.

   The strange thing for me is that I often include daily exercise and have long farm work hours, especially during summer. Should be able to go to sleep, right? Not often enough.

    For anyone with some insomnia, drifting off to sleep doesn’t come easy, nor does a full night’s sleep.

     Amy Bender holds a Ph.D. in experimental psychology, is a Calgary-based researcher at the Canadian Sleep Society and she helps Team Canada Olympians fall asleep. Ahead of Rio in 2016, she studied the sleep habits of 200 athletes to categorize their sleep problems and make recommendations based on their responses. If athletes score low on their ability to nod off, Bender knows what do about it. Here’s her crash-course on identifying insomnia and then bidding it farewell. 

    Bender says, “Do you struggle with insomnia or was it just a bad night?” She explains that there are three dead giveaways: waking up constantly throughout the night; not getting restorative sleep; and having difficulty drifting off within 30 minutes after turning out the lights. That last point especially is a big tip that a person is dealing with insomnia.

     This sleep disorder is probably common among your running buddies. There are a couple reasons for this. The first one has more to do with the personality types that are attracted to this lifestyle of sticking to a regular workout routine. “You might be a more A-type person and have more racing thoughts at night,” says Bender. When thoughts of a specific issue flood in, relaxing becomes increasingly difficult. 

       If the clock strikes 2:00 a.m. and your eyes are wide open, consider how strenuous of a routine you keep. “It is the most common sleep disorder. In our screening with Olympians, insomnia is the most relevant in athletes,” Bender notes. But haven’t we all heard that regular exercise is the key to better sleep? That’s partially correct. 

    “I think with the general population, vigorous exercise leads to reports of better sleep quality,” Bender says. But there’s a balance. When the workout routine strays from vigorous to extra intense, a person can pay for it when they go to bed, making someone a great candidate for disordered sleeping. 

   A 2014 study supports this notion and tosses another concern into the mix. Exercise too intensely and you may wind up with a whole slew of symptoms that come with this ailment. And yes, you guessed it, on that list is sleep insomnia. The study, published by Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise monitored 27 male triathletes over a six-week period while one group over-trained and the other did not. The group that was pushed confirmed that sleep disturbances are prevalent among over-trained athletes.

    “People with insomnia have fatigue but not necessarily sleepiness. It affects time to exhaustion so you may not be able to run as far as you normally could,” explains Bender. Fatigue and hard running simply don’t go well together. 

   What can we do about it? Bender lists several tricks to test before booking a sleep specialist appointment. One running-specific suggestion: run early in the day. “If you’re running outside, getting light exposure before noon, that’s associated with better sleep quality,” says Bender. 

    She says the common advice of no screen time before bed seldom works. But the following things might.

• Breathing- Bender recommends a sleep exercise. Breathe in for four seconds, hold it for seven and slowly breathe out for eight counts. Repeat that four times before bed.  
• Cognitive shuffling technique: Pick a word. While trying to drift off, imagine objects that start with each letter of the word. For example, if the word is “Bedtime”, visualize items that start with “B” and then “E” and so on. By focusing on this, those racing thoughts that disturb sleep are less likely to invade your night. 
• Progressive muscle relaxation: Runners who know the workings of their body will like this activity. Tense up different muscle groups one at a time. Then release and focus on keeping tense areas relaxed.
• Reading: Invest in a little bed-time reading (unless you find reading keeps you awake, of course). This works for me.

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