Constant run-ins with a bad sleep can hold back progress and leave you operating at 70% capacity. There’s probably still enough in the tank to gain muscle, lose fat, but the numbers would be so much better if you could storm into the day fully rested and revitalised.
Sleep is one of the four major factors involved in fixing up the perfect transformative fitness routine, alongside training, diet, and stress. So you can’t really afford to put your fingers in your ears and ignore the lingering suspicion that naptime isn’t going perfectly.
There are a myriad of reasons you could be down on sleep, but the sweet nectar of morning life is a big one. A strong steaming cup of coffee could be the only reason you can function for brief moments in the day, but there are downsides to relying too heavily on it.
The side-effects of caffeine include an elevated heart rate, anxiety, and the pesky withdrawal phase that arrives like a brick wall when you’ve been drinking it non stop for five months. Just looking at the short-term, the half-life of caffeine is 8 hours, which is the length of time it takes to go down to half of its peak concentration levels.
Having a warm brew, or a cold pre-workout to kick you up a gear in the afternoon, is only going to come with repercussions as you toss and turn under the covers just a few hours later. Which then means that you feel even more bedgralled the next morning, and need that bit more coffee to get you through the day without crashing and burning. It’s a punishing cycle.
So the easiest way to limit the effects of caffeine on sleep? Have it first thing in the morning, then forget about it. If that’s a little too daunting, then have one in the pre-work routine, and another just before noon. Then you could ideally scale back steadily to the first option. There will be little to no traces of caffeine in the bloodstream to upset your nighttime slumber.
Caffeine can wreck a good night’s sleep, so make sure you don’t take it anywhere near bedtime.
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