Suffering From Insomnia? Ditch the Sleeping Pills and Begin Exercising

I have been suffering from severe insomnia for quite awhile now.In fact if my body happens to get more than three or four hours of sleep a night it doesn’t know what to do but it’s beginning to get used to more sleep now that I’ve started an exercise program! I joined one of my local gyms a few months ago and can’t believe the difference it has made. Although I’m still not getting the recommended eight to nine hours of sleep a night I’ve went from three or four hours a night to six, sometimes seven hours.

Stress was a big factor in my insomnia and the longer I went with little sleep the more stressed I became. The stress caused me to be very irritable and every little thing seemed to raise the stress level even more. Now that I’m following an exercise program and sleeping more I’m becoming less and less irritable and have definitely noticed that the stress level has decreased!

I was so busy during the days with my business and then my son that I didn’t have the time to think about all that was going on in my life so once I laid down at night I couldn’t shut my mind off. Instead I would toss and turn as I thought about bills that needed to be paid, chores that needed to be done, things that my son needed, things that I needed, etc. By the time my mind would ‘shut’ off it would be time to get up and start my day again. I’ve found that now that I’m exercising, I can use this time to let the ‘stresses’ of life run through my mind. Letting my mind run with all my thoughts during the morning exercise program helps me to not think about things at bedtime.

The best thing I’ve noticed about my exercise routine is that my body seems to ‘crave’ sleep now. I feel refreshed during the day but by the time bedtime rolls around I feel the fatigue in my body. I also seem to be sleeping deeper than before. When I was suffering insomnia and only sleeping three or four hours a night, those couple hours weren’t peaceful sleep. I was waking up several times during that time and didn’t have a nice deep restful sleep. Now, since beginning my exercise program I don’t seem to wake during the night or if I do, it’s not as frequently as it used to be. I wake feeling rested and ready for the day.

I choose to exercise in the morning because it seems to work best for my schedule. At first I tried exercising in the evening around 7pm but it seemed that when I was exercising that late in the evening it was giving me a refreshed, energized feeling and preventing me from wanting and needing to lay down and sleep, which was an issue I already had because of the insomnia. After doing some research I found that it’s recommended that if you prefer to exercise at night you should make sure you do it more than four hours before you sleep; however some people need more time than that, it all depends on your body. So obviously that leaves mornings the best time to exercise if at all possible.

If you just don’t have the time to exercise during the day, try stretching at night (or even in addition to your morning exercise plan). Stretching is a form of relaxing and studies have shown that stretching before bedtime can help with your insomnia. Yoga could also be very beneficial to your body before bedtime.

We all know that exercise has many more benefits than helping you sleep. The most obvious benefit is it helps you lose weight if you are trying to. It gives you energy during the day. My recommendation is that before you try sleeping pills (which I did but they only seemed to help temporarily and are very highly addictive!) or any other sleep solution, start an exercise program! It will take a couple weeks (at least for me it did) for you to start noticing any changes but it really does help. You’ll notice that not only are you getting more sleep but that your stress levels are dropping and you’ll find yourself with more energy than ever.

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