Don’t Sacrifice Sleep For Your Workout. Here’s How To Get The Best Of Both.
You’ve got a good job. Good, but demanding. You’ve got an active social life. Fun, but time consuming. You maintain a consistent exercise routine. Consistent, but challenging. Are you sleeping enough? Probably not.
Having a balanced wellness practice isn’t easy. When our career and social life dominate our time, it’s easy to sacrifice sleep, exercise, or both. But sleep and exercise are the two most important ingredients of good mental health. They deserve equal prioritization. We can’t be present for our friends, family, and work when we’re sleepy and cranky. So how do we balance sleep and exercise so we can do it all?
The most common culprit in not getting enough sleep is revenge bedtime procrastination (RBP). RBP describes the phenomenon of postponing our bedtime to indulge in the leisurely activities we couldn't fit into our hectic daytime schedules. This behavior often sacrifices necessary sleep due to demanding workloads or other intense obligations. We often see these late-night hours as an opportunity to regain a sense of autonomy or liberation (i.e. scrolling through TikTok until the single-digit hours), even though it adversely affects our sleep health.
It happens when we haven’t set adequate boundaries with our friends, family, and work, so we feel robbed of our autonomy and free-time. It’s a difficult habit to break, but I argue it’s not worth breaking altogether.
You work hard. You need social time. You need recharge time. If you can only claim your solitary time in the late-night hours, so be it. The trick is to gain control of it and set limits so you get enough sleep. Here’s how to transform your revenge bedtime procrastination so it works for you, not against you.
Replace your revenge activity with something screenless
None of us are strong enough to put the screens away when we should. They’re too addictive. It’s too easy to lose track of time when you get sucked into a vortex of TikTok, video games, TV shows and movies. Plus, we all know the light from our screens keeps us awake.
Search for an alternative activity you genuinely enjoy. Reading, audiobooks, podcasts, knitting, cooking, whatever.
Create a luxurious nightly ritual
Add a little extra pampering to your nightly routine to incentivise a wind-down ritual. The key is to convince yourself to actually do this routine every night, so try to keep adding new activities you’re genuinely curious about and excited to try. Maybe try a monthly subscription box for face masks and skincare accessories so you keep getting new supplies delivered to your door.
Do an evening workout
Evenings are for winding down, but if you’re having trouble relaxing, maybe you should lean into it with a workout. Just make sure you give yourself a long cool-down to lower your heart rate and chill out. Try one of Somato’s evening workouts to be guided through a high-energy workout followed by a long, meditative cool down.
Stretch before bed
Doing some stretching, a movement meditation, yoga or a Classical Pilates routine is a great way to reorient yourself to the calmer part of your day. Try one of Somato’s nighttime movement meditations. Stretching lets the stress move through and out of your body so you feel ready to relax.