Right here’s How Swimming Twice a Week Affected My Sleep

Since I grew up throughout the road from my hometown’s swimming pool, I’ve beloved swimming and being within the water. Whether or not a pool, lake or ocean, I spent most summers within the water hanging out with buddies, which become taking swim classes, turning into a swim teacher, working as a lifeguard and turning into a aggressive swimmer.

It seems that this enjoyment of water is backed by science too. You will have heard of a “blue prescription” or the Blue Thoughts Concept, popularized by marine biologist Wallace Nichols. These theories counsel that there are intrinsic helpful connections between people and water. Being round water or “blue area” has been confirmed to extend dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin within the mind and reduce cortisol ranges, which lowers coronary heart price and stress ranges. 

Preliminary ideas and expectations

For this experiment, I wished to research the affect of swimming and being round water on my sleep high quality. Sadly, I do not stay close to an simply accessible pure physique of water resembling a lake or ocean. I do, nonetheless, stay close to an indoor pool, the place I made a decision to take up lap swimming. 

I dove headfirst into this investigation, assuming, for just a few causes, that I’d sleep higher on the times I swam. Not solely does being round water have a naturally calming and meditative impact, however swimming can be an glorious type of train and has many identified advantages — together with higher sleep. 

I spoke with licensed psychotherapist and sleep specialist Annie Miller, who defined that motion and train improve the physique’s pure sleep drive, which permits us to really feel sleepier and have total higher sleep high quality, and swimming isn’t any exception. 

“Swimming is an exercise that promotes deeper, extra aware respiratory, which inspires rest. Deep respiratory can positively affect sleep high quality,” mentioned Annie. 

Let’s be clear: I am no scientist, however I did my greatest to maintain different variables the identical. I restricted my espresso consumption to 2 cups within the morning and stored my weight-reduction plan comparable every day, together with what and once I ate. I did not drink alcohol and took the identical sleep gummies each night time. I additionally didn’t have interaction in another types of strenuous train on the times when I didn’t swim.

I swam a constant distance of 1 mile every swim day. The one distinction was the velocity at which I accomplished the mile, which ranged from 38 to 40 minutes. I tracked my exercises and sleep information utilizing my Apple Watch and waited till the top of the trials to match and distinction the data to keep away from probably swaying the outcomes prematurely. Proper off the bat, nonetheless, I observed that my sleep high quality appeared worse on the nights after swimming versus days once I did not swim.

Swimming vs. sleep information

The outcomes

The ultimate outcomes of this experiment shocked me: On common, I really slept much less and was awake extra on swim days in comparison with non-swim days — primarily the other of what I used to be anticipating to search out. 

Sleep on swim days vs. non-swim days

I additionally observed an fascinating sample with my sleep when evaluating swim days with the off-days instantly following a swim day, or what I am going to discuss with as a “restoration day.” On swim days, my whole sleep time averaged slightly below 7 hours, and my awake time was about an hour per night time. On restoration days, my whole sleep time was a lot increased — round 8.5 hours, with a considerably decrease awake time of about half-hour. 

Sleep on swim days vs. restoration days

To be trustworthy, I used to be baffled. I learn on-line to see if others have had the same expertise and located the possible trigger. In keeping with author and aggressive swimmer Olivier Poirier-Leroy, the extra intense the exercise, the more durable it may be to sleep as a result of spiked cortisol and norepinephrine (adrenaline) ranges. In reality, it could take as much as 48 hours for norepinephrine ranges to return to regular after high-intensity train — which gave the impression to be the case for me.

Constantly strolling out of the swim middle with wobbly pool noodle legs was in all probability an indication that I used to be pushing myself just a little too exhausting. Regardless of not having the outcomes I had anticipated (or hoped for), I observed just a few different fascinating adjustments throughout this experiment which can be more durable to quantify however price mentioning. 

My stress floated away

My lap swim periods occurred in the course of my workday, round 1 p.m. Each time I left for the swim middle, I felt sluggish and pressured about going once I had different duties to finish. Some days, I even had an accompanying pressure headache earlier than swimming and was usually not trying ahead to the exercise. 

Throughout the exercise, these detrimental emotions would steadily wash away. I started trying ahead to reaching that meditative state the place I might focus solely on respiratory and calming my thoughts.

After each swim, I observed a big enchancment in my temper. I used to be much less pressured and didn’t expertise that typical afternoon droop once I normally opted for one more cup of espresso to get me by way of the remainder of the day. I felt bodily drained however mentally energized and targeted, able to sort out the remainder of the day’s to-do listing. 

Conclusion and remaining ideas

I imagine being in and round water had constructive calming results, because the Blue Thoughts Concept suggests, however maybe not fairly sufficient to outweigh the spiking cortisol ranges I used to be experiencing from pushing myself too exhausting. 

Like Discovering Nemo’s Dory says, I’ll “simply preserve swimming” utilizing the perception gained from this experiment till I discover a pleased medium that improves my sleep high quality. I hope to conduct comparable research with much less intense exercises or just spend time close to water every day to discover these theories additional. 

For those who’re like me and also you’re on the lookout for methods to get higher relaxation, don’t sleep on our easier ideas and tips, resembling limiting expertise utilization, creating a bedtime routine, journaling or meditating and — take it from me — ensuring you’re figuring out at an applicable depth stage and on the proper time of day.