Sleep Problems

Bigger Stronger Leaner Beginners
1

I have been training pretty hard for a couple months now. Recently (3-4 weeks or so) I have significantly increased total calories and protein percentage in my diet. I am currently about 5’7", 175 lbs. I am consuming about 3000 calories with around 250g protein. I have been supplementing with fish oil, glutamine, and whey.

My problem is that lately, I have had big time trouble sleeping. I don’t recognize any new source of stress in my life. My workout times are the same (right after work, at least 3-4 hours before bed). Could this be from the increaesed protein intake? I really have no idea.

I don’t want to take any supplements to sleep.

2

i had sleeping problems too a while ago, and now i sleep great. no explanation

3

[quote]RMorrison wrote:
[…]

My workout times are the same (right after work, at least 3-4 hours before bed). Could this be from the increaesed protein intake? [/quote]

No.

The way to eat over the course of the day is to “front-load”, meaning if you get a total of 3000 kcal per day, you should eat ~1000 for breakfast and then 5 meals of 400 kcal over the course of the day.

Don’t eat a meal rich in carbs right before you go to bed and get your last meal at least 1 hour before you go to sleep.

4

Could just be that you’re thinking more. New stress or no.

Try to get into a routine that signals it’s bed time to your body. Reading some good fiction helps.

5

Do you take any stimulants during the day? if so what and when?

Do you have problems falling asleep or waking up in the middle of the night?

Have a glass of red wine before you go to bed, try some melatonin and/or ZMA…

6

I also train 4 hours or so before bed, but have learned to avoid red meat in my PWO solid food meal. I only eat red meat for dinner on OFF days.

I am assuming that you are not taking any new supplements that you did not mention.

7

Thanks for the replys.

The only stimulant that I take is a large cup of coffee in the morning. As far as “new” supplements, I started on the Glutamine about three weeks ago and on the fish oil only a few days ago. I started on creatine yesterday but I didn’t mention it because the sleeping problem arose far before this.

Most of the time, the trouble is falling asleep; however, lately (past few nights) I have been waking up every hour or two.

I am fairly sure that a lot of it is mental as I fall asleep while reading my book every night; but, when I turn off the lights and put the book down, I can’t repeat the trick…

I have taken melatonin before, and it has helped. The only thing that I don’t like, is that if I don’t fall asleep within about 40 minutes of taking the melatonin, I start feeling very strange and my stomach gets a bit upset.

I think Im gonna try to cut the coffee back to half a cup or not at all maybe if I can.

8

Tried ZMA?

9

Top 10 Ways to Sleep Smarter and Better <<-- Some tips that may or may not work for you.

Get some 5-HTP:

Relax.

10

when i have been on melatonin before i too had a hard time falling asleep…then i realized i was taking 3mg; too much.

they sell 1mg pills too. check your stash…it might be teh 3mg’s

11

b/c falling asleep is usually in your head (most likely from anxiety), i just tell myself “you’ll have enough time to sleep when you’re dead”

it seems harsh, but it helps. ppl have a hard time falling asleep cuz they get anxious about it. they stare at the clock and watch it count down, which i used to do.

but as soon as i didnt give a shit, thats when it became easier.

thats why im against the “you must have 8 hours sleep every night…MINIMUM”, cuz then you program that into your mind. then, when you end up only getting 5 or 6 hours, you become frustrated, which maks it harder to get to sleep the next night.

case in point: dont care about how many hours of sleep you get.

12

In extreme case I go to my trusty bottle of Z-12, it’ll knock you on your ass.

I take it pretty early around 9pm then I wake up around 5a.m fully refreshed with no weird hangover effects. Obviously you will be groggy due to waking up but nothing extreme like with other sleep aids.

For the most part, my job, the gym and ZMA put me right to sleep.

13

[quote]forbes wrote:
b/c falling asleep is usually in your head (most likely from anxiety), i just tell myself “you’ll have enough time to sleep when you’re dead”

it seems harsh, but it helps. ppl have a hard time falling asleep cuz they get anxious about it. they stare at the clock and watch it count down, which i used to do.

but as soon as i didnt give a shit, thats when it became easier.

thats why im against the “you must have 8 hours sleep every night…MINIMUM”, cuz then you program that into your mind. then, when you end up only getting 5 or 6 hours, you become frustrated, which maks it harder to get to sleep the next night.

case in point: dont care about how many hours of sleep you get. [/quote]

Out of personal experience i can tell you that part is psychological and the other part is just some type of legitimate sleeping problem. You were right when you said we get anxious about sleep and look at the time to see how long we’ve been trying to fall asleep.

Anxiety also can affect your sleeping pattern along with frustration and any other type of strong emotion that someone is experiencing. I also found out that playing video games for more than 2 hours before going to be or earlier won’t make falling asleep any easier.

Again this is al things that i’ve found out throught my 6 yrs of sleeping problem. That person also said that he wakes up every 2 hrs once he falls asleep, i’m assuming it’s the urge to urinate that wakes you up (at least in my case that’s what happens), if not it could just be that something realy fucked is happening in your head which also happens to me.

Sometimes i really feel something chemical is happening in my head, something is just brewing in there and it’s not frustration…i don’t know what the hell that is but when that happens i toss and turn for hrs bfore finally falling asleep.

Even w/ strong off the counter sleep aid medicine it’s hard to fall asleep sometimes and i still wake up to urinate more than 2ice most of the time. The pills just help me fall back asleep once i wake up.

14

[quote]liston78 wrote:
In extreme case I go to my trusty bottle of Z-12, it’ll knock you on your ass.

I take it pretty early around 9pm then I wake up around 5a.m fully refreshed with no weird hangover effects. Obviously you will be groggy due to waking up but nothing extreme like with other sleep aids.

For the most part, my job, the gym and ZMA put me right to sleep.[/quote]

Iff something that’s not prescribed knocks you right on your ass then you probably dont have any sleeping problem just the occasional it’s hard to fall asleep.

15

I have a horrible time getting to sleep. I find going to bed earlier helps a little. Nut it roughly takes me 2 hours to fall asleep each night or more, and not to mention i wake up all the time.

16

[quote]Damner wrote:
liston78 wrote:
In extreme case I go to my trusty bottle of Z-12, it’ll knock you on your ass.

I take it pretty early around 9pm then I wake up around 5a.m fully refreshed with no weird hangover effects. Obviously you will be groggy due to waking up but nothing extreme like with other sleep aids.

For the most part, my job, the gym and ZMA put me right to sleep.

Iff something that’s not prescribed knocks you right on your ass then you probably dont have any sleeping problem just the occasional it’s hard to fall asleep.[/quote]

  • I can see your point but actually I have battled sleeping problems my whole life. I’ a workaholic with a stressful job(who doesn’t). It’s actually all I think about at times. I work in Orthopaedics and it’s not uncommon for me to not sleep for 2 days while on call. I used to drink to fall asleep, take valium you name it.

Perhaps I am over the insomnia because I sleep pretty good now. But after a hectic day when my mind is racing with ideas and issue’s I sit in bed, toss and turn and get frustrated I can’t sleep. Hence the Z-12

17

According to Charles Poliquin:

If you wake up during the night at: 11pm to 1 am it means you have reactive hypoglycemia, 1 am to 3 am = liver toxic, 3am to 5 am lack of antioxidants.
Improve longevity by waking at same hour every day

18

What if I just wake up because I’m hungry? lol Because I hope to god I’m not liver toxic.

Also…GHB is your friend for sleeping problems.