I have never been a morning person. In fact, when I was younger and more self-centered, I was occasionally downright putrid in the morning -- unpleasant, irritable, moody, and ready to snap at whatever poor soul crossed my path. (Ugh. That's pretty embarrassing to admit.)
Over the past two years or so, as life has become increasingly busy and insomnia has refused to release me from its grasp, I have turned myself into a morning workout person. Most days, when the alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m., I get up and get it done. After work, I'm just too tired, too busy, too over-committed to work out, so the mornings seem to work better for me.
However, recently I've skipped some morning workouts because I just cannot drag myself out of bed at 5:30. That extra hour of sleep is too appealing... too persuasive. "Stay in bed," it tells me. "Sleep!"
The trouble is, I don't sleep. I end up tossing and turning for that hour, getting 5 or 10 minutes of sleep before waking up again, looking at the clock in exasperation, and trying again. When the alarm goes off and I get up for good, I feel FAR worse than I would have if I'd just gotten up and worked out, fercrissakes. For the rest of the day, I'm groggy, unfocused, lethargic, and fighting to stay awake. It happened Tuesday, and it's happening again today.
So my question is this. Do I feel this way because of the ill-fated extra hour of non-sleep? Or because of the skipped workout? In other words, is there something physiological about working out in the morning that really, truly gives you more energy throughout the day? I mean, I know it feels that way, but is that real or just a placebo effect?
4 comments:
I have no idea, sorry. I often have the same thing happen though, so if you figure it out, let me know.
I've never been a morning person either, but sometimes I have to get up early for a workout or whatever. And I find the same thing, if I hit snooze forever I inevitably regret it and just should have got my sorry butt out of bed in the first place!
maybe a combination of the two?
I don't have insomnia, but I was also never a morning person until after a couple of years of running. I only ever had time in the morning because the boys were time-consuming. After several years of hauling myself out of bed at o'dark thirty, it became a habit. And yeah, the extra hour of tossing and turning makes me feel worse than if I just get up and go.
This round of marathon training has some really long weekday runs (since I'm only going 4x a week), so I get up at 4:55. I'm usually unconscious by 9 at night. :)
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