Month: January 2024

Goals!

Published on by Caroline WhitehornLeave a comment

We are right at the end of the month and January is the time of reflection and resolutions and goal setting. Have you planned a new start or resolution what sort of thing have you gone for?

Have you chosen a new life choice, a job, place to live or hobby?

Have you gone for a physical goal?

Using the new year can be useful because if you make notes or journal entries in this month and plan to look back and evaluate how you did, a year is a good amount of time to get stuff done in. There’s a famous saying about over estimating what you can achieve in 6 months and underestimating what you can do in 10 years. I think a year is nice juncture to review changes you may have implemented throughout that time at all these new begin again points, such as a new day, a new week or a new month.

Using a goal can be a great way to gauge how you have got on. There’s lots of tidy little acronyms for goal setting like SMART, OKR, BHAG and my particular favourite WOOP. Goals are useful and help us have a direction to go in. I also think the process is pretty damn important too! It is, as they say, the journey.

For example, I am intending to do an ultra marathon in October 2024 (yes, this year). The idea of ‘running’ ( I say running a bit tongue in cheek because it will be a mix of running, jogging, walking and crawling) but the time between now and October will be filled with training runs, resistance training, eating well (I hope) and reading and resting and family time. All these things will involve a mix of people, some encouraging and some probably somewhat dispiriting. The point, for me, having this as a goal is I want some of the changes I will need to make to become habitual and stick.

For me this is the important bit of a goal. As I will need to develop a standard for this process and to be successful I will need to keep to this standard. My standard will be things I need to do every day for a step by step change to be ready for October. I have a running plan worked out, including time to do resistance training and Yoga. I have roped in some accountability buddies and exercise pals to keep me going. Some of these are in person and some is just a check in to say I am doing the workout. Each week I will set a meal plan for the week. I am sure I will have little hiccups along the way but the main thing I will be trying to do is avoid injury. If I prepare, train, sleep and eat adequately I will have done what I can to keep myself in good working order and to thrive on the event itself.

Now this is where the improvement is happening!

SLEEP

Published on by Caroline WhitehornLeave a comment

In appointments, I tend to bang on to patients about how important sleep is. Lots of people realise at a superficial level it is important because we have all had that late night and felt tired or irritable the next day. But over time a sleep deficit can cause longer term problems to our general health and recovery from injuries.

The sleep we get between 10pm and 2am are key for repair. This is repair from injury, from day to day functioning of our bodies and organs creating free radicals which can be unhelpful lingering in our body. This time is optimum for beneficial hormone secretion such as growth hormone which is key in repair and growth or adaptation from exercise. A one-off night of poor sleep results in reduction of healing capabilities so over a consistent picture of repeated nights of low sleeping hours will magnify this.

Sleeping for more hours, the current recommended amount is between 7-8 hours, allows more sleep cycles including deeper more restorative period of sleep.

There are some severe issues affecting sleep and this often needs to be supported by a medical professional but if you are someone that recognises you have poor sleep habits but not due to a medical issue then some of these tips may be helpful to you and help you recover from injury, feel more refreshed and alert day to day.

Tips for healthy sleep:

Wake up at the same time every day – work out what time that means you need to go to bed each night. Often waking the same time every day helps create a bed time because if you aren’t having lie-ins (to make up for the missed sleep) then you can have a wake up and a bed time. As an early morning runner, I have quite consistent wake up routine, evenings have been more difficult just because having children and wanting some ‘grown-up’ time means my bed time slightly changes. 

Reduce caffeine intake after midday or, if you think you are particularly sensitive to it, after 10am. After 6 hours of consuming caffeine half of it is still present in the body. 10 hours later it may not have cleared entirely. I love a good coffee. I now limit myself to two cups in the morning before midday. I don’t think I am particularly sensitive to caffeine so I don’t seem to get affected by a late morning one. But I do know people that have one cup on waking and that is it!

Avoid screens for an hour before bed time – try not to use your phone, computer or TV. Give your brain a break from that rapid movement, flickering lights, constant feed. Also the light from screen acts like daylight on our brains and helps it believe it is daylight and time to still be awake. This can then have an effect on melatonin production which then effects getting off to sleep and remaining asleep. I find this one can be particularly difficult because I like to watch films and series in the evening. What I have found though is if I give myself 45 mins of screen free time before bed, by prep for bed and then reading I can manage that.

Limit alcohol – I like a drink in an evening but what I personally found was that if I had a glass of wine several nights in a row (and I am talking a 175ml size, not consuming excessive) I was waking during the night for no particular reason. When I made the connection and reduced it so only had a glass or two at the weekend my sleep improved significantly. But what I did notice is it wasn’t immediate. I stopped drinking for Dry January and I would say it took a good week or so to consistently have better nights sleep. So, don’t immediately assume that because you didn’t see a difference two nights in that it isn’t the alcohol. Hang on in there.

Avoid or limit naps – I love this one! if only I had time for a nap!! But I think this is probably more of an issue if you are trying to organise your sleeping pattern and it is a bit all over the place. Trying to establish a routine can throw thing off a bit, so if you are working on waking at 6.30am every morning but you still go to bed at midnight this may be how you manage by napping. If so, limit the nap to less than 90 mins (ideally no more than 20-30mins) and not in the mid-afternoon.

Being physically tired is important. Do you get enough exercise or activity during the day? Are you limited by injury or illness in what activity you can do? Is there something stopping you get out for a 30 min walk or bike ride? Can you do exercise at home, a YouTube video or some resistance exercises using body weight. Anything that gets your body active through the day.