Crossfit, training for a half marathon and hot yoga could be ruining your sleep instead of helping it!


In this episode, I explain:

  • what strenuous exercise does to your body and how it affects sleep
  • how we can get addicted to exercise
  • what happens when you get to the point where you can’t tolerate exercise
  • how to exercise to support sleep instead of sabotaging it


In case you love your workouts and this is triggering you, I want to add that this isn’t forever so keep listening. Once you’re sleeping well again, you can get back to harder training. 


If you love exercise and want to be fit and are trying to exhaust yourself with exercise but you aren’t sleeping well, this episode is for you.


Exercise is just one small factor that affects sleep. If you want to take the first steps to get your body back in balance so you can sleep well without diving into the lab testing, you want my Sleep Essentials course. 


This is where I start with all of my clients while we’re waiting on their lab results and at least half of them get 1 hr or more of sleep a night by making these simple changes. 


In the Sleep Essentials course you’ll learn how to:

  • Lower inflammation to fall asleep fast by finding the perfect diet for your body
  • Stop the 3am wake-ups by balancing your blood sugar
  • Lower cortisol so you don't sabotage your deep sleep between 3 and 6am. 
  • Fall asleep faster and evidence-based systems to fall back asleep quickly in the middle of the night
  • And more


Sign up here for only $37.


Schedule a consultation to get started with the Complete Sleep Solution program so you can consistently sleep 7+ hours uninterrupted, naturally and permanently.


00:00 Introduction: Exercise and Sleep

01:34 Personal Journey with Exercise

03:39 The Science Behind Exercise Addiction

06:12 When Exercise Becomes Too Much

08:06 Balancing Exercise for Better Sleep

10:09 Practical Tips for Gentle Exercise

15:07 Conclusion and Sleep Essentials Course


Episode Transcript


CrossFit, training for a half marathon, and hot yoga could be ruining your sleep instead of helping it. In this episode, I explain what strenuous exercise does to your body and how it affects sleep. I'll also talk about how we can get addicted to exercise. What happens when you get to the point where you actually can't tolerate exercise and how to exercise to support sleep instead of sabotaging it.


In case you love your workouts and this is triggering you, I want to add that this isn't forever. So keep listening. Once you're sleeping well, again, you can get back to harder training. I'm Martha Lewis, AKA the sleep detective, and I've helped over 200 clients. Find and fix the root causes of their sleep and health issues, including people like me who love exercise.


You're listening to the sleep detective podcast, where you will finally understand why you can't sleep and how to fix it. So you can consistently sleep seven or more hours without drugs. If you love exercise and you want to be fit, and maybe you're even trying to exhaust yourself with exercise, but you aren't sleeping well, this episode is for you.


Now, before I get started, I do have a favor to ask, if you could please share this podcast with someone, who is having trouble sleeping, you can text or email them the link right now. My goal with the show is to reach and help as many people as I can, and I can't reach them without your help. So thank you in advance.


All right. So I will say that this topic really hits home for me. In high school, I played soccer. I used to run 15 minutes to the local YMCA, do a hot aerobics workout or step aerobics workout, run back home. And I remember in high school realizing that I loved exercise and so this continued into college and definitely when I moved out west to Jackson Hole where I live now, the mountain towns are all about exercise.


I actually remember when my friend and I showed up in Boulder, Colorado at 7 a. m. on a Saturday morning and the bike path was filled with people running, biking, walking their dogs. There were people doing Tai Chi in the grass next to the path and I was just blown away and that's Jackson Hole isn't as populated, but that's how it is and so I continued.


My exercise, loving to exercise. And I started mountain biking. I started back country snowboarding. And in my twenties and even my thirties, I would have three to five hour mountain bike rides. I would ski tour all day, at least one day a week. If not more and the rest of the days, I was still hiking up for an hour and skiing back down or skiing at the resort all day long.


So I was doing strenuous exercise for a really long time. And if I couldn't exercise for a couple days, I would start getting depressed, I felt like I was always driven to exercise because it made me feel good. So I just want you to know that if this is hard to hear, I know where you're coming from this is really important, especially if you aren't sleeping well.


Now I'm not going to get into the health benefits of exercise because you probably already know them if you're listening to this episode. Except to say that studies show that exercise improves mood and improves health. It improves sleep.


If you aren't exercising at all, it's also important to move your body, but we can do too much and overdo it, and we can also become addicted to exercise, I remember learning about neurotransmitters like 15 years ago, , I had this realization that many people in Jackson, where I live, are using exercise to produce neurotransmitters.


So especially when we exercise, our body produces and releases more dopamine, which is like our reward neurotransmitter reduces norepinephrine, which is one of our stress hormones. It reduces more serotonin, which is our and sleep regulation neurotransmitter and as it releases endorphins, these feel good, chemicals in your body.


And so I think that for some of us who might have low neurotransmitters, exercise is going to help increase those neurotransmitters. So it's a way of self medicating, really. And it's definitely a more healthy way of self medicating, definitely more than other things we can do to get dopamine, especially like different recreational drugs and things.


But it is self medicating. And I think A lot of us, myself included, are genetically predisposed to low serotonin, for example. Like I've now done genetic testing, so I know that's true. I had depleted serotonin. Now, luckily, I've never experienced depression and other mental health issues.


It was mainly affecting my sleep because once I started supplementing for serotonin, that's when I started sleeping so much better. And now that I see my mom's side of the family, my mom, my grandmother, my uncles all had severe mental health issues. And so it makes sense that there's a genetic component to this.


But I think I haven't experienced those issues because I've exercised and even was addicted to exercise and eat well and, get more nutrients than maybe they did. So just want to say that exercise can be psychologically addictive, and I see this in my friends, even now that I've overcome this for myself, I see it in so many people around me.


It's really fascinating. Now, I also want to share that you can get to the point where you can't tolerate exercise anymore. And I've seen this happen in some of my clients as well. And it also happened to me. So when I was dealing with my sleep issues, I did the functional lab testing.


I started correcting the imbalances in my body, like a parasite and hormone imbalance and neurotransmitter deficiencies and also heavy metals. Like I had really high uranium and I was also toxic in copper. And. What can happen is when you have these imbalances and when cortisol becomes depleted, then your body can't handle exercise anymore, especially strenuous exercise.


So I remember as I was still in my healing journey, so I was already sleeping better, but I was still working on the imbalances. And I remember I went on a two hour ski tour with some of my girlfriends, which used to be just a typical day of exercise, but I was exhausted for three days later, like literally felt so tired, was on the couch, could go for a walk, but that's about it.


And I'm like, okay, this is a sign that was too much and I need to take it easier. And I think part of it was that my body was getting rid of copper, and when you exercise, it's going to release those toxins even more, which is good if your body's healthy and it can handle it, that sweating, exercising, moving is a great way to get rid of toxins, but it can also make it happen too quickly, especially if you're doing other things to deal with those toxins. And so I started to really learn to listen to my body.


Is to really limit the amount of strenuous exercise you're doing, and this is because Exercise is stressful now. It's called a hormetic stressor So similar to intermittent fasting and cold plunging like exercise stresses our muscles to make them stronger So it's meant to improve our health, even though it's stressful in the moment.


But when you aren't sleeping your body's already releasing a lot of cortisol because not sleeping is stressful for your body. And then the imbalances in your body that are causing your sleep issues in the first place, whether it has to do with pathogens in the gut or blood sugar imbalances or liver detox issues or depleted cortisol or cortisol that's too high.


Strenuous exercise. Especially once it hits the 30 minute mark is going to cause your body to release more cortisol Because it is stressed so for this reason for many of my clients who tend to overexercise I recommend while we're working together that they limit strenuous exercise to no more than 30 minutes a day For a maximum of a couple days a week And, one main sign that if you're exercising a lot and trying to lose weight and you can't lose weight, you can't lose that belly fat, that's definitely a sign of high cortisol.


And so exercise is also sabotaging that. So it's hurting instead of helping you lose weight and lose your belly flat and strenuous exercise can also deplete neurotransmitters over time. So at first it's going to increase them, but then when your body can't keep up with making them, it's going to deplete them over time.


And overexercise can also affect your thyroid and your immune system. So that's why I really recommend limiting it and focusing on more gentle exercise instead. And I don't mean no exercise. We definitely still need to move as humans. We are meant to move. And so walking, even though I remember to me, that's never felt like exercise, right?


Like you don't get the same amount of endorphins and feel good chemicals that you do from going on a run or hiking up for an hour and skiing down. Like that feels amazing walking. So it doesn't have quite. As big effect that we can notice, but it's still really important for our mood. It's great for your health and it's also great for your sleep.


And so I remember it was really difficult when I had my son, so he is eight and a half years old now. So when he was a newborn, everything changed, right? And I couldn't get out and exercise like I used to. So I would have many days where I didn't do anything at all. And once I started addressing my sleep issues and learning about these things, I started at least walking every day.


And again, I thought walking wasn't really exercise, it didn't count, but I felt so much better when I at least got out for a walk. So it's definitely still important to move every day. And, again, this isn't forever. So I'm not telling you to stop exercising, doing any kind of strenuous exercise forever.


I'm just saying, if you aren't sleeping well, then it could be good to cut it back and work on fixing the imbalances in your body that are affecting your sleep. And then your body can recover and then you're going to be able to do more strenuous exercise again. Like for me last summer, I actually did a 19 mile trail running race.


Now I'm going to say running and race in quotation marks because my friend and I hiked most of it, especially the uphills. It was over 4, 000 feet of elevation gain. And we would run some of the downhills and we also were not racing. I wasn't going for any specific time. My goal was just to complete it, but it was such a good reminder because five years ago I could not have done that.


I was dealing with not being able to exercise, but instead I was able to train all summer and go on longer and longer hikes and really listen to my body. I took a lot more time to recover than I used to in the past. And yeah, learn to listen to my body. And so I continued to sleep well all summer, even though I was training a lot harder than I have.


And so now I exercise every day and that I at least go on a walk every day of the week. I'm moving. Somewhat. I do yoga once a week. I hike or cross country ski or ski at the resort throughout the week as well. And I might go on a more strenuous back country snowboard tour.


Like I went two days ago with my husband, we hiked Teton Pass, which is near us, which is like an hour hike up and had this amazing rundown. Or I'll do hot yoga, which is another actually. Very strenuous thing for your body. And so I'll limit those things to once a week at most. And then I try and get in some short weight training sessions, at least once a week as well.


So again, I'm not saying no exercise, but I'm saying you might want to cut it down while you're dealing with sleep issues. And I want to add that it's also important not to sit all day long. There's actually studies that showed that people who sat all day long, even if they did one hour of exercise a day, it didn't improve their lipid, glucose, and insulin metabolism the next day.


And it's really important. Not only to exercise and move every day, but also not to sit all day long. So having a standing desk, I'm actually standing at my desk as I record this podcast. I stand at my desk when I talk to clients and then I like to switch it off and sit down when I'm writing. Or things that might involve a little more concentration.


And, um, I have a little rebounder under my desk. I like to stand on when I'm just working away. I want to get a treadmill for my desk. So I'm excited about that. Anyway, we need to be moving. Not too little, not too much, just like Goldilocks, right? It has to be just right. And what's just right for your body is going to change.


It's going to depend on the state of your health, how well you're sleeping, your age, your fitness levels, all of that. So we can't expect to be able to continue to exercise like we did in our 20s into our 40s and 50s. Our bodies are going to change.


So everything is temporary. Now, exercise is just one small piece of the puzzle of all the things that can affect sleep. So if you want to take the first steps to get your body back in balance without diving into the lab testing that I talk about a lot, so you can sleep well. You want my sleep essentials course.


So this is where I start with all of my clients while we're waiting on their lab results. And at least half of them get one or more hour of sleep per night, just by making these simple changes that I talk about in this course. So you'll learn things like how to lower inflammation to fall asleep fast by finding the perfect diet for your body, how to stop the 3am wake ups by balancing your blood sugar.


How to lower cortisol so you don't sabotage your deep sleep between three and six a. m. and how to fall asleep faster and evidence based systems to fall back asleep quickly in the middle of the night. So you'll get all this and more bonuses for just $37 so you can register for the course on my website, https://thesleepdetective.com/sleepessentials. And I will also link to that in the show notes. All right, everyone. Thanks so much for listening and I will talk to you next time.

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