How does stress affect your sleep?

Sleep is one of the best ways to improve running performance, but so many runners struggle to get enough good-quality shuteye every night. Stress has a significant impact on your ability to sleep well, and the graph below demonstrates just how tightly the two are connected. In other words, runners who want to perform well need to sleep well, and if you want to sleep well, you need to reduce stress.

How does sleep impact stress levels?

Here's some data on hours of sleep compared to self-reported stress levels in a group of college runners.

Notice a trend? pic.twitter.com/jCURwUUz2Y

— Steve Magness (@stevemagness) April 4, 2022

As you can see, any time the subject of this graph’s stress levels went down, their number of sleep hours went up. On the other hand, if their stress increased, their sleep hours decreased in almost the exact same proportion. This, of course, is only one set of data, but it does an excellent job highlighting how stress negatively impacts your ability to sleep long and well.

How to relieve stress at bedtime

Studies have proven that lack of sleep is detrimental to athletic performance, so for many runners, reducing stress so they can improve their sleep could be the ticket to their next PB. Here are a few ways to reduce everyday stress so you can get more shuteye:

Take a warm shower or bath

Your body naturally begins to cool itself off as you get close to bedtime (do you ever find yourself reaching for a sweater in the afternoon?). This is intentional and is your body’s way of gradually preparing you for sleep. A warm shower or bath will initially warm your body up, which helps initiate this cooling-off process. As a side bonus, the warm water can be very soothing for your muscles, which can also relax your body and make it easier to fall asleep.

Journal

If you find you’re tossing and turning at night with thoughts and worries, consider keeping a journal next to your bed. Each night before you go to sleep, write down what’s worrying you to get them out of your head and onto paper. That alone can often reduce stress, but if that’s not enough, consider following that up with a to-do list for the next day to help put your mind at ease.

Schedule worrying time

This may sound a little silly, but it’s actually a common technique used in cognitive behavioural therapy. Each day, set aside a specific time when you’re going to go through all the things in your mind that are worrying you. The goal is to address the cause of each of these worries before they get out of hand.

Use meditation/mindfulness practices

Mindfulness meditation (observing your thoughts, feelings and emotions as they pass through your mind without judgement), body scan meditation (slowly concentrating on parts of the body and noticing any sensations or pains), guided meditation (being verbally guided through a meditative experience) or deep breathing are all great additions to your bedtime routine to improve your sleep.

Avoid exercising too close to bedtime

Exercise is good stress, but it’s still stress, and when you run or workout right before bed, it has the potential to disrupt your sleep. As much as you can, try to avoid doing hard workouts in the late evening. If you can, move your run to the afternoon/early evening, or try switching to the morning.