The art of sleep management

I've noticed a dramatic change in my sleeping habits, since I started working out 2-3 hours per day, I have no doubt when my body needs to regenerate. A natural rhythm asserts itself each day. I wake up around 4 am each day without an alarm clock. I carefully prepare my kits for the day; one for swimming, running, clean change of underwear and a toilet kit to shave, tooth brush.

I put on my heart rate monitor, lie down and start an optimizer test. It starts by measuring resting heart rate while lying down and after a few minutes it beeps, indicating it is time to stand up. At first, my heart rate rises then it comes down or at least it does when I've successfully recovered. I'm given a number between 1 and 9. Most days I see a 2 which indicates a normal recovery. I've seen higher numbers like a 6 when I was really pushing my limits.

I learned during that time the importance of recovery exercise. I run at slower pace, swim with different strokes to stretch out the hip flexors, move different sets of muscles.

Some of my struggle then is to make sure that I keep organized so that it doesn't interfere with my sleeping cycles. I definitely notice my workouts are easier and enjoyable.

- off the cuff