Your body is a complex and powerful machine. It’s important to stay in shape and maintain peak physical fitness. Your body can heal itself and regenerate after exercise, but that doesn’t mean you’re indestructible. Personal trainer, Nick Di Ruscio, also recommends getting a good night’s rest after the workout routine is over.
Although it might be lights out for you when you fall asleep, your body is actually quite busy during this time. While you’re sleeping, the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system is having a workout all its own. Sleep is the silent healer, allowing your body to fully recover from the stresses of exercise. So you need to get eight to ten hours of sleep to optimize your fitness gains. Your body also needs to get rid of toxins that build up in your tissues and cells. This requires energy, and if you don’t allow your body time to rest, then you will leave yourself vulnerable to a host of problems such as heart disease and obesity.
Getting a good night’s rest after a workout is especially important if you are trying to lose weight. A recent study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania found that people who only got four hours of sleep for 5 nights in a row were more likely to gain more weight. So you might have totally smashed it in the gym, but you’ll gain back all the weight if you don’t give your body the adequate amount of rest it requires.