Here is where the training and practice come together. By this time you should be prepared for the test and confident of consistently achieving the results you got during training.
Like I always tell my personal training clients who participate in competitive sports:
“Many people like winning, in fact many people have the will to win…”
“But not many people have the will to prepare to win!”
- The will to prepare to win, includes eating right. You really are what you eat. Imagine each molecule of that oily fried noodle becoming part of you. Yuck!
- The will to prepare to win includes training smart and consistently. Which means at least some measure of physical discomfort when compared to surfing the internet or watching TV!
- The will to prepare to win includes knowing for sure, exactly what to do and how you will perform so you can do your best on test day, and that’s what this chapter is about.
The underlying question is “what did you do today that will make you perform better when the test day comes”.
Sleep
Singapore is a chronically under-slept nation. I recall a local documentary I saw in TV where a reporter was going around on the street asking Singaporeans how many hours of sleep they had each night. The average was about 5 or 6 hours per night. Many respondents said that they slept at 1 or 2 in the morning and woke up at 7 to rush off to work.
Internet surfing, TV watching and yes even work are some of the reason given for the poor sleeping habits.
You might survive on this kind of sleep regimen. And us men all know that this is what happens during our time in national service. But remember, we now have to ask ourselves…we might survive but is it ideal?
Lack of sleep is a problem for people looking to maximize performance. A scary thought is that before the invention of the light bulb, people averaged 12 hours of sleep per night. We are not even close in today’s hectic world. Many of us don’t even get the required 7 or 8 hours. Sleep debt is bad and here are some of the disadvantages.
Obesity And Sleep
There is a direct relationship between obesity and lack of sleep. Studies show that the people who slept less also had higher body mass indexes (BMI). Sure BMI isn’t a perfect system of determining health, but it is a good indicator of obesity for the average non-athletic population.
Poor Carbohydrate Metabolism And Sleep
Because of the way lack of sleep affects hormonal function, the stress hormone cortisol is more active and this causes more fat storage. Imagine, the body stores fat for survival, just as if you were lost in the jungle. More fat would mean you live longer. Lack of sleep is a stressful state for the body and will result in a similar reaction – fat storage.
The hormone insulin is also released more when we don’t sleep enough. This hormone is released to store carbohydrates that we eat. As fat. Yes more training and exercise can reduce the effect but sufficient sleep is a good way to stop the body from releasing lots of insulin to store fat.
Slows Recovery
We only benefit from training when recover. How much stronger do you get after doing sprints? Or lifting weights? The answer is of course…not stronger at all! In fact at the end of a training session you are drained and weaker. It is recovery that builds the physical capability that you want. Sleep is critical for recovery processes to function well.
Practical Steps To Improved Sleep
Decide to sleep more. Yes, make a way, just like you make a way to spend time training, eating, brushing your teeth and washing your underwear! Even if it’s not every day, get a few “long sleep” nights in each week. Maybe 9 hours or more. Also, take naps if you can. Yeah, it’s tough. Be creative!
Stop surfing the net and watching TV after 10pm. Get ready to relax and slow down into sleep.
Caffeine is a stimulant that the body does not adapt well to. It puts your hormonal system into overdrive and is what athletes call “borrowed energy” you have to pay it back somehow. Cut down on the caffeine by taking de-caf or green tea instead.
Have a bedtime routine. For me it’s light snack of nuts and protein powder, small cup of warm drink, main light off, bedside light on, read for 30min, pee for the final time! And off to bed. No you don’t need to do the same thing but you do need a routine. Remember consistent routines give consistent results.
I have heard some people do well with softly playing nature sounds kinds of CD’s. Give it a try if it works for you.
Adjust your sleep to your needs. I don’t know how sleep deprived you are but you can start off going to sleep 8 hours before you need to wake up. If you do this for 1 week and still feel terrible, add 30 mins to this time and try again for another week. Sleep is like a bank account, you can’t just take stuff out. You do need to intentionally put stuff in also!
Take care of your sleep environment. If your environment is full of bad and disturbing noises, get earplugs. Noise makes each hour of sleep less “powerful”. There was even a study that shows that loud daytime noises hurt night time sleep! Earplugs again are the solution.
Light needs to go also. If your room cannot be fully darkened (the way it was in the caveman days) get one of those sleep masks that we get on airlines. Use it.
Electronic emissions. Turn off your hand phone, wifi modem, and any other emitting device. I don’t think there are any studies on this yet. But I’m pretty sure that besides the comforting feeling that you won’t be getting noisy phone calls, these electronic waves are not great for sleep.
Don’t use alcohol. It works in the short run for people who usually don’t drink. But in the long run, your body adapts to it and it makes you have drowsiness during the day and actually reduces the quality of sleep. Uh it’s also high in useless calories and makes your hormonal state less conducive to muscle growth and recovery.
Don’t drink too much before sleeping. Each person is different but experiment with how much you can handle without waking up to use the toilet. Peeing requires you wake up. That disturbs sleep. Enough said.
On the day before the test get lots of sleep. But if you know how valuable sleep is, you should have been getting that sleep and those sleep habits long before that.
That is it for part 1 of how to prepare for the test day. Sleep is so important that I spend much of my initial personal training consultations on sleeping better. If the above tips are not enough, drop by my Singapore personal trainer webpage and ask for a health consultation where I will solve any sleeping issues you might have. Can’t fall asleep? Wake up feeling tired? Wake up constantly in the middle of the night etc…