It’s an obvious fact when it comes to exercise, what you do at your fitness facility is really crucial.

But what you do outside your gym – the food that you eat, the beverages you take, and above all how you sleep, is equally as important.

In fact, any health and fitness professional will tell you that in order for your workout to be effective, you must sleep properly.

We work out for a specific reason. For some, it is to maintain cardiovascular health, while for others it might be to increase lean muscle mass or to enhance endurance.

While all these fitness goals are important, they all require sleep. To put it plainly, working out will not deliver the intended benefits without proper sleep hygiene because if you don’t get enough quality sleep, you undermine your body.

So how is sleep connected to staying fit?

Sleep helps you to conserve energy, repair and rebuild the muscles worked out muscles after exercise and provides your body time to recover.

When you get adequate quality sleep, your body produces growth hormones. Throughout childhood and adolescence, growth hormones make us grow, but when we are all grown up, the hormones help the body to build lean muscle and repair muscle that tears up when you engage in intense physical activity.

Consequently, growth hormone is extremely vital for athletic recovery.

Unfortunately, most people have a serious problem when it comes to getting enough quality sleep.

Perhaps this is due to our increasingly busy and hectic lifestyles. According to a recent survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 30 percent of Americans are sleep-deprived, which implies that these people are not getting the recommended 7 to 8 hours a night needed for adults.

This means that an estimated 108 million folks in the U.S. are compromising their personal fitness targets too.

Can Exercise Help You Get Enough Sleep?

Absolutely! If you’ve never felt that instant sleep-inducing exhaustion after an intense workout or a day of hiking, there’s strong scientific evidence to support this claim.

According to one study, people who reported to have less than 6.5 hours of sleep time completed moderate-intensity exercises like walking, jogging on a treadmill, or riding a stationary bicycle four times a week for six weeks.

After the experiment, these people reported getting an additional 1 hour and 15 minutes of sleep per night – surpassing what many drugs in the market have been found to deliver. What exercise does to the brain is that it helps the brain to produce more adenosine, which makes a person feel sleepy.

How Does Getting Good Sleep Benefit Your Workout?

Well, it’s simple. The better rest you get, the better your brain and body function – and that also includes at the gym.

It has been proven that getting enough sleep helps to motivate people to stick to their work out regimens. In case you find it hard to get enough quality sleep even when you engage in intense workouts, you should consider taking magnesium supplements.

Magnesium is a vital mineral you’re your body requires for vital functions, including energy production, sleep, stress response, and muscle function. VitaMonk has a great article about how magnesium can help to activate GABA receptors, which are the main receptors for relaxation, anti-anxiety, and sleep.

In a nutshell, getting adequate quality sleep can help to give you more drive and energy to maximize your exercise routine. Its effect on mood, focus and concentration can also make you more efficient and better prepared for exercise.