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I figured out in high school/secondary school that doing strenuous exercise within a few hours of bed time would kill my chance at a decent sleep. I have always

I figured out in high school/secondary school that doing strenuous exercise within a few hours of bed time would kill my chance at a decent sleep. I have always found it easy enough to do formal workouts in the late afternoon or early evening. What gets me sometimes though is the "unexpected" exercise. A few months ago, while on vacation, I decided to climb the 10 flights of stairs up to my room, not wanting to deal with the slow and crowded elevator. 4 hours later, it's 2:00 AM and my mind is racing and it's like "why can't I sleep, that was a long day!". The next morning I remembered my trek upstairs and reminded myself that anything which elevates the heart rate is best avoided before sleep.

dinkblam 1y ago
i'd consider it alarming if 10 flights is already "exercise" or even noticeable
- wonder_er 1y ago
  timing can be a pretty big thing. Do you go up stairs slowly, or quickly? One step at a time or two? If someone is hustling up a staircase, the output can be quite high, even at the level of the 3rd floor. I notice myself, sometimes, forgetting something and moving quickly in and out of my 3rd floor apartment by stairs, and I'll notice myself breathing hard after just the 3rd floor. And sometimes I hike the building (6 floors) twice or three times, because it feels nice, and everything is timing. One can get easily get a high-intensity, short-interval fairly-involved full-body effort out of ten flights of stairs. I note a part of me that wants to be defensive wants to say "or perhaps someone else does not know how to try hard enough to make ten flights a good workout?" Something about your comment feels dismissive, and this random passer-by didn't like it, but I could certainly be projecting, etc etc.
- anthomtb 1y ago
  That's the thing. It was not noticeable at the time. No heavy breathing, no pain in the legs, no sensation of "this is hard" that you get with most formal workouts. But I have no doubt that my heart rate and adrenaline/cortisol levels had already been elevated, enough so to disrupt the typical sleep cycle.

dinkblam 1y ago

i'd consider it alarming if 10 flights is already "exercise" or even noticeable

wonder_er 1y ago
timing can be a pretty big thing. Do you go up stairs slowly, or quickly? One step at a time or two? If someone is hustling up a staircase, the output can be quite high, even at the level of the 3rd floor. I notice myself, sometimes, forgetting something and moving quickly in and out of my 3rd floor apartment by stairs, and I'll notice myself breathing hard after just the 3rd floor. And sometimes I hike the building (6 floors) twice or three times, because it feels nice, and everything is timing. One can get easily get a high-intensity, short-interval fairly-involved full-body effort out of ten flights of stairs. I note a part of me that wants to be defensive wants to say "or perhaps someone else does not know how to try hard enough to make ten flights a good workout?" Something about your comment feels dismissive, and this random passer-by didn't like it, but I could certainly be projecting, etc etc.
anthomtb 1y ago
That's the thing. It was not noticeable at the time. No heavy breathing, no pain in the legs, no sensation of "this is hard" that you get with most formal workouts. But I have no doubt that my heart rate and adrenaline/cortisol levels had already been elevated, enough so to disrupt the typical sleep cycle.