Day 22: Sleep deprivation

In my previous posts about Researching the effects of Ramadan fasting on physical performance, I had briefly covered sleep deprivation as an effect which had the potential to disrupt physical performance in athletes. 10 days later, I am truly experiencing the effects of sleep deprivation and it has definitely affected my physical performance yesterday. 

I have spent the majority of Ramadan getting 5/6 hours of fairly disrupted sleep and have been coping OK. My training has not been disrupted and my general performance for all daily tasks has been fine. I've been using afternoon or early evening naps to catch up on more sleep, and it's worked well for me, until yesterday (Wednesday).

With the time between Iftar and Sehri now down to just 4 hours or so, I had been feeling for a few days that eating 2 meals was becoming a painful problem. By the time I was going to sleep after force feeding a second meal and downing 6 pints of water, I started going to bed really full and uncomfortable. This situation peaked on Tuesday night when I didn't sleep for hours because of stomach pain and repeatedly needing to empty my bladder. I only got 2-3 hours sleep in the end, so I was a bit of a zombie to begin with yesterday morning.

Throughout the day however, I still functioned well and was on course for a really good day. My problem really caught up with me after finishing my evening session with a client and then having to do bedtime with Junior. This meant no nap! No nap then meant no training! For the first time during Ramadan, I deliberately chose to do nothing with how fatigued I felt. This week was actually on my training schedule as a 'deloading' week, after receiving my deep tissue treatment from Kyniska Sports Therapy on Monday. But still, I wanted to play around with some movements each evening to practise some new ideas, and enjoy training lightly without structure. 

Another disruption had been my increasingly sore ankle and knee joints, an aching pain which was causing my some discomfort down the front of both lower legs. I have no idea where this has come from, as I haven't been on my feet more than usual, so I can only imagine this is another issue with increasing dehydration. 

With so much tiredness, and aching legs, I finished my main meal (a mountain of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on toast), had a bath and went to bed at 1030PM. I did get up at midnight with the idea of eating, but I was still full. I nibbled on some cheese, drank some more water and toddled back off to bed. 

This morning (as of 630AM) I feel much better and don't have any leg pain to report. It's another evening where I'm working private sessions after my day job, so I'll not be able to nap again. I'm adamant that I want to do some training in between sessions and am anxious to ensure my third day of rest doesn't become a week! Similar to the research I cited in the previously aforementioned series of posts, my training in Ramadan can be maintained at unaffected performance levels as long as I dont stop training.

Finally, and excitingly, I have another Instagram Live chat at 4PM today with Glasgow-based fitness trainer Sophia Hassan. Sophia and I will be discussing her training adaptations during Ramadan for herself and her clients, as well as barriers for female Muslim athletes in sport and fitness and what Ramadan means to her. If you can't tune in live at 4PM, you can watch it back later on my Instagram feed and I'll share a link on my next post too!