I used to take a workout class Body Pump at a 24 hour fitness. I felt accomplished after finishing their class every time because it was just excruciatingly exhausting. Seeing results was my motivation for my workout, so I tried to consistently increase my weights I was using during the class. After a few months of Body Pump, my body started to feel extremely hot after taking a class, and was eventually unable to fall asleep at night due to overheating of my body. It was obvious that somehow my workout was interfering my sleep. I struggled to make a decision to quit taking the class for a little while. Feeling exhausted to the point where I could not do anything else was my goal as I thought that would lead to a better result. Even when I took Body Pump in the morning as early as 7:30am, my body still felt overheating at night. My back and legs felt hot no matter how much water I drank or cold shower I took.
This became a big mystery for me because I could not find anything about this online. Workout causes insomnia? I did extensive research by googling for several months, and I found no research or study about this. On the other hand, I read a lot of comments by people online saying that they are experiencing sleep problems after working out.
Someone said that this was due to adrenaline or inflammation from workout. I believed for a while that it was inflammation until I found a book about sodium bicarbonate by Dr Mark Sircus. In his book, he said “sodium deficiency can cause overheating, which can cause insomnia”. When I read this part, a light bulb in my head turned on like a big lightning that created the first life on the earth. This is exactly what I have been experiencing! This made so much sense.
I started adding 2-3g of salt into my water, and my overheating problem disappeared immediately along with my insomnia. It was this simple. I really hope more people become aware of this as there are so many people suffering from workout insomnia.
We hear so often that drinking a lot of water is healthy, and it never occurred to me that drinking water without a bit of salt is meaningless or can be harmful. Before my discovery of salt, I used to drink tons of water because I felt so dehydrated all the time. Your cells do not hydrate from water without an adequate amount of sodium(too much is not good either of course). Sodium is what holds the water within us and keeps us hydrated. Without sodium, water would just go through us, and this is not good. If you are one of those people who workout regularly or get sweaty easily, there is a high chance you don’t have enough sodium in your system.
My sweat is very salty. I have licked my arm after my intense workout, and it tasted very salty every time. It is safe to assume that my whole body gets covered with salt (at least a few grams of sodium used for this tasty coating!) after 1 hour of intense workout. My body was extremely dehydrated and remained dehydrated for several months until I discovered salt. The salt that was in my kitchen cabinet the whole time, and yes the salt that costs $1 or less for a pound cured my insomnia, not a pharmaceutical medicine or sleep meds. As a wise man said once, in life what you have been looking for can be right in front of you,,,,, like salt.
d'med 