Unusual exercise-induced insomnia
Posted , 126 users are following.
TL;DR: I have exercise-induced insomnia for which no one has been able to explain or provide a solution.
I used to exercise regularly. I would wake up every weekday at 6am, bike to the gym, and exercise for about an hour before work. I would usually jog or do some other cardio for 20-30 minutes, then do weight training for the rest of the hour. I had help from a personal trainer, so I knew what I was doing.
I felt great, and I was in the best shape of my life. I kept this up for about 3 years, before something strange happened: I would wake up around 2 or 3am, unable to fall back asleep. I was 33 at the time, and I know sleep patterns can begin to change around this age.
At first, I noticed that I slept much deeper on days I didn't exercise (e.g. weekends). Then I began waking up in the middle of the night, but would usually go right back to sleep. It got worse. Eventually, I would wake about 4 hours after falling asleep with a feeling like an intense adrenaline rush or panic. It would last about an hour, and I would have poor, restless sleep the rest of the night.
I did not have trouble falling asleep. I was in bed at 9:30pm every night, then would read a bit with lights out by 10pm. I would fall asleep within 10 minutes.
When this started happening, I adjusted my routine. I worked out during lunch, or in the evening. No change.
I tried doing more or less cardio vs weight training. No change.
Today, if I exercise at any point during the day, I will only get four hours of good quality sleep.
I've been to several doctors, sleep specialists, and neurologists. I've had multiple take home sleep studies, as well as one on-site at a medical institution. The only thing they've been able to confirm is that I do indeed wake after 4 hours if I have exercised, but no one can tell me why. Many doctors don't even believe my story -- they think it must be psychological stress that I insist on tying to a physical cause.
I have found that walking, low-intensity biking, and hiking are all acceptable forms of exercise that do not trigger my insomnia. I can hike 10 miles and be fine. But if the hike is over very steep terrain, or if I were to jog for 10 minutes, then I have insomnia. So the intensity is definitely a factor.
The sleep studies did reveal that I have very mild sleep apnea. My doctors have told me that normally it would not warrant treatment, but it could be related. However, the usual recommendation for such a mild form is simlply "get more exercise".
My current pet theory is this: following a day of excerise, one's muscles will repair themselves during sleep, usually around 3 or 4 hours into the night. This process requires oxygen from the blood, so if my sleep apnea lowers my blood oxygen levels, then the repair process might cause it to dip below some threshold; my body panics, sending adrenaline through my body to wake me up to address whatever is happening. However, my sleep studies showed my blood oxygenation stayed over 90% the entire night.
I'm currently trying out a CPAP treatment. I'm still adjusting to it, but so far it hasn't made any difference. There's no real reason to think that it will, but I'm willing to try anything at this point.
When I tell this story, most doctors look at me like I have three heads, so I thought I would seek the collective wisdom of the Internet.
Cheers!
13 likes, 351 replies
nancy95590 mekin
Edited
Glad to read your post. I have experienced similar symptoms that you are describing for about ten years and counting. I have worked a full time career while caring for my family and I honestly don't know how I have survived and functioned to do anything? The first time I noticed the symptoms was after having insomnia for ten consecutive days. I was swimming daily at the time about 1/2 mile. I was exhausted and noticed I could not relax enough to yawn like persons do when they are tired. My doctor advised that I had some sort of underlying anxiety that caused it and gave me ambien for sleeping. The sleeping medication worked for a short period and then the symptoms came back off and on after switching jobs. I did not not have a pool in close proximity to my new work location and I believe this is why the insomnia episodes decreased. I also noticed my muscles were sore to the touch after doing higher intensity exercise. I told my doctor and was advised that this was due to tears in my muscles from exercising and I should take ibuprofen. When I suggested there was an association to exercise my provider dismissed my concerns and suggested perimenopause or menopause symptoms and offered hormone testing. I cannot fathom all of the sleep I have lost in the past ten years. I would soak in epsom salts and rub my muscles to relieve the muscle tenseness. This would help at times and allow me to fall sleep. Then there is the waking up part and trying to fall back asleep. I am going to keep reading the comments and try some of the treatments mentioned...
james36561 nancy95590
Posted
Certainly a common theme emerging from all of these posts about doctors being utterly clueless as to the association between exercise and insomnia.
I too don't know how I've survived working a demanding legal career but somehow we all seem to pull through. This thread gives me some hope that we will collectively find a solution to our woes, or at least something that will ease the burden of this condition. Staying positive is essential as there is no utility in descending into despair.
To remind others, I'm trying Hyperzine A (a recommendation by @lucas14544) along with Vit D daily (10k IU). I also have 10mg Melatonin at bedtime which I admit is a very high dose and am not sure what the long term implications are of taking this hormone, but suspect it to be fairly benign.
james36561 mekin
Edited
Seeking to revive this thread...
Has anyone had any luck or experience with Low-Dose Naltrexone (LDN)? It has an unusual method of action and has been known to both cause and improve insomnia (depending on the person, dose and underlying condition). It is a power anti-inflammatory and has a good side-effect profile.
daman718 mekin
Edited
Same exact situation, friend. I am currently in my early 40s, and this issue began in my early 20s with weight lifting. Ive tried everything in all the posts above with no success. If it is indeed cortisol, then why doesnst Ashwaganda, L-theanine, or phosphatidylserine do anything? A mystery to me two decades later still and continues to destroy my life. Being outdoors and hiking is one of the things I love to do but leaves me exhasuted the next day. Right now I am laying in bed for 5 hours, since 10PM, after being on the exercise bike for 60 minutes.
james36561 daman718
Edited
@danman718 - I truly comprehend your frustration. How is it possible to live a good life when afflicted by intractable insomnia?
I've also wondered why we don't by now have a clear understanding of the root cause of this problem so that we can target drug therapies to address the problem. Dysregulated cortisol is an investigative candidate but one would think that this hypothesis could easily be tested by taking drugs that limit cortisol production (at least at night) - yet we know from this community that many people have tried a variety of treatments/supplements/drugs without avail. Could this be because effective treatments have been found and the people affected lose interest in posting about their findings? Or could the root cause differ from person to person such that what may work for one doesn't work for another etc.
All I know is that the best way to control my insomnia is to limit exercise and limit stress.
I have ordered a 24 hour saliva cortisol test - this should give me some insights into whether cortisol is the operative cause. I'll share my findings (probably in a few weeks once I've performed the test and received the results).
james36561 mekin
Edited
I undertook a 24 hour saliva cortisol test to understand if cortisol was impacting my inability to sleep. Results below. As you will see, my cortisol is tracking in the healthy range, albeit slightly on the lower end in the morning. This would seem to suggest that this hormone is not the cause of insomnia. The investigation continues!
edward123123 james36561
Posted
Hi James, where did you get the test from? I'm interested in doing one myself.
james36561 edward123123
Edited
Hi - I got my tests done privately from a company called i screen (Australia-based). About $150 AUD all up. Definitely worth the cost as it removes so much speculation around root cause and has enabled me to refocus my investigations in other areas.
road01001 james36561
Posted
Did you exercise during the day you took this test or were you sedentary? Because if it's an exercise induced insomnia then the effect on cortisol would only be seen after a workout session that is intense enough to disrupt sleep the same night. If you were sedentary (to the point that you slept quite normally) then it's not really conclusive.
con36059 mekin
Edited
I have just made a thread about my own exercise-induced insomnia / myoclonus, which is a bit different from your situation, but since many people with various forms of exercise-induced insomnia are commenting here, I figured I'd attach my post as a comment as well:
Hey everyone, I'm a 37 year old male who has been training on-and-off for the last 20 years or so. That is to say, I have periods where I train quite regularly for a couple of months, periods where I train only a little, and periods where I don't train at all. Last autumn, I was sort of in the middle category, then by December, I ramped my training schedule up quite a bit, though not to an excessive degree, and not any faster / more intensely than I have done many times before.
When I upped my training volume in the past, I would sometimes have difficulty falling asleep, but it was never too drastic and usually went away once I adjusted to the new training regimen. This time, though, I started getting serious insomnia, to the point where I couldn't fall asleep until 4, 5 or even 6 am. When I finally did fall asleep, my body would not prevent me from staying asleep for a solid 8-10 hours, though of course my schedule often would.
After a couple of days of this, I also developed brief, intense and unintentional muscle jerks (myoclonus) whenever I entered a state of relaxation (i.e. mostly when trying to fall asleep). I laid off the training completely when this happened, and the myoclonus disappeared and the insomnia at least got better within a week or so. However, now, whenever I try to pick up any kind of exercise routine again, I get the same issues. It doesn't happen if I stick to extremely low intensity exercise, but if it is even moderately exhausting, especially for 2 or more days in a row, I am lying in bed, unable to sleep, with my arms and legs performing these jerking motions every couple of seconds, for hours on end. Needless to say, this is extremely frustrating, as I love working out, but basically can't do it any more because it screws up my nervous system so badly.
I did get blood work, which, of course, came back completely fine. I have tried multivitamins, fish oil and magnesium supplements to no avail. I also eat healthy, don't do drugs and rarely drink. Mind you, I was taking a MAO-inhibitor for depression when this first started. However, I had been working out on the MAOi previously without these problems, and the problems now persist despite my having discontinued the MAOi, so it may not even have had anything to do with the MAOi at all.
Googling this, I found pretty much nothing that could explain my problems, so my confidence that a doctor would be able to help is very low, since in my experience, if you are having a rare kind of health complication, unless you get really lucky with your physician, they almost never know what it is or what to do about it, either. So I'm posting this here in the hope that someone else might have had a similar experience and perhaps found a solution to it.
viktor17916 con36059
Edited
Hi pal! I have a very similar experience. Whenever I hit the gym, especially on two consecutive days and do compound movements, I've been noticing my heart heart to go up and remain elevated for a couple days (maybe 5-7 bpm above my normal range but it's still very noticeable ), my sleep gets truly horrible, and then I'm cranky and fatigued. My morning/evening cortisol levels are fine. Have you tried diaphragmatic breathing ? Just google "vagus nerve and overtraining"
rui04398 con36059
Posted
hey i have a very similar story to you.......
mine involved amitriptyline
road01001 con36059
Posted
Same exact problem. Exercise induced insomnia and myoclonus. Have you ever done a hormonal panel? Total testosterone, free testosterone, SHBG, estradiol.
road01001 mekin
Edited
i'm almost certain at this point that this is a hormonal issue. It's low testosterone. I have probably said this before but i urge every man in this thread to test their total and free testosterone, shbg and estradiol. Just being in range is not enough, if youre in the bottom 50% in either one of these (except shbg) it could be causing you this problem. If you do test it then make sure to post them so we can confirm this theory. I will have my results in around two weeks.
road01001
Posted
I'm not getting the blood test just yet, I'm playing around with Aromatase Inhibitors now.