When BJJ Keeps You Up At Night

By Meg

While many jiujitsu practitioners find training helps them sleep, it has the complete opposite effect for others. Evening classes leave some people with their minds still running through techniques and their muscles still tense when they lie down to sleep. Everyone knows how to count sheep and heat up milk, but what do you do when those methods fail?

I've struggled with sleep for four years. BJJ is not the only culprit of my chronic insomnia, but I've collected a few tried-and-true methods of my own. If you struggle with sleep, BJJ-related or not, see if these sleep techniques work for you!

Desperate times call for something something...

Write It Down

Instead of drifting off, your brain starts working overtime. You picture and analyze each technique you learned that night. You obsess over things you did right and wrong during rolling. Before you know it, you've been lying awake for two hours.

Before it gets this far, switch the light back on and scribble down the techniques. Even better, if it's a common issue, take a few minutes to write these down before bed and avoid the problem altogether. Not only will you sleep better, but writing the information down helps you remember it later.

Soothe Your Muscles

Aches and pains always follow me home after training, whether it was a light session or not. If sore muscles are disrupting your sleep, take a warm bath or shower after training. This should be easy as you should be showering after BJJ anyway. If you take a bath, drop some Epsom salts in for an extra soothing soak. I also keep ibuprofen on my nightstand for neck pain and headaches.

4-7-8 Breathing

During a sleepless phase, my husband showed me a sleep aid method he had found online. Basically, this method causes your heart rate to slow down and promotes a better physical state for sleep to set in. Here's how it works:

1. Inhale through your nose for a count of four.
2. Hold this breath for a count of seven.
3. Exhale through your mouth for a count of eight.

Read more about the 4-7-8 method here. Some claim this method can put you to sleep in 60 seconds, which I think is completely bogus. However, it is certainly psychologically and physiologically calming.

Sleep With Me Podcast 

The guy on this podcast has struggled with insomnia himself, and he tells endearing, sometimes chuckle-worthy, but boring-enough-to-fall-asleep bedtime stories for about one hour. You can get the podcast on Stitcher or iTunes for free. Check out his website here.

ASMR, My Holy Grail of Sleep Aids

ASMR, or autonomous sensory meridian response, is described by Wikipedia as "a perceptual phenomenon characterized as a distinct, pleasurable tingling sensation in the head, scalp, back, or peripheral regions of the body in response to visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or cognitive stimuli." Many fans of ASMR describe it as a "massage for the brain" and compare it to meditation for its tendency to shut down stress and anxiety. ASMR includes a huge variety of triggers, like the sounds of whispering, crinkling plastic, or a brush gliding through hair, because everyone responds differently to different stimuli.

Give ASMR a shot. At first the videos seemed weird to me. I wondered if it was some fetish I hadn't heard of and thought it was silly. Fifteen minutes later, I was in one of the deepest, best sleeps I'd had in a long time.

Here is my favorite ASMR creator, Ally at ASMRrequests. Her YouTube channel features everything from hair salon roleplays to purely binaural sound videos.

So next time you try to catch some Z's after an awesome jiujitsu class and can't, I hope you try these methods and have some success. If you harbor some sleep secrets of your own, comment below and share your tips!

Good night, sleep tight, and dream of armbars, everyone!


Meg started jiujitsu in 2012, got her blue belt in 2013, and has competed in five competitions.

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