6 healthy daily habits can help you ride and extend your lifespan
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The following content explains 6 healthy daily habits that have been proven to be beneficial for your overall health and cycling..
Do you reduce sleep to adapt to social, work, and long-distance cycling? Focusing on improving your sleep hygiene can be helpful. According to the Sleep Foundation, sleep hygiene includes many habits that promote peaceful sleep, including relaxing before bed, exercising during the day, and sunbathing. Another aspect of sleep hygiene? Reduce the use of smartphones before bedtime. Try reading before bedtime, research shows that this can help you fall asleep..
How does this help with cycling: Sleeping less than the recommended seven to nine hours per night may have a negative impact on your cycling performance. In a small study, 10 riders who slept well for 8 hours had higher average power output during laboratory time trials compared to those who had limited sleep during cycling. The sprint performance of the sleep deprivation group also decreased, and the overall health score (fatigue, sleep quality, systemic muscle soreness, stress, and mood) also decreased..
If you frequently participate in weekend cycling for cycling groups, or follow your training plan for long-distance cycling, you should get a good night’s sleep the night before to prepare for exercise..
How does this help overall health: Good sleep is necessary for almost every aspect of health, including metabolism, muscle growth, and the brain. If there is no sleep, the brain, blood vessels, and immune system will not have time to repair the work done during wakefulness..
According to the American College of Cardiology, good sleep can even prolong life. A meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American Heart Association in 2017 found an association between insufficient and excessive sleep and an increased risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events..
Research has shown that a plant-based or plant aware diet (meaning you focus on eating less animal products) may benefit endurance athletes, such as cyclists..
For example, Mediterranean cuisine primarily focuses on planning and has been found to improve various aspects of exercise performance, such as treadmill time testing and grip strength (although researchers point out that larger research is needed)..
“A good guideline for determining whether a diet is plant-based is to eat animal products no more than twice a week and choose fish when eating animal products,” said Padmawati Gavi, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and physician assistant program at Marist College in New York.
How does this help with cycling: According to a 2019 article in Nutrition magazine, a plant-based diet is highly beneficial for cardiovascular health (a crucial indicator for endurance athletes) and therefore also beneficial for improving performance. Specifically, these diets can improve cholesterol levels, blood pressure, blood sugar control, and as part of a healthy lifestyle, have been proven to reverse atherosclerosis (atherosclerosis and stenosis). The study authors stated that these characteristics “provide a scientific basis for endurance athletes to increase their use of plant-based diets.”.
How does this contribute to overall health: according to Missouri Medicine.
