Zopiclone and bodybuilding
Zopiclone and bodybuiling
It’s no secret that by the end of a contest prep sleep quality and duration are drastically reduced. This is directly caused by the stress that the body is under with the arduous physical and mental demands associated with taking body fat levels to the extreme low levels. Bodybuilders will often use supplements or medications to help with sleep and without these many will only get a handful of hours per night. The purpose of this article is to understand the stresses that bodybuilders have and to explain what zoplicone is and why bodybuilders might use it and alternatives.
What is Zopiclone?
Zopiclone, in the medical industry, is used as a sleeping pill to treat serve insomnia. It is designed to only be used in the short term and works by affecting a calming chemical in the brain called gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). GABA slows the speed of electrical signalling travelling through our central nervous and acts to balance stimulating chemicals such as adrenaline. It typically works within an hour after ingesting, has a half-life of around 5 hours, and will not only help you fall asleep quickly but also stay asleep during the night.
It is typically only prescribed for 2-4 weeks as your body can get used to it quickly and after this time frame it is unlikely to have the desired effect. Your body can also become dependent upon it if used for prolonged periods of time and you may be unable to get any sleep without it. Common side effects are a metallic taste in your mouth, dry mouth and waking up feeling groggy the next morning.
Stress and sleep quality
As bodybuilders make their way through contest prep, they must gradually increase their training regime. Those increased demands, usually amounting from more cardio performed and/or steps walked, are all done whilst gradually eating less and less food over the weeks to achieve stage conditioning. As a consequence, with each passing week they will naturally increase the amount of stress on the body. For those of you who don’t know much about stress, it’s time for a little reminder.
A stress response is – for the most part – an unconscious response cause by our central nervous system. I’m sure you’ve heard of the ‘fight or flight’ response: your heart rate and breathing rate increases, you feel warm, your hairs stand on end, and you feel on edge. This is an intricate system in the body that has evolved to respond to immediate danger and is facilitated by the release of stress hormones i.e. adrenaline and cortisol.
A stress response isn’t inherently bad. After all, we’ve developed it over time to help us escape danger! And in fact, eliciting some degree of stress response during our workouts is also positive.
However, it becomes problematic when our fight or flight kicks in or doesn’t switch off even when simply walking around, living our day-to-day life, or more importantly in this case, when trying to get to sleep at night! As you can imagine, towards the end of prep, most bodybuilders are in a chronic stress state and may take hours to fall asleep and often will wake up frequently during the night.
Why might bodybuilders use it?
We all know that getting next to no sleep is hard. However, when you added the rigorous daily training demands required during contest prep, the intense hunger and extreme low energy levels it becomes exceedingly hard to just get through the day and to function normally. This scenario can also have a huge impact on an athlete’s mental health and in the fight against sleep, sleep will always win.
Zopiclone has a calming effect on our central nervous system, reducing the effects of a stress response, which in turn allows bodybuilders to get to sleep and stay asleep. This allows them to have the energy to perform their daily tasks both personally and in their job, sustain a high level of performance when training and maintain their mental health. If they were to try and simply get by on a few hours of sleep they would in fact be increasing the bodies stress response, further compounding the sleep problem.
Zopiclone will often only be used in short burst when they need it: this might be towards the back end of an intense period digging before they run high. (Read more about high day(s) here) They will then abstain from using it in the subsequent days after the high days.
Stress and fat burning
Did you know that having heightened levels of stress, and thus higher levels of cortisol, will actually be detrimental to fat loss? Cortisol slows the bodies efficiency of ‘fat burning’ therefore competitors want to reduce stress levels as much as they can to maximise fat loss. Here is a simple breakdown of how it all links together:
End of prep -> Heightened state of stress -> Poor sleep quality -> Further increased state of stress -> Decreased efficiency to burn fat.
End of prep -> Heightened state of stress -> Maintain good sleep quality/duration -> Reduced state of stress -> Maintained efficiency to burn fat.
This simple breakdown should show you why it’s advantageous to try and maintain your sleep quality/duration, where you can, towards the back end of contest prep.
Alternatives
Of course I would never suggest using medication as your first line of treatment to address poor sleep during prep. I will often prescribe natural supplements that act to slow the stress response such as magnesium and zinc. These act to slow the release of adrenaline in the body, in turn allowing athletes to go to bed in a lower state of stress and hopefully improve sleep quality/duration. There will come a point however when this ceases to work and athletes struggle to get to sleep. At that point I’ve found great success combing these with melatonin or 5-HTP which usually brings on sleep. You may supplement all of those things and still struggle to sleep, that’s where Zopiclone can be a great addition, used only as a last resort.
In summary, Zopiclone works by interacting with a chemical in the brain called GABA. This has a calming affect on our central nervous system and balances out stimulating chemicals such as adrenaline. Towards the end of a contest prep athletes undergo extreme levels of stress on the body and undoubtedly poor sleep quality. Zopiclone can be used to improve sleep quality and duration to help lower levels of stress and allow athletes to maximise fat loss. Before reaching for Zopiclone athletes will typically use supplements to support sleep during prep and only use Zopiclone when all else fails.
Vaughan Wilson Bsc Hons
References:
https://go.drugbank.com/drugs/DB01198