TargetTalk

here are my experiences when i shoot at night. with a normal day even without working you are somewhat tired at night and if you practice it puts a lot of stress on your brain. the training quality for me is only a bit less however the quality of my sleep is dramatic. for normal people, sleep gives rest to the brain and allows the body to do repairs, but when you add stress from intense focus before sleeping then i can never get those deep quality sleeps. instead i wake up multiple times at night, can't fall sleep at 1-4 in the morning, disrupted by countless dreams, can't get up after 8 hrs and when i do i'm still tired with my head feeling numb. this has been my experience for about half a year, every night, more intense on sundays and mondays because i train all day on sat and sun. at first i can't figure out what was wrong with me until i stopped for a week due to injuries, then i heard on radio that muscle fatigue can be repaired by resting but mental fatigue can't only get recuperated from sleep.

have you ever felt extremely sleepy and yawing constantly after a hard day of training? i first experienced this when i start shooting, after a 4 hours with my sniper rifle i use to dread the long drive home because i can't keep my eyes open, then i realized how much focus you put on your brain when you focus so much for every shot.

i'm a relatively new shooter so everything i experienced are first hand let me know if you share any similar experiences.

thanks

jay

I have shot mainly target rifle for over 10 years and have competed at inernational level. The amount of focus that you put into each shot may not be physically exerting, mentally it is very difficult. For those who know the Bisley teams and Queen's matches, it is not hard to have to shoot for 8 hours day, up to 6 ranges. At the end of competition i ws that mentally exhausted that i actuallr went to sleep while in position and was only woken up by the range officer, giving me a gentle nudge!
I had issues with sleeping and found that having relaxing music that i liked gave me a good deep sleep. None of this 'song of the whale or forest sounds of deepest afrika' but some tunes that make you feel good when you listen to them.
There was a study on brain waves and associated music some time ago, i can't remember to quote it, but is was found that certain beat patterns matched brain patterns experienced during certain emotional periods. Thus in times of stress you can put on music that reminds you of times of relaxation, a bit like vague self hypnosis (meditation). For me, Nick Cave or Portishead put me in the perfect mood while shooting, and yet i could also listen to it and sleep deeply. Like pavlovs dog, if can come to associate something with positives, when you take it out of situ, you can fool your brain into thinking you ar ein the same situation.
I hope this makes sense, it sounded ok in my head, hope it helps.

Cheers Haemish