US Olympic Runner Tera Moody Using Melatonin to Battle Insomnia
Want the BEST POSSIBLE results you'll get from any sleep aid on the market? How about a FREE TRIAL of Sleep Once Again - the #1 sleep aid that guarantees you'll finally get some rest!
US READERS - Click here for your FREE TRIAL of Sleep Once Again!
It seems that US long distance runner and 2012 Olympic hopeful Tera Moody (pictured at right)has been suffering from regular insomnia and sleep apnea, and has turned to our friend melatonin to help her get proper rest so she can deal with her training schedule.
Here’s a caption from the story at USA Today – click through here to read the rest.
Battling sleep problems since sixth grade, Moody has tried every trick to try to catch a good night’s rest. She’s visited sleeping clinics, cut down on caffeine and candy, stayed away from training after 1:30 p.m., listened to relaxation tapes and sipped soothing chamomile tea before turning out the lights.
Still, she wakes up.
“I don’t get stress fractures, I have really bad sleeping problems. It’s my biggest issue,” the 28-year-old said.
She’s reluctant to rely on prescription sleeping pills. She has before, heavily, but always woke up groggy. It’s not the way she wanted to feel for a grueling training run.
Instead, she’s taking natural supplements like melatonin to regulate her sleep clock.
“I still struggle with it quite a bit,” said Moody, who will pull out the prescription pills just in extreme sleeping emergencies.
Her inability to sleep only worsened when she attended the University of Colorado on a running scholarship.
For that, she attributes anxiety. She had a stellar high school career in St. Charles, Ill., and arrived at Colorado with lofty ambitions.
But she fought anorexia her first year with the Buffaloes, dropping 30 pounds in an effort to lower her time.
“I felt a lot of pressure to be really thin as a Division I athlete,” said Moody, who won the Big 12 outdoor title in the 10,000-meter race as a freshman in 2000. “But I realized I wasn’t going to be able to continue the way I wanted to if I was doing that. Luckily, I caught it early.”
Although Moody got help, she said she struggled with self-confidence throughout her college career.
That, in turn, affected her sleeping habits.
“Having anxiety surrounding sleep is a problem for me,” said Moody, who now lives in Colorado Springs. “I’ve struggled with it for so long that I associate night time with not being able to sleep.”
Following a visit to a sleep clinic in 2005, Moody was diagnosed with sleep apnea, a disorder characterized by pauses in breathing during sleep. Moody wore a device to regulate her breathing at night.
“Looked like Darth Vader,” she said, smiling.
When that wasn’t working, Moody went to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., for further tests. There, doctors told her to ditch the sleeping pills, which at the time she was frequently taking.
That’s helped — a lot. Although she sleeps less now, she feels much more rejuvenated.
“I just feel a lot better,” said Moody, who reads when she can’t sleep.
After her career at Colorado concluded, Moody was thinking about giving running a rest.
Copyright ©