by Dr. Jonathan Charest Ph.D. Psychology
Director of Athlete Sleep Service and Behavioral Sleep Medicine Specialist, Centre for Sleep & Human Performance
Sleep is an essential human behavior that plays a key role in short-and long-term biological, physical, psychological and cognitive health. There is a wealth of literature linking the foundational importance of sleep to athletic performance. Recent estimates indicates that the majority of athletes do not get the recommended hours of sleep to properly recover. Adequate sleep duration coupled with high quality sleep is deemed necessary for several factors contributing to sports performance including physical and mental recovery from rigorous training session and prolonged air traveling while also minimizing the risk of avoidable injuries. Athletes all share the inherent challenge that represent travel fatigue and chronic circadian rhythms desynchronization or jet lag. The modern athlete reality is composed of several domestic and international travels through the course of a season.
Despite the need for sleep, athletes are exposed to unique conditions that could compromise their ability to achieve adequate sleep, potentially making them vulnerable for suboptimal performance and deleterious consequences.
How Much is Enough?
It has been suggested that athletes may require a greater amount of sleep (8-10hr) to recover from intense and high training loads and avoid injury altogether. Not only will sleep function as a protective factor but will also enhance one’s performance. In elite basketball athletes for example, a prolonged period of sleep not only improved mood but significantly enhanced sport specific features such as an increase 3-points throw by 9% and faster sprint time. Moreover, a subsequent study with tennis collegiate player demonstrated that a single week of sleep extension resulted in an improved serving accuracy by 6%.
Caffeine Conundrum
Coffee is one of the preferred drinks consumed by athletes but make no mistake, it cannot replace sleep. That has been demonstrated elegantly by a research study conducted with tennis players. Well rested tennis players were compared to sleep restricted players and the latter group could consume as much coffee as they desired. Energy drinks are an increasingly popular way to ingest caffeine. Up to 89.4% of student-athletes and professional athletes consume energy drinks for the purpose of improving their performances. In a single serving, energy drinks can contain the equivalent of 3 normal coffees. Energy drinks such as Red Bull, Monster, Guru, advanced.gg and G Fuel can all harm your health. Moreover, energy drink consumption has been associated with heavier alcohol consumption, lower motivation and poorer athletic and cognitive performances. The well-rested players outperformed the caffeinated group on every sport -specific aspect demonstrating that one can sleep their way to better performance, but one cannot replace sleep by caffeine.
Counting Sheep
Given that sleep represents the best natural enhancer for recovery and performance, athletes should dedicate great care to protect it. The first step for athletes would be to figure out how much sleep they need each night and ultimately each week to create their “bank of sleep”. Ultimately it would be strongly suggested that any serious athletes sleep between 70 and 80 hours per week. Sleep environment is a critical factor that greatly influences sleep quantity and quality. In order to achieve the best sleep possible, athletes’ bedroom should be completely dark (e.g., blackout curtains) and the temperature should be kept as much as possible around 17-19 Celsius degree. The bedroom should also be considered a “zone free” of electronic devices (cellphone, laptop, tablet, etc.…) even if they have the blue light filter application. If an athlete as enough energy to use an electronic device, therefore he is not sleepy and should not be in his bedroom in the first place. In an effort to avoid electronic device usage, athletes should develop a prebedtime routine that includes relaxation, breathing and mindfulness. Lastly, keeping your bedroom clean and in order will also help your sleep – your bedroom should be the most prestigious room in your house, take care of it!
To Nap or Not To Nap?
Considering that 70 to 80 hours may represents a lot of hours of sleep and may seem unrealistic for certain athletes, learning how to nap would be a fundamental skill to acquire in order to increase your sleep bank. Not only does nap reduces sleepiness while increasing alertness but it also enhances physical, cognitive, and perceptual state (e.g., fatigue) which are critical factors for athletes. Essentially, athletes should aim and plan naps as often as possible in their week. Despite their positive impact on several factor, length of naps will have different influences, in other words they were not created equal. On competition day, athletes should aim for a 20-30-minutes power nap whereas on off-day or training day they should aim for a longer 90-minutes nap. These naps should be scheduled during an athlete circadian low, which would typically be between 13:00 and 16:00.
Lastly, sleep also plays a crucial role in immune response and if the past 2-years have taught us anything it is that we should do everything in our power to protect our immune system and sleep plays a key part in it. Ideally, every athlete should ask themselves simple questions such as: Am I doing all I can to optimize my sleep? Is sleep one of the reasons for my underachievement lately? Could a better sleep help optimize my performance?