Sleep and the athlete; Time to wake up to the need to sleep.

Meta Description
Sleep is important for human health and optimal function. In this
article, Craig Pickering looks at what sleep is, whether athletes need
more, and gives some tips on how to improve sleep for athletes.

During my athletics career, I had a love-hate relationship with sleep.

I was aware that sleep was an area that was to be prioritised, so I
did. I spent many hours asleep, even though I would have much
liked to do other things, such as read or play computer games. From
time to time, something would go wrong with my sleep cycle, and I
would end up with some mild grade of insomnia. Not being able to
sleep is miserable; I have utilised sleeping tablets a few times in my
life as I had no other option. As per my personality, sleep became
something I obsessed over early in my career, and I had to get as
much as possible. A poor nights sleep would leave me worried for
days that it would affect my performance. As I got older, I found out
this actually wasnt the case. I competed in the Olympic Games off
two hours sleep, and won major championship medals in sleep
deprived states. As my career wore on, I also got more
knowledgeable in the area of sleep. I found that I could improve the
quality of my sleep, as well as remove some of the anxiety around
it. In this article, I will examine the need for sleep, and how athletes
can get the most out of the third of your life spent sleeping.

What is sleep?
Sleep is odd in as much as there isnt really a scientific consensus as
to why we need it. One main theory is called Restorative Theory,
which states that sleep helps replenish bodily resources that have
been depleted in the time prior to sleeping. The evidence for this is
that if we are more active in the day, we tend to need more sleep in
the evening. Failure to get this sleep leads to decreased energy
levels the next day. A competing theory is the Energy Conservation
Theory, which states that sleep helps to conserve energy. It points
to the fact that highly active mammals need more sleep, and if they
didnt get this sleep, they would use up too much energy.
Regardless of the cause of needing to sleep, one thing is clear;
without sufficient sleep we are less healthy, and eventually lack of
sufficient sleep will lead to death.
Once we fall asleep, there are multiple stages within sleep itself. We
start off awake, and then as we drift off we enter stage 1 sleep.
Here, the muscles are active, and the eyes open and close

moderately. This stage lasts between two and five minutes, before
we enter stage 2 sleep. Our heart rate and body temperature both
drop in this stage, and full muscular relaxation occurs (including our
throat, which is what causes snoring). Moving into a deeper sleep,
we enter stages 3 and 4, which is where slow wave sleep (SWS)
occurs. Here, we have very slow brain waves, and we are incredibly
hard to wake up. This stage of sleep is vital to health; the hormones
that enable us to grow and repair are released during this stage, and
it is generally a highly anabolic environment. Important information
from the day is also consolidated into memory during SWS.
After about 30 minutes of SWS, we quickly shift back to stage 2
sleep, and then into REM sleep. REM stands for rapid eye
movement, and it is in this stage that dreams occur. Our muscles
are paralysed (to stop us acting out our dreams), but our brain is
highly active. REM sleep plays a large role in the creation of
memories and problem solving. After a period of REM sleep, we will
then have a brief micro awakening, of which we will have no
memory of when we wake up for real. We then move back into stage
2, then into SWS. This cycle is repeated over the night; deep sleep
tends to occur in a greater proportion earlier in the night, and REM
sleep occurs in a greater proportion later in the night. In a typical
night, 50 per cent of the time is spent in a light sleep, 20 per cent in
a deep sleep, 25 per cent in REM, and 5 per cent awake. Each sleep
cycle takes roughly 90 minutes.
The need to sleep is governed by a number of things, including
circadian rhythm and homeostatic sleep propensity (the need for
sleep increases the more time elapses from our previous sleep).
Circadian rhythm refers to our internal body clock, which helps to
determine when we want to sleep, wake up, eat, go to the toilet,
etc. This internal clock can be thrown into disarray by travel across
numerous time zones (jet lag), irregular bed and waking times, and
disrupted daytime rhythms. Age also appears to have an effect of
circadian rhythm, with teenagers suffering the most. Teenagers
suffer a circadian shift of around three hours generally they arent
sleepy until late and night, and struggle with early mornings. This is
at odds with the typical school day, and can lead to academic
underperformance.
With regards to circadian rhythm, all humans generally fall into one
of two different choronotypes; larks and owls. Larks tend to fall
asleep and wake up earlier than owls. Larks dont like napping (owls
do), do their best work between 9am and 4pm (compared to owls,
who work best between 1pm and 10pm). In general, larks tend to be
introverts, logical, and reliable. They tend to do better academically,
although this is probably due to the fact that their best working
hours match up with the school day. By contrast, owls tend to be
extroverted, and generally have four times as many partners in their

lifetime. I am definitely a lark, although I think that most sprinters

are owls, especially if you consider their stereotypes and
reputations!

What happens if we dont get enough sleep?

The general recommendations are that adults should aim to sleep
for between 7 and 9 hours per night. A lack of sleep is associated
with a wide range of health and performance issues. From a health
point of view, sleep deprivation is associated with an increased risk
of all cause mortality. Lack of sleep can more than double the risk of
death from cardiovascular disease. Short sleep is a risk factor for
weight gain (it causes an increase is ghrelin, the hunger hormone,
and a decrease in leptin, the hormone that makes you feel full),
hypertension, and type II diabetes (sleep deficiency reduces insulin
sensitivity). Disrupted circadian rhythms are also bad for your
health; shift work is categorised as a carcinogen by the World Health
Organisation. The mechanism for this is that melatonin, which
causes you to feel sleepy, limits the production of hormones that
associated with causing cancer.
From a performance perspective, long-term sleep deprivation is not
ideal. Student athletes with an average sleep duration of less than
eight hours are 1.7 times more likely to suffer a sporting injury over
the course of a month than those sleeping for more than 8 hours
(Milewski et al., 2014). Sargent et al. (2014) found that shorter sleep
durations were significantly associated with higher levels of pretraining fatigue. Halson (2014) reports that long term partial sleep
deprivation (i.e. not sleeping enough per night over a long time
period) increases the perception of pain, decreases the immune
response (making us more likely to get ill), increases feelings of
depression, tension, confusion, fatigue, anger, and reduces feelings
of vigour. Overall, it should be obvious that these are not positive
aspects
Do athletes get enough sleep?
This is a really tough question to answer, as there isnt any real hard
and fast rules available for the amount of sleep humans require,
outside of the general 7-9 hour rule. It follows logical senses that if
athletes are expending more energy, and causing more muscular
damage on a daily basis, then they would require more sleep.
Trinder et al. (1988) reported that for trained athletes, aerobic
training caused an increase in the need for SWS sleep, as well as a
decrease in time to get to sleep. Faigenbaum et al. (2002)
discovered that 94% of US student athletes believed they required
more sleep than they were getting, and that their median time
asleep was 7.5 hours.

Other studies have examined the time athletes spend sleeping.

Sargent et al. (2014) found that athletes obtained an average of 6.5
hours sleep per night, ranging from 5 hours to 8 hours. These results
were mirrored by Lastella et al. (2014), finding that average sleep
duration for an elite athlete was 6.8 hours, ranging from 5.5 hours to
8 hours. It would appear from these results that athletes probably
arent getting sufficient sleep.
Halson (2014) explored some of the reasons why athletes might not
be getting sufficient sleep. These included:
Early morning training sessions,
Poor sleep habits and hygiene,
Nocturnal waking to use bathroom (athletes tend to be better
hydrated than lay people, and as such going 8+hours without
urination is tough!),
Caffeine use, and
Excessive thinking/worrying/planning.
From my own experience, I am notoriously bad at waking up in the
night to use the bathroom. As my career progressed, I worked really
hard at this aspect of my sleep hygiene, reducing my overnight
toilet visits from 3-4 per night to a maximum of 1, with the target
being zero. After competitions, which usually take place in the
evenings, I would often struggle to sleep until 3-4am due to the high
amount of caffeine I had taken pre-competition. One particularly
memorable experience saw me racing at 9.30pm, not sleeping,
leaving the hotel at 3.30am, and having three successive flights to
catch in order to get to my next race.
The good news for athletes is that short-term sleep deprivation does
not appear to affect performance. This is incredibly good news
because athletes generally sleep very badly before competition; a
mixture of nerves, excitement, and early starts contribute to this.
Ive already mentioned that I only got two hours sleep before racing
in the 100m at the Beijing Olympics the 4.45am wake up for my
race certainly played a role here. Souissi et al. found that 24h
without sleep had no effect on anaerobic power variables. Similarly,
Blumert et al. found that 24h sleep deprivation had no affect on US
Collegiate weightlifters in the weight they could lift for snatch, clean
and jerk, and total training session weight. 2.5 hours sleep
deprivation over a period of 4 nights had no affect on swimming
performance in a group of elite swimmers. Knowing these facts, and
becoming more experienced myself, lead to me feeling much less
anxious about sleep the night before a competition, which in turn
lead to me sleeping much better.

Is more sleep better?

So, weve examined whether sleep deprivation affects sporting

performance. But can more sleep improve performance? Mah et al.
looked at this. They asked a group of basketballers to sleep as much
as they could over a two-week period. The results showed an
improvement in both sprint and free-throw ability. Similarly, highlevel swimmers sleeping for 10 hours per night for seven weeks see
an increase in their 15m-sprint time, reaction time, turn time, and
mood. Mah also reported the sleep times of some well known sports
people; Roger Federer sleeps for 11-12h per night; Usain Bolt for 810h, LeBron James for 12h, and Maria Sharapova for 8-10h.
Another factor to consider is that sleep is linked with skill learning;
when we sleep, our brain consolidates the information it has picked
up during the day. Ensuring optimal sleep should help improve skill
acquisition, and hence is another factor as to why athletes should
attempt to maximise their sleep.

So, what can we do?

Daily
It is important to practice good sleep hygiene on a daily basis:

Blue light exposure from electrical screens reduces melatonin

release, which can cause a decrease in sleep quality and
increase the time to fall asleep. Try to avoid electrical screens
for an hour before bed. If you have to use a computer screen,
then try orange tinted glasses that filter out the blue light.

We need to ensure we are comfortable in our rooms, which

requires them to be quiet and dark. If you are consistently
disturbed by noise, then earplugs are a good option. If you are
woken up by outside light, consider an eye mask, or black out
curtains.

To reduce worry or anxiety pre-bed, keep a to-do list. I have a

to-do app on my phone; if anything pops into my head as I am
trying to sleep I can just type it in there, and I no longer have
to worry about it.

Its also a good idea to avoid stimulating activity immediately

before bed. I used to have a three hour pre-bed routine that
involved me progressively diming the lights as the evening
progressed (to simulate the natural darkening cycle) and then
reading for 60-90 minutes pre-bed to limit my exposure to
blue light from TV.

Limit liquid intake in the few hours before you sleep, in order
to prevent waking up in the night to go to the toilet. If you do
have to get up, try to turn on as few lights as possible.

Consider the use of a tryptophan supplement / food source to

help melatonin production. 300g of turkey provides around 1g
of tryptophan, which is a good dose. Dont just add your
tryptophan to a pre-bed protein shake, as I used to do, as the
presence of other amino acids in the blood in high
concentrations reduces the amount of tryptophan that can
enter the brain. I definitely wasted my money on that one.

Consider tart cherry juice, which may increase melatonin

production.

Try to avoid caffeine after 2pm, as it may affect how long it

takes you to get to sleep.

Alcohol reduces sleep quality, and so should be avoided where

possible.

Have a regular sleep and wake time to ensure a strong

circadian rhythm.

Consider napping during the day, especially if you have early

morning training sessions.

If possible, try to sleep for 9 hours or more on a regular basis.

Competitions
66% of athletes report worse sleep than normal pre-competition
(Halson 2014). This can be down to excitement/nerves, unusual
sleep surroundings, and sharing with a roommate. To overcome
these issues, here are my tips:

Understand that one poor nights sleep will not affect your
performance the next day.
If you consistently struggle to sleep pre-competition, consider
increasing your sleep in the days leading up to the
competition. I used to do this; I knew it would make me less
tired on the night before a big race, but it would offset the
anxiety of not getting enough sleep.
Try to pick a roommate that you have shared with before, and
that you know wont disturb you overnight. The amount of

athletes that I have roomed with that either snore or stay up

late watching TV (or both!) is ridiculous, which is why I settled
on a regular roommate during my career. Having a consistent
roommate also removes some of the anxiety about whether or
not you will get a good nights sleep.
Pack earplugs and an eye mask if the hotel or your
roommate is noisy, you can take care of this!
When travelling across time zones, allow approximately one
day per time zone for acclimatisation.

Coaches

Understand that early morning training sessions are probably

affecting the sleep quality and duration of your athletes. You
can offset these affects by allowing athletes to nap during the
day. Early morning training sessions are especially hard on
teenagers.
Understand that individuals perform best at different times of
day, and where possible schedule training to account for this.
Promote good sleep hygiene habits.
Try to schedule travel around competitions so that it does not
affect your athletes sleep. An early morning return travel
after a competition will severely hamper an athletes recovery,
especially if the competition was late at night. Similarly,
traveling to a competition and arriving late at night will have a
knock on effect onto the athletes sleep.

References
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Faigenbaum, A; Mediate, P & Rota, D. (2002) Sleep need in high
school athletes. Strength and Conditioning Journal 24(4): 18-19
Halson, S. (2014) Sleep in elite athletes and nutritional interventions
to enhance sleep. Sports Med 44(S1): S13-23.
Lastella, M; Roach, G; Halson, S & Sargent, C. (2014) Sleep / wake
behaviours of elite athletes from individual and team sports. Eur J
Sport Sci 4: 1-7.
Mah, C; Mah, K & Kezirian, E. (2011) The effects of sleep extension
on the athletic performance of collegiate basketball players. Sleep
34(7): 943-50.

Mah, C. (2008) Extended sleep and the effects on mood and athletic
performance in collegiate swimmers. Annual Meeting of the
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Milewski, M; Skaggs, D; Bishop, G; Pace, J; Ibrahim, D; Wren, T &

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