Thread by @joshfaga

Sleep: The most overlooked and undervalued area of performance enhancement.

From my recent discussion with Dr. Steven Lockley of Harvard Medical School's Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders

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Sleep splits up into two main parts:

1. Deep Sleep
2. REM Sleep

Deep Sleep is generally responsible for restoration and recovery and occurs in the beginning of the night

REM Sleep is generally responsible for memory formation and learning and occurs towards the 2nd half of the night.

Young adults have a body clock that is biologically shifted later than older adults.

Asking a 16 year old to go to bed at 10PM is like asking an adult to go to bed at 7PM.

The problem is that modern life doesn't take this into account when scheduling things like work, training, school, etc.

Training early in the morning is basically guaranteeing sleep deprivation and an accumulation of sleep debt.

You aren't morally superior because you train early in the morning.

You're ineffective.

In general, people have a biological clock that fits into two main categories:

1. Early Risers (Larks) - faster biological clock

2. Night Owls (Owl's) - slower biological clock

Most athletes are under 30 years old.

Most people under 30 years old are Night Owls.

Therefore, most athletes are Night Owls.

With this being the case, why do so many sports team's train in the morning?

There are two main problems with training early in the morning when you coach a population of athletes

1. Inhibits sleep duration (total hours slept decreases)
2. Sleep Inertia

Sleep duration is an obvious problem.

As Steven Lockley puts it, "There is no such thing as too much sleep. More sleep is a good thing. Sleeping in is a good thing."

This table serves as a practical guide for how many hours of sleep per night athletes should be getting depending on their age.

"None of us really get enough. 7 hours isn't the target, we should be aiming for more than that, especially in younger people."

Sleep Inertia is the groggy feeling we all experience shortly after waking up.

This is normal and takes 2-4 hours to fully go away.

But, you don't want to be doing "key" things within 1-2 hours of waking up - Like training!

Peak performance occurs in the late afternoon coinciding with our peak body temperature.

"By shifting training to later in the day, let's say early afternoon, we get the same amount of work done, but with a much higher quality b/c the players will be more rested."

Steven mentioned a school that changed their school start times from 8AM to 10AM back to 8AM.

During the period of 10AM start times
- Exam results improved
- Sick days decreased

During the period of 8AM start times
- Exam results decreased
- Sick days increased

The same logic applies to training times.

If we simply move training times later, without changing anything else, we are increasing the probability that performance improves, injury rates decrease, and illness rates decrease.

If your athletes consistently take naps, that is indicative of a poorly designed schedule.

"If you've had enough sleep during the night, then you shouldn't even be able to nap. The fact that so many athletes rely on naps is a sign that they are consistently sleep deprived."

A sleepy brain is a drunk brain.

Multiple studies show a lack of sleep as equivalent to Blood Alcohol Contents above the legal limit.

Just as a drunk brain makes poor decisions, so does a Sleepy brain

Sleep is arguably more important than all other training parameters and considerations like load, intensity, density, volume, exercise selection, and diet.

And yet, it is has been relegated to an after thought. Something to overcome, something that 'weak' people do.

A lack of sleep isn't something that makes us tough, or something that our athletes need to "get over" - it effectively determines how alert they are and their body clock times.

Ignoring how sleep fits into our training schedule is a wasted opportunity to improve performance with very little effort.

Here is the full episode with Dr. Steven Lockley

soundcloud.com/just-kickin-it…

Here is a more detailed version of this thread and my conversation with Dr. Lockley

medium.com/@joshfaga/slee…