Heather: Just talking about sleep makes me want to crawl under the duvet and turn the
lights off. I don't think I'm alone in saying I would love to have more sleep, but how much
is actually enough? Then you've got quality to throw into the mix as well. Well, as athletes,
sleep plays is a key role in our ability to train and perform. Why not put your feet up,
relax, and join me as we look at the importance of sleep.
[music] The
majority of adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep, but seven hours of really
good quality sleep is going to beat nine hours of poor quality. Let's start by addressing
what we actually mean by quality sleep. Well, it can be measured in your sleep cycle. The
amount of deep sleep, light sleep, and REM phases that you go through. Then you've got
other metrics that can be tracked throughout the night such as your heart rate, your heart
rate variability, and your breathing rate, and then the average taken from those over
the night. If you do have a smartwatch and you wear it
at night, you'll find you probably can get all these metrics and sometimes even more.
Alternatively, you can use an app which is simply placed on your phone under your pillow.
You'll need a consistent block of these recordings so that you know what your normal is and you
can have a look to see whether that was a poor night's sleep or a good night's sleep
compared for you. Then you'll notice some of these apps will
give you actual in bedtime and then sleep time. You might think, oh, you went to bed
at 10, you got up at six, you had eight hours of sleep, but probably not true. I find it
quite fascinating to have a look back at mine each day actually to see whether I had any
interruptions at night. I might think I've had a brilliant night's sleep but find that
indicates as poor. This can sometimes be a nice indicator if you're struggling later
in the day, we'll have a look at how you slept that night and the clue could be there.
[music] Back to quantity, how much sleep? Well, it's
a pretty grey areas but we're all individuals. There is that of average number bandied about
of seven to nine hours. You need to take into factors such as age, your training load, what
type of job you do, and also the quality of that sleep. There's a lot of evidence that
shows lack of sleep can be detrimental to our health and also a fair amount of evidence
that the more sleep you have, the better, within reason.
Now, age, adolescents need a lot more sleep than someone older. Apparently, as you get
into your senior years, you need less. I'm still waiting for that to happen. Also as
athletes, our bodies are repairing at night, so we're going to naturally need more sleep
than a sedentary person. Irrelevant of your goals, as human beings,
sleep is essential. Basically, we can't survive without it. It affects things such as our
brain, our heart, our lungs, our metabolism, our immune system, and often quite noticeably
our mood. What actually happens when you have poor sleep? Well, if it's chronic, it can
lead to conditions such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes,
depression. You get the pitch. I know as athletes, those tend to not be problems that you maybe
are going to experience but it just brings home the importance of sleep.
[music] Let's look a little closer at the effects
of poor sleep on athletic performance. Well, it can actually see changes in your body's
glucose metabolism and your endocrine system which then leads to alterations in the body's
ability to metabolize that carbohydrate which in turn will affect your appetite as well
as protein synthesis. It's not really a surprise that that's going to have a negative knock
on to your athletic performance. It's therefore probably no surprise that having
good sleep will counteract these problems. In actual fact, having enough sleep has been
proven to improve your reaction times; counteract that with being sleep deprived, it can be
the equivalent of having had an alcoholic drink. I'm sure all of you guys know when
you've had a good night's sleep and you wake up just feeling on it. You've got great content
and you're in a brilliant mood. Well, that's naturally going to affect your training as
well as those physical benefits of your body having been fully recovered. After a good
night's sleep, you're far more likely to be able to nail that next tough training session.
[music] Doubt I needed to convince you of the importance
of sleep but I expect you want to know how you can improve yours. I'm not going to sit
here and preach, you need to have more, we'd all love that. We've got busy lives training
for three sports as well as everyday work and life. Instead, I'm going to focus on how
you can actually get the most out of that time that is available to you.
You might have heard of sleep hygiene. It's a bit of a buzzword at the moment but it's
basically talking about your habits pre, during and even post-sleep. Start off by addressing
your environment. You ideally want to have a nice, cool, dark, and quiet room if possible.
Then if you are able to let natural light come in in the morning, that's going to help
with your circadian rhythm. If you've got streetlights or light pollution that an eye
mask can help with getting you into that deep sleep. Then look at your routine before bed,
so whether that's having a bath or having a hot drink, uncaffeinated, of course, or
even doing a bit of meditation. If you start to repeatedly do this before bed, you'll get
into the idea that you're getting ready for sleep and it will gradually start to help
you. [music]
It's common to go to bed with your head spinning, whether that's worries, a to-do list, ideas,
whatever it is. Just have a notepad and a pen next to your bed so you can just offload
those and put them to one side. You know you won't have forgotten them when it comes to
the morning but you can hopefully sleep with a clear mind. That goes hand in hand with
reducing screen time. Whether that's television, your phone, your laptop, try to eliminate
this at least an hour before bed if you are struggling.
Now, as triathletes, we do tend to spend quite a lot of our waking time either eating or
training. Both of these can affect our ability to get to sleep. If you do have the ability
to reduce the chance of having a really high intense session just before bed, that will
help because it just takes you a while to wind down. The same goes with eating. If you
have a really big heavy meal just before bed, it's not going to feel very comfortable and
it's going to probably affect your sleep. If you can make small changes like having
your main meal at lunchtime even. [music]
Sleep hygiene doesn't actually end as soon as your alarm goes off, it goes into what
you do first thing in the morning. If you can get out for a walk or cycle or even just
sitting outside to have breakfast, it's actually going to help with your circadian rhythm as
the sun's rays that time in the morning have a different color to them. Apparently, that
can then affect, basically, your sleep patterns and will help you when you get to the other
end of the day with sleeping better. Beyond that, if you want to record your sleep to
start to see patterns, it's a good idea to keep a sleep diary. Yes, you might have tracking
on your smart device but if you can record such things as when you went to sleep, when
you got up, how that sleep felt, how much caffeine you had the day before, and when
you had your last cup of coffee, how many snoozes you needed, and just generally how
you're functioning that day. [music]
I feel like I need a nap. I haven't even touched on the topic of naps but it is a tool that
a lot of athletes use to bump up their total hours of sleep and certainly something that
I miss, now I've got a real job. This has been quite fascinating for me researching,
hopefully, you guys have found it interesting. And just reminds us of how important having
good quality sleep can be. Well, hopefully, you've enjoyed it, give us a like, check out
our social media channels and follow those. Make sure you turn all of this off, including
us right now at least an hour before bed. [00:07:29] [END OF AUDIO]