I love sleep, in fact it’s probably fair to say that I’ve been a bit obsessed by it. Along with running, eating and spending time with my husband it ranks pretty high up there in my top ten list of things to do. What I could never understand though was why, despite dedicating so much time to it, I was so bad at it? I would sleep for hours and wake up the next morning still feeling tired and lethargic. By the early evening I felt like I was dragging myself around. More importantly recovering from a hard training session seemed to take far longer than it should have done.
So, I started doing some research, reading anything sleep related I could find along with getting myself a Polar watch, which back then was the only one that tracked your sleep – not just quantity but also quality by measuring your HRV (Heart Rate Variability – a measure of your autonomic nervous system that can be useful for evaluating your fitness level and how ready you are to perform). Your autonomic nervous system is made up of two branches – the sympathetic nervous system – which regulates our ‘fight or flight’ response and the parasympathetic nervous system which regulates our ‘rest & digest’ response.
Here’s what I learned – the amount of sleep we get is important but the quality of our sleep is even more-so. The stronger the rest & digest response of your ANS the better the quality of your sleep and recovery will be.
When we sleep we go through different stages of sleep within a cycle – deep, light, REM and awake, with each cycle taking approximately 90 minutes. In a typical night, if you’re sleeping between the recommended 7 & 9 hours you will go through this cycle around 4/5 times. REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep follows deep sleep and is the mentally restorative stage of sleep, when short term memories and learning from the day are converted to long term memories.
Of particular significance to athletes is deep sleep - this is the stage when physical recovery takes place. Your first period of deep sleep each night usually lasts between 45 and 60 minutes and is when you will gain most benefits from deep sleep. As you progress through the cycles of sleep, each cycle will produce shorter periods of deep sleep.
So, what’s so special about deep sleep? During deep sleep 95% of human growth hormone is produced, the immune system is strengthened, cells regenerate, tissues and bones recover, metabolism and blood sugar levels rebalance and detoxification takes place. All of which are key to making you a fitter/stronger/better athlete.
As you get older the periods of deep sleep will decrease so staying up late and missing that first cycle of sleep will have an impact!
How can you improve your deep sleep?
Consistency is key – our bodies work best with routine – go to bed and get up within the same time frame every day and do the same activities before you go to bed so that your body knows that you are preparing for sleep. Ie, prepare your kit for the following day, take a shower/bath, read/do a mindful activity.
You are not a computer – you can’t go from being wide awake with 20 tabs open to shut down just like that! Build in some time to ‘wind down’ spend a minimum of 10-15 minutes every evening just before going to sleep reading, listening to music or even better meditating/doing breathing exercises. Mindful activities such as colouring, model building or doing a jigsaw will all help you to relax and the more relaxed you are going into sleep the better/deeper you will sleep.
Even better – try taking a couple of 10 minute breaks throughout the day as well to properly relax/calm yourself, since regularly starting to mediate for just 10 minutes twice a day I have seen my average amount of deep sleep increase by 5% and my HRV rise by 10 points!
Keep your bedroom nice and cool – around 18.5 degrees centigrade is the optimum for sleep.
Wake up naturally if you can – if that’s not possible – get up as soon as your alarm goes off – don’t hit the snooze button – it will decrease your sleep efficiency and lead to you feel dozy and lethargic throughout the day.
Remove all electronic devices from your bedroom and stop looking at them at least 30 minutes before you go to bed.
Avoid napping throughout the day.
Avoid caffeine after mid-day – this stays in your system for up to 8 hours after you’ve had a cup. Be aware that de-caff coffee can still contain up to 10% caffeine.
Avoid alcohol – sorry but it’s definitely a no-no. You may think it helps you get off to sleep (which it does) but it will adversely affect the quality of your sleep – always!!
And finally – if you don’t sleep very well – try not to make it worse by worrying about it!!