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Stress comes in many forms for athletes. The thrust of a full-on sprint, the torquing combination of movements, and the paced breathing of swimming free-style. The throwing, the catching, and the anaerobic moments in between, when the heart and brain are catching up. On one hand, this builds a strong body. On the other hand, it also causes stress. Athletes also experience the emotional rollercoaster of high-stakes environments. To maintain elite status, athletes have to recover from all of this.
Studies of elite and sub-elite athletes identified sleep as the bedrock of all recovery methods. Sleep helps restore the immune and endocrine system as well as cognitive functioning. Lack of sleep has a destabilizing effect on appetite, muscle repair, and the circulation of stress hormones, all of which affect recovery and potentially lead to greater fatigue, which increases the risk of injury. This probably comes as little shock to any reader who has endured a bad night’s rest. However, those same studies showed that athletes also struggle with sleep, often for the same reasons we all do. Much like the rest of us, athletes’ sleep can be derailed by nerves before a competition; by deprivation because of getting in late or waking up early for travel; and consuming too much caffeine and alcohol (caffeine is a stimulant prolonging sleep onset; alcohol is a depressant reducing sleep quality).
Although sleep quantity is important, sleep quality is more so. According to the National Sleep Foundation, the average adult should receive seven to nine hours of sleep a night. That’s a wider window than people think because everyone’s sleep architecture is different. As a behavioral sleep therapist, I often hear folks puzzled at their fatigue despite getting eight hours in bed. But you don’t have to be in bed for eight hours; you should be sleeping well, flowing through the three sleep stages before hitting rapid eye movement (REM), the final, deepest stage. This is your sleep architecture. Other quality measures include using minimal effort to fall asleep and stay asleep. Ideally, we have roughly four to six full cycles of sleep a night, in which case, it’s natural to have awakenings between REM and cycling back to stage one. Between REM and stage, when we get up to pee. For many athletes and non-athletes, this waking may become prolonged and develop into a distressing pattern of insomnia.
That’s because the wakings and the beliefs and actions around it become a form of conditioning. Often, the individual will remain in bed, worrying about their sleep, their health, and those future high-stakes unknowns. Some, like the athletes in the study, use this time to scroll on their phone, which presents a bigger issue of ingesting the blue-light and dopamine-inducing content, which keeps them up longer. I see this with my insomnia patients of all ages. That all-star athletes also experience this is both normalizing and humanizing.
It’s reassuring to know that our heroes are still just people. There’s another way that our heroes are just like us: superstition. Donn Posner, a sleep specialist, once told me that insomnia is ripe for superstition. That’s because if we have a good night of shut-eye thanks to some supplement or action, we cling to it despite contrary evidence. Athletes do this, too. Those studied used magnesium, valerian, and other fads.
Studies of those fads and supplements remain inconclusive; however, those studies found that diets rich in lean proteins, carbohydrates, and fruits and vegetables not only improve sleep quality but also improve recovery. Fruits like kiwi and cherries increase melatonin and serotonin, which improve sleep duration, and have antioxidants, which clear away dead cells. Proteins from fish, chicken, and turkey all boost tryptophan, which has been shown to improve sleep onset and enhance muscle recovery. Eating carbohydrates like rice helps with sleep onset, too. The researchers found that using a food-first approach over supplements was more beneficial because the body uses its natural process of digestion to harvest the needed nutrients. Not mentioned in the study is that supplements are an unregulated industry, so we can never fully gauge a brand’s true quality.
In addition to sleep, relaxation techniques like yoga and meditation also improved recovery times and helped foster better sleep. Journaling, specifically about what’s worrying you, may help reduce anxiety. Let’s say you’re worried that if you don’t get eight hours, you’ll be doomed. If you’re an athlete, that can really be a tough thought, because the studies did find that, given the mental and physical demands, eight hours was ideal for their recovery. However, the studies also found that if those athletes could get six quality hours of sleep, they recovered well. Knowing that helped these athletes worry less and inadvertently improved their sleep. Perhaps if you journaled about that, you can also rest easy.
