CAN YOU REALLY SLEEP YOUR WAY TO IMPROVED ATHLETICISM?

Dr Meeta Singh is a sleep guru who coaches pro athletes to sleep their way to superior performance – most recently playing a key role in helping the Washington Nationals win the World Series. Here she shares some simple insights that will help exercise enthusiasts sleep their way to optimal athletic performance.

Fit Planet: You talk about coaching the ‘sleep muscle’. Is this a new concept, and is it something we all need to start doing?

Dr. Meeta Singh: I work a lot with athletes, so the concept of coaching at the most basic level is easy for them to understand. It’s based on the old fashioned term, when ‘a coach’ was a horse drawn carriage that took you from point A to point B. Coaching the sleep muscle includes all aspects of improving and optimizing sleep, starting from education, giving athletes science-based tools that will ensure proper sleep. Of course, as is the case with any coaching, one can teach athletes skills, but the practice and utilization needs their buy-in and motivation.

So how do sleep and our biological and circadian rhythms influence athletic performance?

Sleep is essential for all aspects of athletic performance including optimal reaction times, accuracy, optimal motor function, focus, motivation, glucose metabolism, memory and learning, as well as stress regulation – all of which are integral for athletic performance.

Our circadian rhythms are intrinsic time-keeping biological clocks that also influence athletic performance. In fact, many major indexes of athletic performance like muscle strength, reaction time, flexibility are influenced by the circadian clock. As is muscle growth and maintenance! I like to think of sleep as a circuit board with one switch and if that switch fails everything else will also break down.

“A good sleep can help you feel sharper, more mentally focused, more alert, and in a better mood. You can experience improved cardiovascular functions and metabolism in the longer term.”

What happens inside our body while we sleep that helps improve physical performance?

Sleep will allow for psychological, physiological and physical recovery. It is really providing recovery at the cellular level and it does so by forcing reduced physical activity and reduced engagement of the brain with the environment. The reduced physical activity allows for physical recovery to occur while the reduced interaction of the brain with the environment allows mental recovery to occur. In fact, we now know that during sleep the brain gets cleansed of waste material akin to being power washed. Similarly, while the body is at rest, restorative functions as well as energy storage takes place.

So, if you’re committed to being fit and healthy what should you prioritize; getting up early for a workout, or sleeping in?

That really depends on how much sleep you got, although I think they are both essential and I wouldn’t like to be in the position of choosing! So, the best answer – go to sleep early enough to get your seven to nine hours of sleep, and schedule exercise at a time that won't be taken over by work or social obligations. That way you don’t have to decide between exercise and sleep. When you exercise also depends on whether you are a morning or an evening person, because asking a night owl to wake up and exercise is just plain wrong!

We know that exercise has tremendous health benefits, but sleep is a biological need that is essential for overall health. So if the choice was between getting regular sleep or getting regular exercise, I would say sleep gets precedence, as less regular exercise will not cause the same level of health issues that less sleep causes.

“There is a bi-directional relationship between sleep quality and physical activity – exercise can improve deep sleep and sleeping better enhances the ability to exercise the next day!”

How can you identify what your body needs most?

If you are feeling run down, exhausted and drowsy during situations you should normally be alert in, the choice is simple – get more sleep! I tell people that if they are getting more sleep on days that they are not working than they do on the days they are working it’s an indication that they are playing catch up and they are sleep deprived and need more sleep. Other signs are difficulty concentrating, reduced sex drive, increased irritability or anxiety

What’s more important – amount of sleep, timing of sleep, or quality of sleep?

They are all important, although I think quantity comes before quality. I'll give you an example: it's like calories, you need to eat a certain number of calories to sustain life and it doesn’t really matter what the quality of the food is. Similarly, the quantity of sleep that you need is very important. It’s recommended that adults need seven to nine hours and if you get less than six hours of sleep, you're likely to be impacted.

The second most important aspect is sleep quality, which refers to how well you sleep. For adults, good quality sleep means that you typically fall asleep in 30 minutes or less, sleep soundly through the night with no more than one awakening, and drift back to sleep within 20 minutes if you do wake up. Keeping the bedroom cool, dark and quiet and avoiding caffeine, alcohol or electronic use close to bedtime helps enhance this.

Timing is the third most important aspect of sleep. You want your sleep to be aligned to your biological sleep time and you want your sleep times to be as regular as possible.

If we focus on volume and adding more sleep to our day, what changes can we expect to see?

Well, there is research that supports how adding 30 minutes of sleep is beneficial. Researchers adjusted the sleep schedule of professional baseball players to ensure they got an extra 30 minutes of sleep each night for five consecutive nights (from an average of 6.3 hours each night to 6.9 a night). It turns out, the added sleep dramatically improved the players’ response time – and that’s significant when you consider that it takes an estimated 400 milliseconds for a fastball to travel from the pitcher to the hitter. These finding are relevant to the general population too, as we are often also chronically sleep deprived (which means we’re sleeping less than seven hours each night). Getting even half an hour extra helps, and we should never underestimate the power of a 20-minute nap.

So naps are a good thing?

It depends on the circumstance. If you're unable to get seven to nine hours of sleep at night, then one way you can play catch-up is by taking a nap. But if you have problems falling asleep or staying asleep at night despite adequate opportunity to sleep, then napping is not a good idea. In this circumstance, napping can take away from your sleep drive, and you need this to fall asleep at night. The other thing to be careful about is the grogginess you might have after waking up from a nap – so don’t schedule a nap right before you have to do something important!

Are the benefits of good sleep instantaneous, or does it take weeks of solid sleeping to start enjoying the benefits?

Some aspects – like feeling sharper, more mentally focused, more alert, and in a better mood – may happen the next day. Some of the health-related aspects, like better cardiovascular function and any effect on your metabolism may happen more slowly.

“Getting even half an hour extra helps, and we should never underestimate the power of a 20-minute nap.”

Does exercise help you sleep? Is there a superior type of training for improving sleep?

There is a bi-directional relationship between sleep quality and physical activity – exercise can improve deep sleep and sleeping better enhances the ability to exercise the next day. Exercise is a great stress buster, which allows you to sleep better. It can also tire you out and that is helpful. Exercising outdoors can help strengthen your circadian clock and that is always great. Working out vigorously too close to bedtime may over-stimulate the body and disturb sleep in some, but not in all people.

Are everyone’s sleep needs different? How can you establish the amount of sleep you really need?

Although there is some genetic variation, to function optimally most adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep per 24-hour period. A good method for determining your sleep need is to try and sleep without schedule constraints – during a two-week period, when you have a flexible schedule or perhaps are on vacation, pick a consistent bedtime and do not use an alarm clock to wake up. Chances are that for the first few days you will sleep longer because you'll be paying off your ‘sleep debt’, which is the amount of sleep deprivation that you've accumulated over a period of time. If you continue going to bed at the same time and allowing your body to wake up naturally, you will eventually establish a pattern where you get the same amount of sleep each night, probably in the range of seven to nine hours.

Dr Meeta Singh is the Service Chief of Sleep Medicine and Medical Director at the Henry Ford Sleep Laboratory in Michigan where her work and research focuses on helping maximize performance in individual athletes and sports teams. She has served as a consultant for multiple NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA teams and worked with college sports teams to address sleep deprivation and jet lag and maximizing athletic performance. She also works with C-suite executives to help with jetlag management and enhancing sleep. Dr Singh is board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology as a Psychiatrist and Sleep Medicine subspecialist, and is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine the Sleep Research Society.

Follow Dr Singh at LinkedIn or on Twitter @athletesleepmd1