Essay On Sleep And Sports Performance

HOW SLEEP EFFECTS SPORTS PERFORMANCE

Although in the majority of scientist agree that sleep is an important factor for athletes, it has not been shown to have a direct correlation to performance in athletes. This is practical because it is difficult to test, and the small sample sizes that they have used. Although sleep is not fully understood, nearly all scientist agree that sleep is optimal not only for the regular daily task, although for athletic performance. According to the Gatorade sports science institute “Sleep is essential for athletes, both for preparing for, and recovering from, training and competition.” There are four stages in which you sleep in, and then REM (rapid eye movement). These four stages consist of Stage 1,2,3,4 and then REM. In each of the stages, you fall deeper into sleep, and it’s an ongoing cycle. Stages of 3,4 and REM are

The Neurological clinic describes this as,” Nonrestorative sleep is the descriptor used to account for the fact that some people get enough sleep (achieve their total sleep need) on a nightly basis, but the quality of the sleep is inadequate.” This also plays a huge factor in athletic performance as it can tell if an athlete is over training or not. What most people don’t understand is there are many factors that bid into getting an acceptable quality of sleep. One that is often missed is the circadian timing. This is the sleep timing that we as humans naturally choose genetically, and by our surroundings. The neurological clinic uses the example,” night owls who prefer to go to bed later and sleep in (1 AM–9 AM) and who then have to wake up at 5 AM to train at 6 AM will curtail their sleep by 2 to 4 hours per night, missing critical periods of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and slow wave sleep”. This plays a huge part in your performance as an