Call it co-incidence, destiny or whatever one likes, it so happened that along the past week it turned out that I came across at least four different reports and articles, apart from a very interesting, yet short, TV feature, dealing with the cause of lack of sleep in our daily routines.
Not being one that believes that things happen by chance, I, thus, decided to enquire more on the subject especially as related to sports in the hope that I get a deeper and clearer insight that would hopefully help me more in my refereeing career.
Despite knowing for ages that sleep is beneficial in our quest to be fully alert, I have to admit that there were many instances, especially in my teen and early adulthood years, where I sacrificed some good quality sleep time and my regular daily performance then suffered.
We spend around a third of our lives in bed, yet many of us pay little attention to either the duration or quality of sleep.
Sport performers, like athletes and even us referees, seeking maximum performance neglect sleep at their peril. It is no secret that sleep seems to be a misunderstood process not only in the general population but also among sportspeople.
Some very good studies on the subject of sleep and sports performances were found on the specialist website www.pponline.co.uk. I will be adapting most of this week’s ideas from this site for the benefit of the readers.
In our modern caffeine-fuelled, ‘sleep when you’re dead’ society (an interesting yet very relevant term if one analyzes deeply the world we actually live in), it is easy to form the impression that sleep is not important.
There is an evident and seemingly fully-accepted high use of caffeinated sports drinks and pre-workout pick-up formulas by athletes and sports people. This tendency suggests that it is not just overworked office workers and late night-clubbers who are falling into the trap of believing that sleep is not entirely beneficial or useful.
On a more technical side, I came across details in the above-mentioned site that recent surveys and scientific studies suggest that chronic sleep loss due to the combination of voluntary bed time restriction and poor quality of sleep is an endemic condition in modern society. The trend to push sleep aside to make room for busier lives shows no sign of going away and most people are now carrying some degree of sleep debt.
According to a British national sleep survey, 18 per cent of people reported that their sleep was insufficient on the majority of nights, and nearly sixty per cent of people reported insufficient sleep on one or more nights of the previous week. It is not just the amount of time in bed that is important. Even the difficulty in getting off to sleep or disturbed, restless sleep can create a significant sleep debt.
In sportsmen and women, the issue of the sleep deprivation problem is not confined to amateur athletes trying to fit training and competition around busy work schedules, similar to what the absolute majority of sports people do here on our Islands. Studies have shown that even professional sportsmen and women are also vulnerable.
Surfing within the site I came across a recent high-profile example of sleep disturbance in professional sport, namely cycling, that occurred in the 2006 Tour of California. Top American cyclist Levi Leipheimer looked set for an important victory, having won the opening prologue time trial and then rode strongly in the mountains. He was confident on the possibility of taking the overall lead in the next important trial stage, and was the firm favourite for a home win. However, a poor night’s sleep meant he was far from fresh in the time trial and a mediocre performance by his standards put him out of contention for overall victory.
Although scientific studies and health bulletins have been talking about restricted and poor quality sleep as a potential health problem for many years, until recently it was still largely thought that sleep was needed purely for the mind.
However, historically speaking, sleep deprivation became an increasing health concern with the rising worldwide occurrence of traffic and work-related accidents resulting from poor concentration or people falling asleep whilst in charge of vehicles or machinery. Sleep deprivation is also thought to have played a large role in many large-scale public disasters such as (according to reports) the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil tanker accident.
Scientists tell us that if sleep was, as stated above, needed purely for the mind, athletes could almost have been forgiven for thinking that it was more important just to ‘get the workouts done’ no matter how tired they felt. If they felt they had not had sufficient sleep, then exercising a little mind over matter (helped perhaps by a few strong coffees) would merely make them stronger.
However, this approach is changing, as there is now a considerable body of evidence showing that sleep has a huge role in regulating many physiological functions.
I was under the impression that this subject would only last for one article but there is much more to say and discuss and thus I will dedicate next week’s article to delve more on sleep and sports. After all, I guess many, including myself, at times tend to struggle to balance the pressures of work and/or study with a sports career and feel that 24 hours in a day are not enough to fit everythng in. What happens then is that sleep will usually be the first to suffer and if this tendency is kept for some weeks, then we start to feel burnt out or even lack motivation and thus struggle to keep our form on the field of play.