Perform Ep 5: How to Enhance Performance With Better Sleep

In this episode, I explain how sleep optimization produces a competitive advantage and the many tools available for improving sleep to maximize athletic performance. I explain how sufficient, high-quality sleep enhances speed, accuracy, reaction time, and competition performance and aids in injury recovery. I also describe why most athletes suffer from chronic suboptimal sleep, the athlete’s sleep paradox, the biochemical reason athletes need more sleep, and the most common sleep disorders affecting athletes. I explain the importance of optimizing three areas for sleep: duration, quality, and timing. I also discuss how to use sleep extension to improve performance and how to use sleep banking and/or adjust sleep timing during competition training or travel. I discuss the three I’s (investigate, interpret, intervene) for improving sleep and describe sleep solutions, ranging from free protocols and low-cost wearables to high-precision clinical sleep testing. Listeners will understand the importance of sleep for performance and how to create a precise, effective sleep program tailored to individual needs and goals for yourself or the athletes you coach.

Articles

• Sleep and the athlete: narrative review and 2021 expert consensus recommendations (British Journal of Sports Medicine)
• Sleep Hygiene for Optimizing Recovery in Athletes: Review and Recommendations (International Journal of Sports Medicine)
• Managing Travel Fatigue and Jet Lag in Athletes: A Review and Consensus Statement (Sports Medicine)
• Sleep is of the muscle, by the muscle, and for the muscle (Sleep)
• The Effects of Sleep Extension on the Athletic Performance of Collegiate Basketball Players (Sleep)
• Sleep extension improves serving accuracy: A study with college varsity tennis players (Physiology & Behavior)
• Sleep and Performance during a Preseason in Elite Rugby Union Athletes (MDPI)
• Extended Sleep Maintains Endurance Performance Better than Normal or Restricted Sleep (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise)
• Poor sleep quality and insufficient sleep of a collegiate student-athlete population (Sleep Health)
• Sleep habits and susceptibility to the common cold (JAMA Internal Medicine)
• Association between late-night tweeting and next-day game performance among professional basketball players (Sleep Health)
• Chronic Lack of Sleep is Associated With Increased Sports Injuries in Adolescent Athletes (Journal of Pediatric Orthopaedics)
• Sleep Data, Physical Performance, and Injuries in Preparation for Professional Mixed Martial Arts (Sports)
• Gold, silver or bronze: circadian variation strongly affects performance in Olympic athletes (Scientific Reports)
• The Impact of Circadian Misalignment on Athletic Performance in Professional Football Players (Sleep)
• Manipulating sleep duration perception changes cognitive performance – An exploratory analysis (Journal of Psychosomatic Research)
• Sleep Hygiene and Light Exposure Can Improve Performance Following Long-Haul Air Travel (International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance)

Other Resources

• Timeshifter app
• Sleep Toolbox for Practitioners (from Walsh paper)
• Athlete Sleep Screening Questionnaire
• Athlete Sleep Behavior Questionnaire (Table 2)
• Mouth and throat exercises to help stop snoring

Huberman Lab Episodes Mentioned

• How to Defeat Jetlag, Shift Work & Sleeplessness
• Tools for Jetlag (timestamp)

People Mentioned

• Cheri Mah: Sleep Physician, Stanford Sleep Medicine Center
• Jeffery Durmer: Sleep Medicine Physician
• Amy Bender: Sleep and Performance Expert
• Brian Ortega: UFC Fighter
• Steven Lockley: Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
• Ian Dunican: Sleep and Performance Expert
• Robert Thomas: Professor of Medicine, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center