You snooze, you don’t lose

3 minute read

While most of us may be aware of the cognitive impact of lack of adequate sleep, there is a significant correlation between sleep and physical performance as well. Scientists have long studied the impact lack of sleep has on motor skills of athletes and results across various researchers have indicated that when athletes sleep less than 6 hours a night, the time to physical exhaustion reduces by 10-30% and this is also accompanied by a reduction in aerobic output. Such adverse outputs were also observed on limb extension and vertical jump height.

All the above outcomes play a significant role in athlete injuries as well.

In a research study conducted on competitive young athletes in 2014, researchers found a strong correlation between the volume of sleep and the propensity of an athlete to get injured during play.

As the graph above indicates, athletes who slept more than 8 hours significantly reduced the likelihood of serious injury during play. But the question remains, can more sleep lead to better athletic performance. Researchers studied the performance of a top NBA player and compared his in-game performance on days when he slept more than 8 hours to the days when he slept less than 8 hours.

On the days he slept more than 8 hours they observed a:

• 12% increase in minutes played

• 29% increase in points per minute

• 2% increase in 3 point percentage

• 9% increase in free throw percentage

Based on the evidence above it’s quite appropriate to make a direct link between physical and motor performance and the numbers of hours of sleep. So its time do ditch those energy drinks that claim to give you wings and take a flight with the sleep angels.

Original research: Matthew D Milewski , David L Skaggs, Gregory A Bishop, J Lee Pace, David A Ibrahim, Tishya A L Wren, Audrius Barzdukas https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25028798/

Ken Berger - https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/in-multi-billion-dollar-business-of-nba-sleep-is-the-biggest-debt/