Good, restful sleep is of enormous importance to top athletes and can lead to a performance increase of up to three percent – this can be the difference between victory and defeat in some sports. During sleep, muscles regenerate and grow, movements or other things are internalized, and mental strength is gained. Lack of sleep or poor quality sleep, on the other hand, have a counterproductive effect on the ability to concentrate, mood, reaction times and performance. As a result, you get physically ill.
However, if you’ve been surfing the world alone for months, you don’t have time for hours of sleep. Solo circumnavigator Boris Herrmann therefore trained himself to sleep only briefly, but several times a day. But even the nap in the final stage of the 2021 Vendée Globe was Herrmann’s downfall: while he was sleeping, his boat collided with a fishing boat. As a result, Herrmann lost a place on the podium. The technical monitoring devices had not raised the alarm.
Other athletes also adapt their sleep to their specific needs: boxers, for example, adjust their sleep patterns so that they are particularly efficient during a late evening competition, contrary to their internal clock.
Professional footballers such as Cristiano Ronaldo or Robert Lewandowski work with sleep therapists, sleep according to sophisticated sleep concepts several times a day and expect their bodies to regenerate quickly.
Especially popular polyphasic sleep pattern
Sleep research distinguishes between three different sleep patterns: monophasic, biphasic and polyphasic. Most people sleep an average of seven hours at a time during the night and therefore only have one stage of sleep (monophasic). Some add an afternoon nap (biphasic). What is more typical for children, namely three to six sleep stages per day of about 90 minutes each, is called a polyphasic sleep pattern. And some competitive athletes are adopting this concept.
It usually takes two to three weeks to adjust to this new sleep pattern, says Christian Zepp of the Institute of Psychology at the German Sports University in Cologne. “You have to practice, it’s hard work. But in the end, a professional athlete will do anything to improve his performance.”
Leonardo da Vinci is also said to have slept polyphasically and then created his masterpieces, explains the sports scientist: “If you train yourself to do this, the body learns even faster to enter the important phase of sleep and, for example, to break down its metabolic products more rapidly.”
Sticking to a sleep schedule is important
Athletes often complain of sleep disturbances, for example due to psychological pressure, stress before competitions, too intense training or strenuous travel. However, interval suspension patterns are not absolutely necessary to increase performance. Zepp explains that athletes would sleep much better if they stuck to their sleep schedule and sleep hygiene. This includes some time to fall asleep, a cool room, a light evening meal, no distractions from cell phones, and much more.
But not everyone has this discipline. Also due to the corona situation, the sleep rhythm of some athletes was disturbed, many went to bed later than planned, reports Zepp. “In 2020 I’ve had many – especially young athletes – who no longer stick to anything. Then they went to bed at three in the morning and at one point they wondered why they weren’t performing anymore.”
Several studies on energy naps
Healthy sleep is cyclic: every 60-90 minutes there is a sequence of stages of light, normal and deep sleep, each cycle ending in what is known as REM sleep (rapid eye movement/dream sleep), after which we usually wake up. So you don’t sleep deeply all night, this only accounts for about 25 percent of the total sleep time, explains Christine Hamm, sleep researcher and psychologist from Cologne: “While longer deep sleep phases can be seen in the first half of the night “, become clearer in the second half of the night, sleep becomes more easily disturbed, wakefulness phases accumulate. We know from basic research that we typically wake up up to 25 times a night.”
A nap can be helpful, according to NASA
The good sleeper usually doesn’t notice this because they fall back asleep quickly. Poor sleepers, i.e. people with trouble falling asleep and/or sleeping through the night, often stay awake longer during night-wake phases and may remember this well. “Those who tend to have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep often need ‘higher sleep pressure,'” says Hamm. It really hurts these people if they sleep during the day: “This messes up the sleep-wake cycle.” Regular sleep times are an important prerequisite for healthy sleep, explains the somnologist. Even the afternoon nap, which is relaxing for good sleepers and corresponds to a natural biological midday rest, is rather a sin here.
According to NASA study a nap can increase your reaction speed and concentration. According to other studies, however, several daytime naps can have a negative effect on health because they do not correspond to human nature. Man is a diurnal being. The day-night rhythm is controlled by hormones. The stress hormone cortisol increases during the day phase and the sleep hormone melatonin during the night phase. Many researchers therefore believe that sleeping at night is overall more restful than the model developed by sleep coach Nick Littlehales for Cristiano Ronaldo, which involves multiple sleep phases of 90 minutes each, even spread out throughout the day.
Hans-Günter Weeß, head of the interdisciplinary sleep center at the Pfalzklinikum, questioned Littlehale’s training on SWR. Such coaches often only have the knowledge they’ve read, and this is especially evident in this case. “I strongly believe that Ronaldo has never used these sleep cycles, otherwise his athletic performance would not be what we have seen in recent years.”
Viewed neutrally, sleep training is the same as other areas of mind training. The exact impact on performance is difficult to measure. That is why the following applies in sport: whoever wins is right.
