It's Nap-Time!
Spring ahead.
That's what most of us living in the United States did at 2 am Sunday morning. We set our clocks ahead one hour and, in doing so, lost an hour of sleep. I don't know about you, but by the time Sunday afternoon rolled around a nap was sounding mighty good. That got me thinking: How do athletes handle sleep loss?
Let's face it, the start of Daylight Savings Time is not the only time when athletes lose sleep. We lose it during travel, when we have to wake up early to train, and when we have pre-competition anxiety. Is there an athlete out there that has not lost some sleep worrying the night before a big race, match or game?
It's been pretty well established that sleep deprivation can negatively affect our performance and on mental tasks as well as our mood. Researchers have found that getting even just 2-3 hours less sleep than normal can have a negative impact. This has caused some researchers to attribute certain instances of "under-performance syndrome" in athletes to sleep loss.
Now that the problem is clear, what's the solution?
Why a nap, of course.
At least that's what researchers at the Research Institute for Sport and Exercise Sciences in the UK thought. So they set out to investigate whether or not a nap could improve performance in people who experienced sleep deprivation.
Here's what they did. First, they decided to look at the effects of a 30 minute nap after lunch. They chose this length of time and time of day because they felt it could be most easily integrated into a normal person's schedule and because at noon-time people have an easier time falling asleep than other times of the day.
The researchers asked participants to set their alarm clock for four hours earlier than normal the night before the study. The participants could do whatever they liked that morning so long as they didn't fall back asleep (most ended up watching TV or listening to music). At noon, half took a nap and half sat quietly and read. After the nap 30 minutes were allowed to pass so that participants who napped could overcome "sleep inertia" (the short-term grogginess that typically follows a nap). All participants -- nap or no nap -- were then given tests of their cognitive and physical ability.
The results: those who took a nap did significantly better on the test of physical ability, a 20 m sprint, than those who did not get to nap. The improvement: 0.1 second. And while that may not seem like much, it does raise some interesting questions. Here's what the researchers said:
We did not investigate whether this improvement is retained in races longer than 20 m; however, if this were the case, or if it were to be altered proportionately over a distance of 100 m, it would have considerable influence on the individual's position in a competitive race. Any such improvement has a much wider application, however -- it would also change the individual's satisfaction in training sessions, for example, and so be valuable on a daily basis.
So will a nap help you train or compete better if you didn't get the sleep you needed the night before? While the research is still out, it probably couldn't hurt. Just keep the nap short so that you don't go into "slow-wave sleep." About 20 - 30 minutes is perfect.
What do you think? Have naps worked for you? Post a comment and let us know what your experience with naps is. While you're at it, stop by the SportsMinded Survey (on the right hand column of this blog) and help us determine what percentage of our readers nap.
Reference:
Waterhouse, J., Atkinson, G., Edwards, B. & Reilly, T. (2007). The role of a short post-lunch nap in improving cognitive, motor, and sprint performance in participants with partial sleep deprivation. Journal of Sports Sciences, 25, 1557-1566.
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In terms of competing, I find the night before a big race is usually pretty restless, but that's ok. It's the sleep two nights before which is important. It sets you up, so that if you don't sleep well the night before, or if you have to wake up at 4am to race, it's not a big deal.
I don't really nap before a race, but since I train in the mornings on the weekend, by 11 or 12 I'm falling asleep, and I find a nap then really helps. Although I tend to sleep for longer than 30 minutes - as much as I can, really. More about catching up on sleep for the night or two beforehand.
Keep up the good work!