Sleep - Essential for peak performance in any field

Performing at a high level takes sacrifice in pretty much every discipline or career. Countless hours of training, practice, and study are put into becoming the best you can be at your craft and perform at the highest levels.

But while you may sacrifice leisure time, vacations, or time with your family to become the best, one thing that should never be on that list is sleep. It has a direct impact on one’s ability to perform, recover, and stay healthy.

No matter if you are an athlete, executive, entertainer, or professional in any field, there will be physical, mental, and emotional demands placed on you day in and out, and you need sleep to recover from those. Period. Below I will cover how sleep plays a role in these aspects of your life and how it can contribute to your overall success, health, and performance in life and your career.

Physical performance:

The positive effects that physical activity has on overall health, longevity and performance are well documented in all populations. For an athlete, sleeping effectively is a fundamental determinant of preparation for, and recovery from training and competition. This is particularly important given that athletes may require additional sleep to allow for adaptation to training stressors and to minimize residual fatigue from training and competition.

• Adequate sleep allows the heart to rest and the tissues and cells to repair in order to have the capacity to train or perform again the next day. Link
• Adequate sleep can also aid in strengthening the immune system with the production of cytokines which are hormones that help the immune system fight off infections.
• Besides the role in recovering from the physical demands of training and competition, adequate sleep has been shown in some cases to improve specific performance measures and outcomes in sport.
• A Stanford study of men’s basketball players who extended their sleep to 10 hours a night found several positive outcomes. The players ran faster in both half-court and full-court sprints. Their shooting improved by at least 9% for both free throws and 3-point shots. Link
• Male and female swimmers who extended their sleep to 10 hours also saw many performance improvements. Reaction times off diving blocks were faster, turn times were improved, and kick strokes increased. Times swimming a 15-meter sprint also improved. Link
• Varsity tennis players, male and female, who increased their sleep to at least nine hours a week also performed better. The accuracy of the players’ serves increased significantly from about 36% to nearly 42%. Link

Mental performance

Sleep is required to retain and consolidate memories. The ability to learn new skills and information is required to perform at any level. Without sleep, the pathways in the brain that allow you to learn and make memories can’t be formed or maintained. Link

Sleep is important in helping our brains grow and develop. Our brain is forming new connections and expanding our neural network while in REM sleep, which is why younger individuals spend more time there. In adulthood, REM sleep is extremely important for creativity and problem solving. REM sleep is also helpful in what is called procedural memory, which is learning new ways to move one’s body — something that’s extremely important for athletes, musicians and other performers. Link

Sleep is also essential for cognitive processing. Loss of sleep is associated with a decline in cognitive function. This can have an adverse effect on any one requiring a high level of cognitive ability for executive function such as decision making and adapting to new situations. Link

Emotional performance

High performers require the ability to process and let go of losses, failures, or stressful events in order to move on to the next game, task, performance, or business decision.

An important function of REM sleep is the ability to help us process our emotional memories, and help separate our emotions from the memory of the experience that triggered those emotions. A good example of this is when we go to bed angry at or overwhelmed by something, it will almost seem better in the morning. Without this ability we would live in a constant state of anxiety, with every memory triggering a renewed surge of emotions around that event. Being in this state does not bode well in terms of overall performance and in some may create performance anxiety. Link

REM sleep also aids in reading other’s facial expressions. REM-deprived study showed subjects interpreted even friendly or neutral expressions as menacing. Being able to adapt and read a room is an important attribute within many negotiations or business transactions. Link

As a high performer, you may be tempted to sacrifice sleep in order to work on your performance or get more things done. It’s important to know that science and data tells us this is math. Burning the midnight oil or the “sleep when you’re dead” mentality does not equate to high performance and if anything will be to your own detriment.

So if you want to be at the top of your game for a long period of time, make sure SLEEP is at the top of your lists of priorities.