The first diagram to really make me think about the importance of sleep was this piece of statistics of professional athletes’ amount of daily sleep
(source: cxcadacdemy.com)
Most of them have over 10 hours of sleep and as much as you or I might not be professional Olympiads, we’re all professionals in this thing called personal life. If we want to perform our daily tasks and chores well, we need proper sleep. If we seek development in a specific sport, we need to pay even more attention to how we sleep.
All of us operate on a 24-hour rhythm, called circadian rhythm. Basically, it means that there’s an optimal time for sleeping, an optimal time to work and an optimal time to do sports, etc. For most people this means that waking up when the sun rises, and starting to feel tired when the sun sets. Sticking to your own optimal daily rhythm helps you to recover and perform better. Obviously, us here in the Northern hemisphere are affected more by darkness as we have less sun during winter time. Fortunately we can help our inner rhythm by using a bright light device during dark morning hours to help us wake up, or reduce exposure to blue light during evenings to let us fall asleep more easily.
I got my first experience in sleep tracking, when my work place offered me a Firstbeat measurement. Firstbeat measures your heart rate variability (HRV) for 3-7 days and nights with a device taped to your chest. HRV means that even if your heart beats 60 times within a minute, it’s not the same as your heart beating once every second; there is actually variation among the intervals between heartbeats. HRV traces back to our autonomic nervous system, which consists of parasympathetic and sympathetic branches. Stress, poor sleep or coming down with a flu can all show in your HRV.
After Firstbeat I got interested in the concept of recovery and how I could monitor my sleep better and get a better understanding if I’m sleeping enough. My training is goal-oriented and I want to constantly get better in strength, skill and conditioning. This means that recovery pays a big part in this equation, and sleep is possibly the biggest part of recovery. I tried a few apps on my phone, but they were somewhat unreliable, and in 2017 I heard of a new, innovative device, that could be worn during night time.
I’ve been using Oura ring for about 7 months now. Oura is a tool to measure your recovery and sleep, not activity per se. The convenience comes from wearing a light ring; instead of uncomfortable belts on your chest, you can track your sleep pretty easily. Oura measures your HRV, resting heart rate and body temperature among a few other things during night time, and each morning based on these variables it
gives you an assumption of your readiness and recovery(see pic). The biggest realization I’ve had since using Oura, is that 8 hours between me going to bed and my alarm ringing is definitely not the same as having 8 hours of sleep. In fact, 8 hours of “bed time” for me equals somewhere between 7 and 7,5 hours of sleep, which is not enough given my work load, lifestyle and my sport related goals. To gain over 8 hours of restorative sleep, I need to spend at least 9 hours in bed. This is obviously the hard part, as this requires certain obedience with sticking to early bed times.
Sleep phases are another interesting thing to examine. Deep sleep, or the final stage of NREM (or non-REM) sleep, is the time when your body is working hardest to recover from previous day’s activities. How much you or I get deep sleep can vary significantly, and it can be anywhere between 0-35% of our total sleep time. The percentage usually decreases with age.
After I started tracking my sleep it was easy to notice how factors like stress, alcohol or late night training took a negative toll on my sleep. Recently I had a cider and a half a glass of wine at a work event; the next night I lost nearly all of my deep sleep and felt super tired the next day (see pic).
Tracking your sleep is not necessary to be on top of your recovery process, but it might be a useful way to get a better understanding of what’s going on with you during night time and how your sleep is affected by different factors. There’s a few easy ways to improve your sleep without sleep tracking.
My five tips to better sleep
Invest in your bed room. A good bed, cool temperature and darkening curtains can do a lot. The darkness is important, because us here in Finland tend to suffer during summer when we have nightless nights. The room should be so dark that if you wave a hand in front of your face you cannot see it.
Try going to bed at the same time every night and do not think 8 hours in bed equals the same amount in sleep. Many people say “well I can get by with 6-7 hours of sleep”. Sure, but we’re not looking for just getting by, if we want to seek excellence in sports or be as focused as we can at work. Studies show that sleep deprivation has a huge effect on both physical and mental health.
No Netflix and chill before going to bed. During Xmas holiday I swallowed a whole season of a scary series within a week – needless to say I wasn’t feeling particularly sleepy when going to bed; I was busy being afraid of ghosts under my bed. So no Netflix, no Instagame, no late night e-mail checks. Grab a book instead and calm yourself.
No working out during late evenings. I know I know, all you parents there are saying “well that’s the only time I can hit the gym”, and I feel the pain. However, if it’s possible, try working out in the morning or in the afternoon and see how that affects your sleep. A light walk or stretching just before bed time can be an excellent way to help you fall asleep faster, but Fran or Murph? Not so much.
Keep calm and carry on! Reducing stress from your life is the hardest part, at least it is for me. We all have jobs to do and relationships to maintain, and like it or not, these things cause us stress. But it’s about managing the stress and identifying the cause. Mindfulness, meditation and yoga can all be helpful. I haven’t yet found my remedy for this, but I’m taking time in my day to just breathe.
If you’re interested in sleep tracking and OURA ring, you can read more about it here (Ouraring.com) and get 50€ off with the code ALINA.
Sources:
Why we sleep – Matthew Walker
Ouraring.com
