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Neuro Athletes!
We've got a great lineup of stories coming up in our Neuro Athletics newsletter, handpicked just for you. This series focuses on sleep. Read on to learn how...
Jet lag disrupts sleeping patterns and leads to decreased performance
Neuroscience is the most promising area of scientific research in the pursuit of increasing human athletic performance
SLEEP
Athletes travel every day and sometimes play on successive nights. NBA athletes have to deal with the constant pressure of performing well while going on very little sleep. But what do these constant flights and time differences do to players? Their teams? Their performance? Their health?
Professional basketball players are virtually guaranteed to suffer chronic sleep deprivation. For months on end they stay up late into the night and engage in intense, highly stressful physical competitions held in brightly lit, hyper-stimulating arenas full of thousands of screaming people. They must endure a constantly changing schedule of long-distance travel, shifting time zones, and unfamiliar food and lodging.
I had a call on Sunday with one of my star NBA players. We were going through the week and sorting out his schedule when he casually slipped in that he had to travel to three different cities this week. One flight leaves after his game on Tuesday night at 10:30pm and lands at his destination 5 hours later leaving him stress, anxiety, jet lag and decreased recovery. The Celtics' longtime trainer, Ed Lacerte caught onto this trend of players sleep deprivation and their ability to perform and called in a sleep doctor to help.
“With so much travel across so many time zones in just three days, your instincts will be bad. It'll be like playing drunken basketball. You will not win this game." ~ Dr. Charles Czeisler.
Jet lag is the temporary disruption to your body’s circadian rhythm that occurs after traveling between or through different time zones. Jet lag, also known as desynchronosis, travel fatigue, or flight fatigue, is an internal lag between your arrival in a new time zone and your biological clock, which is still tuned to the previous time zone.
The main sleep disturbances after travel appear to be difficulty falling asleep at the beginning of the night and difficulty getting back to sleep after multiple awakenings during the night.
THIS LEADS TO…
Sleep deprivation has long been a reality of life in the NBA, a league with teams that play 82 games in under six months and fly up to 50,000 miles per season -- roughly 20,000 more miles each season than NFL teams and far enough to circle the globe twice. Over the 2018-19 season, the average NBA team played every 2.07 days, had 13.3 back-to-back sets and flew the equivalent of 250 miles a day for 25 straight weeks.
Additionally, the risk of getting injured increases, pain sensitivity increases and the combined effects of reduced levels of testosterone and growth hormone, and increased levels of hormones that break down protein and muscle, result in slower recovery. There is reduction in anaerobic power and capacity, and dynamic strength.
Finally, this double whammy of sleep loss and jet lag lends to increased errors and results in increased fouls. All these effects are highly undesirable to any performance.
How sleep deprivation is wreaking havoc on the NBA | Outside the Lines
HOW CAN WE COMBAT JET LAG?
When I am consulted to help with travel optimization, I look at each trip individually. I typically evaluate the athlete’s sleep cycle to find out exactly what time they sleep and wake up and whether they are early morning larks or night owls by nature. All of this information helps to make an individualized travel plan. In this role, I work closely with the team physician, the athletic trainer or coach.
For starters, providing basic education information about sleep and the biological clock, to the athlete and other team members is essential to the success of these strategies.
Without proper knowledge on how to optimise for travel and decrease the neurological effects of jet lag, players and coaches are leaving themselves at a massive disadvantage.
You can look through the many posts I make around optimising for sleep and jet lag on my Instagram page.
WHAT TO READ
I have gathered some peer reviewed articles from PubMed for you to read on the science of sleep and athletic performance.
“Sleep deprivation and increasing grade in school appear to be associated with injuries in an adolescent athletic population. Encouraging young athletes to get optimal amounts of sleep may help protect them against athletic injuries”
JOB OPENINGS
EXCITING NEWS!!!!!
Neuro Athletics has just released it’s first ever job board to help sports specific organisations find the best talent. Below are some job openings posted within the last week:
The Los Angeles Football Club is looking to hire an Academy Administrator (link)
Creative Artists Agency is looking to hire an Assistant, Media Finance (link)
Search more job here and feel free to post any if you want to hire the best talent who combine their love for sport and business.
I hope this email helps you on your journey to optimising for better sleep so you can perform better, think faster and live longer.
Insightful, as always! Are there any special tricks that athletes follow that you can share given that they have high level of disruption to their sleep schedules ?
Never thought of sleep impacting athletes so much! This is wonderful.
Insightful, as always! Are there any special tricks that athletes follow that you can share given that they have high level of disruption to their sleep schedules ?