Sleep should be the number 1 recovery tool of any athlete. People often look for fancy technology and the latest recovery methods to help them. These tools can be effective, but only if you have the main one working well for you first: sleep.
Top 5 sleep tips:
1. Turn your screens off 30mins before trying to sleep.
2. Keep the room as dark as possible.
3. Keep the room cool.
4. Turn your phone off/at least on night mode.
5. Keep your schedule as regular as possible.
So why do each of these tips work, and why are they so important?
1. Turn your screens off 30mins before trying to sleep.
Screens (TVs, phones, tablets, etc.) not only produce blue light, which keeps you up, but what you are actually doing on them stimulates your brain. This is not what you want before you try to sleep. You want your brain to down regulate everything, helping the body to enter a parasympathetic state.
2. Keep the room as dark as possible.
Similar to with the screens, you don't want light disturbing your sleep. If your body registers any light, even if it's from a streetlamp, it thinks that it must be time to wake up. This means that you won't enter the deep sleep that your body craves for recovery.
3. Keep the room cool.
Cool, not cold! Being too warm makes your body waken up, leaving that parasympathetic state. As it gets too warm you start tossing and turning, throwing the covers off you, all of which disturbs your sleep.
4. Turn your phone off/at least on night mode.
Even if receiving a notification doesn't completely wake you up, your brain still registers it. Every time it does register it it pulls it up form your deep sleep into a lighter sleep, which is not as good for your recovery.
5. Keep your schedule as regular as possible.
Ideally get to bed at the same time every night. Over time your body will get used to this, and learn to prepare itself to get you into a deep sleep as quickly as possible every night.