The Effect of Lack of Sleep on Human Performance (Guest Writer: Paul Barry)
Believe you can perform at your peak or athletic peak on 6 hours of sleep daily? Science says … “You Better Go Back To Bed”
Clinical studies have reflected that people whose sleep patterns are reduced to 6 hrs per night for a period of 2 weeks become equally as fatigued as someone who has remained awake for a period of 48 hours! If athletes were aware of these findings, it would be a challenge to find anyone backing themselves to perform at optimal levels after being awake for 2 days! Our brain & body are biologically designed to require daily sleep of a larger amount, dependant on the phase of the life cycle, to perform restorative actions in readiness for the following day!
Studies reflect a similar pattern that approximately 30% of adults & teenagers are sleeping for 6 hrs or less a night consistently. Hopefully, there are relatively few people, who define themselves as athletes, who are part of this sizeable group. Sports performance levels & consistency occur because of quality specific training factors in combination with quality recovery processes. The recovery process incorporates several aspects, with sleep being a major factor, but the other contributors are equally important in terms of a process that will support neural & body adaptations for performance enhancement.
The US military were aware of this & developed specialised FAST Software to better understand the effects of fatigue on the performance of its personnel. The following FAST grid below demonstrates the performance of a person involved in a 2014 clinical trial. The PDF file compression from a 2014 workshop (workbook image) I facilitated doesn’t provide sharp detail. The top X-axis is 2 weeks between 14 February and 3 March 2014 for a candidate sleeping each night between midnight & 6.00 AM. The Y-axis figures drop down in 10% increments from 100%. The Fast software graph is tracing several performance-based values per diem & reflects that by 3.00 PM on 3 March their physical performance has decreased 19%, their reaction time has decreased 24% & they are 3 times more likely to suffer an excessively long lapse reaction time (micro sleep) than someone who is well rested.
People believe they perform well on low levels of sleep due to a natural human phenomenon of “Renorming” that only enables us to compare how we feel today to yesterday or the day prior! If a person who regularly sleeps 8 hrs a night stays up for 24+ hrs, the deterioration in how they feel will be clear. With renorming, a person who reduces sleep from 8 to 6 hours over a period of 2 weeks the decline in how we feel would be gradual enough that in general we won’t be aware of any significant change! But science knows that individuals in both examples will suffer similar declines in their task performance levels, reaction time & likelihood of excessively long lapse reaction time (micro sleep). For an elite athlete a small percentage drop in several aspects can significantly impact their performance parameters. Clinical studies & available tracking software are a great reminder that human performance & productivity is greatly enhanced by following quality sleep hygiene practices!
Our Guest Blogger is Paul Barry from Brisbane, Australia who works as an International Sports Performance Consultant. He works with all athletes up to International Level on National Teams specialising in utilising his multiple qualifications, knowledge, and experience to create holistic, bespoke, periodised programs that enhance all aspects of athlete performance to optimal levels on a consistent basis!
Email: pbelitecoach@gmail.com
LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/pub/paulbarryhighperformancesports/
