Rather, we do the best we can to get athletes back into a state of relaxation and recovery. We won’t be able to completely reverse the downsides of playing sports in the evening. As the performance coach, it’s our job to work with our athletes to discuss which strategies will work best for them and their lifestyle, ensuring they’re both accessible and practical. Generally speaking, we want athletes to limit activities that cause an uptick in sympathetic hormones and encourage them to make changes that support the flood of parasympathetic hormones. Nearly all strategies to induce quality sleep after a game revolve around this concept. Our job is to provide athletes with strategies to shift into a parasympathetic state as swiftly as possible. Here are some proven strategies to help athletes recover after nighttime competition and training.Īfter a game, sympathetic hormones are rushing through an athlete. For the most part, though, game times and travel schedules are largely out of our hands, and it’s our job to take the schedule given to us and make the best of it. several evenings per week, even during a school week.Īs performance coaches, we may have some influence over practice times.
Youth sports have perhaps the worst schedule of all, as they often have practices scheduled at 7 p.m., 8 p.m., or 9 p.m.
High school teams often compete in the evening, with schedules that can be dictated by field/facility availability. College athletes play in the evening as well, and often on back-to-back nights (Friday and Saturday).
#Deep sleep game professional#
This is not just a professional sports issue. Combined with the brutal playing schedule, where teams need to play back-to-backs-and three games in four nights-this can lead to chronic issues with sleep and recovery. However, life and logistics get in the way, and the reality is that sports are usually played at night.Īt the highest levels, (NBA, MLB, NHL) athletes need to compete at their best between 7 p.m. The solution to this would be obvious: Set up schedules with more day games and eliminate late-night practices. This graph is inexact and unlabeled, but it illustrates the inverse relationship between melatonin and cortisol. When athletes train in the evening, it elevates sympathetic hormones and suppresses parasympathetic hormones at exactly the time when we want it to be at its lowest-near the onset of sleep. In an optimal sleep pattern and circadian rhythm, melatonin rises in the evenings as we prepare for bed and cortisol sinks to its lowest point. In particular, we have to take into consideration: athletes play games at night, all but guaranteeing they won’t get to sleep at a decent hour.Ĭompeting late at night causes an influx of sympathetic hormones, like cortisol and adrenaline, while suppressing the secretion of parasympathetic hormones like melatonin.
However, many coaches don’t arm themselves with strategies to help athletes maximize sleep and recovery when life and sports inevitably get in the way of a perfect sleep routine. Athletes need to develop sound sleep habits, and we know this. The conversation around sleep has become ubiquitous: It’s one of the most important aspects of enhancing recovery and performance, not to mention its benefits for mental processes like memory consolidation.
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