Sleeping Is Not Cheating – How Sleep Enhances Football Players’ Chances of Winning
Contrary to popular belief, football players do not get fitter or more focused by training on the ground or doing lots of workouts. While such activities provide their muscles more stamina and the necessary stimuli that will motivate their bodies to endure the rigidity of the games, it is during the long moments when the players are at sleep when their brains and bodies adapt and recover from the stress – enabling them to be stronger and faster. To allow athletes recharge it is ideal to buy sleeping mattress that will provide ergonomic muscle comfort and rest
Football players, because of the tension and fatigue they endure, are more prone to illness. That is why they need to boost their immune system, which is naturally replenished during sleep. Sleep rejuvenates the human growth hormone (HGH), the hormones responsible for the repair and regrowth of muscles, ligaments, and tendons. Optimum brain function is also important especially during an intense game; incidentally, sleep refills the nervous system’s neurotransmitters, the chemicals that send signals to the brain.
Sleep Science and Peak Performance
Football team managers and coaches nowadays utilise the power of sleep science to aid in the recovery of injured players and help them return to their prime condition. In fact, there is a boom of new technological advances which coaches and sports scientists exploit to get more effective results in making their players deliver successful game plays
The Australian Football League (AFL) Clubs have been using innovative sports technology, dedicated to the application of sleep science, to secure their spot in the grand final. As far as 10 years ago, the West Coast Eagles were ensuring each new rookie equipped himself with an appropriate new mattress.
Sleep is the new frontier of sports science. Football teams in Europe are employing the services of “sleep coaches” to aid their players to doze off better. Sport and fitness journalist, Mark Bailey, highlighted the underrated benefits of sleep as a performance enhancer. He asserted, “Despite the boom in sports science services designed to improve every component of an athlete’s life, from nutrition and hydration to psychological well-being and physical conditioning, sleep is a subject which has often been neglected.”
Investing on Mechanisms to Improve Sleep
The World Journal of Biological Psychiatry stated that, “Sleep is crucial for psychological functioning and daily performance.” This is why we see more and more football teams, and other sports teams for that matter, investing heavily on sleeping tools such as sleeping pods, personal mattresses, snoozeboxes, and other sleeping kits which the players can use to snooze on between games and training sessions. They even bank on mobile apps that can help with their sleeping.
There is also this new technology called “light therapy” that is believed to regulate sleep patterns of people. Sport scientist, Dr. Craig Duncan used this technique to help the “Socceroos,” Australia’s national football team, in maintaining good sleeping activity and combating jet lag.
Play Hard, Cheer Hard, Sleep HARDER
There are many scientific studies that detail how sleep enables athletes to attain their peak performance, how it assists quick recovery from injuries and illness, and how it helps prevent from getting them in the first place. It is quite complex to explain each and every detail.
To cut a long story short, the human body needs to recover, regrow, and repair itself through sleep. And since football players (and athletes in general) are exposed to various body strains and tensions, they certainly need more sleep than anybody else.
In the end, abusing your body and brain by overdoing things and lessening the normal hours of sleep, thinking that you can gain more by being “productive,” will eventually lead you to catastrophic effects instead of bringing you and your team to that championship trophy.
References:
5 December 2017. Sports Techie. “How Sports And Sleep Science Helped Australia Reach FIFA World Cup” by Blair Hughes www.sporttechie.com
2 August 2017. Bleacher Report. “Football’s Secret Sports Science: The Power of Sleep” by Ross Edgley bleacherreport.com
Photo by Jimmy Harris from Melbourne, Australia – Michael Gardiner wins another ruck contest, CC BY 2.0