Sleep is an important and often overlooked part of recovery both physically and mentally. We miss out on sleep because of binging TV/movies, homework (yours and your kids), adult chores (cleaning/cooking/etc), social media and playing on your phone and don’t forget stress.

Every aspect of our life, from emotional stability and problem solving to physical exertion, is affected by the amount of recovery achieved during sleep. I will include some studies below that you can reference but I’ll try to condense the meat and potatoes for you here then strategies to help you improve your sleep and recovery.

Recommended amount of sleep for adults over the age of 18 is 7-9 hours. This is for regular people that don’t have the amount of physical exertion and stress that the training and deployment schedule provides. In order to capitalize on the physical and intellectual gains, adequate rest and recovery is needed.

Don't believe the people that say "I only need 4-5hrs". The estimates are less than 1% of the population have the gene that allows them to opperate normally as a "short sleeper."

• Noise is one huge thing that can prevent or slow your progression to sleep. It includes TV, music, and anything that has variability or sudden changes in volume.

• Light is something that acts in 2 main ways. First it keeps you attentive to whatever is producing light but it also delays the release of melatonin. Melatonin is an important hormone that tells the body it’s time to sleep. Light isn’t just the bedside lamp but also TV, phone, and light outside the window/door. There are setting on most technology which changes the tone of the light to promote melatonin release, i.e. “Night Switch” on the Iphone. Conversely, turning a light on or opening the shades in the morning will help you wake up.

• Cognition is simply thinking and reasoning. Social media, studying, and conversations are all things that force you to think and could potentially delay sleep or alter the body’s progression through the sleep cycle. If you read for pleasure it can help to relax you but the longer you stay engaged, the longer you will stay awake.

• Temperature is another thing that can drastically affect the ability to fall asleep. It isn’t an anomaly that you sleep better in the cold, the core body temperature drops when the body is asleep as blood moves away from the core to the extremities.

• Routine for bedtime AND waking up is key. It will help regulate the hormones and nervous system and lead to a more restful night. This can include putting the phone down for 30 min before you want to sleep, turning on a light when your alarm goes off in the morning and standardizing both when we go to sleep AND when we wake up. We operate better if we have develop habits.

Performance is measured both mentally and physically. Studies have shown that when sleep deprived, deadlifts drop around 30kg (66lbs) and bench press 9kg (20lbs). The ability to maintain concentration and critically problems solve issues also suffer with less sleep. Multiple studies have shown that actually increasing sleep up to around 10 hours a night significantly improves function both mentally and physically.

Naps will actually help you perform better. The actual recommended nap of 20-25 min will increase performance by as much 34% and alertness 100% according to a NASA study. Napping for longer than 20min and shorter than 90 min can cause “sleep inertia” which is the groggy/sluggish feeling caused by not finishing a complete sleep cycle. If you can dedicate 90+ min to sleep you will be able to get through a full sleep cycle which will allow for increased performance.