Sleeping to be a star? Photo by NimahelPhotoArt via Flickr.

You probably won’t know it, but you could already be deep into sleep debt and this silent loan shark is steadily stealing the shine off your performance. Sleep debt is caused by accumulating sleep loss over time and yes, your body does keep score – that late night I-know-I-shouldn’t-but-I’ll-have-it-anyway coffee sets you back at least ten points. Well okay, maybe five.

Most people don’t realise that they have chronic sleep debt, because it builds up slowly over days and weeks. Also, there are two types of sleep loss – acute and chronic:

Acute sleep loss happens when you pull an all-nighter and you’re awake for more than 24 hours. You may think you’re a cool kid for doing it, but the resulting impairment can temporarily make you as dumb as Dory (you know, Finding Nemo).

Chronic sleep loss is when you only get about four to seven hours sleep a night, putting you a little more into debt each time. And surprise surprise, this is actually the really nasty thief-in-the-night, increasingly robbing your power during the day, but so subtly that you wouldn’t notice the change.

Just can’t get enough

US researchers found that while most people will catch up on acute sleep loss with a single night of 10 hours sleep, those with chronic sleep loss showed deteriorating performance for each hour spent awake.

They found that three days is not enough to recover from chronic sleep loss, but they couldn’t say how many days or weeks may actually be needed. This could be because every person needs a slightly different amount of sleep, and of course your sleep debt score might register higher on the scary-scale than others!

How to fix your sleep debt and improve performance

Cheri Mah (@Cheri_Mah) is one of the leading American authorities in sleep and athletic performance and she coaches collegiate and professional sports teams on optimal sleep, recovery, and peak performance. She found that swimmers who increased their sleep improved their reaction time off the starting block by 17%, and tennis players got a 42% boost in hitting accuracy too (see the study info here).

If it works this well for swimmers and tennis players, imagine what advantage this can create for a dancer.

So start by extending your nightly shut-eye by 30 minutes or more. Yes, that means no more night-time coffees and bad reality TV shows. Set a reminder if you have to until your new habit becomes second nature, but do what you can to get some more sleep each night.

But don’t get fooled…

That rejuvenated feeling you might have after one decent night’s sleep is wonderful, but a tad misleading too. Don’t be tricked into believing that you’re restored as new and your debt is paid.

This loan shark is sneaky and you’ll have to keep paying your debt for a while yet, consistently night by night if you want to shake off the shark and reach your peak performance again.

Your new sleep patterns will be worth their weight in gold soon enough. Okay, so you can’t really weigh sleep, but just think, those extra zzz’s could just win you gold at the next dance competition with your new found vigour and competitive advantage. Now isn’t that worth sleeping on?

Photo by RelaxingMusic via Flickr

Did you know that some high performing professional athletes get up to 12 hours sleep a night?

Usain Bolt, widely regarded as the fastest sprinter on the planet, gives part of the reason when he says that “sleep is extremely important to me – I need to rest and recover in order for the training I do to be absorbed by my body.”

And Roger Federer, professional tennis player, says, “If I don’t sleep 11 to 12 hours a day, it’s not right.” (Keep reading for a brilliant infographic on this topic.)

The secret power of optimal sleep for peak athletic performance

We all know that we need a good night’s sleep to be healthy, but did you know that not getting enough sleep could actually be holding back your athletic potential?

Multiple gold-winning Olympic swimmer, Michael Phelps, said “eat, sleep, and swim, that’s all I can do”. And he doesn’t mean that eating and swimming is all he can do in-between sleep, as if sleep was some kind of inconvenience; no, sleep is one of his top strategic priorities.

It has a lot to do with recovery. The body needs enough time spent in deep sleep to rebuild and repair the tissues. If it gets to complete this task each night without interruption, then your body is that little bit more prepared the next day for the next batch of training.

Doing this consistently night after night is what some professional athletes believe to be their secret weapon. Once you’re already at the top of your game, leveraging this silent power of sleep is the perfect competitive advantage.

Fortunately, you don’t have to wait until you’re at the top of your class before trying some of their tricks. You could start sleeping like a professional tonight.

Winners sleep, losers weep

So, how much should you be sleeping? ‘A little bit more’ is probably the best answer. The average person sleeps only 6 hours and 44 minutes, but you should be aiming for at least 8 good hours each night if you want to dance at your best.

While you may not need to copy Roger Federer’s 12 hour sleeps, many high performance athletes average around 8 to 10 hours, so depending on the mental and athletic demands of your day, you‘ll have to experiment with what works best for you.

Have a look at this fantastic infographic for more sleep stats and quotes on how you can sleep to be an all-star (click on the image to see the full-sized infographic created by Zeo).

How many hours sleep do you get per night? Have you found that a good or bad night’s rest has affected your performance?