Spending Years Researching Sleep Gave US The Essential Knowledge

Sleep guru Nick Littlehales provides sleep advice to elite sport teams such as the multi-gold winning GB Cycling Team, elite athletes and top footballers, including Cristiano Ronaldo. Nick knows that sleep can enhance performance and explains why we need to look at sleep in an entirely different way.

A quick nap has been proven to increase energy and to improve mood and performance however power-napping is often disregarded and even frowned upon in our increasingly turned-on, 24/7 lifestyle.

Napping research

A study carried out by the University of Düsseldorf in 2008 showed that taking even very short naps can enhance our memory. In 1995, NASA concluded that a 26-minute nap can improve or maintain pilot performance, alertness and mood during long-haul flights.

“We need to create a redefined approach to sleep,” Nick Littlehales says. “Sleep is thought of as something we can do anywhere, anytime, any place and on anything – it’s taken for granted and it is not seen as a performance criteria. In sport, we try to redefine that, so you have mental and physical activity and therefore, you need a plan for mental and physical recovery.”

What is true of elite sports is also true of elite business. Top professionals use their brains to perform and so need to recover and regenerate the brain just like athletes do with their bodies.

“Naps have been thought of as something older people do while in front of the TV. There is this thinking out there that ‘If you snooze, you lose’ because there is no education through schooling or parents.”

We advocate treating sleep in an entirely different way, making it a priority in the same way one might with focus on eating healthily, or hydrating. Set aside time during the day to process and regenerate.

“When I work with athletes, for example, we look at taking 20-minute and 15-minute ‘Controlled Recovery Periods’, at times for key points during the day” Nick explains.

“if you just stop at the right time of day and just zone out for that little period, whether it is 15, 20 or ideally 30 minutes, this will increase your alertness and awareness by up to 54%, and it will give you the boost and the balance of the circadian rhythms that you as a human being need,” Nick explains.

“You can even nap in front of people by just zoning out,” Nick adds. “You don’t need to go to a room with whale noises and essential oils; everybody has got time to do it. What you are doing is having a controlled recovery period, so put the alarm on and just zone out, and whether or not you fall asleep is irrelevant. If you do, fine. If you don’t, it doesn’t matter, you are zoning out and it will help your brain big time with downloading information and putting things in the right place.”

The best time of day to zone out and process, according to Littlehales, is between 1pm and 3pm, or 5pm and 7pm, and while it is possible to nap at one’s desk and even in meetings with eyes open, he suggests finding a quiet corner where you can simply ‘let go’ for 30 minutes.

Nick explains how sleep is affected by on our circadian rhythms; “Our relationship with light and dark is determined by our circadian rhythms which triggers two hormones: melatonin, which helps us chill out and relax and sleep; and the other is serotonin, which tells us, ‘Wake up, let’s go and be active,'” Nick adds. “So the darkness allows us to build melatonin and then the sun comes up, the light comes in and that triggers serotonin.”

“In today’s world, because we are so surrounded by artificial light, our relationship with light is knocked out of balance. If you don’t move into darkness to sleep, for example, all you are doing is keeping serotonin levels high, which is keeping you in a wake state rather than letting you move towards a recovery state.”

‘Sleep – The Myth of 8 Hours’ by Nick Littlehales, published by Penguin, is out now. Is a great book to read if you want to get more information on sleep.